Annette Obrestad is way impressive in her field, as a poker player, and especially as a female poker player. In fact, she has twice the winnings of the next highest earning female tournament player. And that is the impressive thing about her, because Annette Obrestad, the second highest earning female tournament player, is also half the age of the woman in the top spot, Kathy Liebert.
Annette Obrestad Norwegian Poker Sensation
Kathy Liebert, the top woman player in terms of winnings has 13 major tournament wins since 1997. She’s 41 years old and has $4,617,751 in tournament poker winnings making her the highest earning female tournament player on record. This is a woman who will grin like the Cheshire cat while taking your money right out from under you. But I’m here to talk about the new heir to the female poker throne, Annette Obrestad.
Annette has some pretty big advantages over her fellow record holders. As a Norwegian and a contender for the first in the World Series Of Poker Europe tournaments, she presumably enjoys a certain liberal stance on gambling restrictions that allowed her to win a bracelet at age 18. The likelihood that there will ever be a younger WSOP bracelet holder is marginal at best.
Like many other young players, Annette focused and refined her skills playing poker online. She claims to have never deposited money online, instead building a bankroll from freeroll tournament winnings, supposedly amassing over $800,000 between three sites from her modest beginnings. She has received the acclaim of numerous online poker tracking sites, such as pocketfives.com and pokerpages.com.
If there is any lesson that a player can gain out of her success, it is from the psychological aspects of the game. She describes her style as being “hyper-aggressive-spewy” in a roundabout way, but her aggression carries behind it calculation and force, as opposed to just charity. She claims to have played a 180 person sit-and-go tournament without looking at her cards (finally peeking when someone moved in on her), just to demonstrate how important it is to know the players and use position.
Annette’s carefully developed abilities are a threat to anyone playing against her. I recommend hitting the card rooms while you can, before she turns 21.
