Leah poker. Lilia "Liay5" Novikova: poker, youth and mathematics. Liya Novikova's results at PokerStars Championship Sochi
Liya Novikova is a professional poker player and member of the TeamPro PokerStars team.
At the age of 12, Novikova was no longer equal. She had a dream: to become the best professional in the world. However, she got tired of playing against weak opponents, and she switched to online games.
Leah, in the past, captain of several well-known Dota teams, she took part in competitions and earned good money playing. But, according to Novikova, the game ceased to be promising, and it became harder and harder to make money.
Then she decided to switch to poker. Even entering the Bauman Moscow State Technical University did not discourage her from playing, and Leah was a frequent guest at private tournaments. But she quickly got bored, and she registered at PokerStars under the nickname "Liay5", choosing draw poker and Sit'n'Go as her main disciplines.
In 2012, Novikova devoted all her free time to studying, started a streaming channel and created several blogs dedicated to the game of poker. She had a goal: to achieve Supernova status and get into the PokerStars online pro team, which, by the way, she succeeded. In 2015, the online giant's manager revealed that she had been cast as a member of a team of professionals.
Today, the main achievement of Lilia Novikova is the victory in the Deepstack Big Ante at the EPT in Prague. In the final, she was the chip leader, she offered her rivals to share the winnings, but they did not take her seriously and refused, and a little later, Lilia won first place and took her 50 thousand euros.
In addition to poker, our heroine has a lot of other hobbies: boxing, archery, snowboarding and even rowing. In an interview, Lilia admitted: sports help me to let off steam and cope with tilt. But in addition to physical activity, she is also fond of cooking.
And this year, the girl graduated from the Moscow State Technical University, where she received a long-awaited engineering diploma! But this does not prevent our heroine from winning prizes and maintaining a contract with PokerStars.
Top 3 skids by Liya Novikova:
3rd place
Winning "Woman's Sunday" with a $55 buy-in, which was attended only by the fair sex.
In the final, Liya fought with the representative of Brazil under the nickname "blablair", who was unable to resist the pressure of our compatriot and finished the tournament in second place, having received about 900 dollars.
And our heroine, having won the first place, earned 1.300 dollars.
2nd place
Silver goes to the first tournament that Leah dragged as a PRO player.
PokerStars organized a special tournament for players from the CIS and Baltic countries, where just under 1,200 players took part, and the prize pool exceeded $8,000.
Liya showed an excellent game, confident actions and excellent reading of opponents, for which she received well-deserved $1336.
1 place
Undoubtedly, the first place in our top is taken by the victory of Lilia Novikova in the NL Deepstack Big Ante event for 1.100 euros, as part of EPT Prague.
Having reached the final, having beaten all her opponents, Leah took her prize: cup and 50.000 euros.
They say young-green! Well, this is how to look: in the modern world, at its crazy pace, the younger generation gives odds to "great minds" and quickly achieves fame and recognition. The main thing on the way to success is to find yourself.
The beginning of the way
Becoming a successful online and offline poker player and even more so developing your career in this direction is not an easy task. But we see from the example of Lia Novikova that everything is possible if desired. The outgoing year was significant for the girl - she was invited to the PokerStars team. Together with the team, she took part in the European Poker Tour, which took place in Barcelona, where she got into the money in the final head-to-head game, and not so long ago, in Prague, the girl won the Big Ante with a $1,000 buy.
"Liay5" at 22 already has a decent amount of experience in tournament play. When she was a teenager, her favorite game was Defense of the Ancients. And it was certainly not by chance that the girl ended up in a team of elite poker players - in childhood, she received a mathematical base in full.
From Lily's memoirs: “My grandmother taught mathematics and often studied with me. I have always shown excellent knowledge in this subject at school. I have been familiar with cards since childhood: at the age of five, I knew all the intricacies of playing Five Card Draw Poker.
Despite the fact that she remained invisible at the world level for some time, the girl slowly gained fame within the Russian poker community: she ran popular poker blogs, participated in broadcasts on Twitch and other online channels. "Liay5" says that poker is a fast paced game and does not share the views of those who find it boring. Here, as in mathematics - you need to think.
"I love cards and have dreamed of becoming a pro since the moment I started playing."
Leah got acquainted with online poker in her student years, when one of her friends invited her to a poker tournament. This is where all the knowledge about the game came in handy. Liay5 was so carried away that it was simply impossible to switch her attention to something else, the main goal for her was to achieve Pro status.
"Like all players, I started my career with $50 playing 5-card Draw. Today I play NL Hold'em Hyper Turbo S'n'G 6-max more. Later, a person appeared who helped develop the skills and abilities in the game, in addition to this I had to read a lot of literature, for example, the brilliant books of Alan Schoonmaker."
