Annette Obrestad

Annette Obrestad Biography
by Annette Obrestad

Annette Obrestad was born on September 18, 1988 and grew up in Sandes, Norway. At the age of fifteen, Obrestad began playing poker online under the name “Annette_15,” which reflected her age; however, because she was so young, Obrestad was forced to build a bankroll from scratch since her mother wouldn’t let her use a credit card to make a deposit. Obrestad played numerous free-rolls until she won $9 on UltimateBet, which she has since turned into millions of dollars to become an online sensation whose accomplishments dominated talk in online forums. She once won a 180-player $4 sit-n-go on Poker Stars without looking at her hole cards (though she admits she did look once when faced with an all-in bet on hand no. 47).

She did this in order to show the importance of playing position and to paying attention to the other players at the table: “I played this sit-n-go tournament on PokerStars that had a $4 buy-in, and I stuck a Post-it Note over my cards just for fun and for practice, and I managed to win the whole thing, which was crazy. I posted my hand history online and I had about 15,000 views on it.” Obrestad’s other online accomplishments include a first place finish in the August 5th, 2007 $500k Guarantee on Full Tilt Poker for $117k, finishing first in the October 7th, 2007 Sunday Mulligan on Full Tilt Poker for $35k, a first place finish in the July 24th, 2007 $109 Rebuy on PokerStars for $32.6k, and a first place finish in the January 22nd, 2007 Nightly $100k on PokerStars for $32k.

In 2006, Obrestad cashed in the UltimateBet Aruba Classic, which was her first serious brick-and-mortar tournament (finishing 37th for $12,415). However, it wasn’t until the following year, when she was just shy of nineteen years-old, that Obrestad captured the attention of the poker world by making history at the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe. Obrestad conquered a field of 361 players, and defeated John Tabatabai heads-up, to win the Main Event and the £1 million ($2,013,102) first-prize. In doing so, Obrestad became the youngest player ever to win a W.S.O.P. bracelet, captured the title for most money won by a woman in W.S.O.P. events, and became the first woman to win a W.S.O.P. Main Event title.

As fate would have it, Obrestad had to part with half her winnings because she had sold fifty-percent of her action to fellow online pros, Eric Haber and Cliff Josephy, but after the tournament she vowed never again to sell any of her action. When asked what she planned to do with her winnings, Obrestad said, “I don’t know. The money doesn’t really mean that much. It was more about the bracelet. But my mom and I might buy a small house or something in the town we live in, in Norway. It doesn’t really matter where I live because if I’m at home then I’m playing online; if not, I’m at the airport traveling somewhere.”

Though she must wait until she turns twenty-one to play the W.S.O.P. in Las Vegas, Obrestad continues to add to her poker accomplishments. She placed second at the European Poker Tour Dublin Main event for $417k and also won the March 2, 2008 PokerStars Sunday Hundred Grand, which had a buy-in of only $11 but consisted of 20,000 players. Obrestad is a member of Team Betfair and often plays on PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and UltimateBet.

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