Espen Jorstad has won the 2022 World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in main event, outlasting the second-largest field in history to capture the championship gold bracelet and the $10 million first-place prize.
The 34-year-old was the last player standing out of 8,663 entries, and simultaneously became the first player ever from his home country of Norway to win poker’s world championship.
“It means a lot, it’s the biggest tournament in the world. It’s still sinking in,” Jorstad told the PokerGO cameras after the victory.
Jorstad couldn’t help but spoil the results for his mother, who was watching the stream from home on a delay, calling her shortly after he had closed out the win to let her know he had done it.
“She was instantly in tears,” Jorstad said. “I think she was already crying just watching it. She was so nervous, you know, way more nervous than me. It was very emotional hearing her, how happy she was.”
The career-best payday he earned in this event increased Jorstad’s lifetime recorded earnings to nearly $10.9 million, with millions more won online. Jorstad actually finished sixth in the 2021 WSOP Online main event last year, earning $603,058 for his second-largest recorded score. The former World of Warcraft standout now streams his online play on Twitch.
Earlier this summer, he and fellow online tournament star Patrick Leonard took down the $1,000 tag team event, splitting the $148,067 top payout between them. Now with two bracelets to his name, Jorstad has moved into a tie with the late Thor Hansen for the most bracelets won by a Norwegian player. He’s also now Norway’s all-time money leader, passing Annette Obrestad, who won the 2007 WSOP Europe main event, and Felix Stephensen, who finished runner-up in the 2014 main event.
The four most recent main event winners have all been international players. Germany’s Koray Aldemir won in 2021, Argentina’s Damian Salas took it down in 2020, and Iranian-born German citizen Hossein Ensan was the last man standing in 2019. John Cynn was the last American player to win, back in 2018.
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