Varun Goenka

Can the Macedonians ensure the Nations Cup Trophy remains on home soil?

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The Macedonian team is eager to impress on home soil, after battling hard through the qualifiers last year they have their sights set on the World Cup!

A strong and experienced team of men and women, having recently concluded the first season of the national Match Poker league, the host national team cannot wait to show off their skills at the biggest stage of all. They did seal their spot through the qualifiers last year but since becoming the host for this event they receive automatic qualification. A great honour for the country and it will certainly put them on the global Match Poker map!

Read all about the Macedonian National Team here:

Name: Elena Bojkova

Age: 37

Bio: Mother of a 12 year old girl, has been playing poker for 14 years. Won the Macedonian national league with Vardar Sharks. She makes her debut with the Macedonian national team at the Match Poker World Cup! Working as Administration and Office Manager for IT company Intelligent network solutions.

Name: Katarina Tasevski

Age: 38

Bio: Female player of the year 2020 and a mother of 2 daughters. Playing poker for the last 16 years, at the beginning with friends, usually on Saturdays. Works as business development for German company HR services. Very excited to be in the Macedonian national team selection and has the full support of her husband.

Name: Sofija Dzadzeva Aksakal

Age: 40

Bio: Happily married in Alanya, Turkey. Finished university “History of art with archeology”, also a film producer and piano player. She fell in love with the game of poker 15 years ago. At the beginning only for fun, but later on professionally at some stage too. She was twice crowned as the best female player of the year in Macedonia. Very proud to be wearing the Macedonian jersey. Her husband was also one of the best Turkish chess and bridge players, so have great understanding and support for Sofia’s passion!

Name: Petar Filipov

Age: 45

Bio: Professional poker and backgammon player for almost 20 years. Won the Macedonian Match Poker Championship with the Vardar Sharks. Very experienced player. Won many local and regional poker tournaments. Mainly a cash game player.

Name: Toni Zengovski

Age: 38

Bio: Arguably Toni is one of the best Macedonian players. Poker pro for several years, twice player of the year (2019 & 2020) and winner of many tournaments. Currently second placed in Macedonian poker rankings. He will make his debut for Macedonian Match Poker selection on home soil and expected to be great boost for the national team.

Name: Metodi Aleksov

Age: 47

Bio: Captain of Match Poker team Bregalnica Lions in the Macedonian National League, they just missed out on the title and finished in second place behind champions Vardar Sharks. Working full time at national broadcaster AlfaTV as program manager. He has been playing poker since 2010, mainly online.

Name: Andreja Andreevski

Age: 44

Bio: Director of technique at KANAL 5 TV and is a key player of the national Match Poker team. Playing poker for 15 years and in love with the game. Most capped player of last qualifications. His speciality is Match Poker. Captain of the national league champions “Vardar Sharks” and the best player of the Macedonian Match Poker League.

Name: Tomas Spaseski

Age: 55

Bio: He is the captain of the national team, businessman, once player of the year and the most inspiring player of the team. Tomas was MVP of the last qualifications and the locomotive of the Macedonian Match Poker squad.

Name: Aleksandar Zuberovski

Age: 42

Bio: Poker pro very well known in the online poker world as Re8uz. Twice Macedonian player of the year. Many final tables and winner of a couple of SCOOP tournaments. Expert in pattern recognition and long-term investments.

Name: Aleksandar Trajkovski

Age: 42

Bio: A poker pro for the last 10 years and 3 times Macedonian player of the year. At the moment he ranks No.1 in Macedonia. Last December played the final table at WSOP Europe. The only one left from the team which played IFMP European Qualification in Vienna in 2012. Looking forward to the World Cup!

 

Varun Goenka

Macedonia to Host the Nations Cup Finals in May

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IFMP’s first live event since the Asian Nations Cup held in Taipei, Taiwan in November 2019 and we could not be more excited to bring our qualified nations together and competing for the Match Poker World Championship!

We hosted a series of virtual qualifiers throughout 2021, where Asian and European national teams participated from a central venue to secure their qualification for the 2021 Nations Cup Finals.

Over 25 national teams participated in 11 individual qualifying events over 4 months, leading to the following list of qualified teams:

  • India
  • Mongolia
  • Kazakhstan
  • Singapore
  • Israel
  • Iceland
  • Austria
  • Germany
  • Switzerland
  • Macedonia
  • Italy

These nations will be joined by the current Nations Cup Champions, for 2019 and 2020, Team Ukraine who will be looking to defend their title for the second time after successfully doing so for the first time in the 2020 Virtual Nations Cup.

 

 

The beautiful town of Gevgelija will be our host city in Macedonia with the Apollonia Hotel being our venue.

The 2021 Nations Cup will kick off on 23rd May and run till the 27th, incorporating an exciting elimination structure playing down to a final 6 teams for the final session of play.

3 full days of play will ensure both physical and mental stamina are tested along with Match Poker skill and strategy, producing a truly deserving World Champion.

