Reuben Peters(credit: Poker Stars Blog)
As the final table at the EPT Dublin event got underway on Saturday, November 3, 2007, the poker world assumed that the winner of the tournament was going to be Norwegian phenom, Annette Obrestad. Why? Obrestad won the Main Event of the inaugural WSOPE back in September the same week she turned 19. She also had more than 140,000 chips than her nearest competitor when everyone sat down to play.
The aggressive wunderkind also collected the carcasses of no less than four of her final table mates. She sent Denmark’s Casper Hansen to the rail first after crushing his pocket queens with her pocket rockets. Thierry van der Berg headed home in eighth place after Daan Ruiter showed his trip aces on the river. He received €47,650 for his efforts.
Michael Durrer lost the majority of his stack to Trond Eidsvig. However, it would be another Norwegian who would lay his tournament life to rest. Obrestad called Durrer’s all-in bet with her A,Q. Unfortunately, Durrer held the rag-hand of K,5 and found no help from the board. Eidsvig, 22, did dispatch of Anders Pettersson, a 24 year old PokerStars online qualifier from Sweden. His sixth place finish was good for €83,380.
Ruiter lost a chunk of his chips to Reijo Maninen. His A,K proved no match for the Finn’s pocket aces. He followed that up with an all-in holding A,10 against Obrestad’s dominant A,J. The flop brought Annette a pair of jacks and the turn sealed Ruiter’s fate with a red six.
At this point, Reuben Peters, a stock trader from Colorado who also qualified online at PokerStars, went all-in against Annette …and won. His double-up took him from short stack to contender.
However, Annette wouldn’t allow the setback to keep her from knocking out countryman, Trond Eidsvig. He went all-in preflop with pocket jacks. Obrestad, of course, called with a pair of aces in the hole. They held and Eidsvig said ha det to the crowd. He took home €127,630 for fourth place.
At this point, Annette had a commanding chip lead with 3,025,000 versus the 280k of Reijo Manninen and 700k of Reuben Peters. The youngster, aged 19, KO’d the old timer at the table, Manninen (47) with an Ac,3c. This gave her the clear advantage as heads-up play got underway.
However, Peters would double up early. He then chipped away slowly at the phenom’s stack ‘til he had the lead. On the final hand, the flop came down 10,6,3. Annette bet 230k. Peters promptly announced, “All-In.” The Norwegian took several sips of her water before announcing “Call.” She flipped over her pocket sevens and saw that she was behind to the A, 10 of the American.
The board didn’t bring her the third seven she so desperately needed on either the turn or the river and – just like that – the EPT Dublin event was over…and Reuben Peters was the champ. He admitted that he “got lucky” but knows that “it’s good to get lucky in poker.”
Annette, for her part, said she “made a few mistakes” and was “not happy.”
Here are the final results:
1) Reuben Peters — €532,620
2) Annette Obrestad — €297,800
3) Reijo Manninen — €178,680
4) Trond Eidsvig — €127,630
5) Daan Ruiter — €105,510
6) Anders Pettersson — €83,380
7) Michael Durrer — €66,370
8) Thierry van den Berg — €47,650
9) Casper Hansen — €30,630