IFP’s new ‘Match Poker’ technology allowed for the first time ever to collect data from four 3-hour+ sessions of play containing 51, 65, 71, and 72 hands respectively (259 hands in total).

Here are some interesting and amazing findings we’d like to share.

Go the UK

The UK’s most common points score was a maximum 14 (achieved 25 times).  They were the only team to perform above average in all 4 sessions and the only team to win two ‘Player of the Seat’ Awards (Seat 3 – Barny Boatman, Seat 5 – shared by Daiva Barauskaite and Karl Mahrenholz).

The charge of the Russians

The Russian team admitted that they hadn’t done their homework and arrived with no clue as to how the scoring was being calculated.  After session one, however, the penny dropped, and this proved to be their only below-average session.  They subsequently went from last place and over 90 points behind the leaders, to 2nd overall and just 13.5 points from being crowned the first ever European Champions.

The last 10 hands

Denmark made a valiant last stand scoring a whopping 110 points in the last ten hands alone (9 of those a 10+ score).  On the flipside, France who had enjoyed the lead for most of the weekend, and who were still 4th going into the last ten hands, suffered their worst spell at the worst possible time – netting just 43 points from the last 10 hands (a 23-point swing and 31-point swing against the eventual 5th and 6th placed finishers Estonia and Cyprus, respectively).

Mixed results for the maniacs

Denmark and Spain were the only teams to win over 300 pots from just 259 hands (329 and 324 respectively).  Bosnia managed only 169.

How’s the cricket in Holland?

Champions Ireland earned 0.63 points per hand more than last place Netherlands (an average strike rate of 7.79 vs 7.13)

Win big, lose big

Lithuania achieved the largest average pot won (1984 chips), the lowest being Serbia (1304 chips), but also featured highly in the average pot lost category too (-398 chips), the best being Bosnia (-190 chips) and worst being Denmark (-535 chips).

Name and shame

The best and worst performing teams per session were as follows:

BestWorst
Q1FranceRussia
Q2BosniaNetherlands
Q3RussiaHungary
Q4CyprusBosnia

 

RZ_EU-NationsCup-LogoThe International Federation of Poker (IFP) is set to hold its first event of 2013.

To be hosted in the beautiful surroundings of ‘The Annabelle Hotel’ in Paphos, Cyprus, on 12th-15th April 2013, the European Nations Cup will be the very first official IFP tournament to be conducted without physical playing cards and dealers. The event will showcase a whole host of brand new IFP Match Poker technology. Not only will players receive their hole cards on individual smartphones, but also every single action on all 14 tables will be logged and openly available for replay and analysis via the “IFP Player”.

The 14 participating Nations are as follows: Cyprus (host), Bosnia Herzegovina, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Spain and the UK. The top 6 will qualify through to the IFP Nations Cup Final later in the year.Match Poker is the mind sports version of poker promoted by IFP. By borrowing the basic concepts of Duplicate Bridge, it offers a way of organising individual and team poker tournaments completely free from the “luck of the draw”. Match Poker tournaments are unique in allowing a fair assessment of the skill of the players without any influence of the random deal of cards.

ENC Banner

Events NationscupQualification for the European Nations Cup 2013 will begin in Austria next month, ahead of the finals which will take place in London in the spring of 2013.

The qualifying event, which will be staged in Montesino, Vienna from 7 to 9 December, will feature 18 national teams in a Match Poker format, with the top nations will progress to ENC 2013. So far 12 teams from National Federations have enlisted, leaving six spots open in the run up to next month.

That means there is still time for IFP member federations to book their place for what is expected to be a grueling few days of Match poker, a variant first used at the Nations Cup in London last year, which will be used throughout the contest.

Match Poker (formerly duplicate poker) was pioneered by IFP and provides the truest test of poker as a Mind Sport.

In Match Poker the same order of cards is used at all tables. Every player in a given seat position receives exactly the same cards as his fellow competitors in that seat position on other tables, meaning their skill in playing these hands determines their finishing position. It’s an innovative way of reducing random chance, where the quality of the cards a player receives does not influence their chance to win the tournament.

Last year it made for a thrilling spectacle, as the Nations Cup played out in the pods of the EDF Energy London Eye and in London’s County Hall, a tournament that was eventually won by Team Germany.

The road to the next finals is now about to begin. Check back on the IFP website for more details of the event in the coming weeks.

Cyprus Small 3aug12It could prove to be a pivotal time for Cypriot poker, with the courts on the Mediterranean island examining the case for legalized poker which could eventually overturn current legislation outlawing the game.

At a press conference on Thursday, the Cyprus Poker Association (CPA), which had national trials for the 2012 IFP Nations Cup interrupted by police last month, presented their case to the press, fully backed by the International Federation of Poker.The arguments in favour of legalised poker are persuasive: approximately 800 million players around the world, a game used in the world’s most respected educational centres such as Harvard University, increasingly successful poker tours such as the European and World Poker Tours, and the IFPs membership of the International Mind Sport Association.However, the case for legal poker is not always as straightforward as it should be.

Tony Theophanides, a tireless and spirited advocate for poker in Cyprus, has been instrumental in poker’s defence, despite inevitable frustrations.

“We have proved that legally we can play poker in Cyprus, we have proved that it is our human right to participate in sport, we have proven to everyone that we were not gambling and we have proven that the demand for poker in Cyprus is massive but we still have to defend our position.”

In a statement in support of the CPA, IFP President Anthony Holden was explicit in his backing of poker players in Cyprus, outlining the various arguments while being critical of Cypriot authorities who claimed that national trials constituted illegal gambling.

“Players take part for the love of the game, not for financial gain,” said Holden. “There is no money involved, so it is hard to see how this could remotely be described as gambling.

“IFP exists to demonstrate that poker is a Mind Sport of strategic skill – like chess, bridge, draughts etc., IFP’s fellow-members of the International Mind Sports Association,” he added.

“On the BBC only this week, there has been a call for these Mind Sports to be included in future Olympic Games. This has since publicly received parliamentary support. Poker is now second only to football in terms of global popularity.

“As President of IFP, I urge all concerned to support the Cyprus Poker Association in its perfectly legal and respectable activities. We look forward to welcoming the CPA’s team to our events, and wish to express our unqualified support for CPA and its dynamic vice-president, Tony Theophanides.”

The case continues in Cyprus, although Theophanides is determined to fight for the rights of poker players until successful.

“As we said before,” said Theophanides, “this is one fight that we will not lose.”