Martin Jacobson is poker world's newest champ at the 2014 World Series of Poker's main event concluded at Las Vegas Tuesday night.
A 27 year old, Swedish, Jacobson started the main event strong and ended it as its new title holder. Jacobson won over his opponent, Felix Stephenson of Norway's hitting the $10 million event prize, ESPN reports.
Wanting to become a world-class chef at first, the new champ learned playing the game while he was training to be a chef and comes home late at nights from the restaurant. He's got no one to talk to and hang out during those times that led him to start playing online poker, told Eva, Jacobson's mom.
"[Going to culinary school] was the best thing that could've happened to me because I really enjoyed it," said Jacobson in an ESPN report. "I created a big passion for food and cooking."
Jacobson is the first Swedish player to make it to the main event final table after Erik Friberg in 2006. The Jacobson family has always been very supportive of Martin Jacobson's poker career. "Pokerhandboken" written by Swedish poker player, Dan Glimne, was his first poker book which was a gift from his father. After reading it, he became more interested in playing the game but not to a point of playing it professionally.
"I started playing sit-and-gos online, and they were my bread and butter," he said. "I made some extra money online and [those sit-and-gos] ironically helped prepare me for the steps on PokerStars."
He earned $12,000 as one of PokerStars' satellite winners and was qualified to play for the 2008 WSOP main event. It became his first major live tournament but things did not go well that time when he got eliminated on the third hand of the event. It did not stop Martin Jacobson in poker live events and finished second in the PokerStars Sunday Million. He also got to play in European Poker Tour (EPT) London and Budapest.
Jacobson moved to London and put his dream of becoming a chef aside to focus in his poker career. In October 2013, he got his first win in EPT preliminary event for more than $125,000.
Martin Jacobson, poker pro, is the only player among the nine finalists who has the most career tournament earnings of $5.5 million. He has encountered close wins over his tournament experiences in the past and now he finally got it.
"It's his thing," her mother said during the head-to-head play.
Martin Jacobson, poker champ said in an interview with ESPN's Kara Scott that he "stayed confident all the way". There are about 6,700 people who paid an entry fee of $10,000 to try their luck to be part of this main event.
