Biography of Liya Novikova (Liliya Novikova). Lilia "Liay5" Novikova: poker, youth and mathematics Short biography of Liya Novikova

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 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 our Topreg, 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.

The ex PokerStars Pro wants to do a little bit of everything: work on the game, learn English every day, stream, build 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 media if you want to follow the progress in this difficult task. She might inspire you to do something similar!

WCOOP Interim Results at PokerStars

The WCOOP tournament series on PokerStars has crossed the equator and it's time to mark some big swings 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

Liya "Liay5" Novikova is a young successful poker player from Russia who died in 2019.

Previously, the girl was known as a professional player in DotA (Defence of the Ancients) and other computer games. In the Russian-speaking poker community, she became famous thanks to her blog "Diary of a gamer", which Leah has been running since 2012.

World fame came to her in March 2015, when Novikova signed a contract with the most famous poker room and became PokerStars Team Pro Online. In 2017, she continued to lead a personal Vkontakte group, stream and promote poker to the masses in various other ways.

Novikova preferred online poker, where she has achieved considerable success. Leah's main discipline was hyperturbo. In 2015, she also often played Spin & Go. After signing a contract with PokerStars, Liya Novikova became a frequent guest of offline series. The most significant result of the girl was the victory in the NLH Deepstack Big Ante tournament for €1,100 at the EPT Prague in 2015 (winning - €49,440 or $54,070). At this event, Leah won her first significant poker trophy - the PokerStars spade.

Leah is quite popular on the net. Streams, recordings and photos of Leah Novikova gained a lot of views in a matter of minutes. But popularity also has a downside. Often the girl was criticized for her words or actions, Novikova's personal life succumbed to active discussion. Despite this, Leah continued to show good results in poker and strived for further development as a professional player.

June 11, 2019 due to an accident. In a few days she was supposed to be 27 years old.

The unexpected death of a famous poker player from Russia became a tragedy for the poker community. The news about the incident appeared in the girl's Vkontakte group. For the first day, information about this was perceived as a joke, until it was confirmed by close friends of the girl and the boyfriend of Leah Novikova, Arthur. Later, information appeared in the media that the cause of death was a faulty electrical appliance (most likely a hair dryer) in the bathroom.

Interesting facts about Lia "Liay5" Novikova:

The real name of the girl is Lilia Novikova.
Leah was very fond of animals. She had chinchillas and three dogs at home.
Novikova graduated from the technical university of the Moscow State Technical University. N.E. Bauman, specialty engineer-designer.
"Liay5" started her poker career with a bankroll of $50 and within a year, with the help of a coach, she was promoted from a limit of $1.5 to $60. Initially, Leah's working discipline was Sit & Go turbo tournaments, then the girl began to play hyperturbo 6-max professionally.
Lilia Novikova's main hobby could be called cooking. The girl graduated from pastry chefs and loved to cook various dishes.
Leah led an active lifestyle and played sports such as snowboarding, basketball, rowing, boxing and the like. She also loved to ride a bike.

You can read more about what life was like for Leah 5 in the article

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 film comedy "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.

Trips

"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 "having 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 the houses of champagne 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 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 ...

Pages of Leah Novikova VKontakte: https://vk.com/liay_liay and https://vk.com/liay5pro
Leah Novikova's poker streams on Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/liay5
Microblog Liay5 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/liay55

Interesting facts from the life and play of Leah Novikova:

Graduated from Moscow State Technical University. N.E. Bauman, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Technologies, Department of Metal Cutting Machines.
She was a pro DotA player, and now often sits down for Defense of the Ancients, Diablo and DayZ.
Leah likes Viktor Bloom, she especially admires his recklessness and Scandinavian appearance.
Leah loves to give gifts to her loved ones.
I started playing with a $50 deposit.
She loves animals and helps volunteers who care for homeless and abandoned dogs and cats. She has dogs and chinchillas at home.
Feels better in the online game.
Got SuperNova on PokerStars in a month.
Leah loves to bake and design pastry decorations.

Short biography of Leah Novikova:

Lilia's grandmother was a mathematics teacher, she passed on her remarkable abilities in the field of exact sciences to her granddaughter. From school, Leah brought only excellent grades and was always the best in the class. Thanks to her analytical mindset, at the age of 5, with the help of her father, the girl mastered one kind of poker ➖ 5-card draw. The Novikov family loved to play this game without community cards.

The fact that Lilia entered Baumanka was logical - just remember her excellent relationship with mathematics. There, the girl studied mechanical engineering and design, although she wanted to enter the Aerospace Department. In the student environment in those days there was a real boom in passion for gaming at a professional level. Everyone wanted to make money with a mouse in their hand! Leah also enthusiastically joined the women's DotA team. One day, one of her friends invited Novikova to an online poker tournament, where the girl felt nostalgia for home card games.

Lilia started with the regular format, but quickly moved on to hyper-turbo sit and go tournaments, as only their dynamism suited her character perfectly. To improve her skills, Liay5 worked out for some time with an experienced trainer. His lessons were not in vain - soon Novikova declared herself a specialist in 6-max hyperturbo tournaments. In just a month, Leah won the Supernova status, which attracted the attention of PokerStars representatives.

In the spring of 2015, she was offered to sign a contract for cooperation with the room. Lilia, according to her, was extremely happy and grateful for the recognition of her merits. The girl admitted that she dreamed of being the face of a global brand and standing on a par with Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moneymaker and Vanessa Selbst.

Stars introduced Novikov to the poker community as "a fearless player who inspires respect and fear in our 6-max hyperturbo tournaments." As Liay5 is contractually required to represent PokerStars in both live and online games, she has been seen more frequently in major live series. So, most recently - in December 2015 - she became the winner of the €1100 NL Deepstack Big Ante tournament at EPT Prague. Leah offered her final table opponents a deal twice, but they turned it down as easy prey. As a result, Novikova took the maximum payout of €50,000, and her opponents were biting their elbows.

Online, Liay5 has been streaming his game on Twitch with great success and showing consistent results in his favorite $60 hyperturbos. She knows how to drag inexpensive MTTs with large fields. Newcomers to online poker often turn to Leah for advice, but since there are too many requests, the poker player is now trying herself as a coach. Liay5 has few students, yet she likes the game more than pedagogy!

Leah has little free time from poker. And she loves to spend it outside the house with trips to the snowy slopes of the mountains with a snowboard or to the sea under sail. If we talk about short walks, then they consist of training with dogs.

The best way to follow Liay5's poker progress is on her Twitch channel, and she always announces her streams on her VKontakte page. You can also find Leah's exclusive contests and passwords to PokerStars freerolls there.

Video with Leah Novikova:

Meet the new member of Team PokerStars Pro: https://youtu.be/33hAYbVVMfc
Women's Sunday featuring Liay5: https://youtu.be/wuP0n2rgEWo
Interview with Leah Novikova: https://youtu.be/OEtc-T0D6Mo
Liay5 stream example: https://youtu.be/5r64ntI3cYM
Liya Novikova comments on Evgeny Kachalov's game: http://www.twitch.tv/liay5
Leah for the Miss Russian Poker Community contest: https://youtu.be/XPSs8CGAis8