San Remo is a peaceful place, the 'city of flowers' on the Italian Riviera that comes to life in the summer sunshine then spends the fall and winter waiting for that sun to come back.

But once a year it gets an early shot of adrenaline in the form of a thousand poker players who fill the streets in the morning, the casinos through to the evening, and demand 24 hour service at night. They may not always get it, but what they do get is one of the best poker tournaments in the world. And those watching get one of the most exciting.

Four years ago Boeree won her first poker tournament, a £5 re-buy event, in the Gutshot poker club in London. Four years later she paid €5,000 to play in San Remo on the Italian Riviera. Well, tonight she won that as well, winning €1,250,000, the EPT San Remo title and a seat to the Monte Carlo Grand Final next week.

"I can't even speak," said Boeree as she was grabbed by EPT presenter Michelle Orpe seconds after winning.

"I don't want to cry because that's not professional but I can't believe that I've won this. This is incredible. Everyone today played so good. Jakob was the one person I didn't want to get heads-up against, he's such a good player. But I ran well and I played good."

Boeree had stunned everyone when she eliminated Toni Pettersson in third place to take a massive lead into the heads up, not least eventual runner-up Jakob Carlsson who had led until then.

At one point Carlsson was able to wrestle control of the heads up battle from Boeree but the 25-year-old heavy metal fan from London was in touching distance of a long held dream and was not prepared to give it up without the hardest of fights. She prevailed, salvaged the lead once more to finally get her way.

In the final hand the money went in pre-flop, raising, then calling a Carlsson shove. To win she needed her pocket fives to survive a race against Carlsson's ace-six. The board brought blanks and missed any Carlsson get outs. Few champions have looked more tense beforehand, sick during, and ecstatic after a winning hand.

"It's exactly what I've been working towards when I started playing poker four years ago; to win a major tournament," said Boeree. "I just didn't think it'd come so quickly."

(read the rest of the story on the PokerStars blog here)