From April 12th through the 15th, 2013 the Anthony Holden-led International Federation of Poker (IFP), an organization looking to put poker on the same “mind-sport” footing as Go, Bridge, and Chess, will host their second major Duplicate/Match Poker tournament. In 2011 the IFP hosted the Nations Cup (won by the German team), a Duplicate Poker contest that pitted teams from around the globe against one another. This time around the IFP will host the European Nations Cup, pitting 14 teams representing various European countries against one another.

The European Nations Cup preliminary round will be held in Cyprus, at the Annabelle Hotel in Paphos; here is a look at the 14 countries that will participate in the European Nations Cup:

* Cyprus (host country)

* Bosnia and Herzegovina

* Denmark

* Estonia

* France

* Holland

* Hungary

* Ireland

* Lithuania

* Poland

* Russia

* Serbia

* Spain

* United Kingdom

And lest you think that poker players and the IFP don’t take this contest seriously, a quick look at some of the announced rosters on the IFP’s Facebook Page should set you straight:

Team Holland

* Joris Ruys

* Jorryt van Hoof

* Wendy Van Veenendaal

* Rolf Slotboom

* Rob Hollink

* Raymond Wynia

* Koen de Bakker

Team Russia

* Sergey Rybachenko (Gipsy)

* Ivan Demidov

* Konstantin Puchkov

* Lika Gerasimova

* Andrey Pateychuk

* Alexey Popov

* Alexander Lakhov

Each team in the European Nations Cup will consist of seven players with the team deciding which players participate in the different events encompassing the European Nations Cup. The top six point totals will then advance to the finals which will be held at a to-be-determined later this year.

According to the IFP, Match Poker (as the format is now being called) is an interesting concept designed to eliminate the “luck of the draw” inherent in a typical game of poker. In Match Poker each player is dealt the exact same hand and points are awarded on how skillfully they play the hand. The 2011 Nations Cup was seen as a huge success, and even spawned some Duplicate Poker online poker rooms. This time around there will be a few new wrinkles to the format, as the game will no longer unfold with playing cards and poker chips, instead being contested in the modern world with modern technology; on smart-phones.

We’ll keep you posted as more teams are chosen and announced, including the sure to be vaunted rosters of countries like Denmark, France, the UK, and Spain.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, April 1st, 2013 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.