– General Introduction –
Martin Jacobson is a Swedish professional poker player. He was born on June 30th, 1987 in Stockholm, Sweden.
He’s best known for winning the WSOP Main Event in 2014 for $10 million. He also has a runner-up finish in the EPT Main Event from 2011. Overall, he has $17.040 million in live tournament cashes, which makes him the #1 biggest live tournament winner of all time in his home country of Sweden.
He served as a brand ambassador to the major online poker room 888Poker between 2017 and 2021.
– Key Career Dates –
- 2008: He starts cashing in live tournaments.
- 2011: He finishes second in the €5,300 EPT Deauville Main Event for €560,000.
- 2014: He wins his first WSOP gold bracelet after finishing first in the $10,000 Main Event for $10 million.
- 2017: He signs with the online poker site 888Poker as a brand ambassador.
– Martin Jacobson’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
PokerNews.com published a two-part article about his life before poker in June 2019.
According to the piece, the young Martin Jacobson was never eager to go for a regular 9-to-5 office job. So, his mother suggested culinary school for him – and Jacobson took the advice, so he started studying to become a chef in his teenage years. At age 18, he even got a gig as a chef on a ship for the Swedish Royal Navy.
As for poker, he’d been playing the game on-and-off since high school. He got real serious about it in 2008, after finishing his stint with the Navy. However, he didn’t own a laptop at the time – he went to internet cafes to play online poker.
His first major success on the virtual felt came when he won a satellite to the 2008 WSOP Main Event. However, that victory came with a choice – he either takes the $12,000 package, or he takes its value in cash.
“I was dying to go and play, but that was a huge amount of money. If I took the money, I didn’t know where it would go, so it felt like a freeroll, but I wasn’t convinced. I asked my mom what she thought I should do. I was convinced she’d say to take the money, but she said, ‘You’re going to go and play’”– Jacobson told PokerNews.com.
So, he did go to Las Vegas to play – and got knocked out of the tournament three hands in, after ten minutes of play…
Luckily, the awful experience didn’t deter him from pursuing poker as a career – in fact, it gave him motivation to make right for the embarrassing incident. So, he got home and started studying and grinding even harder.
Later that year, he qualified for another major event through an online satellite, the EPT Main Event in Budapest, Hungary. This time, the outcome was quite different for Jacobson – he got third place for €197,904. This put him on the right track to become a professional poker player.
→ Live Tournaments ←
Jacobson has $17.040 million in live tournament winnings, according to his Hendon page. That sum is the product of ITM finishes in 122 different events over the course of 12 years. He currently tops the Swedish all time money list on Hendon.
The first recorded cash on his profile is from October 2018 – and it was a 6-figure score right off the bat. He came in 3rd in the €4,350 EPT (European Poker Tour) Main Event in Budapest, Hungary for €197,904. As we wrote earlier, Jacobson got to the tournament through an online satellite. The next year, in May 2009, he bagged another major score from an EPT event. He finished 6th in the €5,250 NLHE event at EPT Monte Carlo and won €42,400.
The same month, also in May 2009, he took 2nd place in the €4,400 NLHE event at WPT Venice for €238,840. The first time he cashed in a tournament played in the United States was at the 2009 WSOP.
In August 2010, he finished 2nd in the EPT Main Event in Vilamoura, Portugal for €297,985. He again made a runner-up finish in yet another EPT Main Event, this time at EPT Deauville in Deauville, France. He pocketed no less than €560,000.
Interestingly enough, all his big live tournament scores have come before his WSOP Main Event victory. Usually players go on to raise the stakes, and thus the size of their cashes after such a big boost to their bankroll.
However, the only giant payday for Jacobson after his 2014 victory is from July 2017. He finished 2nd in the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event at Deepstack Extravaganza III at The Venetian in Las Vegas for $398,303.
→ World Series of Poker ←
Martin Jacobson has won one WSOP gold bracelet so far.
He won the 2014 WSOP Main Event for $10 million. Unsurprisingly, that is his biggest single live tournament score to date.
He entered a field of 6,683 players. At the very end, he was faced with a fellow Scandinavian, Felix Stephensen from Norway, heads-up for the title. The battle ended when Jacobson 3-bet all-in from the big blind with pocket 10’s. Stephenson called with A9 of Hearts. Jacobson’s pocket pair held, giving him poker’s most coveted title.
He also has two final table finishes, both in 6th place, in the $111,111 One Drop High Roller events. In 2013, he won $807,427; while in 2017, he cashed for $641,382. In 2010, he came in 4th in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event for $183,345. Also, he finished 5th in THE MARATHON – No Limit Hold’em $2,620 event in 2018 and won $155,062.
Overall, Jacobson has cashed in 39 World Series events, for a total of $12.150 million combined.
→ Live Cash Games ←
Jacobson has always put most of his volume into tournaments rather than cash games. Therefore, it’s not surprising that he has yet to appear on any TV shows or live streams where he would play live cash publicly.
→ Online Poker ←
In 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic forced all WSOP events to be played online, Jacobson cashed in 4 WSOP Online events. That biggest cash of the 4 was $2,479, which he got for finishing 600th in the $500 No Limit Hold’em Mini Main Event on Natural8-GGNetwork.
Also in 2020, in August, he came in 19th in the $3,200 WPT World Championship Online Knockout event at the WPT Online World Championship on partypoker and won $31,458.
→Sponsorships ←
Jacobson joined the major online poker room 888Poker as a brand ambassador in 2017. In January 2021, however, he announced that he was parting ways with the room. He did not specify his reasons for his departure, but the parties split amicably.
In 2015, the brain supplement company NauralStacks produced a documentary about his WSOP Main Event win with the title “Ten for Ten”. That title refers to what Jacobson’s Swedish rail was shouting in the last hand, when he went all-in with pocket 10’s before the flop. Their wishes did come true, the 10 of Clubs came right up on the board…
Jacobson is also involved with Raising for Effective Giving, a charity group that consists mostly of professional poker players and financial investors who pledge to donate a percentage of their income to selected charities.
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