Winning the World Series of Poker main event is the pinnacle in the
life of many a poker player. They say once you win the World Series of
Poker your life is changed forever. Although many of the older
champions are now household names, some of the newer winners were
complete unknowns before they won the Main Event. It remains to bee
seen if WSOP 2009 will be the time when a famous pro once again enters the throne, which hasn’t happened since Carlos Mortensen won in 2001.
2008 Champion Peter Eastgate
In November 2008, Eastgate was far from the odds-on favorite to become
world poker champion. He was one of the shorter stacks in chips, and
had less experience than players such as Ylon Schwartz and Chino Rheem.
Still, the 22 year-old from Odense, Denmark, battled fiercely, and
managed to get to heads-up action. Even then, facing young superstar
Ivan Demidov, Eastgate was the underdog, but when his A5 made a
straight on the turn to beat Demidov’s two pair, Eastgate
became poker’s newest -and youngest- champion.
Jerry Yang emerged in a tumultuous year for poker. U.S. restrictions on
Internet play had limited the number of Internet satellite qualifiers
and the main event experienced a dip in attendance for the first time
in history. On the plus side, America’s loss was the
world’s gain, as the final table was the most international
affair in the event’s history, and led to a surge in
international poker play as well as bingo online play. The amateur Yang, a therapist and social
worker for California, was welcomed as champion due to his good works
and kindhearted demeanor. It was hoped that he would serve as an
ambassador for poker moving forward, but he made very little impact on
the poker world in his year as champion.
2006 Champion Jamie Gold
Some say that Jamie Gold’s win is what necessitated a poker
ambassador. Gold, a show business agent and producer who befriended Johnny Chan during a show he was producing, was a force in the tournament, taking over the chip lead after day three and never
relinquishing it, generally implementing a successful strategy of
“strong means strong and weak means weak,” as
opposed to the traditional amateur “weak means
strong” strategy. However, Gold’s victory was mired
with controversy, as he was the victim of an extended lawsuit by an
associate who claimed that Gold promised him half of his win.
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