Stephensen Tops Field of 2,000 To Take Down Title

Published on November 25th, 2015 2:43 am EST

Earlier today, Felix Stephensen bested roughly 2,000 entrants to win the 2015 Norwegian Championships in Oslo, Norway.

This story is notable because the 2015 Norwegian Championships is the first legal poker tournament to have ever taken place in Norway. Sure, the ever has taken place in previous years, but it has always been held in another country (last year's Norwegian Poker Championships, for instance, took place in Dublin, while in previous years it was held in countries such as England and Latvia).

In 2014, Norway's Minister of Culture issued a recommendation that called for the country to allow home games, small tournaments and a national poker event inside its borders. At the time, the hope was that these recommendations would eventually lead to the full-scale legalization of poker in the country.

With that recommendation, the Norwegian Poker Championship moved to Oslo for the Championship Main Event. As expected, moving the tournament to its "home soil" resulted in a much higher turnout, as an estimated 2,000 players turned out for the event.

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The main event, which had a buy-in of 5,000 NOK (or approximately $580 USD), ended up raising a total prize pool of over $1 million USD.

All in all, this event, which was restricted to Norwegian citizens and residents, represented a big step forward for poker in the country.

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Filed Under: Tournament Results