Liv Boeree to speak alongside Elon Musk
We round-up a few stories you may have missed this week, including a tragic loss for Canadian poker and a brief catch-up with Annette Obrestad.
Livin' for effective givin'
Liv Boeree has confirmed that she'll be representing her co-founded "Raising for Effective Giving" (REG) charity at the upcoming Effective Altruism Global (EAG) conference in San Francisco.
The reigning Global Poker Index (GPI) Female Player of the Year will be part of an hour long "Talk Triplet" discussing Effective Altruism Entrepreneurship, alongside representatives from Rebellion Research and the Global Innovation Fund.
I am so unbelievably excited to be speaking at http://EAGlobal.org summit about @REGcharity Aug 1st at the GooglePlex, San Francisco!!!!
— Liv Boeree (@Liv_Boeree) July 16, 2015
Tickets for this leg of the 2015 EAG tour - which is also set to feature talks from Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, Google Director Jacquelline Fuller and Skype founder Jaan Tallinn - were going at $400 each, but have now sold out.
Canadian poker hero dies in plane crash
Norman Overdijk, a former Canadian Poker Tour Player of the Year, was identified as the victim of a fatal ultralight plane crash in Nova Scotia last Saturday.
The 54-year old was the pilot of the plane, which crashed into the side of a barn just minutes after taking off. A 26-year old passenger is currently recovering from injuries in hospital.
"He was kind of a celebrity all across Canada," said PokerNews contributor Anthony Charter. "In every poker room, there would be someone who knew who he was."
"He was big and friendly and always had a smile on his face. He'd be bouncing around table to table, talking to everyone. He had a lot of friends, and played almost every single tournament."
Annette Obrestad: The myth, the legend
If you've only caught the poker bug recently you'd be forgiven for drawing a blank at the name "Annette Obrestad".
But during the boom years, she was arguably as influential in Europe as Chris Moneymaker was to aspiring grinders across the Atlantic.
At age 18 the Norwegian took down the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event in London for £1M, and went viral for an amazing online tournament victory she somehow achieved without looking at her cards.
Eight years on from her rise to fame we don't hear too much from Obrestad, and it had actually become something of a mystery as to where she was living and what she'd been doing with herself for the last couple of years.
Thanks to Tony Kendall and Sky Poker, we now have a few answers:
