February 10, 2011
Peter Eastgate Unquits from Poker WSOP ’08 champ back with PokerStars for EPT Copenhagen, NBC Heads-Up
It’s already starting to pain me not to have The Poker Beat to re-speculate wildly with limited knowledge on real people’s lives. Not sure who said what on previous episodes, but I can almost guarantee you one of us said this retirement would never stick, one said yes it would forever because we just know, and another panelist probably went “meh”. Oops, now the secret formula to award-quality podcasting is out …
Surely a newsbrief for the next episode … words coming directly from the WSOP champ himself via his PokerStars keepers … Peter Eastgate is Isildur1 back on some sort of probationary re-entry deal, obv. Rumor has it from unconfirmed unverifiable sources that he turned down inclusion of a WSOP ’11 main event buy-in in exchange for starting a Danish “home game”:
“Sometimes in life a person can feel lost and wake up one morning not recognizing who he is. Last summer that was how I felt. Prior to winning the WSOP in 2008, my life was very much a good solid routine of playing online poker and hanging out with my friends and family. Winning the WSOP changed that. I relocated to London and started a new life, the life of a high profile poker pro. For almost 2 years I was in a constant spotlight, travelling from poker tournament to poker tournament, doing thousands of interviews and never had a chance to catch my breath. In the whirlwind that followed winning the WSOP I lost track of the most importing thing in my life, myself.
Last summer I decided that I wanted to stop playing poker and catch my breath and find out who I am and what I want to do with my life. Over the last 8 months I have had a chance to reconnect with my friends and most important, my family. I have spent quality time with my family and really had an opportunity to figure out who I am and what I want to do with the rest of my life. When there is no financial pressure it can sometimes be hard to get motivated to move forward as a person.
I truly enjoy playing poker. I love the competitive element and the mental challenges of tournament poker. I feel it is important to constantly grow as a person and for a while I didn’t feel I was moving in the right direction. Having had time to think about my life and future I feel I have figured out how I can combine playing poker with a healthy life outside of poker.
I do not consider this a comeback, as I always knew there was a good chance I would play poker again. During my hiatus from poker, PokerStars have been very supportive. Therefore, I am pleased that I will start out with playing two events where I will be sponsored by PokerStars. First, I will be playing the PokerStars.com EPT Copenhagen which of course means a lot to me, since it is on my home ground. Then I will play the NBC Heads Up Championship. I am fortunate that PokerStars have the best online tournaments, so I have an opportunity to get back in tournament shape.
There have been some questions about the sale of my WSOP bracelet. I was not trying to devaluate the WSOP name. It was not sold to make any kind of statement. It was sold to raise money for UNICEF and I am very proud and thankful that the sale raised £100,000 to UNICEF.”
- Peter Eastgate
Interesting + cool … now the first ever November Nine winner can be more like all the rest who have come since then, but different because two months ago he became the only November Nine-era champion old enough to rent a car in Vegas.
NOTE: Turns out “devaluate” is a real word. Who knew?
We swear we’re not gonna get totally self-indulgent here at Pokerati … just maybe on weekends a little bit. After all, you really do care about the people who bring the WSOP to you, or you to the WSOP. If not, all of us shoulda probably found new lines of work long before Moneymaker gave up his title as defending champion.