The IFMP team will be visiting Gevgelija on 18 & 19 April for a pre-event press conference with the Mayor of the town and a site visit with the local organising committee.

It has been very encouraging to see the growth of Match Poker in Macedonia, with the first season of the national league being run very successfully and producing a national champion, the Vardar Sharks, to go on to represent the league in the Global Champions League later this year.

Match Poker’s formal sporting recognition by GAISF has been extremely important in helping its national acceptance as a mind sport and game of skill within our member nations.

Varun Goenka

2021 Review – A Year of Challenges and Progress

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2021 saw IFMP make considerable progress after a rather quiet pandemic hit 2020. With the constantly changing situation caused by Covid, we didn’t want to be dependent on live events for Match Poker activity this year. We therefore decided to run virtual qualifiers for the 2021 Nations Cup Finals for our member nations in Asia and Europe. Being the world’s only recognised digital sport, Match Poker has the unique advantage of digital gameplay as compared to other conventional sports which are more physical in nature. We used this to our advantage and re-created the live Match Poker environment linking a video conference platform in with Match Poker gameplay, thus enabling the athletes to see and talk with each other just like they would at a live event, while playing Match Poker for their nation.
We ran a total of 10 qualifiers, which produced 5 Asian and 6 European qualifiers who will attempt to stop Ukraine from wining their 3rd World Championship in a row! 200 unique hands of Match Poker were played in each qualifier, giving us 2000 hands played by 25 participating nations. Over 200 athletes competed for their nations, testing themselves in this skill-based format with the aim of securing a spot at the finals. The qualified nations are India, Israel, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Singapore from Asia, with Austria, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Macedonia and Switzerland from Europe. The virtual qualifiers allowed many nations, who have previously not been able to participate in live events, to play, compete and experience Match Poker. It has been fantastic to see our sport grow and reach so many new countries this year.
One prime example of this effect is the birth of the Mongolian National Match Poker League! 12 teams participated in the first season of the league, which took place on 11th and 12th December in Ulaanbaatar and saw 500 hands played across the 2 match days. Every team had atleast one male and one female member in their squad, across various age groups once again reinforcing that Match Poker is a fully inclusive sport. Team Pokerfriends were crowned Champions with 749.5 points, Team Shrup came 2nd with 723 points and Team Megamind was 3rd with 710 points. Trophies, medals and prize money was awarded to the top 3 finishing teams and top 3 individual players. The Mongolian NF will use this event and the content captured to approach their National Olympic Committee (NOC) and National Sports Authority (NSA) for the formal recognition of Match Poker as a sport in Mongolia and for their national federation as a national governing body of sport, linked to IFMP as the global representative.
IFMP’s observer membership of GAISF was extended for another 2 years as we continue our fight for full recognition. One of the main aims of encouraging local Match Poker activity by way of national leagues was to be able to evidence to the NOC and NSA of your nation that we are a sport, recognised globally, played digitally, and are not anything like conventional gaming or gambling. Once the authorities see it in action, being played in teams, without the presence of physical cards or chips, they will better understand what we have been trying to explain to them for so long. We are hopeful that this all will work to our advantage and we can provide the GAISF membership council with plenty of new national recognition certificates in the coming year.
We are working hard towards a packed events calendar for 2022, with a Champions League style finale event for our many national league champions, a Global University Challenge involving student Match Poker teams from universities and colleges across the globe, and of course our Continental Championships (Asia, Europe, America’s) all culminating in a Nations Cup Final at the end of the year. There have been a few nations that have expressed their desire to host an event and we are evaluating our options, and would encourage other nations who are interested to let us know at the earliest.
Finally can we take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful holiday period. Stay safe, take care of yourself and your loved ones and let’s make 2022 the year where Match Poker really takes off! Happy Holidays and wish you a fantastic New Year!
Varun Goenka

Macedonia’s Road to the 2021 Nations Cup Finals

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On the 10th anniversary of their existence, the Macedonian national Match Poker team managed to qualify for the Nations Cup Finals. They played the first qualifications for the European Championship back in 2012 in Vienna, when in the competition of 14 countries they placed 7th, which saw them just miss out on qualifying.

Since then the sport of Match Poker has gone through a lot of growth & development until finally in 2017, after the Congress in London, it was officially accepted by GAISF (Global Association of International Sports Federations) as a recognised sport governed by the International Federation of Match Poker (IFMP) based in Lausanne, where the Macedonian Poker Federation has been a full member since registration in the Central Register of the Republic of Macedonia in 2011.

Preparations for these qualifiers lasted several months, beginning last spring, the cycle of competitions began in June, and finally with the victory in the qualifier they are going to be competing for their first time at a Nations Cup Finals.

Austria, Germany, Iceland and Switzerland were successful in the earlier qualifiers, and for the remaining 2 places in the European zone 9 national teams were in contention: Poland, Norway, Croatia, Cyprus, Italy, Lithuania, Estonia, the United Kingdom and Macedonia.

