Liv Boeree

Liv Boeree is one of poker’s most accomplished female players, known for her analytical, game theory–driven style and astrophysics background. She won an EPT Main Event title and a WSOP bracelet, becoming the only woman to hold both titles. As of 2026, she is largely semi-retired, focusing on science communication, philanthropy, and public speaking while making occasional returns to poker.

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Liv Boeree Quick Facts

Category	Information
Full Name	Olivia “Liv” Boeree
Poker Nickname	Iron Maiden, Poker Queen
Date of Birth	July 18, 1984
Birthplace	Hollingbourne, Kent, England
Nationality	British
Residence	Austin, Texas
Education	Astrophysics, University of Manchester (First Class)
Profession	Professional Poker Player, Science Communicator, Podcast Host
WSOP Bracelets	1 (2017 Tag Team No-Limit Hold’em Championship)
WSOP Final Tables / Money Finishes	2 / 28
Highest WSOP Main Event Finish	314th (2017)
EPT Titles	1 (2010 EPT San Remo Main Event)
EPT Final Tables / Money Finishes	6 / 22
WPT Titles / Final Tables	0 / 1
Total Live Tournament Earnings	$6,699,290+
GPI European Female Player of the Year	2014, 2015, 2016
Spouse	Igor Kurganov (m. 2025)
Status	Semi-retired from professional play

Liv Boeree Early Life & Poker Beginnings

Before becoming one of the most recognized names in women’s poker, Liv Boeree grew up in Kent, England, and went on to study astrophysics at the University of Manchester, graduating with a first-class degree. That scientific foundation would later become central to her poker identity and, eventually, her post-poker career entirely.

Her entry into poker came through an unlikely route: she appeared in 2005 on the Channel 5 reality show “Ultimatepoker.com Showdown,” where complete amateurs were coached by seasoned professionals. Unlike many made-for-TV poker stories, her results proved she belonged at the tables for real. Her first major cash came in 2008, winning the Ladbrokes European Ladies Championship.

Liv Boeree’s EPT San Remo Title: The Breakthrough

The defining moment of Boeree’s career came in April 2010. At the European Poker Tour stop in San Remo, Boeree won the Main Event, becoming the third woman in history to capture an EPT title. The win came against a field of 1,240 entries,  at the time the largest poker tournament ever staged on European soil, for a first-place prize of €1,250,000. It was, by any measure, a soft landing for no one: a fully international field at the biggest EPT event Europe had yet seen.

Liv Boeree’s WSOP Bracelet

Boeree added a WSOP bracelet to her résumé in 2017, winning the Tag Team No-Limit Hold’em Championship alongside fellow professional Igor Kurganov. That victory made her the only woman in poker history to hold titles across both the WSOP and EPT, a distinction that remains unmatched among female players.

She backed up that career-long consistency by winning the Global Poker Index’s European Female Player of the Year award three consecutive years, from 2014 through 2016, a run built on sustained results across multiple stops rather than a single standout score.

The 2019 Retirement and 2024 Comeback

Boeree stepped away from professional poker in late 2019 to focus on science communication and philanthropy. For several years, appearances at the tables became rare as her public profile shifted toward speaking engagements, writing, and advocacy work.

Then came a genuinely historic return. In December 2024, at the WSOP Paradise event in the Bahamas, Boeree finished 4th in the $25,000 Super Main Event for $2,800,000,  the largest single tournament cash ever recorded by a female poker player. That result pushed her total live tournament earnings past $6.699 million, placing her 4th on the Women’s All-Time Money List. She followed that momentum into 2025, cashing 645th in that year’s WSOP Main Event for $27,500, showing that even in a largely reduced schedule, she remains a live threat when she chooses to play.

Real-Time Poker Earnings (2026)

According to the Hendon Mob poker database, Liv Boeree’s recorded live tournament earnings currently stand at $6,699,290 across 108 career cashes, with a best single live cash of $2,800,000. This places her among the most successful British poker players in history and firmly established at the top of the Women’s All-Time Money List.

Liv Boeree’s Biggest Poker Cashes

Event	Finish	Prize
WSOP Paradise $25,000 Super Main Event (2024)	4th Place	$2,800,000
EPT San Remo Main Event (2010)	1st Place	€1,250,000
WSOP Tag Team NLH Championship (2017)	1st Place	Bracelet (shared with Igor Kurganov)
EPT Barcelona High Roller	3rd Place	€391,000
UKIPT Edinburgh Main Event (2014)	Runner-Up	—

Her WSOP Paradise result alone accounts for roughly 40% of her career live earnings, a reflection of how dramatically modern high-roller buy-ins have raised the ceiling compared to the tournaments she built her early reputation on.

Tours Played: A Breakdown by Tournament Series

Boeree’s 108 career cashes span three major tours, and the shape of her results across each says a lot about where she peaked and where she made her name:

• World Series of Poker: 1 bracelet, 2 final tables, and 28 money finishes across her career, with a highest Main Event finish of 314th, recorded in 2017 — the same year she won her Tag Team bracelet.
• European Poker Tour: 1 title (San Remo, 2010), 6 final tables, and 22 money finishes, making the EPT the tour where she built the deepest and most consistent run of results.
• World Poker Tour: No title, but 1 final table and 4 money finishes, showing occasional but limited depth on the tour compared to her EPT résumé.
• Other notable results: A 1st-place finish on the televised cash game/invitational show Poker After Dark in 2017, alongside a runner-up finish at the 2014 UKIPT Edinburgh Main Event.

