Varun Goenka

The Polish National Team have a new Sports Director!

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After the success of the inaugural season of the national Match Poker league in 2022, the Polish national federation (Związek Pokera Sportowego) decided to create a new position in the structure of the association – Sport Director for the National Team.

This honour was bestowed upon Adam Pawlikiewicz, who has been an active member of the Souther Match Poker Conference.

Adam is an IT and internet marketing specialist with a deep passion for the digital sport of Match Poker and loves to play & compete on a level playing field while putting his skills on display.

Adam Pawlikiewicz

The main responsibilities of the Sports Director are primarily organisational management of the Polish national team, ensuring good & regular communication between the squad and the coach, planning activities related to the development of the team such as training & strategy discussions, and taking care of the image of the team.

Adam, thank you for your contribution to the sport and we wish you many successes with the Polish National Match Poker team!

Varun Goenka

After 10 Years, Can Team China Still Dominate?

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This will China’s first participation in a Match Poker event since their victory at the 2013 Asian Nations Cup, held in Sanya, China! The Chinese team has been created by China Poker Games (CPG) and they still have very fond memories of the first Asian Championships.

 

Here is their squad for the 2023 Asian Nations Cup:

 

Name: Taowei Zheng (郑陶威)

Age: 39

Profession: Lawyer

 

Name: Zhu Xingbiao (朱星彪)

Age: 36

Profession: Poker player

 

Name: Zhe Li (李哲) 

Age: 36

Profession: Poker player

 

Name: Wang Junjie (王俊杰)

Age: 26

Profession: Poker player

 

Name: Chen Guangcheng (陈光城) 

Age: 45

Profession: Poker trainer

 

Name: Neves Yang (杨崇贤)

Age: 35

Profession: Entrepreneur

 

Name: Wu Ya Ke (吴亚轲)

Age: 31

Profession: Freelancer

 

Name: Chen Dong (陈东)

Age: 39

Profession: Businessman

 

Name: Yuan Yi Lu (袁亿璐)

Age: 43

Profession: Financial practitioner

 

Name: Lulu Yang (杨曦)

Age: 21

Profession: TV Host

 

 

Varun Goenka

The Mongolians are Eager to Impress in Hong Kong!

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Having made their live Match Poker debut at the 2021 Nations Cup Finals in Macedonia, the Mongolians were disappointed with their 12th place finish. However, they are looking forward to their next opportunity and learning from their mistakes. They selected their national team based on qualifiers run on Match Poker Online, only selecting the best performing individuals to play for the country.
Here is their full squad for the 2023 Asian Nations Cup in Hong Kong:
Name: Gan-Erdene Enkhbaatar
Age: 36
Profession: Main profession is an architect and civil engineer. Professional development is in urban design, civil and public buildings.
Bio: Poker player, live streamer on Facebook and YouTube during poker tournaments also coaching (hand review and ghosting). Teacher of an online poker course that has 1580 students in primary class. Interested in playing MTT poker tournaments and has been for over 8 years. Hobbies are fishing, traveling, painting, bicycling, reading books and social media.
Name: Bat-Erdene Erdenebayar
Age: 33
Profession: TV Director
Bio: Began playing poker in 2010 and has been participating in sports competitions for 5 years. He likes to play with human psychology and read cards, playing to improve his skills now.
Name: Otgonbat Narantuya
Age: 36
Profession: Work safety engineer
Bio: He likes to travel, likes to take risks and challenge himself. Poker is considered an intellectual sport and he likes to play poker in his spare time.

Name: Chinges Ayushsuren
Age: 25
Profession: Lawyer
Bio: He is self-employed and enjoys playing poker tournaments in his spare time. He sees the transfer of skills between practising law and playing poker.

Name: Buyanjargal Bold
Age: 40
Profession: Germanistik
Bio: He started playing poker in 2005. From 2006 to 2010, he worked as a dealer in a casino. He resumed playing poker in 2013 and won the 2014 Asia-Pacific Red Dragon main event in Macau, beating 995 players. For him, poker is an intellectual sport that requires psychological combat, endurance and self-control. Having competed in many competitions and experienced joys and sorrows, he loves this sport and will play it till his death!

Name: Enkhmaa Myangat
Age: 30
Profession: Journalist
Bio: Poker has been one part of her life for a few years and she has huge goals and dreams. So the upcoming championship would be a big chance to improve herself and her poker career while representing her country.
Name: Altansukh Ganbat
Age: 33
Profession: IT engineer
Bio: He works in the border guard. He became the team leader in the first Match Poker national league tournament held in Mongolia, and his team won first place. He believes that poker is an art of knowing yourself and feeling for others.

Name: Nyamdari Khatanbold
Age: 34
Profession: Manager of a construction company
Bio: He has played online poker since 2015 and some a few followers from his country. He has also given some training and coaching for people who are interested and keen to learn. He aims to contribute to the development of poker in Mongolia through his coaching, live streams and private advice based on experience.

Name: Enkh-Amgalan Gonchigsuren
Age: 38
Profession: Business Administration
Team Leader and Manager
Name: Unurbayar Lkhagvasuren
Age: 41
Profession: Teacher
Bio: The Mongolian Free Poker Sports Association was established to develop the sport of poker in Mongolia, and he is the president of this association.
Varun Goenka

Chinese Taipei finished runners-up on home soil last time around, can they better it in Hong Kong?

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Check out the full squad for Chinese Taipei as they prepare for their toughest Asian battle yet. National Federation leader David Tai has been doing incredible things for the growth and acceptance of poker as a mind sport & game of skill in his nation. 2022 saw the first season of the National Match Poker League as well as the University Match Poker League, with both being received very well and promising bigger 2nd seasons this year!

