Welcome back
Annette Obrestad is a poker legend, even though she hasn’t been active on the poker scene in nearly a decade and has yet to even reach her 40th birthday. The one-time teenage poker phenom, though, has announced her return to competitive poker, confirming that she will play at the 2026 World Series of Poker Europe, running March 31 through April 12.
“I’m just looking forward to playing,” Obrestad told WSOP.com. “I’m looking forward to being back on the felt in a big tournament atmosphere again. Just remembering how the atmosphere is, right before the tournament starts, with all the tension in the air, and how excited people are.”
“It’s going to be a really fun time,” she added. “I think my Mom is going to fly out for a couple of days, so I’ll get to hang out with her for a bit. Meeting new people who have gotten into the game and seeing what the community is like will be fun.”
Young star
Obrestad exploded onto the poker scene about 20 years ago, still just a teenager. She made a killing online, as railbirds wanted to see what the famous “Annette_15” was up to. Famously, she claimed to have won a $4 180-person online Sit-and-Go in 2007 in which she only looked at her cards once in an effort to illustrate the importance of playing position and her opponents and not just the cards.
Her leap into the poker stratosphere, though, came on the live felt later that year, when she won the Main Event of the inaugural WSOP Europe just one day before her 19th birthday, becoming the youngest person to win a World Series of Poker bracelet. Obrestad still holds the record to this day (nobody will break it on US soil, as the legal gambling age in Las Vegas is 21).
From there, it was years of poker stardom, but it eventually became too much.
“It was overwhelming at times. Of course, a lot of good came out of it, but it wasn’t why I got into the game to begin with. I didn’t want the fame, I just wanted to play poker. I tried to be grateful for it, but it was definitely tough.”
Early retirement
In 2018, Obrestad stepped away from the game.
“I realized I was not in the right headspace to play anymore,” Obrestad told WSOP.com. “I developed an eating disorder pretty close to when I stopped playing. People probably noticed I was losing weight. I was obsessed with food, fitness, and counting calories and macros, and my mind wasn’t in the game anymore. I would sit at the poker table and wonder what I was going to eat for dinner.”
Originally from Norway, she had moved to Las Vegas and focused on her health. Among other things, Obrestad has enjoyed competing in Scrabble tournaments a couple times a week and has a popular makeup tips YouTube channel called “Annette’s Makeup Corner.” The channel has nearly 50,000 subscribers and over 1,000 videos, though she has not uploaded anything in a little over a year.
But now, after eight years away, Annette Obrestad is ready to do battle on the felt again. She has been warming up in local low-stakes cash games in Vegas, but has decided to make her grand reintroduction at WSOP Europe, where it all started for her.
“I’m still rusty, I don’t know how I’m going to do in these big tournaments,” she said. “I don’t know how people play anymore, but I’m not going to do a bunch of studying leading up to it. I’m just going to go into it with the knowledge I have and hope that’s enough.”
For her, though, the most important thing is to have fun and just enjoy playing poker again.