Poker News and Poker Gossip

Paris hosted what became a big night for Annette Obrestad, aka Annette_15. Nominated for 3 awards at the European Poker Player awards. She won the award for Best Performance of the year! What an applicable award for this poker phenomenon who now holds another place in poker history.

The World Series of Poker Europe held 3 events for the inaugural year. Of those three, the field was world-class poker competition. Each event was won by a European Poker Professional, instead of the multiple WSOP titled Americans who went to London to defend the hold on the WSOP brand. The greatest surprise came in the main event. With a 1 million GBP guarantee, the event maxed out the number of players around 300. After battling her way through names such as Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth, this incredible young woman proved her focus and talent to the world, by winning the first WSOP Europe Main Event.

Because of her historical win, she now holds 3 titles associated with the WSOP that may be many years, and in one case, laws, to come before they are broken. The first is being the third woman to win a World Series of Poker Open Event. She won the first Main Event Bracelet awarded outside of the United States. The title that will take more than skill to change, it will need laws to change, is that she is now the youngest person to ever win a WSOP bracelet.

Congratulations Annette!

Annette has her own special $212 freezeout tournaments on Betfair Poker at 19:30 UK time on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Annette Obrestad (or “Annette_15″ as she goes by online) won the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) yesterday making her both the first female to win a WSOP Main Event, as well as the youngest player to win a WSOP Main Event.

Annette_15 is a well known name in the online poker world.  She became popular after becoming one of the winningest and best online poker multi-table tournament players.

She has had several major cashes for over $100,000 and is currently ranked as the 3rd best online poker player by pocket 5s.

Annette played an amazing tournament knocking out several players.  On the last hand she put John Tabatabai when she spiked a set of 7s on the flop, against Tabatabai’s two pair (6s and 5s).  It was a tense moment, but her set held up making her the champ and as many sites reported, the “Queen of Europe”.

There’s a rumor that Annette started playing online poker at the age of 15, hence the screen name Annette_15. She got her first exposure to poker from her father who taught her how to play five-card stud and seven-card stud as a young girl. She eventually signed up for an online poker account and as the legend goes, her mother refused to let her fund an account with a credit card so Annette_15 ended up winning $9 in a freeroll and has not looked back since.

WSOPE Main Event Final Table Money Winners:
1 - Annette Obrestad - £1,000,000
2 - John Tabatabai - £570,150
3 - Matthew McCullough - £381,910
4 - Oyvind Riisem - £257,020
5 - Johannes Korsar - £191,860
6 - Dominic Kay - £152,040
7 - Magnus Persson - £114,030
8 - Theo Jorgensen - £85,070
9 - James Keys - £61,540

Annette Obrestad picture above from Pokernews.com

Betfair Poker is preparing for one of their biggest days ever.  There will be over $370K in prizes given away on Sunday September 2nd.  Here is the list of events:

$370,000 of packages and cash must be won

Two massive tournaments in one very special day on Betfair Poker will see a staggering FIFTEEN players win their $23,000 package to September’s WSOPE in London - Take your seat now!

Sunday 2nd September, the last weekend before the magnificent 10 day WSOPE series kicks off, has been declared “WSOPE Super Sunday” by the big-wigs at Betfair Poker, and you’re all invited.

2pm - Grand Final of the $250k Freeroll Giveaway

The day’s proceedings will kick off at 2pm with the Grand Final of the $250k Freeroll Giveaway where qualifiers will fight it out for an incredible TEN available WSOPE packages. We’ll also be throwing in a further $20,000 of prize money for those who just miss out meaning that the prize pool will swell to a wallet-busting $250,000!

Don’t worry if you didn’t make it in to the Grand Final, the fun doesn’t stop there

6:30pm - Last chance showdown - FIVE PACKAGES GTD

The finale of our 2007 WSOPE Qualification period will be a monster five packages guaranteed super satellite at 6:30pm on Super Sunday (Sep 2nd if you missed it). This fantastic tournament will be available for a $500+$25 buy in and there’ll be plenty of room for play as we’re giving everyone a starting stack of 5000 chips with a 15 minute clock.

Satellite qualification into this tourney is all week from as little as $5.25.

For the icing on the cake, we’re adding FIVE $1,000 bounties on selected Betfair pros and celebs, details are to be confirmed in the tournament lobby. This takes the total prize pool for this $500 buyin event to a staggering $120,000 GUARANTEED.

On hearing the news of WSOPE Super Sunday, poker boss, Ben Fried said “I nearly fell off my chair! This is the biggest and best opportunity to qualify for the WSOPE both online or offline. The WSOP show really is in full swing now.”

Don’t miss out on these amazing events… visit Betfair Poker now and get up to $600 FREE through our special landing page!