Eleven years of Norwegian championship poker: two names run away with it, and the reigning champion is not one of them
The Norwegian poker championship publishes its own cumulative player ranking covering the 2015 to 2025 editions, and read against the organiser's champions list it tells a sharper story than either page does alone. Martin Jonassen Leithe leads it with 4,148.1 player points and trophies in three different disciplines; Robert Kaggerud is second on 3,403.4 with a main event and a mixed-game title. Below them the ranking rewards players with no trophy at all - Oscar Andre Kathrud is third on 2,829.2 points and appears nowhere on the champions list. Meanwhile Martynas Stoskus, who won the 2026 Main Event for 1,300,000 kroner, does not appear in the ranking, because it stops at 2025.
Two pages on the Norwegian championship's own site answer different questions, and reading them together is more informative than either on its own.
The ranking
The organiser keeps a cumulative player ranking covering every Norwegian championship from 2015 to 2025. Martin Jonassen Leithe heads it with 4,148.1 player points, more than 700 clear of Robert Kaggerud in second on 3,403.4. The organiser does not publish how the points are calculated, so the figures are best read as its own internal measure of consistency across eleven editions rather than a rating comparable to any international list.
The titles
The champions list explains why those two lead. Leithe has won in three separate disciplines - the No Limit Hold'em Turbo in 2019, the Main Event in 2022 and the High Roller in 2025 - a spread no other name on the list matches. Kaggerud pairs the 2018 Main Event with the 2019 Mixed Limit 8-Game, which asks a player to hold up across eight rotating limit formats.
Points without trophies
The interesting part is third place. Oscar Andre Kathrud sits on 2,829.2 points, ahead of several Main Event champions, and his name does not appear on the champions list in any discipline. The same is true of Acid Nilsen in sixth, Espen Ringstad in seventh, Thomas Harnes in eighth and Christian Arstad in ninth. A ranking built on repeated deep finishes surfaces a group of players a trophy count makes invisible.
And the current champion
Martynas Stoskus won the 2026 Main Event for a first prize of 1,300,000 kroner. The ranking runs only to 2025 and does not list him, so on the organiser's own records the biggest result in Norwegian poker this year belongs to a player with no earlier recorded finish in the series.
Where the prize money went
The published Main Event first prizes are 1,250,000 kroner in 2022 and 2023, 1,217,500 in 2024, 1,340,000 in 2025 and 1,300,000 in 2026 - so 2025, not 2026, remains the richest Norwegian championship on record. The organiser publishes no prize figures for the editions before 2021.
Read the original at Norgesmesterskap i poker →