Name: Shameen Jivraj
Profession: Design Consultant
Bio: Product designer, poker player, world traveller, sun-seeker, ocean lover, coconut drinker, mango eater, skydiver (once), loves life… Sometimes :)

 

Name: Jon Theobald
Profession: Rock photographer, videographer and virtual event producer
Bio: stepped off corporate merry-go-round after 30 years, life is now focussed on my partner, our dog, beekeeping, live music, playing poker and riding my Harley.

 

Name: Luke Barton
Profession: Investor, Advisor, Future technology
Bio: A calculated risk-taker both professionally and on the table, 4 times winner of the Marlow High Roller Event, avid skier, mountaineer, peloton enthusiast, and with a dry sense of humour always on tap.

 

Name – Ben Brocklesby
Profession – Sales & Marketing Guru
Bio – Guaranteed to give 100% to whatever I undertake. Whether it be business – Origin Doors & Windows, family life – married with two boys, sport – Olympic lifting, CrossFit, skiing, marathon running or poker – I am always all in.

 

Full Name: Andy Gallagher
Age: 54
Profession: De-programmer
Bio: Happy go lucky poker player and Match Poker athlete

 

Name: Sue Smith
Age: 74
Profession: Retired
Bio: Love playing poker. Got lucky twice at the World Series so actually have a WSOP profile.

Team Germany might not have made it to the Finals during this round of qualifiers for the Nations Cup, but their strong second place finish still begs the question “How do they train for Match Poker?” Well, we are going to spill the beans with you in this article. Team Germany is sharing their secret on how they train as a team and improve their poker game together in a group.

The Germans use a platform called Poker Castle. It is an interactive tool that allows a poker coach to train more than one player at a time. So, pretty much perfect for a Match Poker team. While players are playing random or custom created hands, the coach can actually see the cards of the players. This really helps to get behind the thought process of your teammates. 

“Normally, poker is about making the decisions with the highest chip EV (with ICM adaptations in tournament poker, if necessary),” team coach Daniel Eylenfeldt explains, “In the current Match Poker scoring system, however, the overall chips do not play a role. For example, it is often more important to win many small pots than one big one. Therefore, various adjustments have to be made in order to be successful in this system. When we train with the German team via Poker Castle, we usually play the hands as in the normal cash game, but in the replay function we then consider which adaptations would have made sense in Match Poker.”

So, how does it work?

After a hand has concluded, it is discussed in the Replay. During this phase, all participants can see the cards and the coach clicks through the action while interacting with the students via Discord, Zoom or any other third party communication platform.

 

Poker Castle platform

Without a platform like this teams are stuck with theory sessions and/or home games. It is often difficult to get into a flow and really see why and how a player was taking as long as they did for a decision. However, using Poker Castle means that the coach can observe the hand selection and decision making of the students in real time. It also means that the coach can see the learning progress of the players across the different sessions they play. The coach can even “Like” a play, which is obviously only visible to the player who’s move was praised. Poker Castle offers a range viewer tool where the coach can go through different options for the hand selection or explore the opponents’ ranges.

Weekly Preparation Sessions

Team Germany made sure to meet for training sessions at least once a week from a couple of months before the competition date, closer to the event they even trained twice a week for 3 hours each time. That is a lot of high intensity coaching as a team and their close second place finish behind Austria in the Qualifiers proves its value.

In Poker Castle you can choose to play random hands or custom hands and while it was mainly random hands that were played during the coaching sessions, team coach Daniel Eylenfeldt often used actual hands from his own online sessions that he deemed interesting enough.

Team Germany is made up of Jan Heitmann, Timm Albrecht, Niklas Andrews, Alexander Kleppe, Kai Rieche, Stefanie Haffke, Mila Monroe, Julie Schumacher, Arash Fazeli and Daniel Eylenfeldt. During the time the team prepared for the competition, the members really learned to appreciate working with Poker Castle. Especially the fact that once you fold you can see other players cards, which is an incredible feature to learn in a group. Poker Castle is not exclusive to the German team. Any team, study or staking group is welcome to check it out and start training with it. 

