Eastgate aged 22 was interviewed on his way back to Europe after earning $9.1 million Title in Last Weeks 2008 World Series of Poker's championship event.


In the immediate hours after the win Eastgate celebrated with friends and family but
is naturally exhausted after 18 hours of poker playing over two days.


Four years ago Eastgate was playing poker as a hobby. He didn’t have a serious approach to poker in terms of reading books, reading online forums and learning all the fundamentals before he started.


''I just kind of learned by doing it.''


As a professional Poker player for two years Eastgates strength is his handling of the psychological aspects of the game. He claims that


''You should always try to get into your opponent's mindset, and if you can get a regular idea about how he's thinking, you have a huge edge in the match, because you're always one step ahead of him. You're thinking how he's thinking''


This year's final table was played after a four month delay. Eastgate used the time to prepare by searching online information and watching the ESPN table. But for Eastgate this information was limited as mental preparation was the key.


''I just got into the right mindset so that I wasn’t nervous at the final table''.


Ivan Demidov (the runner-up) is a ''tough player'' and played a ''very good'' final table, according to Eastgate.


''There are allot of tough guys. Later on in the tournament there were so many really solid players and very few bad players.''

Source:  Poker777 Staff

Monday, 17 November 2008