WSOP Player of the Week: Preben Stokkan Goes from One Chip to Leading the WSOP Main Event

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Jul 11, 2019 4 min read Last updated Apr 21, 2020

"A chip and a chair" is one of poker's most hopeful sayings, which also embodies the volatility that is tournament variance. During Week 6 of the 2019 World Series of Poker, a chip-and-a-chair story emerged in the flagship event of the series — the $10,000 Main Event — and our Global Poker-sponsored WSOP Player of the Week was determined.

With more than $1.7 million in live tournament earnings and known online as "prebzzz," Norwegian poker pro Preben Stokkan is far from an unknown amateur player, though he hadn't made big waves at the WSOP before the 2019 Main Event, coming in with just six cashes for $48k.

On Day 3, Danielle "dmoongirl" Andersen tipped off the poker world on Twitter that "a kid" at her table, who turned out to be Stokkan, apparently attempted a bluff for nearly his whole stack, folding to a shove that left him with just a single 5k-chip. This was before the first break of the day, well before the money which would be reached at the very end of Day 3.

The Spin-Up

Following the break, they were heading into Level 12 with blinds at 1,500/3,000 with a 3,000 big blind ante, so Stokkan would need to make a move quickly with under two big blinds. According to Andersen's initial tweet, Stokkan turned his 5,000 into 120,000 in the first 12 minutes following the break, and just like that - he was back in it.

He told PokerNews reporters after his amazing spin-up, “I started the day with 93,000, I had a pretty good start. I was up to like 180,000 pretty early in the first level. But I blew it all on a huge bluff, but I saved myself one chip. I almost went all-in but he over shoved, and I folded. So, I had 5,000 left on the first break and spun it up from there."

"I blew it all on a huge bluff, but I saved myself one chip. I almost went all-in but he over shoved, and I folded."

Once he got back close to his pre-failed bluff stack, Stokkan never looked back, building slowly and then catching fire in the late levels of the night to end the day as the chip leader. Heading into Day 4 with the remaining 1,286 players all in the money, Stokkan was the only player over 2 million chips with 2,184,000. He had multiplied his stack at the first break of the day by nearly 437-times once it was finally time to bag for the night.

He filled reporters in on one key hand that kept his hot streak going during the last level of the night, where he got paid in a big way with pocket aces after flopping top set:

"I had a pretty crazy hand against a French guy on my table where I opened from under the gun and he had 600,000 behind. I had him covered, it was right before the bubble. He three-bet me to 40,000, I four-bet to 100,000 with aces. He called. The flop came ace-nine-deuce rainbow. He check-called 40,000. The turn was a four, rainbow board still. He checks, I bet 120,000, he jams! I had top set and he had pocket sevens. Yeah, that was a crazy hand."

After Day 3, Andersen confirmed that the end-of-day chip leader was indeed the player at her table she watched spin it up from 5,000 chips and had nothing but praise for the consummate pro.

This incredible story of never giving up has continued on to Day 6 of the Main Event, where Stokkan started the day as one of the shortest stacks, third from the bottom, of the 106 returning players with 1.1 million chips. On Day 6, he got right back into spin-up mode and by the first break of the day had nearly quadrupled his stack to 4,150,000 putting him in the middle of the pack with the field continuing to narrow.

First, he hit a lucky two-outer on the river to double through Jake Schindler, leaving the latter on fumes though Schindler got a little back from Stokkan soon after, getting there with ace-four suited against Stokkan's pocket queens.

A bit later though, Stokkan doubled again, this time through Christopher Wynkoop, winning a race with queen-jack suited against pocket nines after pairing both of his overcards. Here's a look at Stokkan's trajectory thus far in terms of end-of-day chip count.

If Stokkan can manage to final table this one, or even go on to win it, what a story it will be. It's already one of the greatest chip-and-a-chair stories poker has witnessed. Next time you are down to one chip or under two big blinds in a tournament, before you give up — remember the name Preben Stokkan.

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