America Awaits Annette
“Is it going to be the ‘year of Annette’ at this year’s World Series of Poker?”
That was a question posed by host Scott Huff on last week’s episode of The Poker Beat, recently singled out as winner of the 2009 Bluff Magazine Readers Choice Award for Best Poker Podcast. That’s the podcast that features members of the poker media talking about news of the day, with their conversations often focusing on the media itself and how poker gets covered and discussed.
The exchange that followed revealed a growing fascination with Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad, the young Norwegian presently readying for her first World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this summer. Such curiosity is perhaps even greater in the U.S., where we haven’t really gotten that much of a chance to see Obrestad in action as yet. Elaborating on his question, Huff alluded to “the legend and the lore” of Annette_15, referencing the fact that while Obrestad is only just getting started when it comes to playing in U.S. tourneys, several details of her fascinating story have already preceded her arrival.
American poker players — especially those who play online and/or peruse the forums — have been aware of Obrestad for some time. Even before she was dealt her first hand in that historic 2007 WSOPE Main Event, Obrestad had already achieved considerable renown for her successes online, most particularly for a final table finish in a PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker Main Event as well as a victory in the Full Tilt Poker $500,000 guarantee just a month before the WSOPE.
Those two cashes alone added up to around $280,000, further padding an already impressive online bankroll. A couple of other aspects of “the legend and the lore” were also fairly well known at the time. There was the fact that she had never made a cash deposit onto an online site, having started with play money games and freerolls, from which was earned an initial pittance that rapidly grew into thousands and thousands. There was also that 180-player sit-and-go from earlier that summer of ‘07, won without looking at her cards (with one exception), a stunning demonstration of the relative importance of cards, position, and stack sizes to tournament strategy.
Even so, there were other online phenoms with similar stories — even if none quite fit the profile of the young woman from Norway. Then came the WSOPE.
For topping an especially tough field of 362 entrants in the 2007 WSOPE Main Event, Obrestad earned a cool £1,000,000 — worth a little over $2 million. Still a day away from turning 19, Obrestad easily broke the record for youngest bracelet winner ever, and before she could even celebrate her birthday many were already talking about the 2010 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas — the first for which she’d be eligible to play.
An cover story in the November 13, 2007 issue of Card Player provided further introduction for Americans to Obrestad. There we read about how she’d moved from bowling to online poker, how she’d largely learned by experience (not books or training sites), as well as how she’d once managed to take care of Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth in a $5,000 online sit-and-go in just twelve hands. “I must admit I was getting cards,” said Obrestad of that match, showing humility. But the interview also revealed Obrestad as a confident player, and especially eager to become eligible to play in the U.S.
Over the next couple of years, Obrestad racked up more significant online wins on several different sites while also playing in European Poker Tour events and other tourneys outside America. Her biggest live scores included a runner-up finish at 2007 EPT Dublin and a 13th-place finish at 2009 EPT Monte Carlo. Finally September 18, 2009 came — Obrestad’s 21st birthday — and soon after she was invited onto the late night show “Poker After Dark” to compete with five other well-known pros at the famed Golden Nugget in Las Vegas.
That week’s worth of shows aired last month, and for many in the U.S. it marked our first chance to watch Obrestad play. The 2007 WSOPE had not been shown in the states, and while she was featured in the 2008 WSOPE coverage, this would mark our first, extended look at Annette_15 — a.k.a. “The Huntress” — in action.
Matthew Pitt (a.k.a. Yorkie Pud) reported earlier on how Obrestad suffered through a dry run of cards before exiting in fifth. I found the episodes in which she appeared some of the more enjoyable ones I have seen of “PAD,” due in part to Obrestad being there but also to the always entertaining Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Phil Hellmuth, and Mike Matusow. (Erick Lindgren was also there — briefly — as he was eliminated in one of the first hands).
Most interesting to me was watching Obrestad holding her own with the others both poker-wise and with regard to the table talk.
The very first hand of the week saw her opening with a raise from under the gun with Qd Td, to which all folded. “Welcome to the game, young lady,” said Matusow. As play progressed, it became rapidly clear that Obrestad’s opponents — like the hosts of The Poker Beat — were highly intrigued by the presence of their young competitor.
A little later came a hand in which Laak raised from the button with Th 7d and Obrestad called from the small blind with Ah 2h. Both checked the 5h 9h 9d flop. The turn brought the 3c. Obrestad checked, Laak bet 850 (about two-thirds pot), and Obrestad called without hesitation. The river was the 9s. Obrestad checked, and Laak quickly checked as well.
“Ace high,” said Obrestad. Laak rechecked his cards and with a hangdog look tossed them into the muck, the table erupting in laughter at his having backed down. “He can’t even make a bet on the end,” said a grinning Matusow. “A 21-year-old girl got you scared out of your pants,” added Esfandiari. “Just to rub it in,” said Obrestad to Laak, “I probably would’ve folded if you had bet there.” Laak responded with a sheepish grin.
A little later, a cutoff raise from Obrestad forced Laak to fold, prompting Esfandiari to needle his friend once again. “He just doesn’t want to get in a situation where he gets outplayed again,” said Esfandiari, once more eliciting some grins from the others. As the laughter faded, Phil Hellmuth took the opportunity to reaffirm to all that he “came to win.”
“I think we all came to win,” said Obrestad, not missing a beat.
At one point the show’s host, Leeann Tweeden, asked Obrestad if she thought she might be more focused than the other players. Obrestad was ready with a response. “I think I want to win this more than they do,” she said, noting how they’d been on the show several times before while this was her debut.
Something similar will be the case this summer at the WSOP, where Obrestad will be experiencing it all for the first time. Though clearly she’ll be ready, as indicated by her performance at last month’s Aussie Millions where she won a pot-limit Omaha preliminary event and made the final table of the Main Event, where she finished seventh. And, as discussion on The Poker Beat made abundantly clear, the U.S. is especially eager to see how she does.
“I think that Annette is a unique story line thus far in the modern poker world,” said Gary Wise in response to Huff’s question. Besides contributing to The Poker Beat, Wise reports on poker for the ESPN website. He added how that uniqueness is the sort of thing that readily attracts the media looking for interesting stories. “I really think that as far as individual player stories go [at the 2010 WSOP], nobody is going to be a bigger deal than she is.”
Wise speaks for most of us poker people on this side of the pond, I think, who are highly interested to discover the next chapter of Obrestad’s unique story.
