Poker Player Profile – Poker Player Annette Obrestad

The youngest winner of a WSOPE bracelet, Annette Obrestad began her career with a bang and is expected to continue in the same vain.

Early Life of Annette Obrestad

Annette Obrestad is a female, Norwegian poker player. She was born in September 1988 in Sandnes, Norway. She began playing poker at the age of 15 and has never looked back.

Obrestad's Poker Career

Annette Obrestad first began playing online poker in 2003 under the nickname "Annette_15." Being only 15 years old at the time she was not able to deposit any money into online poker sites, but rather played freeroll tournaments. By winning these tournaments, she came away with hundreds of thousands of dollars of prize money. By the beginning of 2007, she had won over $500,000 on Pokerstars, $200,000 on UltimateBet and $136,000 on Full Tilt Poker. In 2006, once she turned 18, Obrestad turned professional – it was now time for Obrestad to move from the world of online poker to live poker tournaments where the really big money prizes could be found.

In 2007, Obrestad won a $4 buy-in sit-and-go event against 180 other players. She claims that she peaked at her cards once the entire tournament, but rather played position and by paying attention to the other players. She placed second in the 2007 Pokerstars.com European Poker Tour Dublin event to take home $431,184. In 2008, she won the Stars Sunday Hundred Grand event against 20,000 other players to walk away with a prize of $20,000. Also in 2008, Obrestad won first prize in the Betfair Sunday $125K GTD event to take home $35,000. And still in 2008, she won the Ultimate Bet $100K GTD event.

Obrestad's Big World Series of Poker Win in 2007

In 2007, Obrestad became the youngest player ever to win a World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) bracelet. Turning 19 the day after the main event, she won one million pounds sterling which was $2.01 million at the time. This win then became the biggest first prize payout to a female player for a single event (surpassing Annie Duke's 2004 Tournament of Champions win of $2 million). Her win came as a surprise to the poker world due to her age and the fact that she had only cashed in four other live poker tournaments in her career up until that point. The marketing tagline for the event had asked "who will be the King of Europe?" This of course was hastily changed to "Queen" when the winner was revealed to be a women poker player.

Until 2010, Obrestad will not be old enough to compete in World Series of Poker events in the United States due to gambling laws in Nevada where the main event is held.

Current Stats for Annette Obrestad

Obrestad is currently a member of Team Betfair.

Obrestad is the top Norwegian poker player in terms of all-time money wins in live tournaments. As of 2008, her total live winnings exceeded $2.5 million. Obrestad continues to enter many live tournaments in Europe where she able to play despite her youth and has been continuing to amass her winnings. If she continues how she started, we can expect great things from Annette Obrestad.