They play their next qualifier on 7th August and will no doubt be putting in the hours on training and strategy in the weeks leading up to it, with the aim of sealing their spot in the Nations Cup Finals. For more information please visit www.pokercastle.net

The Croatian National Match Poker squad, represented by the Croatian Poker Players Association, is as follows:


Team Member – Goran Vejnović

Age: 48

Profession: Professional Poker Player

Bio: He is playing poker since his high school and has a very good regional result. One of his best results where he had prize pool rewards were Gorica (Slovenia) 1,000,000 E tournament, Split (Croatia) 200,000 E tournament and his latest and favourite tournament in Barcelona (Spain). He is also a huge fan of a local football club, Hajduk Split.

 

Team Member – Hana Šoljan

Age: 36

Profession: Founder of Croatia Women’s Poker team

Bio: She was among the first sponsored players in Croatia. For years she has been promoting poker as a sport in her country and other countries. She is the founder of the first women’s poker team in Croatia. She has always encouraged women to play poker and and has won several international ladies tournaments herself. The topic of her thesis at the Faculty of Economics was “Analysis of the Applicability of Poker Skills in Business Situations”. She believes that the skill of playing poker helps in business, but also in life. Today she works as a copywriter and designs commercials and also works in one of the largest retail companies in Croatia.

 

Team Member – Marko Bojanović

Age: 32

Profession: CEO of Canetti Porte company

Bio: Ex-dealer who decided to stop creating luck for other players, but for himself instead. Entrepreneur with MBA in project management who likes to take risk, both in poker and private life.

 

Team Member – Zdravko Rajić

Age: 56

Profession: Private family hotel owner

Bio: Zdravko is a passionate poker lover and player. He is been in a business for a long time and lately he is having most luck in Czech Republic and Germany. He also likes water skiing.

 

Team Member – Željka Kvastek

Age: 42

Profession: Financial Accountant

Bio: Passionate poker player whose poker skills are more than pure numbers. Players don’t take her easily since they know their chips might end on the wrong side of their balance sheet. She plays poker for more than a decade now.

 

Team Member – Ivan Bojanović

Age: 57

Profession: President of the Croatian Poker Players Association

Bio: He has been in the poker business for more than 20 years. He organised several international poker tournaments in Croatia and is determined to present poker as a mind sport and game of skill, not as a “game of luck”.

 

Team Member – Visnja Luetic

Age: 45

Profession: Model and photographer

Bio: Most versatile player in a team. She is a Poker player, Artist, Dreamer, professional Fitness model and a photographer. She is also a traveler and dog lover.

 

Team Member – Petar Sosic

Age: 57

Profession: Restaurants owner

Bio: Owner of several of the most professional restaurants on the Adriatic coast who likes life and enjoys playing poker. He follows poker actively and promote it as a sport. He is also a humanitarian.

 

Introducing Team Norway, making their Match Poker debut at the 2021 Nations Cup Qualifiers:

Captain: Sigurd Eskeland (47 years)

Profession: President of the Norwegian Poker Federation.

Sigurd is a former professional poker player, the highlight of his career was winning a WSOP bracelet in 2010 in the $2500 8-game tournament in addition to final table appearances from EPT and WPT. He was named Player of the Year in Norway in 2011. He has been the leader of NPF since 2013.

 

Ørjan Skommo (33 years)

Profession: Poker player

Ørjan has a wide variety of final tables from all over the world, and he has won two Norwegian championship titles. He was inducted into Norway’s poker Hall of Fame in 2019.

 

Ylva Thorsrud (36 years)

Profession: Poker player/Streamer

Ylva combined playing live poker with being a dealer for years, but after covid-19 she turned her focus to streaming and now has one of the biggest poker streams in Norway. She recently won the Ladies event at the Norwegian online Championship.