The pattern is clear: the EPT was where Boeree built her sustained reputation across multiple final tables over several years, while her single WSOP bracelet and record-setting 2024 WSOP Paradise cash show her capacity to peak at the very biggest moments even with a comparatively thinner WSOP resume by final-table count.

Liv Boeree’s Poker Strategy

A Game Theory and Rationality-Based Style

Boeree is widely recognized for a “Game Theory & Rationality” based approach to poker, with her astrophysics background serving as the foundation for technical precision, particularly around hand ranges and probability. While she draws heavily on GTO (Game Theory Optimal) principles, her game was never purely mechanical — she built a reputation for blending that analytical rigor with sharp, adaptable live reads.

Scientific Rigor Applied to the Felt

What set Boeree apart from many contemporaries wasn’t just strategic skill but her ability to articulate why those strategies worked, translating probability theory and Bayesian reasoning into a form other players — and eventually broader public audiences — could actually understand and apply.

Longevity Across Formats

Her results span EPT Main Events, WSOP bracelet events, high-stakes cash formats, and Tag Team competition, demonstrating an adaptability across formats that few players, male or female, have sustained across a career touching three different decades of competitive poker.

Strategy in Practice: What Set Her Apart

Boeree’s approach was built less around a single signature move and more around disciplined process. Her scientific training showed up most clearly in how she constructed preflop ranges and weighed equity in high-variance spots — treating decisions as probability problems first, table psychology second. That’s a meaningfully different lens than the instinct-driven, feel-based style many of her contemporaries relied on during the era she came up in. It also explains her post-poker pivot with unusual coherence: the same Bayesian reasoning she used to evaluate a marginal calling decision on the river became the intellectual toolkit she now applies to public conversations about probability, risk, and rationality.

Beyond Poker: Science Communication and Philanthropy

This is the defining chapter of Boeree’s public career post-2019. She has built a substantial platform as a science communicator, delivering talks at high-profile venues including the Oxford Union debate society and TED, and hosting long-form conversations exploring rationality, existential risk, and decision theory. Her poker background — particularly its lessons in probabilistic thinking under uncertainty — regularly features as a throughline in that work, making the transition from professional card player to public intellectual feel less like a pivot and more like a natural extension of the same underlying skill set.

Personal Life

Boeree married fellow professional poker player Igor Kurganov in 2025, her partner both in life and in the 2017 WSOP Tag Team Championship win. The two co-founded Raising for Effective Giving, a nonprofit encouraging poker players and high earners to donate a portion of their winnings to high-impact charitable causes — a project that reflects Boeree’s broader pattern of directing both her competitive winnings and public platform toward causes beyond the game itself. She currently lives in Austin, Texas.

Outside poker and public speaking, Boeree has also pursued modeling work early in her career and has been described as a heavy metal guitarist — details that, alongside her scientific background, have long made her one of poker’s more unconventional crossover personalities.

Liv Boeree Net Worth (2026)

Estimated Net Worth: Not publicly confirmed; career tournament earnings alone exceed $6.7 million

With career live earnings surpassing $6.7 million, a net worth in the seven-figure range is a reasonable inference, though Boeree has not publicly disclosed a specific figure, and factors like buy-in costs, potential staking arrangements, and post-poker income streams make a precise number difficult to confirm.

Main Income Sources

• Live poker tournament winnings
• Public speaking engagements (including TED and Oxford Union appearances)
• Media and broadcast work
• Science communication content and platform revenue
• Historical poker sponsorship deals

Liv Boeree Social Media & Content

Official Profiles

• X (Twitter) — @Liv_Boeree
• Instagram — @liv_boeree
• Win-Win Podcast (hosted by Boeree, covering game theory, AI, and existential risk)

Boeree is host of the Win-Win podcast and continues to publish science and rationality-focused content across her platforms, describing her work as exploring game theory, physics, AI, and existential risk through talks, films, writing, and the podcast.

Why Liv Boeree Is One of the Most Significant Players in Women’s Poker History

Career Achievements

• Only female player to hold both a WSOP bracelet and an EPT Main Event title
• 2010 EPT San Remo champion, defeating the largest field in European poker history at the time
• 2017 WSOP Tag Team Championship bracelet winner
• Three-time GPI European Female Player of the Year (2014–2016)
• Largest single tournament cash by a female player in poker history ($2,800,000, WSOP Paradise 2024)
• 4th on the Women’s All-Time Money List
• One of poker’s most recognized crossover public intellectuals

Few players in poker history have combined tournament-table dominance with a second career built on translating that skill set into public discourse the way Boeree has. Her legacy in the game is already secure, whether she returns for more high-profile events or continues to prioritize her science communication work, her place in the history of European and women’s poker isn’t in question.

Final Thoughts

Liv Boeree’s poker career reflects a rare combination: sustained tournament excellence across more than a decade, a genuinely historic breakthrough at EPT San Remo, a WSOP bracelet that made her the only woman to hold titles on both tours, and a comeback score in 2024 that reset the record books for female players. Even as her public focus has shifted toward science communication and philanthropy, her occasional returns to the felt, most notably that $2.8 million WSOP Paradise cash,  prove she remains a live threat whenever she chooses to compete.

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