Dreams Come True
Now Lilia has three coaches: Valery Bordartsev helps the girl in MTT tournaments, Nick Furkai explains to her the intricacies of Hyper Turbo hands up, and a player with the nickname “muchpain” trains her in Hyper Turbo 6-max.
“I burst into tears of happiness when I found out that I had passed the selection, I could not believe that the contract with PokerStars was mine. This was my main dream and goal.
I had to work hard to get it!”
In 2016, the young poker player plans to take part in several stages of the European Poker Tour - this is a condition of the sponsorship contract, as well as to reach new heights in online poker. Leah has a wonderful quality - the fighting spirit of the winner. Her opponent in the WSOP Main Event is primarily Mikhail “Innerspy” Shalamov, who is also on the team. In her opinion, if anyone wins, it will be Misha. He is a more experienced player, although our girl is not going to sit idly by.
Leah considers several streaks of bad luck in the online game to be the worst moments in the outgoing year, but she immediately clarifies with a smile that they were more than offset by an invitation to the elite team of players from the best poker operator.
Leah's life is dynamic, besides poker she manages to find time for sports (rowing, snowboarding, running), studying, and other activities. She also loves animals very much: she has two dogs and seven chinchillas at home!
“It seems to me that I am a good housewife, because I love to cook. I cook everything from cakes to pork ribs. Now my dad and I are addicted to Caucasian cuisine, he is generally a gourmet.”
You can often learn a lot of new things about our poker player in
Liya Novikova, known in the community under the nickname "Liay5", decided to challenge herself and launch a poker marathon for the next six months. We will tell you more about the marathon and its side goals in our full material.
"Become TOP REG"
No, not ours Topreg"om, who just returned from Sochi. On her Vkontakte page, Leah wrote that "stands still and does not develop," so she needs a test. The marathon started on September 16th and will end on March 7th.
Ex PokerStars Pro wants to do a little bit of everything: work on a game, learn English every day, stream, grow an audience and read useful books. In addition, Leah identified a few more points as “side goals”:
- Exercise, eat right, lose weight
- Grow YouTube channel
- Grow Instagram account
- Do the cleaning every day
Liay gave publicity to her intentions for additional motivation, because the marathon is really hard. One of the final goals of the girl was participation in an expensive offline tournament for $5,000-$10,000.
The poker player's weekly schedule will include 5 working days and 2 days off. We wish her good luck, and we invite you to subscribe to her social networks if you want to follow the progress in this difficult task. She might inspire you to do something similar!
WCOOP Interim Results at PokerStars
WCOOP Tournament Series on PokerStars crossed the equator and time to note several large drifts over the past week.
A player from Ukraine under the nickname won a knockout tournament in PLO. The first prize was $77,845 including bounties. There were 1088 entries in total.
WCOOP-33H: $530 PLO
Another Ukrainian under the nickname dragged $215 in an expensive Sunday. The prize pool for the heads-up deal was $71,802. The Russian is in third place ENG)Timur.
WCOOP-48H: $215 NLHE
finally won his first WCOOP title. He conquered a 6-max no-limit hold'em tournament for $75,414. There were 676 entries in total (+1,113 rebuys and 371 addons). The top 3 was WSOP Main Event champion Martin Jacobson.
WCOOP-45H: $215+R NLHE
Poker brings successful poker players not only a lot of pleasure, but also a decent financial reward. After all, it's a money game. What do players spend on earned currency units? Of course, for a beautiful life! Well, and for the game (yes, as they say, poker is not a stable thing - today you are someone, tomorrow you ... won). You can read about this and many other things in our new section “You can’t forbid living beautifully”.
Today we have Russian Lilia "Liay5" Novikova in our sights, who is known simply as Liya in the poker community. She is often described similarly to the popular expression of the Soviet comedy film "Prisoner of the Caucasus", only in a modern way: "Poker player, gamer and just a beauty."
Last spring, she became PokerStars Team Pro Online. But even before gaining this status, the girl's life was bright and eventful. What makes Leah's life beautiful? Let's find out.
Travels
"Traveling" - this must be my favorite column in the series of articles "You can't forbid living beautifully." Well, think for yourself, who doesn't love to travel? Here Leah, for example, loves. Even more. She has visited many countries. At the same time, her poker trips are just beginning. And that means everything is still ahead of her.
It is worth noting that Novikova is one of those people who in the evening “from nothing to do” can easily break away and go (or even fly) to another country. Therefore, it is not surprising that last year Leah, together with her friend Artyom (one of those who introduced her to poker), just went to Minsk to pass a boring evening and meet friends.
Entertainment
Leah lives in Moscow. And this city gives a lot of opportunities for entertainment. Quests, karaoke, buddha bars, restaurants, concerts, parties - this is how a girl spends her evenings with her friends. Only unlike her peers, who can devote only Friday and Saturday evenings to entertainment, Leah has all the days at her disposal, which, of course, she does not devote to playing poker. In addition, the girl often travels, which opens up even more opportunities for entertainment.