 

Morten Klein (52 years)

Profession: Investor

Morten had his first international final table 15 years ago, and has since then had great success both in poker and as a businessman. He has a third place finish from EPT, and a second place finish from WPT and has a Norwegian Championship title.

 

Frode Fagerli (50 years)

Profession: Head of affiliates

Frode is the Organizer of the Norwegian Championship of Poker that take place in Dublin every year. He’s an entrepreneur and an experienced poker player with his first international cash in 2004. He was inducted into Norway’s Poker Hall of Fame in 2013.

 

Tobias Leknes (28 years)

Profession: Poker player

Tobias is a mixed games specialist with 3 Norwegian Championship titles and 6 WCOOP titles. He’s on the board of the Norwegian Poker Federation.

 

Henrik Tollefsen (33 years)

Profession: Poker player

Henrik became the youngest player to ever win a Norwegian championship main event when he won it in 2009. Since then he has had great success in tournaments all over the world. He was named Player of the year in Norway 2016 and was inducted into the Norwegian Poker Hall of Fame in 2017.

 

Oskar Wedde (25 years)

Profession: Student

Oskar had his first registered cash when he won the Norwegian Turbo Championship in 2017. He has since then built up a successful poker stream while completing his studies. 

 

Team Singapore will be lead by a female, becoming the 2nd nation to have a woman captain after Belarus. A strong squad with a mix of experience and youth, the Singaporeans will be eager to show their skills once again and make a run at the World Championship! Here is their squad:

 

Team Captain – Lisa Tan Meiling

Profession – In Tech Industry

Bio – Fell in love with the game since my university days, and been firmly in love with the game since. It’s been a thrilling and empowering ride being a female player in this game, and I encourage more females to try Match Poker!

 

Team Coach – Phua Tzai Wei

Profession – Cryptocurrency investor

Bio – I started playing poker in 2013 back in my college toilet/library. There are many transferrable skills to life itself, skills I have equipped myself with over the years have helped me in many ways in real life and games which rewards hard work and effort, where performance/results mostly correlated with effort and hard work one puts in.

 

 

Team Manager – Ivan Tan

Retired 

Bio – I started playing in 2000. I enjoy the social aspect of the game, and that it is a skill game which requires a lot of self-discipline in order to excel. 

 

Team Player – Lee Jia En Bernice

Student 

Bio – I started playing poker in 2017. I love meeting new people and love the thrill of poker

Team Player – Kevin Quek

Retired Hedge Fund manager

Bio – Picked up poker in 2004 when I was working in Wall Street, New York City. Got to play more when I was working in HK as Macau was just a 1 hour hop away. I would typically play for 20-25 hours straight on the weekends. Love the game as it has many similar characteristics to trading, where a mix of probabilities, psychology, bankroll management and patience comes into play!

 

Team Player – Foo Jie Long 

Profession – Banking

Bio – Started playing poker since university days where I started off playing cash games and slowly transitioned to tournament. Love how poker is multifaceted and like life there’s always a chance to win no matter the cards you are dealt!

Team Vice Captain – Zefirelli Noordin

Profession – Dogecoin Investor

Bio – Loved the game since school days. Played on and off, loves the competition and social aspect of the game.

 

Team Player – Lin Ruizi

Profession – Lawyer

Bio – I first learnt how to play poker shortly after A levels and before the start of my national service, and was very drawn to the strategic aspect of it as I was then a competitive Magic: The Gathering player, amongst various strategy games. Further, although the money wasn’t the main aspect of it for me, it was nice to have a hobby that potentially paid, as opposed to just continually outlaying money! 

 

Team Player – Keith Joel Seah Jia Qiang

Profession – Entrepreneur

Bio – I started playing at the age of 21 and I love the money aspect of it.

 

Team Player – Desmond Oh

Profession – Public Servant

Bio – I love card games since I was young, and enjoy grinding online (Former PokerStars Supernova). As a mind sports lover, I like the competitive nature of the game.