Obrestad Honoured At European Poker Awards

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Published: Saturday, December 08, 2007 https://www.gowanbo.cc

Betfair sponsored player becomes the youngest yet to win "Tournament Performance of the Year"

Betfair sponsored player Annette Obrestad has become the youngest player ever to win the “Tournament Performance of the Year” award at the prestigious European Poker Awards in Paris this week.

Her achievement at the World Series of Poker Europe presented by Betfair.com was recognised as “phenomenal” by Poker Europa Chief Nic Szeremeta who presented the award. She defeated opponents comprising of “one of the toughest fields in poker” to win more than $2 million.

Annette beat fellow nominees and potential favourites for the award Carlos Mortensen and Bruno Fitoussi. Mortensen won $3.97million at the WPT in Las Vegas while Fitoussi took $1.2 million in 2nd place in one of the most prestigious tournaments in the poker calendar, the WSOP HORSE event, also in Las Vegas.

Annette was nominated in two other categories including “Leading Lady” and “Rookie of the Year”. She narrowly missed out to Katja Thater, who also won a WSOP bracelet this year, in the “Leading Lady” category.

Aged only 19, Obrestad is a poker prodigy. Having made a name for herself playing online poker she shot to fame after winning the Main Event at the World Series of Poker Europe presented by Betfair.com in London’s Leicester Square. As well as the coveted WSOP bracelet and the $2 million prize Annette scooped up a five year sponsorship deal with Betfair.

Less than two months later this youthful ace narrowly missed out on her first European Poker Tour win – having to settle for second place and a $429 181 payday in Dublin.

Annette’s comments suggest there is more to come from the wunderkind: “I am so happy to win this award. I prefer this one than rookie of the year because I was up against such great players. I am still learning so much. There are still a lot of areas of my live game that can improve. My instincts, my ability to know what certain tells mean. But I am getting better all the time.”

Betfair’s newly appointed Director of Poker Bruce Stubbs said: “Congratulations to Annette. She is a pleasure to work with and a special player. She is also possibly one of the most competitive people I have met. In fact I suspect she wanted to win all the awards.”

Her experiences at the awards ceremony have been filmed for her blog and will soon be available on Betting.Betfair.com/annette15.

Betfair has dedicated special tournaments to Annette, who has her own special $212 freezeouts on Betfair Poker at 19h30 UK time Tuesdays and Fridays.

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Poker Star Obrestad Invests In Poker Manager

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 mgowanbo.cc

Alpha Innovation community website lists over 10 000 tournaments, 200 000 videos

The 19-year-old online and land tournament poker star Annette Obrestad is making some canny investments in the poker industry and this week increased her shareholding in Norwegian community and information website Poker Manager.com to 5 percent. Other shareholders include European Poker Tour aces Peter Willers Jepsen and Bjorn-Erik Glenne, who helped build the concept, and unidentified Scandinavian investors.

Obrested played a role in developing Poker Manager, which is owned by Alpha Innovation AS and provides the player community with a free to download, community poker resource and tool. It has a complete listing of all off and online poker tournaments which is continuously updated, a massive on-demand 200 000 poker video archive, free tools, blogs from members who include international professionals, a magazine, instant messaging and poker calendars.

The resource also lists satellites available to access the tournaments, and a YouTube-like video-share service where members of the website can create and share their own video and audio blogs. Some of the more confident members are using this facility to produce their own poker school inside the software.

The site retains links with traditional poker feature publications through an exclusive partnership with Bluff Magazine, providing visitors with the poker related news and articles from that publisher.

Obrestad's online poker screen-name "Annette_15" has become well known in recent times following a series of high profile and big-money successes. She claims never to have had to deposit money on any online poker site. Instead she made her initial online bankroll by winning free roll poker tournaments from which she went on to amass several hundred thousand dollars in online winnings. Between September 2006 and February 2007, she won over $700 000 playing online tournaments only, and is ranked among the top 10 players online.

The young Norwegian finished in 7th place in the World Championship of Online Poker and went on to play successfully in the live poker environment of the World Series of Poker and the inaugural World Series of Poker (Europe) Main Event, winning the latter the day before her 19th birthday. By collecting the US$ 2.01 million first prize she positioned herself high on the list of international poker players, and last year entered into an agreement with gambling group Betfair as its poker ambassadress.

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DevilFish Awarded P.O.T.Y. Europe Accolade

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 mgowanbo.cc

CardPlayer Europe announces 2007 Player of the Year

The much sought after CardPlayer Europe "Player of the Year" award for 2007 has gone to UK poker pro Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliott after a third-place finish in the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Classic on December 17 catapulted the wily Englishman to the top of the leader board with 3 446 points.

Ulliott's late surge saw him overtake Chris Bjorin right at the wire, reports CardPlayer - the Swede had dominated the rankings for much of the year after an impressive World Series of Poker run which saw him make three final tables as well as a creditable 15th in the WPT Doyle Brunson Classic. Ulliott had his most successful year in tournament poker ever in 2007, winning $1.2 million dollars and making five major final tables.

Norway's teen phenomenon and Betfair poker ambassadress Annette Obrestad came third in the EPoY rankings after winning the World Series of Poker Europe main event in London and taking second in the European Poker Tour Dublin. Russian player Alexander Kravchenko, who won a bracelet at the 2007 WSOP and made the final table of the main event, finished fourth.

The top 10 CardPlayerEurope.com European players of 2007 are:

1.    David "Devilfish" Ulliott -- Hull, GBR -- 3,446 points
2.    Chris Bjorin -- London, GBR -- 3,375 points
3.    Annette Obrestad -- Stavanger, NOR -- 2,608 points
4.    Alexander Kravchenko -- Moscow, RUS -- 2,579 points
5.    Juan Carlos Mortensen -- Madrid, ESP -- 2,496 points
6.    Rene Mouritsen -- Copenhagen, DNK -- 2,472 points
7.    Mark Teltscher -- London, GBR -- 2,344 points
8.    Florian Langmann -- Dresden, DEU -- 2,040 points
9.    Gus Hansen -- Copenhagen, DNK -- 2,034 points
10.   Jeffrey Lisandro -- Salerno, ITA -- 1,964 points

Previous winners of the CardPlayerEurope.com European Player of the Year are Englishman Roland de Wolfe (2006) and Italian Max Pescatori (2005).