After Annette Obrestad, 18-year-old online poker prodigy from Norway, won the
World Series of Poker Europe main event, it was hard to ignore the obvious. Thanks to online poker, there is an entire generation of crazy-good players out there who are due for a breakout once they start hitting the live tournament circuit. While some of these players might pooh-pooh the idea of playing only 40 hands an hour rather than 500 or so, there is no denying that live events are where the big, big money is, as evidenced by the $2 million that "Annette_15" walked away with for her win.
While this is an impressive accomplishment for any player, for someone as young as Annette_15, it's just huge. More importantly, it represents a not so subtle change in poker's demographic. Each year, a new player becomes the youngest
World Series bracelet winner. At most overseas final tables, especially the
European Poker Tour, it seems like half of the players usually are not old enough to buy a beer. There are a lot of great young players out there.
At
Card Player, we've collected extensive results data on each and every tournament player for more than 10 years in our CardPlayer.com player database. This data, when analyzed, can yield some interesting results. In Bob Pajich's article on Page 16, "The Year of the Youth? Not Quite Yet," we look at the average age of the top 10 players in the
Card Player Player of the Year standings over the last eight years. While the average age was 45 back in 2003, last year it was 29. This year, so far, the average is 35. Things sure have changed since Phil Ivey became the first player under the age of 30 to finish in the top 10, which he did back in 2002.
One player who is not part of this youth movement but certainly is doing his part to skew the results in the elders' favor is David Pham. Each and every year, David is one of the most consistent forces on the tournament trail. He won the Player of the Year award in 2000 and finished as the runner-up in 2004. As we enter the final leg of 2007, Pham again finds himself in a close race, while sitting on top.
Card Player caught up with the "The Dragon" in this issue.
In this issue, I'd like to welcome a great addition to the
Card Player columnist stable. Ed Miller, an accomplished poker author, is working on a fourth book titled
Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em: Winning Big With Expert Play. We've had a lot of readers ask for strategy columns devoted to lower-stakes no-limit hold'em cash games, so here you go. Ed has written extensively about this niche, and he will bring you strategy columns on beating the juicy $1-$2 and $2-$5 no-limit hold'em live cash games.
With the game of poker changing ever so rapidly,
Card Player wants to know what types of columns and topics you want covered more in depth. If there is something you'd like to see that you're not getting, hit us up at
[email protected].
