The fourth event of PartyPoker‘s Pokerfestsaw over 500 players turn out for a $530 No Limit Hold’em tournament. The $250,000 guarantee was passed by $8,000 and when all was said and done, Denmark’s Martin MartinBHansen Hansen (pictured) came away with the win and walked off with $54,000. He didn’t stray too far, however, as PocketFives was able to catch up with him to celebrate the big win.

PocketFives: Thanks for joining us. What tournaments have you been focusing on during Pokerfest, which ends on May 6th at PartyPoker and WPT Poker?

Martin Hansen: My main focus is on the “high” events, and other than the win, I final tabled Event #7, a $50 Speed Rebuy, for seventh place and $2,400. So, it’s definitely been a good start with my first series win and another final table.

PocketFives: Pokerfest Event #4, which you won, had a pretty sick final table that had Steve gboro780Gross (pictured), Nico PokerKaiserFierro, Vanessa princessdonk Peng, and the Ukraine’s touchmynuts1.

Martin Hansen: The final tables in $530 events on PartyPoker are always though, but to be honest, I pretty much just ran incredibly well. I started out early with a setup against gboro780 with my A-A against his Q-Q, sending me to the top and sending him down to seventh or eighth place.

I had PokerKaiser two to my left and knew it would be a hard draw, but I caught another lucky break, finishing him off in eighth place with my K-Q against his A-X. gboro780 then left in seventh place and I had a commanding chip lead after that. From there on, I pretty much had the chips to be the top player at the table and it turned out great.

PocketFives: Tell us about online and live poker in Denmark.

Martin Hansen: Online poker has definitely taken a positive turn this year, as we got poker regulated. As of right now, it’s completely legal while playing on sites with licenses to host games in Denmark. Therefore, we can’t play at some of the minor sites out there, but on the good sites, we know that all poker winnings are legal.

We don’t really have that much live poker in Denmark, but we have pretty much killed European poker for the last two months or so. Mickey mementmoriPetersen (pictured) took down EPT Copenhagen, Frederik BRINKBrink took down EPT Madrid, Jannick Wrang took down EPT Campione, and my friend Morten Lihn won WPT Vienna.

PocketFives: What are your thoughts on PokerStars potentially buying Full Tilt?

Martin Hansen: It’s both positive and negative. For starters, many of my friends have pretty big bankrolls waiting, so it’s obviously a positive thing for them and anyone else waiting to get their bankrolls back. On the negative side, we could see PokerStars being too commanding for online poker, but really, at the moment, I don’t think too much about it. Let’s see what happens.

PocketFives: How did you get started in poker?

Martin Hansen: I have always liked gambling, playing cards, and sports betting, and always won in card games. Back in late 2005, I started playing freerolls at Microgaming. In November 2005, I deposited $400 and got lucky from the beginning. The real turning point was qualifying for the World Series of Poker in 2006 because I got to know some good Danish players who helped me become a good poker player.

PocketFives: We heard you have a shout out to make.

Martin Hansen: I want to dedicate my victory to Lihn. I had a bad run before he won WPT Vienna, where I had a 10% cut of him. Since then, I finished second in the ChampionChip on Ongame for $20,000, I won the PokerStars $215 Weekly Turbo for $15,000, and then I won Pokerfest, so I feel I pretty much owe him some of the credit for making the bad run stop.

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