Mike McDonald, an 18 year old from Waterloo, Ontario became the youngest player ever to win a major European poker tournament when he took the $1.4 million US dollar prize at the German European Poker Tour Event last week.
His first tournament was the World Series of Poker Europe, which he entered on his 18th birthday, paying the $10,000 buy-in, and making it as far as the feature table before being eliminated by Jamie Gold, the 2006 champion.
McDonald has had a lot of success in his brief poker career, but remains level headed – offering, in interviews, warnings to casual players.
McDonald is eager to remind casual poker players that it takes practice and skill to win – most people approach poker as a game, but to be successful you have to analyse your decisions and take it very seriously.
He also reminds teenagers not to throw away money that they cannot afford to lose. Jon Kelly, the chief executive of the Responsible Gambling council commented that they had been worried that McDonald's big win would cause teenagers to put school aside in favour of gambling, however McDonald stressed that "You shouldn't be gambling with money you can't afford to lose, and most kids don't really have money they can afford to lose."
Email this page
Print this page
Bookmark with del.icio.us
