Nobody in the history of poker has achieved as much as Annette Obrestad did before the age of 20. Of course, Obrestad got a very early start since she began to play poker online at the age of 15, as her screen name "Annette_15" indicates. Originally, Obrestad wasn't breaking the Norwegian Internet poker law since she was just playing free online poker for fun. But as the play chips started to mount, Obrestad realized that she could do more than just play free online poker for fun.
This is when she left the free poker rooms and started to play poker online in the various freerolls that were offered. Eventually, Obrestad started to win some of these freerolls, and discovered that her talent transcended simply playing free online poker for fun. Soon free poker rooms were a thing of the past as Obrestad graduated to the real money tables with her winnings. Sure it was a violation of every Internet poker law there was for a 15-year-old to play in real money games, but what teenager would care when they're winning thousands of dollars?
Obrestad certainly didn't care as she quickly developed a reputation as one of the best internet poker players in the game. She began to play poker online in some of the biggest events available, and her winnings started to reflect this too. Between 2006 and 2007, Obrestad won over $750,000 in internet poker winnings, and she was still just a teenager! Obrestad had taken down some of the biggest poker tournaments online before her 18th birthday, which is a big reason why many eventually considered her one of the best young internet poker players in the game. Good thing she wasn't still playing at the free poker rooms! Unfortunately, Obrestad had to keep quiet about her age because of the Internet poker law, but she continued to play poker online and amass huge winnings.
Just a day shy of her 18th birthday, Obrestad entered the inaugural WSOPE Main Event, which was about as far away from her beginnings of playing free online poker for fun as you can get! Miraculously, the 18-year-old navigated her way through this huge poker tournament and won the event; her prize for winning was a colossal sum of £1,000,000 ($2,013,734). Now, in addition to being one of the best internet poker players, Obrestad had arrived on the live poker scene too.
After the big win, Obrestad continued to play poker online, but she also made more forays into the land-based poker world too since she played in the EPT Dublin Main Event just a month later. This turned out to be a great decision as she earned €297,800 ($429,181) after taking 2nd place. Since this time, Obrestad has continued to be one of the most successful live players, as well as one of the best internet poker players too.
In all, Obrestad has earned $3,703,472 in live tournament winnings, in addition to her countless online winnings. Obrestad's landmark success in the game has encouraged many other young players to leave the free poker rooms and play real money games as underagers. As mentioned before, this is against Internet poker law, but as long as teenagers continue to make money, they'll continue to play just like Obrestad did.
