2014 November Niner Martin Jacobson Bio and Poker Profile

@Martin Jacobson, a 27-year-old cook turned poker pro, comes to the 2014 WSOP Main Event final table 8th in chips but first in live tournament experience and winnings. Experience will be the basic ingredient the young chef and Sweden's Number One live poker pro will use in his NovemberNine recipe! Meanwhile, that final table is 'the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing on my mind when I go to bed at night'. 

He was born on June 30, 1983 and grew up in the posh island of Lidingö, Stockholm. Martin did not care much for maths and science in school so he decided to do professional training and graduated from a culinary school. He did his military service in 2007 (compulsory in Sweden until 2010) and served as a cook in the Navy. After working for a while in restaurants in Stockholm, Martin felt he needed more experience abroad and started looking for opportunities. As it happened, he found them in poker.

As so many others of his generation, Martin discovered poker on TV at the time of the Moneymaker boom and started playing in 2004-2005. It was a hobby during his high-school years - mostly home games and online freerolls. He approached it quite seriously - reading books, watching videos, and grinding online - yet without ever considering or even dreaming about making a living in poker.

What decided him to embark on the professional poker path was his success in the 2008 Hungarian Open. Martin had won a satellite qualifier for the EPT Budapest and this was only the third live tournament he had ever played. He finished 3rd in the Main Event and a chop deal gave him his very first live cash of $263,649.

With this comfortable start, Martin left his culinary ambitions on the back-burner. He has been based in London for the past three years and says he's glad he 'followed his intuition' back in 2008 when he chose a full-time poker career.

For a long time, he seemed destined to final-tabling major events without capturing the title, and has even been called "the greatest EPT player never to win an EPT Main Event title".

"For every final table I make I feel more and more relaxed and experienced in the situation I’m in. This works to my advantage in order to play better and make fewer mistakes than more inexperienced players that might not perform their best due to nervousness.” [September 2011]

The spell was broken in 2013 when he won a EPT London £2k NLHE event in heads-up with @Eugene Katchalov.

photo credit Rene Velli – PokerStarsBlog.com

With the exception of Mark Newhouse,  @Martin Jacobson is the only one of the 2014 November Niners for whom the minimum 9th place prize will NOT be their biggest career cash. In fact, it would only come third - after his runner-up prize in Deauville 2011 and his 6th place in the One Drop $111,111 high roller of 2013. 

The $807,427 from the 2013 One Drop is his best result in the World Series of Poker. He has never before cashed in the Main Event though his previous earnings since 2009 total in excess of $1.2 million. 

Including the $730,000 he's guaranteed as one of the November Nine, Jacobson's total live winnings today amount to $5,537,644. Having recently added a cash from EPT 11 Barcelona, this summer Martin Jacobson rose to Number One in the Swedish ranking, and ranks 36th in the EPT all-time earnings list, with 23 ITM, 12 final tables, and $2,306,291.

Martin Jacobson seemed to breeze through the 7 days of the Main Event. He started out as Day 1 chip leader and never once put his tournament life at risk. It is his vast experience at high-pressure final tables in the shadow of million+ prize pools that will probably be his key advantage on November 10, 2014, when he will not only be representing Sweden, but also the top world tournament pros.

#RKHbio #NovemberNine #WSOP2014  

Sources:

RKH player stats: http://www.rankinghero.com/martin.jacobson.3

Official site: http://martinjacobson.pro/

CalvinAyre.com: THE NOVEMBER NINE INTERVIEWS: MARTIN JACOBSON

http://www.pokernews.com/poker-players/martin-jacobson/

http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/poker/article19358166.ab

http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/poker/article19221508.ab