 

This is how the national team looks for the 2023 Asian Nations Cup in Hong Kong:

 

Team Leader – PO CHUN ROSS WEN (文柏鈞)

Bio – Ross is the chairman for Taiwan Formosa Poker Sports Association and the tournament director for CTP Poker Club, and Vice Manager of the National Match Poker Team. He was first introduced to Match Poker at the Nations Cup in Dublin in 2019.

 

Coach – CJ CHEN (陳紀任)

Bio – CJ is honoured to coach the national Match Poker team this year. As a dedicated poker player, he is eager to share his knowledge and help the team achieve their goals. He believe in the power of high-level competition to sharpen critical thinking and decision-making skills, while remaining humble and open to learning from others.

 

Coach – EN CHING WU (吳恩慶)

Bio – Jack Wu moved to Macau in 2012 to play cash games and won his first live title in 2016. After three days, he won the main event and went on to become the 2016 Asia player of the year leading to being sponsored by Pokerstars in 2017. He opened his first live course in 2017, and along with some coaches established Taiwan Rounders in 2018 (the biggest coaching site in Taiwan). The site: https://reurl.cc/GzL6Z. Jack has also acted as a national team coach in 2019.

 

Team Member – HSU FENG MING (許峰銘)

Bio – His first poker approach was in 2019 in a friend’s home game, since then he’s been loving it and started to play Live MTTs in 2022 at CTP Poker Club Kaoshiung. He also joined Taoyuan poker academic in 2022 and continues to learn advanced poker strategy until today.

 

Team Member – CHOU SUN CHEN (周孫楨)

Bio – Chou Sun Chen prefers to be called by his English name, Steven. He grew up in New Taipei City and is proud to represent his nation.

 

Team Member – LIU SHU TING (劉書婷)

Bio – Shu Ting Liu also goes by Ban Ban, has been a member of the national Match Poker team in 2021 and continues her journey this year with all other members, wishing everyone the best year ahead in 2023.

 

Team Member – HUANG WUN TING (黃文廷)

Bio – Tim Huang is a 21 year old college student from Taiwan. He hopes to play well against good players from around the world.

 

Team Member – CHEN-YI, LIU (劉甄詒)

Bio – Known as Serina Liu, she holds an electronic engineering masters degree from National Taiwan University (NTU) and is currently working as an engineer in the largest IC design company – Mediatek. Serina has about 4 years of MTT experience, during the span she’s captured 8 trophies from various global poker events and made over 8 million in earnings. She’s also a poker lecturer in NTU and an ambassador of CTP poker club.

 

Team Member – WANG,CHING-CHIA (王淨加)

Bio – Coming from the south side of Taiwan – Tainan, he has been playing poker for almost one year now and was introduced to it by a friend. He has been loving this strategy game since his first poker tournament in Taipei’s CTP Poker Club, and is very excited to get selected to be a member of the national team.

 

Team Member – JUSTIN CHU (朱啟仁)

Bio – Justin is a poker enthusiast who likes to travel around the world and play poker MTTs.

Varun Goenka

Hong Kong to Host the 2023 Asian Nations Cup!

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The International Federation of Match Poker (IFMP) and the Match Poker Sports Federation of Hong Kong, China are proud to announce that the 2023 Asian Nations Cup will be held in Hong Kong from 24-27 February and promises to be the biggest and most high profile Asian Match Poker Championship to date.

With a minimum of 12 national teams competing, this tournament promises to be a thrilling showcase of Asia’s best national Match Poker teams coming together to compete for the title of Champions of Asia and seal their qualification to the Nations Cup Finals scheduled to be held in Zurich later this year. Team India will be looking to defend its title after emerging victorious in Taiwan in 2019, with the host nation ensuring a thrilling last hand finish. Top 4 finishing teams will qualify to the World Championships and will also share the guaranteed HK$100,000 prize pool!

Match Poker events don’t involve any ‘buy-ins’ as national teams compete based on qualifying to the event. The individuals representing their national teams are selected by their national federations, who have their own processes for team selection usually based on tracking the performance of their player database over the course of a calendar year in the regular national federation events and tournaments.

This tournament boasts a prize pool, and unlike conventional poker tournaments, it is not made up of the ‘buy-ins’ from the participants themselves, and keeping in line with conventional sports and eSports it is infact a sponsored prize pool. This is a big step toward Match Poker’s recognition and acceptance globally as a mind sport and digital sport, moving it further away from the link with gaming and gambling.

Teams are made up of 6-10 individuals, with a mandate to include both male and female athletes. There are no restrictions based on age, gender or physical ability. Being a mind sport, Match Poker ensures a level playing field for all. The tournament will take place from 24-27 February at the Match Poker eSports Arena in Central, Hong Kong – a unique and first-of-its-kind venue catered to eSports, digital gaming & poker.

The event will be streamed live globally with multi-language commentary, broadcast to 60+ nations through IFMP’s global network, along with post-produced material to be circulated and broadcast on major channels and media across the member federation community.

“We are thrilled to bring the 2023 Asian Nations Cup to Hong Kong and have the support of the Match Poker Sports Federation of Hong Kong, China,” said IFMP President Patrick Nally. “The growth of Match Poker in Asia and in particular in Hong Kong has been incredible to see over the past couple of years. Our first national league and university league were both launched in Asia and Hong Kong has been integral to the adoption of the sport of Match Poker. We have no doubt that Hong Kong will provide the perfect stage for Asia’s best teams to showcase their talents and for fans from all over to come together and celebrate the exciting sport of Match Poker.”