Want to feel old? It’s been nearly 20 years since Annette Obrestad won the World Series of Poker Europe’s Main Event, becoming the youngest player to win a bracelet, as task she accomplished only one day away from turning 19 in 2007.
Labeled a poker prodigy, stories about the young lady from Norway known online as “Annette_15” began to circulate before she won her first and only WSOP bracelet that happened to come with a $2 million payday. How she never made a deposit when she started playing online at the age of 15, running freerolls into tens-of-thousands of dollars after seeing an ad for poker sites at a bowling alley.
About the time she played and won a $4 180-person sit ‘n go by only looking at her hole cards once (she said covered them with a sticky-note and got curious one time), which happened a few months before binking her bracelet. About how she’d stay up all night playing tournaments, winning them for five-figures when she was a teenager.
“I had no idea what I was doing, but it turned out I just kept winning,” Obrestad told the WSOP. “The players were so bad. I eventually saw that there were other games, and started playing a little bit of hold’em.”
And that led her to London, where her poker fairytale really took-off. Her win led to a sponsorship from an online site and two years on the tournament poker trail. While she performed admirably, the bottom line is that she was not necessarily cut-out for the spotlight.
“I signed a sponsorship deal with (Betfair) and it basically allowed me to go to any live tournament that I wanted to enter. They paid for my flight, hotel, and my buy-ins. I was basically freerolling for two or three years, and it was absolutely insane. I remember checking into these nice hotels, and I would just look out the window and shake my head, being like, ‘How am I here?’ I was so grateful, I could not believe that that was my life; absolutely insane.
Obviously, it came with a lot of media attention that I wasn’t expecting. This was probably the worst part of winning that tournament, because I was a very shy girl back then, and I did not like to have all of those eyes on me. To be thrown in the deep end and having to do interviews all the time and do all of these things I didn’t really want to do and have people recognize me, come up to me, and want to talk. Like I said, I was very shy.
It was overwhelming at times. Of course, a lot of good came out of it, but it wasn’t why I got into the game to begin with. I didn’t want the fame, I just wanted to play poker. I tried to be grateful for it, but it was definitely tough.”
Time off
In 2018, she decided to walk away from the game and focus on her health after an eating disorder swallowed her whole.
“I realized I was not in the right headspace to play anymore,” Obrestad explained. “I developed an eating disorder pretty close to when I stopped playing. People probably noticed I was losing weight. I was obsessed with food, fitness, and counting calories and macros, and my mind wasn’t in the game anymore. I would sit at the poker table and wonder what I was going to eat for dinner.”
“It just got really bad at some point, and I couldn’t focus. I was like ‘I need to take a break’. I tried to come back to the game for a little while after, and my passion just wasn’t there anymore.”
And that’s where her poker journey was left off. Until now.
The comeback
The WSOP and Obrestad announced that she will make her return to poker action at WSOP Europe, which begins today (March 31) and runs until April 12.
“It’s been nice to feel so welcome again,” Obrestad said. “I wasn’t sure what it would be like to get back into poker. I didn’t know if I would still know how to play this game. I’m surprised how many people still recognize me and know who I am when I go sit down at the local $1/$3 game; it’s been kind of crazy. Everyone’s just been super nice.”
She says she plans on playing the €1,000 Ladies event on April 4, and the €5,000 Main Event with its €5 million guarantee April 3.
“I’m just looking forward to playing. I’m looking forward to being back on the felt in a big tournament atmosphere again. Just remembering how the atmosphere is, right before the tournament starts, with all the tension in the air, and how excited people are,” she said. “I’m still rusty, I don’t know how I’m going to do in these big tournaments. I don’t know how people play anymore, but I’m not going to do a bunch of studying leading up to it. I’m just going to go into it with the knowledge I have and hope that’s enough.
“I’m just going to have fun, and not put too much pressure on myself.”
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