The country of Norway has added a lot of things to the world’s culture, most of them have nothing to do with Texas Holdem, online poker, or poker pros or poker tournaments. For example, in the dark ages of human history, Norway assaulted the entire civilized world with a race of warriors who believed that the pursuit of happiness included rowing around Europe in dragon boats and saying hello to strangers with a battle ax. They also believed the path to spiritual fulfillment involved “liberating” all of England’s attractive women and dragging them back to Norway to for the purpose of sex and light housekeeping duties. If dark ages Norwegian showed up at your poker tournament, chances are he would not be there for the holdem action or the hot wings. Today things have settled down and their major addition to the culture is a fish based, indigestible, dish called lutefisk. While we are on the topic of Norwegian dishes, we can’t ignore poker pro and Texas holdem ace, Veronika Larsen. She is presently a blossoming poker pro on the Texas holdem scene and one of the hottest poker players on the planet.
Veronika, as a poker player, first appeared on the Texas holdem radar in 2006. I am sure before online poker and poker tournaments became part of her life, she was already lighting up a lot of radars for other reasons. It was then that the poker pro was declared the “Poker Queen” by Swedish online poker room, Betsson. This is not a two-dimensional, meaningless, designation she got for simply being the poker player who looks best in a thong. She was declared the Queen as much for her Texas Holdem skills and poker tournament abilities as she was for her looks; probably more so.
After becoming Betsson’s queen, she was this online poker sites sponsored poker player for a full year on the European Poker Tour. This, of course, meant quitting her day job and committing to life as a poker pro, a role she embraced with enthusiasm. She got the attention of a lot of the pundits and fellow poker players by coming in 7th at the European Ladies Championship. Today she focuses less on poker tournaments, and more on cash games and online poker. This doesn’t mean that she is not a common sight at EPT events. Veronika is still very young, and has decades of poker ahead of her. It probably won’t be long before she starts showing up at the other big poker events as well as the associated television shows. Long live the Queen!
