Peter Eastgate

Eastgate was raised in Dalum, a suburb of Odense, Denmark and went to Sct. Knuds Gymnasium, where he was introduced to poker by his classmates. He attended Aarhus University to study finance, but dropped out to play poker full-time.

Eastgate qualified for the Main Event via the Ladbrokes Poker website, and travelled to Las Vegas as part of Team Ladbrokes. Eastgate reached the final table with 18,375,000 in starting chips; his odds of winning were 4-1 according to Danny Sheridan of USA Today — the same odds Sheridan gave Scott Montgomery who had 19,690,000 in starting chips, but weaker odds than Ivan Demidov (at 3-1 with 24,400,000 in starting chips) and Dennis Phillips (at 3-1 with 26,295,000 in starting chips). Eastgate and Demidov reached the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) heads-up stage. At the final hand, Eastgate had more than 120 million in chips, and Demidov went all in with about 16.45 million chips. Eastgate beat Demidov at 2:33 AM local time, after a two-day final table consisting of 274 hands that took 15 hours and 28 minutes to play. Eastgate won the first place prize of $9,152,416. By winning the Main Event at age 22, he became the youngest WSOP Main Event champion, surpassing Phil Hellmuth, who was 24 when he won in 1989.

Prior to the WSOP, Eastgate's live tournament results included a money finish in the 2008 European Poker Tour event in Copenhagen and a final table finish at the 2007 Irish Poker Open. Eastgate's previous biggest win was $46,714 at the 2007 Paddy Power Irish Open. After his WSOP Main Event victory Eastgate took to the tournament trail and quickly found success. He cashed in the European Poker Tour (EPT) PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event and then won the $5,000 side event for $343,000 As of 2009, his total live tournament winnings exceed $9,700,000.