Juan Carlos Mortensen - Bluffing, Loose Poker Play

Juan Carlos Mortensen, apart from being a super successful poker player, has an interesting reputation at the table for bluffing and chip stacking.

Mortensen’s Success at Poker Tournaments

There is no doubt about it, Juan Carlos Mortensen is a mega talented poker player. This can be seen in all his victories. His fellow Spanish players bought him in to his first WSOP in 1999 and while he only got about half way through, he still made a nice $50,000 through cash games over the next few months. Two years later though he was more prepared and skilled. In 2001 he netted $1,500,000 at the WSOP main event. 2004 saw Mortensen winning the WPT, netting $1,000,000. He also won the Season Five WPT championship event which made history since he was the first player ever to win the WPT events at the WSOP and the WPT. Mortensen has also done pretty well at the World Heads-Up Poker Championship as well as getting to the semi finals in the second season of the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. In 2006, Mortensen made 3 final tables at the WSOP, but that wasn’t a great year for him personally as it was the same time he got divorced. Cecilia Reyes was a thing of the past. Still, this couldn’t have affected his game too badly since he did really well at the European Poker Tour in 2007. He came in 11th which isn’t anything to be sniffed at. By 2008 his poker skills had netted him more than $8,500,000. He has also managed to gain 2 WSOP bracelets.

Juan Carlos Mortensen Pre-Poker Days; How It All Began

Juan Carlos Mortensen was born in 1972 in Ambato, Ecuador. He has been the only Hispanic Main Event winner of the WSOP. He left Spain for American in the late 1990s, with his primary goal being to play poker professionally and make some money from it. He sure has done that.

How Coming to America Was a Valuable Poker Lesson for Mortensen

When he first arrived in the country however, Mortensen didn’t know a world of English. This, he said, made him pay really close attention to everyone around him. He would look closely and study people so that he would have a better chance of understanding them. This helps him very much in his poker, seeing if someone is bluffing. He never studied books to understand how to succeed in poker; instead, all Mortensen’s poker education came from learning on the game, at the table. He would look, record in his brain and recall for the next game he played. He sees his poker skills in being able to really analyze a fellow player. He says he works out their “systems” and then attempts to develop a counter system. Obviously this method worked for Juan Carlos Mortensen as he has been a complete success!