"I Love Winning and It's Nice to Be #1 at Something"
Last month, Sweden’s Lukas lukethaflukeBerglund (pictured) took down the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawloutright for $49,000. He defeated over 1,200 entrants in the weekly tournament, which at the time was competing against the Spring Championship of Online Poker on Full Tilt’s sister site, PokerStars.
“It’s nice to win a Sunday Major,” Berglund told PocketFives, “but because of all of the SCOOP tournaments, I wanted to do well on Stars too. I would rather have won the $10K SCOOP Main Event than the Brawl.” He said the latter comment with a smile. Berglund’s SCOOP included a runner-up finish in a Heads-Up event for $58,000.
The final table of the Brawl that week had four PocketFivers, including David Davidp18Peters and Vancouver’s dirtybrasil, who finished eighth and fourth, respectively. “I have played with those two a lot and they played well,” Berglund said of his fellow PocketFivers. “I think it was a pretty tough final table for a Sunday Major and I guess I was the one with the most luck.”
Berglund is ranked #2 on PocketFives right now, but he had popped up to #1 just after his Sunday Brawl victory. On being at the peak of the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings, he said, “It’s always nice to be #1, especially after SCOOP, but the other guys I am competing with for #1 play a lot and win a lot, so it’s not easy. I love winning and it’s nice to be #1 at something.”
Berglund’s largest online MTT score came in May 2013 in a SCOOP Super Knockout for $68,000. He has four scores of at least $50,000 and is closing in on $4 million in cashes in online MTTs. He plays as superkid-bam on PokerStars, where has $2.2 million in winnings.
Swedes are #1, #2, and #4 worldwide in the Rankings. The Sweden pokercommunity has been a force to be reckoned with, so much so the Scandinavian nation (pictured) is currently tops in PocketFives’ Country Poker Rankings. “We are pretty good at grinding a lot and playing MTTs,” Berglund said. “We have to pay taxes outside of the EU when we play live, so because of that, I guess we focus more on online.”
The group also talks regularly, as Berglund explained, “I live in Stockholmand there a bunch of MTT regs living here, so we talk about poker. There is a big gang living in Gothenburgthat plays a lot too. We all take poker very seriously, which makes a big difference.” Sweden is neck-and-neck with Canada for the top spot in the Country Poker Rankings.
Berglund started playing poker when he was 18 and in school. After getting his education, he played poker full-time. He noted, “The Swedish system is a bit different than, let’s say, the US system. Most people are not going to college directly after high school. You finish high school when you are 19 and most people travel or work for a while before going to college, so I didn’t really do anything too differently.”
Berglund is not headed to Las Vegas for the ongoing World Series of Poker, whose Main Event begins on July 5 with the first of three starting days. Instead, he is off to EPT Barcelona, which starts in mid-August.
Speaking of the live scene, the Swede has nearly a half-million dollars in cashes, according to the Hendon Mob, and is ranked #1,042 in the Global Poker Index. His largest live cash by far was worth $327,000 and came by virtue of a win in the WPT Spanish Championship in 2011.
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