The 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event attracted 7,874 players from around the world, including dozens and dozens who qualified via 888poker. Of those, Denmark’s Martin Sejer finished as the last qualifier standing, ultimately placing 159th place for a career-high $57,010.
Not too shabby considering he qualified for just $109. Oh, and he got in on his first try!
Prior to playing the Main Event for the first time, the biggest buy-in tournament Sejer had played cost $1,500, which is why he sought advice from Danish pro, Jannick Wrang, who coached him every week leading up to the WSOP.
During his time in Vegas, Sejer steered away from the party life and instead hit the gym every day while also practising yoga and meditation. A few days earlier, Sejer notched his first-ever WSOP cash when he placed 194th out of 8,598 players in Event #62: $888 Crazy Eights for $4,492. That means he had two top 200 finishes in fields of 7,800+.
Other highlights on Sejer’s career resumé include $25,033 for finishing fifth in the 2017 Danish Championship, $5,287 for taking seventh in an EPT7 Copenhagen side event, and $2,507 for placing 11th in a DeepStack Extravaganza III tournament last summer.
Aside from playing poker, Sejer has worked as a personal trainer for 16 years and owns a gym. He also enjoys spending time with his girlfriend and two kids from a prior relationship. He’s played poker for 10.5 years, but even though he’s been to Vegas eight times, this was his first time playing the WSOP Main Event.
“I usually play tournaments from $500-$1,500,” he said. “I learned to play online. I played an online freeroll, and I came in seventh out of 1,500 people. I’m pretty good at maths, so I just used that skill.”
Sejer’s Main Event Highlights
Sejer, who lives in Copenhagen, played Day 1C of the Main Event and things didn’t go great. From the 50,000-starting stack, he dropped to just 5,100 after Level 3. Fortunately for him, he spun it back up to exactly 50K at the end of the night.
Day 2 was much better as he worked it up to 193,200, and at the end of Day 3 was up to 564,000, which put him 217th in chips out of the 1,182 remaining players.
Sejer first made the Main Event live updates on Day 4. That is when he eliminated Paul Varano in Level 20 (8,000/16,000/2,000). It happened when Varano three-bet jammed for 225,000 holding the A♣3♣ and Sejer, who opened the action, snap-called with the Q♣Q♠. The board ran out J♠5♥2♥10♥K♣, and Sejer scored the knockout.
“Day 4 I hit a heater,” Sejer recalled. “I went from 593,000 to 2.2 million almost.”
Indeed, Sejer bagged 2,167,000 at the end of Day 4. Unfortunately for him, his run came to an end the following day.
In Level 24 (20,000/40,000/5,000), Sejer raised to 85,000 from the hijack with the Q♥Q♣ and Seth Foster three-bet to 310,000 from the small blind. Noe Cantu called from the big blind, and Sejer just called to see the 10♥6♣2♥ flop.
Foster led out for 1.1 million, Cantu folded, and Sejer snap-called off his remaining chips. He was ahead of Foster’s A♣K♠ and stayed there on the 4♠ turn. That is when disaster struck on the river as the K♦ gave Foster the win.
“I had a lot of followers being supportive,” Sejer said of his run. “It was a great experience overall.”
They say you can’t keep a good man down, and Sejer is such a man.
“I think I’m going to play a tournament tomorrow,” he said with a smile when asked what he’ll do with the prize money.
Congrats to Martin Sejer on his deep run and we hope all 888poker qualifiers had a fabulous time in Las Vegas during the 2018 WSOP Main Event.
