On Monday night, Erik Sagstrom won the WSOP Planet Hollywood No Limit Hold’em High Roller event in Las Vegas. The Swedish pro left the $5,300 buy-in event $65,000 richer, after beating a field of 26 players.
The 33-year-old player, joined the event after a night playing cash games, without sleeping. Impressively, he beated Joe Kuether and won the first place.
With this win, Sagtrom is back from the shadows, after being the subject of many “Where are they now?” articles. The Swede was one of the most successful and feared high stake players of his time. Between 2004 and 2007, Sagstrom intimidated the high stakes tables, the same time when Johny “bad_ip” Lodden and Prahlad “Spirit Rock “ Friedman were on the top.
Where was Erik Sagstrom?
In 2007, the Swede launched Erik123.com, his own internet poker room. Before that Sagstrom had been a part-owner of the PokerChamps website, together with Gus Hansen and Tony G. In 2005, the site was sold for €18 million to Betfair.
Then the player disappeared for a while. Back in 2009, he became third in the $50k HORSE event at WSOP and in 2011 the player made a reappearance at the HORSE event. But after 2011, we heard nothing from Erik again.
Rumors were that the players had become bored with poker and was engaging mainly in sports betting.
But Now Sagstrom Is Back
In an interview to WSOP.com, Sagstrom revealed:
“I wasn’t really playing poker for a long time. I was in Sweden and I was doing some different things. I was betting sports and not really playing much poker over the last four years”
“I’ve been doing a little of this and a little of that and then I came to Vegas. I wasn’t planning on playing much, but once you’re here, you get sucked in. Life is crazy and the degenerate that I am, I play all the time now”
About his win, Sagstrom said: “It feels good. I’ve been up for the better part of 36 hours, so I’m a bit tired. But it’s a good finish to the day. Or maybe two days.”
Ssgstrom promised he will be around and play “a lot of poker tournaments”.
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