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The Danish sleeper threat is a marked man as he heads to Vegas to defend his WSOP Main Event title.
Famed for his frosty table manner and calculated card play, Denmark’s Peter Eastgate is as cool as it gets. Last November, the frosty Dane held his nerve to overtake Phil Hellmuth as the youngest ever player to win a WSOP Main Event and now, at 23, he’s already one of the top-10 richest poker players in the world. With such a vast reputation amassed over a few short months, GOM thought it was high time we sat down with the PokerStars pro and attempted to thaw the man they call “Icegate”.
Things must have been pretty crazy since your win last November. What’s been going on?
You know, after I won I just headed back to London and had an effectively normal life for two or three weeks. I didn’t do anything unusual or go on a crazy spending spree or anything like that. I went over to Australia to play the APPT, moved on to Prague for the EPT and then went straight to Vegas to play High Stakes Poker. I was back in London over Christmas and New Year and since then it’s mostly been travelling around and playing other EPT events.
That’s a lot of tournaments. Are you playing live in London much now that you’re based here?
I play so many live tournaments around Europe and the rest of the world that I don’t really bother playing live in London. I prefer playing cash on PokerStars because it’s more efficient for me and I get more action. It would help if I was playing better though. Now that people know who I am they tend to come after me a bit more, but I’m playing so badly at the moment that it makes perfect sense for them to chase me.
How was your life affected when you became world champion and suddenly shot to fame?
It honestly didn’t feel that different. Of course, there’s a lot more economic freedom now, but when you win that much money there are certain responsibilities and you have to make certain decisions. I’m only really reminded of being a world champion when I’m playing poker, so I don’t really think about it too much during my daily life.
Do you not feel that you now have certain responsibilities as an ambassador for the game?
After I won the Main Event, I had a conversation with Jeffery Pollock and he told me I was basically free to do whatever I wanted. I believe that you shouldn’t feel obliged to play every tournament because you’re world champion, but should instead play what you feel like and grow more sincere about the game. I feel my biggest responsibility is to tell the truth about the game—why I play it, why I’m passionate about it and how I can help newcomers to get better at it and enjoy it more.
You didn’t really seem that emotional when you won the Main Event. Why was that?
Honestly, I was just totally exhausted and starting to feel a bit sick. Over the two days we’d played 14 hours of poker and in between, there were a lot of people dragging me off in different directions for various media commitments. I hadn’t had much sleep and when it was all finally over, I just kind of shut down—having said that, I’m generally not that flamboyant when I win anyway, so it probably didn’t make that much difference.
What did you think of the four-month break before the final table was played?
I like the idea and I can understand why they’re doing it again. It’s a good chance for the final tablists to promote themselves and—especially for the players who bust out early—to ensure that they get a decent endorsement deal out of it. It’s also good for TV ratings, which were well up in 2008, and it seems that the US audience responded well to the break.
Following in the footsteps of Gus Hansen, Theo Jorgensen and Jesper Hougaard, you’re the latest Dane to achieve success on the international poker scene. What is it about the Scandinavian style of play that keeps getting results?
I think that the Danes, and Scandinavians in general, have a good concept of how to play the game and how to put their ideas into practice. They are very disciplined and have a drive to find ways to improve their game and fix their leaks. Whereas players from other countries tend to tell bad-beat stories and focus on the negative aspects of defeat, we prefer to evaluate and reflect on our games so that we can correct our mistakes the next time round. Sometimes it can be hard to look at your game and figure out how you can change it for the better—or if you should even be changing it at all—but it’s always something that you should be thinking about. If you can do that, you’re definitely on the right track to becoming a better player. |
