Peter Eastgate joins Betfair

Back in 2008, Peter Eastgate had the world at his feet. $9m the richer thanks to a dramatic Main Event victory and the newest member of PokerStars Team Pro, it seemed the only way was up. But after a self-enforced hiatus from the game, many believed the Dane had turned his back on poker for good. Think again. This week, Eastgate announced his return after signing a new deal with Betfair.

Since that win in 2008, Eastgate has cut the figure of a man tired with poker. By his own admission, when he 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’. And even when he did turn up at the tables, he struggled to reclaim the same Main Event form of old.

‘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.’

Outside of his Main Event win, Eastgate has pocketed ‘just’ $1.9m. But the 26-year-old is keen to reach the top once again, saying ‘I had a 10 month hiatus where I didn’t play poker and then I felt the lust to play poker again because I still enjoy the game and there’s still a lot of challenges to the game. I’m not by any means the best player in the world so there’s still a lot of challenges’.

Eastgate joins the UK’s own John Tabatabai and former Full Tilt pro Hans Martin Vogl at Betfair, and you can expect him to be mounting a challenge for poker’s biggest titles throughout the year.

If you fancy watching his first interview as a Betfair pro, click here