Last Tuesday, Martin Jacobson, a Swedish-born online poker player based in London beat Norwegian Felix Stephensen in the 2014 World Series of Poker (WSOP) final table. Jacobson triumphantly brandished his $500,000 gold and diamond WSOP bracelet saying that the iconic jewelry is what he played for and that it is all that mattered to him.
Of the nine players who entered the WSOP November Main Event, Jacobson was the only finalist that has earned more than a million from playing at WSOP tournaments, albeit never succeeded in claiming the championship title before. The $10,000 000 cash prize he won from the recently concluded WSOP 2014, has boosted the Swedish player’s ranking to the 7th position in the list of WSOP Millionaires, since his total WSOP winnings is now $11,211,567.
He now ranks as the eighth in the list of Top Poker Millionaires, for having earned as much as $15,007,593 from playing professionally.
Actually, Jacobson’s first WSOP Title Championship win, also marked other firsts, as far as WSOP tournament goes. He is the first Swedish player to have won the world championship in the tournament’s entire 45-year history. It was also the first time that three European nationals dominated the final table action, as Martin played heads on not only against Norway’s Felix Stephensen but against Dutchman Jorryt Van Hoof.
The Dutch lost most of his stack of chips to the Swede last Tuesday and eventually busted out, which officially made him the third-placer in the tournament. The player from Netherlands’ share of the prize pool was $3,807,753, while Norway’s Stephensen finished second and took home $5,147,911.
Jacobson described his performance as one that was close to perfect, since he was able to come up with a final winning hand of triple ten, which vanquished Stephensen’s pair of nines. Yet the Stockholm-born Swedish player has his feet planted firmly on the ground, since he does not think that there is such a thing as a perfect tournament. He believes that one will always make some errors one way or another but he is glad that he was able to eliminate most of his mistakes early on, and was able to play “pretty well overall.”
At the start of the tournament in July, Martin finished as the chip leader on Day 1-A,but he went into the Main Event last Monday with a relatively short stack being the eighth of the top nine finalists. In the two-day finale, he managed to wiggle his way out of the tail end, and during the final hours on Tuesday, Martin captivated many of the viewers who watched him vanquish the strongest contender, Jorryt Van Hoof and subsequently Felix Stephensen.
The 27-year old 2014 WSOP Champion is also an aspiring chef, who was training to become one while also preparing to become a professional poker player. In not having anyone to chat with after he was through with his late night work, Martin had spent his spare time immersed in online poker. Martin’s mother told reporters that her son first joined the WSOP competition when he was 21, but was eliminated early. Still, she thinks that the early failure made Martin realize that the road to the Main Event was not an easy one.
