Peter Eastgate became the youngest player to win
the World Series of Poker (WSOP ) in 2008. When Eastgate
won the WSOP tournament in November of 2008, he was 22
years old. Eastgate is from Denmark, where he first
gained exposure to poker from his friends at Sct.
Knuds Gymnasium (high school). After graduating from
high school, Eastgate enrolled at Aarhus University,
majoring in finance, though he dropped out to pursue a
career as a professional poker player.
Eastgate qualified for the World Series of Poker
Main Event through the Ladbrokes
Poker website, and entered the World Series of Poker
in Las Vegas as part of Team Ladbrokes. Eastgate reached
the final table with 18,375,000 in starting chips, the
fourth largest stack behind Scott Montgomery
(19,690,000), Ivan Demidov (24,400,000) and Dennis
Phillips (26,295,000). Eastgate and Demidov reached the
2008 World Series of Poker heads-up stage. At the final
hand, Eastgate had 120.4 million in chips, and Demidov
went all in with 16.5 million chips. Eastgate beat
Demidov at 2:33 AM Vegas time, after a two-day final
table consisting of 274 hands which took 15 hours and 28
minutes to play. Eastgate won the first place prize of
$9,152,416. By winning the Main Event at age 22, he
became the youngest WSOP Main Event champion, surpassing
Phil Hellmuth, who was 24 when he won in 1989.
In July, 2009, Eastgate arrived in Las Vegas from
London for the 2009 WSOP held at the Rio. Eastgate
participated along with 6,493 other players. On July 6,
Eastgate's table ("Blue 30") was selected as the second
ESPN Feature Table, where he and several rather surprised
"normal Joe" players played poker surrounded by ESPN
cameras and a plethora of curious onlookers. Eastgate
wore his usual long-sleeved black t-shirt with a black
hat adorned with a red Poker Stars.net advertisement.
Throughout the day, Eastgate would variously listen to
his headphones or chat with his buddies and supporters
who got to sit behind him in the ESPN viewing area.
Eastgate was friendly and sportsmanlike with his
opponents, engaging in the usual banter and chit-chat as
games progressed. On occasion, Eastgate would walk over
to the viewing area rails to have his picture taken with
his fans. Usually attractive female fans. As fans climbed
up the stairs to the ESPN viewing platform, where both
ESPN Feature Tables were visible, people would ask the
person next to them if any celebrities were at one of the
tables. Many fans ended up looking at the young man at
Feature Table # 2 and then look at the huge poster of him
on the wall, and deciding that 'yes, it is Peter
Eastgate!' (All past WSOP Champions from Johnny Moss in
1970 to Eastgate in 2008 have banners with their picture
hanging on the walls all around the Rio Event
Center).
See the video below. The hand where Eastgate loses a
big hand to a 67 year-old amateur is at 1:07 into the
video.
Peter Eastgate was eliminated late on Monday July 13,
in 78th place, after winning $68,979.
NOTE: This writer's father happened to be one of
the "normal Joes" who, by chance, was scheduled to be at
Eastgate's table that day. I watched my then-67 year-old
father win several good hands from Eastgate that day. The
description of Eastgate at the Rio is from my personal
observations. The video above shows my father winning a
hand from the reigning WSOP champion, Peter
Eastgate.
