Poker’s Top 5 “Retired” Pros

Giving up, moving on or even just sharing your time between your favourite game and a new love isn’t something any pro does without good reason and today we are going to look at the top 5 players who have ‘swapped’ poker for pastures new...

Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospelier – poker and eSports

The temptation to become engrossed in the latest crash gambling game rather than spending time in the lab with solvers can see a top poker player struggle to keep up with their peers, though ElkY has cleverly managed to keep himself somewhere near the peak of both games.

Other eSports fans, such as Daniel Negreanu, have limited themselves to purely amateur status, while many have crossed the other way.

Doug Polk - Poker and Crypto

The pretty much undisputed king of online heads-up No Limit Hold’em and Twitter spats, Polk retired from the game in 2018 saying he no longer enjoyed playing poker.

He turned to his other love, cryptocurrency trading, having first bought Bitcoin back in 2013 and gained quite a fan following on YouTube, 166k subscribers to his DougPolkCrypto vlogs.

Enticed out of retirement in 2020 to battle Daniel Negreanu in poker’s Grudge Match of the Century, Polk took $1.2million from his foe but vowed he wouldn’t be seen in a rematch, or any other challenge.

Annette Obrestad - Poker and make-up vlogging

Annette Obrestad was the Norwegian teen sensation who took the poker world by storm, crushing online when under-age (her nickname Annette_15 rather giving the game away) and winning £6.7million by the time she gave the game up.

Not that she told the general poker-playing public, Annette instead just fading out quietly, only to return in the guise of a make-up guru, with ‘Annette's Makeup Corner’ on YouTube.

Swapping the likes of the £1million WSOP Europe payday that she landed the day before her 19th birthday, 32-year-old Annette now shares mascara and eyeshadow videos with her 40,000+ YouTube subscribers and 15,000+ Instagram fans.

Vanessa Selbst – Poker and hedgefund trading

There have been some very successful transitions between hedge-fund managers and poker, and Vanessa Selbst is perhaps the highest-profile player to take the plunge into trading.

The all-time winningest female player in history decided to retire from the green felt in 2017 when the changing nature of the game “asked the question of me whether I would rather change my relationship to the game or move on."

Of her new career she stated: “It’s exhausting, exciting, and completely humbling every single day,” but giving up her passion for cards hasn’t been easy, Selbst appearing at the WSOP not long after her career change.

Peter Eastgate - Poker and Sunday walks

Perhaps the strangest story of all those who have walked away from poker – or at least tried to – is that of Peter Eastgate, the man who won the 2008 WSOP Main Event.

The Danish player scooped a monster payday of $9,152,416 when he topped the 6,844-player field, but despite sponsorships and several more huge cashes, Eastgate turned his back on cards.

He explained in his 2010 retiral announcement: “It was never my goal to spend the rest of my life as a professional poker player. My goal was to become financially independent.”

Eastgate added: “I have seen some amazing places and met many new people; it has been a great experience. I have decided now is the time to find out what I want to do with the rest of my life.”

Peter still hasn’t really discovered what that is, however, and was last heard of living a quiet life in Denmark, spending every day “like it’s a Sunday” in his words, hanging out with friends and going for long walks.