Swedish Pro Martin Jacobson Wins 2014 WSOP Main Event For $10 Million

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Thursday, November 13th, 2014 | Written by Charles Washington

Martin Jacobson has become Sweden’s first ever WSOP Main Event champion, after overcoming his fellow November Niners to claim tournament poker’s most prestigious title, as well its massive $10 million first place prize. Despite entering the final table as the
second-lowest chip count, the 27 year-old pro was the most experienced player at the table and eventually his skills won through in what has been described as one of the most flawless performances ever seen at the main event.

Heaping praise on the Stockholm man now based in London, England, eight time WSOP bracelet winner Erik Seidel described his performance as a “master class”, while 4-times WSOP bracelet winner Mike Matusow, tweeted these words about Jacobson:

“Martin Jacobsons performance will go down as one of the greatest final table accomplishments ever he has been stone cold awesome!.. Martin Jacobson has played mistake free poker for 2 days truly awesome to watch as a professional poker player.. Absolutely amazing poker Martin Jacobson most deserving performance I have ever seen. Awsome!”

The Road To Victory

A total of 6,683 players entered the $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event to create a massive prize pool worth $62,820,200. On his way to ultimate victory, Martin Jacobson then progressed all the way through to the last nine players, who subsequently took an almost four month break before returning to the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on November 10th and 11th to play down to an eventual winner.

As the final table got underway, Martin Jacobson was the second lowest stack at the table, but his cautiously aggressive play at a table marked by few high-risk moves ensured he remained well in contention until eventually doubling up with 5-5 against the A-J of Billy Pappas. Martin Jacobson (A-10) would then eliminate Holland’s Jorryt van Hoof (A-5) in 3rd, before a heads-up encounter with Felix Stephensen was decided after the Norweigan raised all-in preflop with A-9, only to be called by Jacobson with pocket tens. The 10-9-3-K-4 board sealed Stephensen’s fate, who had to then settle for a runner-up finish worth $5,145,968, while Jacobson became the 2014 WSOP Main Event winner.

Flawless Poker?

Following his historic win at the Penn & Teller Theater inside Rio’s All-Suite Hotel & Casino, Martin Jacobson’s performance was described as near flawless, with 9-times WSOP legend and 1989 Main Event winner Phil Hellmuth tweeting the following message:

“Masterful performance in @WSOP Main Event by @Martin_Jacobson! The best player at the FT doesn’t always win, but in this case it happened.”

Responding to the high praise, the modest Swede replied: “Close to perfect, maybe. I don’t think there is such a thing as a perfect tournament because it’s impossible to not make some errors here and there but I definitely feel like I limited my mistakes and played pretty well overall. It means everything to me. It’s probably hard to tell but I’m just in shock. There was so much pressure leading up to this moment.”

Jacobson’ Poker Career

Martin Jacobson first started playing poker aged 18 and was able to build his bankroll playing online sit-and-gos, until an online poker satellite saw him heading to Las Vegas to take part in the 2008 World Series of Poker for the first time. Although that didn’t work out well for him, he was eliminated within three hands, 2008 proved to be a break-out year for Jacobson, who earned a total of $250,000 that year, including a second place finish in the PokerStars Sunday Million. The rest, as they say, is history and now the Swede has $14,833,732 in live tournament winnings to his name, including a 6th place finish in 2013 at the $1 million buy-in WSOP One Drop High Roller for $807,427.

One For The Record Books

Not only has Martin Jacobson become Sweden’s first ever WSOP Main Event champion, he is also one of only six European players to win a WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas since the tournament began in 1970. The short list of past European winners include England’s Mansour Matloubi (1990), Ireland’s Noel Furlong (1999), Spain’s Carlos Mortensen (2001), Denmark’s Peter Eastgate (2008) and Germany’s Pius Heinz (2011).

$10k World Championship Final Table Results:

1 Martin Jacobson    $10,000,000
2 Felix Stephensen    $5,145,968
3 Jorryt van Hoof      $3,807,753
4 William Tonking    $2,849,763
5 Billy Pappas             $2,143,794
6 Andoni Larrabe    $1,622,471
7 Dan Sindelar           $1,236,084
8 Bruno Politano    $947,172
9 Mark Newhouse    $730,725