Time was when you couldn’t move during the late stages of an EPT without bumping into a Scandinavian. Swedish and Danish players in particular destroyed these fields and romped to final tables and championships as if it was no more difficult than hopping in the Volvo and nipping down to Ikea.
How the mighty have fallen. The Nordic PokerStars blogger, Lina Olofsson from Sweden, has just written a post over at PokerStarsblog.nu entitled “VÃ¥ra dagar är räknade” which might look like gibberish, but in fact means “Our days are numbered”. She has had the task of reporting on nothing but Scandinavian bust outs all day: first Mats Iremark, then the lone Norwegian representative Arild Sletta and now the departure of Jesper Hougaard.
Arild Sletta
Hougaard had a huge stack but just shipped it all to the Italian player Carmelo Vasta. No one saw the precise details of the hand, but there was an almighty roar of anger emanating from Hougaard’s chair, a jack-high flop and an ace-jack in front of Vasta.
“How many Scandinavians are left now?” I asked Olofsson a moment ago.
“Zero,” she snapped. “Zero, zero, zero*.”
The video blog team managed to catch Hougaard in better times earlier today. Here’s what he had to say back then:
Watch EPT Deauville S5: Jesper Hougaard on PokerStars.tv
*As any good pedant knows, Finland is not officially part of Scandinavia. There are still two Finns in the field.
