In 2007, Annette Obrestad accomplished the impressive feat of winning the WSOPE Main Event along with $2 million. What made this victory truly exceptional was that she did it one day before her 19th birthday. That said, it’s not totally strange to hear 18-year-old Veronika Pavlikova compared to Obrestad after she just won the France Poker Series Snowfest Evian Main Event.
Okay….so this isn’t the WSOPE, but it’s impressive nonetheless because this 296-player tournament featured a €296,000 prize pool along with plenty of pros in the field. And 18-year-old’s aren’t expected to win tournaments of this magnitude, so Pavlikova has joined an elite class. But is she at the level of Obrestad?
The first thing worth mentioning here is that Veronika Pavlikova has basically come out of nowhere – as opposed to Annette Obrestad, who well known throughout the poker community long before she won the 2007 WSOPE Main Event. Starting online at the age of 15, Obrestad won hundreds of thousands of dollars playing underage poker. So Veronika Pavlikova certainly doesn’t have the online presence that Obrestad does.
As for live poker tournament winnings, you could argue that Pavlikova is actually better at this point. Before her WSOPE Main Event win, Obrestad had around $39k in live tourney cashes, which is still great for an 18-year-old. However, Pavlikova earned over $93,000 (€70,000) for her victory, and she still has a while before she turns 19.
Only time will tell how good Veronika Pavlikova ends up being, or if she continues to draw Annette Obrestad comparisons. But at this point, the Czech is certainly a good player who only looks to improve on her career winnings as time goes on.