Final Table Takedown: Victoria Livschitz Wins EPT Deep Stack Event

Despite the fact that Victoria Livschitz has been playing tournament poker seriously for only the last 18 months, she has made quite the impression on the live circuit, even in high roller events.

Livschitz grew up as a junior chess champion in Lithuania, but as an adult she turned her attention to raising her three children and finding success in the tech industry. The serial entrepreneur has started a dozen companies over the years, including Grid Dynamics which went public in 2020.

During the pandemic, however, Livschitz found herself addicted to watching high-stakes poker coverage on YouTube. Until then, she had mostly just played low-stakes cash games as a way to relieve stress during her limited downtime.

In September of 2021, however, she decided to take 10 days off for a poker vacation, making the trip from her Montana residence to the World Series of Poker. She played 14 events in total, managing to cash six times with four deep runs in bracelet events, as well as a daily side event win and a final table. She even bought herself into the $25,000 high roller tournament, just so she could get an up-close view of some of the high-stakes heroes in real life. She was hooked.

She returned home with a resolve to learn the game at the highest levels. Even though she can’t dedicate her life to poker professionally, as she still runs multiple companies, Livschitz has since spent at least six hours per day studying and playing in the toughest games she can find.

In May of 2022, Livschitz entered the $15,000 high roller event at the Venetian and scored the win. Two months later, she took down the $10,000 event at the Aria, defeating the likes of Justin Bonomo and David Coleman for the $162,790 score.

Livschitz isn’t scared of testing herself with tough competition, and is becoming more of a regular face in the PokerGO studio in Las Vegas. In last year’s Poker Masters series, she made two final tables including the $25,000 high roller. She now has more than $800,000 in cashes, nearly all of which have been earned since the end of 2021.

Most recently, Livschitz traveled to Paris for a slate of European Poker Tour events. She wound up with a win in the €2,000 deep stack side event, banking $127,565 after topping a field of 316 entries to score the trophy.

Card Player caught up with Livschitz, who shared a few key hands from her recent win.

Craig Tapscott: You’ve been on quite the run. To what do you attribute your deep runs and three wins over the last year? What have you been working on to improve your game?

Victoria Livschitz: I’ve been very fortunate to find a few amazing trainers and supporters in the poker community right from the start. The first was Sam Grafton, one of the pros I met at the table of that first $25,000 event.

CT: What did Grafton teach you?

VL: He kindly agreed to teach me the fundamentals of GTO (game theory optimal play). Sam is an amazing teacher and an all-around wonderful human being, not to mention one of the funniest people you’ll ever meet.

A few months later, Andrew Lichtenberger, known to poker fans everywhere as ‘LuckyChewy,’ took me under his wing. This really accelerated the learning curve, leading to several high roller final tables at the $10,000, $15,000, and $25,000 level, including two titles. 

Hand No. 1

Event: EPT Paris
Buy-In: €2,000
Entrants: 316
Prize Pool: $649,190
First-Place Prize: $127,565

Stacks: Victoria Livschitz – 120,000 (15 BB)
Villain – 360,000 (45 BB)
Blinds: 4,000-8,000 Big Blind Ante: 8,000
Players Remaining: 49 (48 Paid)

CT: This was one of the last events of the EPT Paris series.

VL: Yes, one of the last of the festival. I had a strong series with five cashes out of nine events at this point, but no deep runs and was slightly down overall.

CT: It was a very long first day, correct?

VL: It was. This hand from the stone bubble began around 4:30 in the morning. Hand-for-hand play unbelievably had been going on for several hours.

CT: What kind of stack did you have?

VL: I had entered the bubble with a comfortable stack of 32 big blinds, but progressively blinded down to 15 big blinds. There were plenty of tiny stacks under five big blinds, however, which was encouraging very tight play.

Action: Villain opened to 32,000.

VL: I got a sense immediately that it was a very big hand. I looked at queens in highjack with somewhat of a decision. However, the hand was clearly too good to fold, and I needed to chip up to have a shot at the deep run the next day, so I…

Livschitz move all-in holding Q Q. Villain snap called and turned over A K.

VL: The game stopped until all other tables were completed. When we opened up, I was not surprised to see A-K. At this moment, Ren ‘No Gamble, No Future’ Lin wandered over from another table and got excited to see two queens.

“Lady Gaga,” he shouted instantly. He then leaned over, put his hand on my shoulder, and whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

Board: Q 9 7 Q K

VL: Sure enough, queen number three rolled right up on the flop, and queen number four followed on the turn before a useless king hit the river.
 
Livschitz won the pot of 260,000.

Hand No. 2

Stacks: Victoria Livschitz – 600,000 (37 BB) Villain – 750,000 (47 BB)
Blinds: 8,000-16,000 
Big Blind Ante: 16,000
Players Remaining: 23

Victoria Livschitz: At this point we were in the money with 23 players left. I was at the seven-handed table with 37 big blinds in the big blind when this critical hand happened.

