Christian Jeppsson has won dozens and dozens of online poker tournaments during his long and illustrious career. Better-known as “eisenhower1”, his famous online moniker, Jeppsson has terrorised the game’s elite for more than a decade.
Last week, Jeppsson walked away with a massive $923,785 prize and the title of WPT Online Championship champion. Winning close to a million dollars is an amazing achievement in its own right, but Jeppsson won his $3,200 WPT Online Championship via a $320 satellite and it was that first bullet that saw Jeppsson go all the way and become a member of the WPT Champions Club.
The Swedish superstar is in the middle of building a home in Indonesia and it is from here that he took down this huge tournament. Where does this victory rank alongside Jeppsson’s other poker achievements?
“First! I started my poker career watching WPT on Swedish TV and got hooked from that great production with Vince Van Patten and Mike Sexton.”
Some 2,130 players entered the WPT Online Championship, each full of confidence they could take it down. Jeppsson knew with around 45 players remaining that he had a very realistic chance of WPT glory. He went on a huge rush that saw his short stack transform into one of the biggest stacks.
Key Hands From Jeppsson’s Victory
It could have all ended so differently after a key hand against Pascal Hartmann didn’t go Jeppsson’s way.
“I lose AK vs 88 to Hartmann that got me down from a nice playable stack to be level with him and having to take more pressure from the chip leader. From feeling relaxed, I got cornered. Then luckily, I won a big flip versus Hartmann with ace-queen suited against his pocket jacks.
“It was for almost my tournament life. I didn’t think he would three-bet/call that with two short stacks at the table so I thought he would be super bluff-heavy in that spot. He’s a very good player who I have respect for but I think he made a mistake inducing that hand.”
That hand resulted in Hartmann busting in sixth-place for $151,443 and saw a 30.2 million pot head in Jeppsson’s direction.
Jeppsson eventually found himself heads-up against Russia’s Viktor Ustimov but didn’t get off to the best of starts.
“Heads-up I started bad, losing most of the pots. I got a nice river bluff through and then he called a big river check-raise when I had it. Then he got back up again and I made a terrible thin value bet on the river. Luckily for me, I smashed the boards very good so that mistakes didn’t make much difference in the end.”
It is Ustimov who Jeppsson credits with being his toughest opponent in this tournament.
“He played really well, but that has so much to do with how the stacks were. I am sure Sam Greenwood, Hartmann, and some of the others would have given me a tougher test if the stacks were different.”
Becoming a Father Gave Jeppsson Motivation to Win Again
As mentioned, Jeppsson has been battling it out at the poker tables for more than a decade. He’s been considered one of the best in the business for the majority of his career. How does someone continue to bring their A-game to the table after playing, literally, millions of hands of poker?
“I lost a lot of motivation for quite a long period of time after reaching number one in the PocketFives and not being in real need of money to survive the next few years. I played less and got my motivation back after our son was born. Then I had a purpose to win again.”
There will be a lot of readers out there wanting to take their game to the next level so they can compete against players such as Jeppsson. Learning from your mistakes is key to this, according to Jeppsson.
“Play a lot and don’t be afraid to push your game and make mistakes. Just learn something from those mistakes.”
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