WCOOP 2021: Jerry “perrymejsen” Ödeen has waited seven years for this victory song and dance (34-M, $185K)
There’s not a single online tournament series trophy more coveted than a World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) title. Just ask Sweden’s Jerry “perrymejsen” Ödeen.
He’s been a high-stakes crusher for the best part of the last decade. He’s won two Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) titles (2021 and 2019), a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet in Las Vegas (2019 – $304K), and has more than $8.6 million in career online cashes, according to PocketFives.
But his trophy cabinet was still lacking something he considered very special.
Ödeen with James and Joe
“I’ve been playing WCOOP for the past seven years and hadn’t won anything,” Ödeen told James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton on PokerStars TV following his win.
That all changed on Tuesday night (August 31) when Ödeen outlasted 614 entries in the $2,100 NLHE (#34-M) to win $185,549 and his maiden WCOOP title.
“It feels awesome,” he says. “It was so much fun, I couldn’t enjoy it more, and the massive support I’ve felt from everyone was so amazing on every level.”
It wasn’t easy, of course. To win the title Ödeen had to battle his way through the game’s very best, including a final table that featured PokerStars Team Pro and Twitch superstar Lex Veldhuis (5th – $61K), as well as eventual third-place finisher Fabiano “Kovalski1” Kovalski ($155K).
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For most of the FT, Ödeen admits he “stayed out of the other guys’ way” in an attempt to ladder up the pay jumps. But by the time they were three-handed he had the chip lead and the final three agreed to a deal.
“I think I ended up losing money on that deal but it was so much money and so stressful,” says Ödeen. “It’s been a long time since I felt that kind of anxiety playing poker. I was chip leader so maybe I lost money because they have to make adjustments and play tighter, but it was so worth it. It relieved so much stress and it was really enjoyable from there.”
The final hand was a doozy. Watch it below:
“I was thinking ‘Shove! Shove! Shove!’,” he says. “I felt bad for him, but it was so much fun.
“Some of my colleagues put on a stream that had more than 500 people railing it. Every time I won a pot there were 100 messages in the chat. I felt like I was playing for all of them. That’s where the anxiety comes from, every emotion you have is 10x.”
So how does a player who has waited seven years for a WCOOP title celebrate finally winning one? Well, as Ödeen was still grinding other WCOOP events after his win, he had to wait until the break to let it all out.
“I was dancing and singing on the break,” he says. “I waited so long!”
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