World Series of Poker Look Out -- Annette ObrestadHype Palpable as 21 Year Old Prepares for Her Debut |
|
On Friday, the 2010 World Series of Poker will officially begin. This weekend, Annette Obrestad will likely play in her first WSOP event in Las Vegas. In the WSOP’s 41-year history, there hasn’t been a level of anticipation quite like this one for a 21-year-old’s debut. Expectations are high, and all eyes will be fixed on Obrestad to see what she can do in her first Vegas Series.
The Norwegian pro, who is most famous for her stunning victory as an 18-year-old in the World Series of Poker Europe main event in 2007, admits she doesn’t really know how to prepare for the next seven weeks.
“I really don’t know what to expect, because I’ve never played it before,” said Obrestad on a media conference call for the WSOP earlier this month, where she was welcomed along with reigning WSOP champ Joe Cada as one of the call’s featured guests. “I’m not going to have a set schedule. We’ll just see what happens. I hope to play as many tournaments as possible, and hopefully do good in a few.”
Obrestad has quickly become one of the game’s young superstars. In addition to her WSOPE win, which netted her over $2 million, her online accolades have drawn the poker community’s attention. She started playing at the age of 15, as her well-known “Annette_15” handle attests, just playing freerolls for entertainment.
“I never thought I was going to be winning money when I started playing,” said Obrestad. “I thought it was just going to be for fun. I never deposited, and it just kind of happened that way.”
Without ever depositing, Obrestad cashed in a few freerolls and built a bankroll from scratch. Within a few years, she found herself with a few hundred thousand dollars to her name. But even more noteworthy than the money she was winning was what she was winning — and how she was winning it.
Winning a $4.40 180-person sit-and-go on PokerStars is hardly something a poker player puts on her or his resume, but Obrestad’s win in such a tourney became the stuff of folklore because she did it after taping a piece of paper over her hole cards on her computer screen so that she couldn’t see what she had (she does admit looking exactly once, when someone pushed all in on her, because she wanted to see if she had a draw and the appropriate odds to call). She said she played the tournament to show “just how important it is to play position and to pay attention to the players at the table.”
Besides that novelty win, she’s also notched several wins for five-figure and six-figure scores at Full Tilt, PokerStars, Betfair, and the Cereus Network.
She was an official pro at Betfair, a site that doesn’t allow American players, but she switched over to Full Tilt earlier this month on a decision based on practicality. (Since Betfair didn’t cater to the U.S. market, it made no sense for them to buy her into U.S. tournaments, she explained.)
But Obrestad has been even more impressive in the live arena. Besides her historic WSOPE win, which remains the biggest single poker payday for any female poker player, Obrestad has put together an impressive string of results overseas.
Less than two months after her $2 million score, she finished as the runner-up in EPT Dublin for an additional $416,920. In 2009, she made a deep run in the EPT Grand Final before eventually busting in 13th place for $100,100.
This year, she’s already off to a great start. In 2010, she has final-tabled the Aussie Millions main event for $156,155, won a PLO Aussie Millions side event for $36,918, and cashed in the 2010 NBC Heads-up Championship.
Obrestad’s rapid rise to poker stardom is due in large part to her results, but of course it doesn’t hurt that she burst onto the poker scene as a teenage girl — a severe break from most stereotypes of poker players. She acknowledges that she played off gender perception to accomplish some of her success.
“When I first started playing live tournaments, I could get away with so much because I was a girl and people didn’t know who I was,” said Obrestad, who admits things have changed a bit since she’s been featured on TV so much. “Now people see me on TV and they know I’m an aggressive player, so I get called down a lot lighter.”
Obrestad hasn’t been the only woman who has been impressive on the tournament trail lately. Liv Boeree scored a major title when she won EPT San Remo last month for €1.25 million, beating out the largest European-based field in the tour’s history. Vanessa Selbst took down the NAPT Mohegan Sun main event on ESPN2 for $750,000 in April, and Annie Duke won the NBC Heads-up Championship for $500,000 in March.
All three of those women will be watched closely this summer to see if they can take down a WSOP bracelet. Selbst was the last woman to win a bracelet in an open event for her 2008 PLO win; no female poker player has ever won an open no-limit hold’em event in the WSOP’s history.
Obrestad clearly hopes to change that. She says she’s going to try to play as many of the small no-limit hold’em events as she can, in addition to the PLO events and perhaps some of the smaller stud events. She says she’ll likely skip out on the big H.O.R.S.E. or eight-game events, because she doesn’t have as much faith in her mixed-games skills.
The Norwegian pro isn’t making any big predictions or promises as she is poised to begin her first Series, saying the goal is to just play her best. But many eyes will be focused on her, watching and waiting for her next big result.
For all the news and information on the 2010 World Series of Poker, check out Card Player’s 2010 WSOP Landing Page.
Play against Obrestad today online on Full Tilt Poker.
Copyright © 2001-2024
CardPlayer.com. All rights reserved.
