Poker Stories: Victoria Livschitz

Victoria Livschitz jumped head first into the shark-infested waters of the high roller scene in late 2021, having spent her pandemic lockdown studying all she could about the game. While others may have been intimidated by the talent at the very top of the pyramid, in an environment with very few women, Livschitz had already seen it all before, having found success with a number of different business ventures in male-dominated industries.

The Ukraine-born former chess champion emigrated to the United States following the fall of the Iron Curtain, landing in Cleveland. She worked odd jobs to finish school, including opening a chess academy, before landing in the automotive industry, doing research for Ford and General Motors. She then served as the principal architect for SunGrid, working on the world's first public cloud-based system, and later founded Grid Dynamics, a technology provider for many major Fortune 500 companies. After her company went public, Livschitz "retired," starting a food company to support her passion for hiking, RightOnTrek.

But after finding quick success in the poker high roller world, Livschitz is already climbing the women's all-time money list rankings, having already cashed for $1.8 million. Livschitz has four wins already, including an event at the 2023 EPT Paris festival and this year's Texas Poker Open, and recently managed to cash in four consecutive tournaments at the PokerGO Tour U.S. Poker Open. Not content to just play the game at a high level, Livschitz has also partnered with high-stakes pros Andrew 'LuckyChewy' Lichtenberger and Nick Schulman to create the training tool OctopiPoker, and also donates her time to Pocket Queens, an organization dedicated to the advancement of women in poker.

Highlights from this interview include a bad beat from Daniel Negreanu, the Hellmuth rite of passage, check mating, a one-way flight to Cleveland, playing 27 people at once, the shock of smiling, automotive research and neural networks, starting a tech company and going public, hiking 1,000 miles every year, danger in Peru, COVID coping, why entrepreneurship is the real gamble, befriending the high rollers, fixing poker tools, the lack of data for women in poker, don't say ladies, the no sleep superpower, the dry cleaning spy, the artistry of the game, 12-hour study sessions, and a prediction for 2026.