Craig Tapscott: Who was your opponent in the hand?

VL: The Villain was an aggressive middle-aged Frenchman on the button. He was the big stack at the table.

Action: Villain opened to 35,000 from the button. Livschitz called from the big blind holding 10 7.

Flop: J 8 2

CT: It wasn’t a bad flop for your hand.

VL: Not fabulous, but it had potential. We had an inside straight draw and matched some of the suits.

Livschitz checked. Villain bet 30,000.

CT: You said he has been a very aggressive player up to this point. What type of hand range did you assign his raise from the button?

VL: I assumed that the big stack during the money stage of the event was playing quite wide on the button vs. two middling stacks. This board hits that range pretty well so it’s very close to a range bet.

Livschitz called.

VL: I briefly contemplated a check-raise. As it turns out, 10-7 with one heart and one club does want to raise here since we block their flush draw continuations, while other offsuit combos of 10-7 call. 

Turn: 7

VL: The turn was good. We picked up more equity.

Livschitz checked. Villain bet 95,000, and Livschitz called.

VL: There was nowhere to go at this point, but to call.

River: 9

VL: The gin card.

Livschitz checked.

VL: I checked, hoping to see the final barrel from the Villain. Without hesitation, he…

Villain moved all-in with J 8 for two pair. Livschitz called and won the pot of 1,208,000 with a straight.

VL: This was a crucial double-up for me and moved me into one of the top three stacks. From that point on, I stayed in the top three until the end.

Hand No. 3

Stacks: Victoria Livschitz – 8,400,000 (28 BB) Thomas Eychenne – 8,400,000 (28 BB)
Blinds: 150,000-300,000 
Big Blind Ante: 300,000
Players Remaining: 2

VL: It had been smooth sailing as one of the top stacks all the way to the final table. It came down to myself, Ren Lin, and Thomas Eychenne. Both players had just come off hot runs at the recent PCA series in the Bahamas. After a while, I was able to get a huge double-up through Lin, and Thomas picked up the rest of Lin’s chips shortly thereafter.

CT: Do you have much experience playing heads-up?

VL: Not at all. This was my first heads-up match of a large-field event, with my other two career wins coming the previous year in smaller high roller events. But in the preceding months, I put in quite a bit of time studying heads-up specifically, so I was confident and excited to test my new skills.

CT: How did you approach heads-up strategies?

VL: I studied the theory and played with a few GTO heads-up trainers. I also played as much heads-up with my friends as I could. I really love the format, as it is the closest form of poker to a chess match.

CT: What kind of read did you have on Eychenne at the start of the match?

VL: Well, fairly soon a pattern emerged where in the big blind Thomas mostly called and sometimes folded to my button raises. He didn’t three-bet much, yet aggressively raised or jammed when in the big blind vs my button limps.

In response, I raised even more polar than usual with the worst hands and trapped with the best. The stacks fluctuated a bit, then completely evened out as we entered the last hand. 

I looked down at a big hand on the button.

Action: Livschitz limped in from the button holding A J. Eychenne shoved all in, and Lipschitz called. Eychenne turned over 9 7.

Board: 6 4 3 K 8

Livschitz wins the 16,800,000 pot with ace high.

VL: I thought the board had run out as 6-5-3-K-8, bringing him a rivered straight. I got up, shook Thomas’s hand, congratulated him on a great run, and went to chat with my friend, LuckyChewy, on the rail.

CT: What? That’s crazy. What were you doing?

VL: At that point, I was just waiting for a payoff slip. I was not disappointed, as I was happy with my play throughout the day, including the last hand. The poker gods simply didn’t choose me this time. I found this newfound comfort with the variance especially gratifying at the moment.

CT: When did you realize you had actually won the event?

VL: Well, as if to reward this acceptance of poker faith, Thomas left the area, and the tournament manager handed me the trophy.

CT: What advice would you give a player who is looking to move up to the higher roller events? And how did moving up in stakes change how you approached tournament play?

VL: (laughs) I am doing the opposite of everyone else, having started focusing on small-field high-roller events right off the bat. This year I am going to play way fewer of those and way more large-field events.

It definitely takes a different skill set. The main difference seems to be the ability to read opponents and adjust at smaller buy-ins vs a deep understanding of GTO theory in the high roller fields. Moving successfully across the $10,000 threshold requires serious study time in the lab.

CT: What are your future plans?

VL: This year, and probably the next two years as well, the focus is on studying more than playing. I need to put my 10,000 hours into GTO study to catch up to the elite players. That means being more selective about which events I play, both online and live.

But I’m definitely looking forward to the WSOP! Last year I played an insane 120-bullet schedule across all Las Vegas venues. This year I’ll play a much more reasonable schedule, although still “full” by most people’s standards. ♠