Andreas Torbergsen plays online at Full Tilt Poker

A small town with a population of 2,500 in the far northern reaches of Norway, Skjervøy is not only Andreas’ home town, it’s his online poker player handle. He also got his start in poker there, after he began playing nickel and dime 5-card draw with his father.

Andreas later moved to Tromsø, the largest city in Northern Norway, where he entered university to study marketing. It was there that Andreas started to get serious about poker, playing for hours a day in a game that formed in the house he rented with some friends.

In 2005, Andreas won an online satellite tournament to play in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. He was knocked out early on, but he discovered Pot Limit Omaha when he and a group of his friends from Norway convinced a casino there to open a table for them. He found that he had a knack for the game, and his life and the world of online PLO would never be the same.

After returning from Vegas, he turned his focus to PLO, grinding the $2/$4 games and playing up to 12 tables at a time. As he moved up in stakes, his game improved until he came to be considered one of the most feared and respected PLO players in the world of online poker.

While Andreas still dabbles in No Limit Hold’em – he cashed for $23,000 in the $10,000 World Championship at the 2008 World Series of Poker – his forte is clearly in the PLO realm. With the focus so high on pre-flop play in No Limit Hold’em, Andreas finds the game too slow for his liking, and much prefers what he calls the "beauty" of starting with four cards in the hole.

Andreas feels not tilting is the most important skill for any poker player to acquire, especially so for PLO. His own method for dealing with the pressure when things aren’t going his way is to take a ten minute break, or simply quit for the day.

Away from the tables in Tromsø, where he still lives, Andreas’ main passion is travelling. He also watches a lot of television and movies, and he spends time working out, which helps with his stamina for those long poker sessions.

Look for Andreas playing online at Full Tilt Poker.