Macedonia was drawn with Cyprus, Lithuania and Estonia in 4×4 format for the final spot!

The love for the country and the desire for ranking was huge among the selected athletes. The great self-confidence of Tomas Spaseski, who said the day before the qualifier: “Not to believe, we will certainly place ourselves” brought optimism to others.

Thomas always plays for the team and when he was offered the captain’s armband as the oldest in the team, he selflessly left it for Aleksandar Trajkovski who has the most appearances and is the only player in the team who played for Macedonia in the first qualifiers in Vienna 2012. At the end of the qualifier, statistics showed that Thomas Spaseski was the most effective player in the tournament.

Sofija Dzadzeva did not hide her pride and happiness to play for her Macedonia and with great confidence she believed in victory knowing the quality of her teammates.

‘We do not have much to write about the possibilities of the captain Aleksandar Trajkovski, simply without him this ranking among the best 18 in the world would have been impossible.’ says NF president Michael V. Pop-Gonoff.

Petar Filipov is an experienced player who was not in the best shape this year, but when it was most needed, he performed the task entrusted to him to win Macedonia their qualification.

Andreja Andreevski is the Alpha and Omega in the national team, disciplined, consistent and solid for the last 5-6 years. Just as skiing has a downhill, slalom, giant slalom, etc. so poker has more variants, unlike other players, “Match Poker” is his specialty. When it was most needed and the result was uncertain in the last session, he performed exceptionally, topping the individual rankings and securing very important points for a Macedonian victory!

It will be ungrateful to not mention the other national team members who played in this series of qualifications: Katarina Tasevski from Skopje, Aleksandar Naumoski from Kicevo, Spase Klenkovski from Struga, Metodi Aleksov from Stip, Gorjan Peshev from Skopje, Goce Blazeski from Makedonski Brod, Martin from Vinica, Aleksandar Zuberovski from Bitola and Simon Trendafilov from Delchevo.

Gevgelija Miki Jovanov and Stipe Zharko could not be made available to the national team due to work obligations, just like one of their best players in recent years Toni Zengovski who was absent for justified reasons.

Filip Filipovski gave up at the end of the preparations in May for understandable reasons.

Thanks also to the players who were abroad, had a desire, and were not able to physically attend, but still were good online sparring partners for the national team players: Mariana Josifovska (Cyprus), Bojan Vlakevski (Germany), Dejan Andonov (Switzerland) , Ivana Velickovic (Malta), as well as the home team: Velika Dimitrovska, Ivan Panev, Koki Atanasov, Dimitar Mechev, Naum Taneski, Ice Boceski, Dejan Burmuzoski, Viktor Nasteski and Stefan Strkov.

 

The Macedonian NF thanks Zlatan Milivojevic and Hotel Europa for their support, Dimitar Badev, Pance Krstev, Petko Tanov, Stojan Trajcev, and Toni Kondevski from Australia who have been supporting and following their work for years.

Former Ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia in Vienna – Mr. Gjorgi Filipov, a great fan of poker, is their honorary member and supporter. Thanks also to the Macedonian Olympic Committee and the legend of Real Madrid, Mr. Bogoevski! Of course, a big thank you to their partners Apollonia Hotel & Casino Gevgelija and Casino Pintija Skopje who provided excellent conditions for their selection!

Many greetings and thanks to the members of the founding board of the organization Mr. Bojan Avramoski and Mr. Trajce Pop-Gonov.

Varun Goenka

Team Macedonia are Ready for the 2021 Nations Cup Qualifiers

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Introducing the National Match Poker squad for Macedonia, based on a number of qualification tournaments, and ready to battle with the other nations for the Nations Cup qualification spots:

Sofija Dzadzeva – has been playing poker for the last 15 years and was awarded Macedonian female player of the year in 2016.

Marijana Josifovska – Macedonian female poker player of the year in 2017.

Katarina Tasevski , mother of two children , favorite to be crowned Macedonian female player of 2020

Aleksandar Trajkovski – 3 times crowned Macedonian player of the year and the only one who played in the live Euro qualifications in Vienna in 2012. He is a professional poker player for the past 10 years and captain of the Macedonian team.

Tomas Spaseski – He is a professional poker player and one of the best Macedonian players over the last few years.

Andreja Andreevski – He works at one of the best Macedonian TV channels and enjoys playing poker as his main hobby.

Petar Filipov – He is one of the 3 professional poker players in the Macedonian poker team, been playing since 2009.

Aleksandar Naumoski – He is professional soldier, works in the Macedonian army and loves playing poker for fun.

Miki Jovanov – He works as a manager at the local jail (government institution) and plays poker as a hobby. Winner of the online Macedonian poker league in 2020.

Spase Klenkovski – A businessman who plays poker for fun for many years. Regular player of the Macedonian online poker leagues last 5 years.