Michael Sassen

Michael Sassen, born around 1977, is a Dutch ten-pin bowler and poker player who represented the Netherlands at major international bowling events and has thrown several perfect 300 games. He is the son of the professional bowler Wim Sassen and began bowling at the age of five at his father's Bowling Scheveningen lanes. He bowled his first perfect game in 1992 in the Scheveningen house league and won 75,000 guilders for it. In 1995 he set a world record of 1,540 pins in six games, and at the 1995 World Championships in Reno he helped the Netherlands win three world titles, in trios, five-player team and all events, finishing sixth individually. In 1998 he and Gerard Wijnstra won the under-23 world doubles title with 2,535 pins in six games. He also won poker events including the 2010 Breda Series of Poker and the 2010 North Sea Poker Classics, and he appears in the book on the five hundred best Dutch sportspeople of the century.