Espen Jørstad, the winner of the $10k 2022 World Series of Poker Main Event, has been on one hell of a rollercoaster over the last couple of months. From losing seven figures on the crypto market in May to winning $10,000,000 a couple of weeks ago at the Main Event, there might not be anyone who has had a summer like Jørstad.
From the lowest of lows to the highest of highs, we have all the numbers, so let’s dive in.
The crypto loss
At the start of the crypto winter, Jørstad was sitting pretty in May.
He had invested a significant chunk of his net worth in Terra LUNA and associated coins on the Terra ecosystem. All in, he had approximately $1,000,000 invested in the project and was hoping to see a decent return on the investment.
The Terra ecosystem was a project looking to offer low fee and frictionless cross-border exchange to power retail transactions worldwide. The project utilised Terra LUNA and its linked stable-coin TerraUSD that was fiat-pegged to provide more stability.
The company started offering a payment network in Asian e-commerce as an end-to-end solution with discounted transaction fees. The company was focused on accelerating blockchain in the Korean and Asian markets before expanding to other regions. Things were going well, and investment in the project was substantial.
Terra LUNA and its linked algorithmic stable-coin TerraUSD operated via computer codes to maintain its price equilibrium. So, if a UST is minted, $1 of LUNA is burned and vice versa. It was meant to maintain pricing across the ecosystem and help fight the volatility we often see in crypto projects.
This worked well in practice, but when TerraUST started to depeg, the entire system went into overdrive.
In a matter of weeks, LUNA was burning at a record pace and had lost 99.9 per cent of its worth by June.
Even after recovery efforts briefly lifted the coin to $4.46, it continued to drop, and today it is worth less than a penny.
So, for Jørstad, he was facing the worst-case scenario.
He had invested a large chunk of his net worth into the Terra ecosystem and was sitting with an over 95 per cent loss to show for it.
Not only had he invested in LUNA, but he also held a fair bit of TerraUST, ANC, ASTRO and other coins on the Terra ecosystem.
Summer in Sin City
So, he did what every poker player does and headed to Las Vegas for the summer.
However, instead of focusing on large stake games, Jørstad did the smart thing and kept buy-ins to four digits.
He attended 15 tournaments over the summer and ended up with one big win at the World Series of Poker Tag Team tournament, where he collected $73,533. He also made money at the Venetian $1,600 2m GTD and World Series of Poker Million Dollar Bounty, but those were smaller wins, all less than $4,300.
Overall, he finished +$29,690 in live poker and between +$10k to $15k for online poker.
However, after a summer of mediocre poker, Jørstad saved the best for last.
Last week, Jørstad entered the $10k World Series of Poker Main Event and came out on top. A remarkable $10,000,000 win to cap off his summer in Vegas.
You can check out Jørstad’s full spreadsheet of buy-ins, bullets and cash outs for his summer in Vegas here.
However, we always have to ask in the poker community what he took home.
Jørstad was nice enough to be transparent on his take-home after taxes and swaps.
Naturally, we start with the main pot, which was $10,000,000
Jørstad had swaps with 14 players ranging from 1 per cent ($100,000) to 7.5 per cent ($750,000), leaving Jørstad with $5.6 million.
We should note that some of the swaps could have cashed in the main event so that he might get a rebate on some of those.
As he is now living in the United Kingdom, he will pay $0 of taxes on the winnings, as the UK does not tax winnings on gambling.
As per Jørstad, he had no side bets or other arrangements for his buy-ins, so he did pretty well.
So, after coming to Las Vegas with a 95 per cent loss on LUNA and seeing his investment of $1,000,000 go to $50,000, Jørstad left Vegas up over $5.6 million. Not a bad summer in sin city.
When asked what he was planning to do with the money, Jørstad noted he would invest heavily in tech stocks and crypto, and he may even play more high-roller events. He said:
I’ve dipped my toes, but now I have a bigger bankroll to take some shots in those tournaments. I need to get in the lab and make sure I’m good enough to play them.
As you can see here, what a difference a few weeks makes.
We have to wonder, do you think Jørstad is investing in LUNA 2.0 or has that ship sailed?
Comentários