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Annette Obrestad
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The Annette Obrestad Book of Poker Records and the Power of Position

published by @Annie RKH, April 15, 2015

In 2007, the very first time the WSOP left Vegas to come to Europe, a Norwegian online poker prodigy, known up to then by her screen name Annette_15,  took the live scene by storm and set several records that have not been bested since. 

Poker Feats and Records

@Annette Obrestad won the WSOPE champion title on the eve of her 19th birthday, becoming the only woman and the youngest player to have won a World Series Main Event, at 18 years and 364 days. Her $2,017,319 first-place prize is still the largest single cash by a female poker player. 

Just two months later, in November 2007, Annette Obrestad came close to capturing a second major victory, in EPT4 Dublin, when she played heads up for the title but finished second.

Obrestad topped Norway's all-time money list for years and only stepped down to second place in 2014, when her fellow countryman, November Niner @Felix Vincent Stephensen, finished runner-up. She currently boasts $3,918,590 in live tournament earnings and ranks fourth on the all-time women's money list.

The Blind Tournament

Yet, to this day, another achievement of hers has been the object of equal, if not greater, fascination to poker fans.

Back in 2007 (when she had already been grinding online for 3 years) Annette Obrestad famously won a $4 buy-in sit-and-go with 180 entrants, using a post-it note to conceal her hole cards on her computer screen:

 

"Position is everything"

Here are some strategy tips Obrestad shared with @Bluff Europe in 2008: 

You don’t want to be playing big pots in the early stages of the tournament because the stacks are so deep that people aren’t going to be putting chips in the pot unless they have a good hand. Instead, you have to figure out who the bad players are, because those are the people you’ll want to be taking the chips from later. So if you see people limping into every pot, you’re going to be isolating and bullying them when you have position, trying to take down the pots – pre-flop if they fold, and post-flop if they call. That’s the main thing you want to be looking at early on.

Early on in a tournament you should be playing small pots in position with suited connectors, because those are the hands that crack big hands. You want to be able to crack aces and kings early on because players overplay those hands so horribly and you’re getting huge value.

Likewise, you mustn’t overplay your own big hands. The biggest mistake I see people making is overplaying aces or kings, or even A-K, early on. You don’t need to reraise with A-K at the beginning of a tournament, because you’re going to be missing the flop and people will try to bluff you out – it’s just a really hard hand to play.

Players who don’t know how to play well post-flop commonly play too many hands and that gets them into trouble. They make small mistakes that cost them big later. If you call a raise with K-Q and the flop comes queen-high, you’re going to lose a lot of chips to a raiser with kings. Usually, it’s better to fold those hands pre-flop to raise. I’ll open-raise with K-Q but I usually won’t call with it. You don’t want to go broke with top pair.

I see so many players call from the small blind with A-J after position opens. It’s better to let those hands go when you’re out of position. Wait for a better spot. Even if you flop top pair, you don’t know where you are, and there are so many hands that can dominate you here. If you have position you can control the pot better.

Full article:

Annette Obrestad: Eyes Wide Shut www.bluffeurope.com

More about position on RKH:

ABC of Poker: Position Essentials & Glossary - Ranking HeroPoker is a game of incomplete information and that is why you need to watch out for anything that can help you fill in some of the gaps. In terms of information, the first of your assets and vulnerabilities is your position at the table. Essentially, the later you are to act, the more information you will have gained about your opponents. www.rankinghero.com

 

Annette AmaZing poker player