Karaoke with friends:
Not only does Liya often visit restaurants in her native Moscow and do not miss the opportunity to sit in them abroad, some time ago a girl in Paris made a whole trip to champagne houses with wine and champagne tasting. So you won’t surprise the beauty with exquisite drinks.
Other entertainment:
Pets
There is no doubt that Leah loves animals. She has a couple of dogs and chinchillas at home. She even spoke about this in a video broadcast, during which she was introduced to the poker community as a new member of the PokerStars team.
Perhaps there are fewer chinchillas now ... or, conversely, more. But, according to the latest known data, there were 7 of them, and three of them were black. The girl tries to choose interesting names for her favorites, for example, she has Lebron, Bonya, Prince, Spectra and Mirana shishillas.
For a long time in the Novikov family there live two spitz - Plato (white) and Magnus (red, mestizo).
And in September, the girl introduced her subscribers to a new pet - a Samoyed named Mimi.
In addition, Leah is always ready to help domestic and homeless animals. Often on her pages in social networks you can see a call for help to find a home for the dog. On a regular basis, the girl sends money to various shelters.
Automobile
Shortly after gaining the status of PokerStars Team Online, the girl got a brand new car. They became the supercar Nissan GTR.
But this, of course, is not the only car that Novikova drove. According to her, the most thrilling sensation was caused by riding such a horse:
And, despite the star status, you can meet a girl on a two-wheeled handsome man. By the way, now she also has a new carbon bike, and she bought it for herself quite recently, during a trip to Minsk to play poker offline.
“I love cycling, more than running. For several years I tried to switch to running, but I still like the bike more. I skated not professionally, but for the soul.
Sport
Unlike most top regulars, Leah isn't often seen in the gym these days, but that doesn't mean she doesn't play sports. She has a couple of very sporting hobbies, such as snowboarding, rowing, boxing. She used to play volleyball for several years.
In addition, Leah attends various sporting events or entertainment from time to time.
Music
Lia has a very specific taste in music. She graduated from a music school in piano, sometimes plays the guitar and attends classical concerts. And at the same time - listens to rap and goes to various rock concerts and festivals. She was lucky to attend many concerts of famous performers. Here are photos from some of them:
And from time to time it can be found at classical music concerts:
Games
Many players came to poker from eSports, and this is not surprising. Well, of course, except for such a small detail as the fact that Leah is a girl. Although I am for gender equality, you must admit that there are not so many representatives of the fair sex in the world who have achieved the status of a professional e-sports player, and then became a member of the team of professionals of a famous poker room.
Now, I dare to assume that Leah does not have so much time that she can devote to games, but I simply could not not mention this “passion” of the girl. Liay5's favorite games include Dota and Diablo.
cooking
“The second hobby after poker is cooking. I love to cook, especially confectionery”, - Leah herself admits.
In her case, a standard male statement a la “woman, your place is in the kitchen” in principle may not offend the girl, but even make her happy. As well as a gift in the form of a Kenwood kitchen machine for the New Year.
Novikova graduated from confectionery courses for beginners and often pleases her family and friends with mouth-watering desserts and simply delicious food.
Perhaps her love of cooking remains because she does not have to cook several meals for the whole family every day. Routine, after all, kills the romance of cooking.
Girlish joys
Yes, Leah plays poker professionally, has a lot of Dota experience and drives a Nissant GTR, but that doesn't mean she's given up on all the "girly" stuff.
shopping
“Standard phenomenon, you go with 1 suitcase, you return with three”,- Leah wrote one day after returning from abroad.
And it's not just about clothes. Leah can spend a lot of time choosing, for example, books or cooking utensils.
And as a result of shopping - the acquisition of various pleasant little things:
Flowers
Few girls do not like flowers, and Novikova is clearly no exception to the rule:
“I try to always have flowers on the table, it boosts my morale!”
Popularity
It is difficult to say whether popularity is a positive or negative factor in Leah's life. The girl repeatedly suffered from the attacks of the so-called "sofa critics" and not so long ago admitted that it was hard for her to be a public figure. But, there are certain advantages to this. Largely due to her popularity, she gained the status of Pokerstars Team Pro, and as a result of this, she met a lot of eminent poker players.
And not only with poker players…
Being a girl in the world of poker is hard. We are often seen as more of a "cute variety" than a serious contender. Therefore, I am glad that Leah is trying in every possible way to destroy this myth, achieving considerable success. And in parallel with this, Novikova continues to live her busy life, full of adventure and entertainment. She develops in different areas, travels and visits new places. The girl is young and promising, so everything is still ahead of her ... And, yes, you can’t forbid living beautifully ...