Peter Eastgate (born December 13, 1985) is a poker player from Denmark, best known as the winner of the Main Event at the 2008 World Series of Poker. At the time, he became the youngest player ever to win the event. However, he was surpassed by Joe Cada in 2009.
In July 2010, Eastgate announced that he was quitting poker in a
statement through his sponsor PokerStars.com, saying, "When I started
playing poker for a living, it was never my goal to spend the rest of
my life as a professional poker player. My goal was to become
financially independent. I achieved that by winning the WSOP main event
in 2008. The period following has taken me on a worldwide tour, where I
have seen some amazing places and met many new people; it has been a
great experience."
“In the 20 months following my WSOP win, I feel that I have lost my
motivation for playing high-level poker along the way, and I have
decided that now is the time to find out what I want to do with the
rest of my life. What this will be, I do not yet know. I have decided
to take a break from live tournament poker, and try to focus on Peter
Eastgate, the person. I want to thank PokerStars, my friends and family
for their support over the last 20 months, and for their support in my
decision to take a break from poker."
PokerStars said of Eastgate's decision: "“We know that poker will
miss this world-class player and world-class role model, but PokerStars
has only the deepest respect for Peter’s decision. Poker is about
determination and excitement, and if Peter lacks this in his game, the
right decision is to take a break. Peter has played amongst world
champions and he has carried his title in the most admirable fashion.”
Eastgate qualified for the Main Event via the Ladbrokes Poker website, and travelled to 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
(WSOP) 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 local time, after a two-day final table consisting
of 274 hands that 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 then youngest WSOP Main Event champion, surpassing Phil Hellmuth, who was 24 when he won in 1989. He was surpassed as the youngest winner of the WSOP by Joseph Cada the following year at age 21
In 2009, Eastgate defended his Main Event title until day 6. He was
eliminated in 78th place, defeated by a flush made on the river, and he
was the last remaining Main Event Champion at the time of his
elimination.
Prior to the WSOP, Eastgate's live tournament results included a money finish in the 2008 European Poker Tour event in Copenhagen and a final table finish at the 2007 Irish Poker Open. Eastgate's previous biggest win was $46,714 at the 2007 Paddy Power Irish Open.
After his WSOP Main Event victory Eastgate took to the tournament trail
and quickly found success. He cashed in the European Poker Tour (EPT)
PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event and then won the $5,000
side event for $343,000 Eastgate came second in the 2009 London EPT, winning £530,000.
In 2010, Eastgate finished 5th in the NBC National Heads-Up Championship in Las Vegas for $75,000.
As of 2010, his total live tournament winnings exceed $11,308,359
