From 12th April 2013, top players from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Spain and UK arrived in Cyprus eager to challenge the Cypriot team for the honour of being crowned IFP European Nations Cup champion.

This event, which used IFP’s new Match Poker technology developed by XpressHD, was something of a coup for Cyprus as it was the first time anyone anywhere has seen playing cards being delivered to players via their individual smartphones.

winner_irelandSuch was the interest in the event that many countries beyond the 14 competing nations broadcasted the live event stream to follow the action in the wonderful surroundings of the Annabelle Hotel in Paphos. Ireland ended up winning and became the first ever IFP European Nations Cup champion.  Russia, Spain, UK, Estonia and the home nation, Cyprus, all qualified for the IFP Nations Cup 2013 final which will be held in November/December this year. Germany is the defending Nations Cup champion from the inaugural event, which was held in London in 2011.

“Organising an international competition is always a challenge for the host and recent events in Cyprus have made it even more so.” said IFP Board and founder member Patrick Nally. “The fact that we are here today is testament to all the hard work and support of our friends in Cyprus and I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of IFP, to express our sincere gratitude to the Mayor of Paphos and the Cyprus Poker Association. We are proud to work alongside you to present the first IFP European Nations Cup in Match Poker and to promote poker as a mind sport and game of strategic skill.”

Mayor of Paphos has said “We are delighted to welcome the IFP, the players, the world’s media and the many supporters to Paphos for such a wonderful event. We are also grateful to the Cyprus Poker Association for securing the event for Cyprus.”

Antonis Theophanides of the Cyprus Poker Association has said “We are delighted to be able to host this historical event on behalf of the IFP and bring this radical and innovative approach to the poker playing public. Cyprus has been through a very difficult time recently and this shows the strength of character that we have here to bounce back immediately and host such a prestigious event.”

MatchPoker_typo+imagelogo+subline_4cIn Paphos, Cyprus on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th April 2013, 14 national teams battled at Match Poker for the inaugural IFP European Nations Cup.

The four 3-hour+ sessions of play contained 51, 65, 71, and 72 hands respectively (259 hands in total).

As in all Match Poker events, the same order of cards was used at all 14 tables, dealt electronically to players’ smartphones and the tables’ community devices. The “seat draw” dictated that teammates played on different tables with one specific player from each team sat in each of the different seat positions, and that all teams were split evenly across the tournament tables. Over the course of a hand, therefore, each team received each set of hole cards in the same positions. A team’s collective skill in playing these hands and consistently outperforming the other teams determined their finishing position. In no way did the quality of the cards a player or team received influence their chance of winning the tournament.

Team chip-scores were compared each hand with a linear 14-1 points structure applied. After 259 hands scored this way, the top 6 teams qualified through to the IFP Nations Cup Finals at the end of November 2013.

The final scoreboard was as follows:

Scores_FINAL

Additional individual prizes (Player of each Seat) were also awarded. In essence there were 6 mini-contests going on between the sets of 14 players in each seat position (based on total tournament chip-count). And finally, the “Player of the Tournament” award was given to Ireland’s Michael Graydon – the Seat Winner whose total chips minus the average for their seat position was greatest.

Here are the complete individual standings:

Seat 1Seat 2Seat 3
1France
(Hicham Chelot)
Ireland
(Michael Graydon)
United Kingdom
(Barny Boatman)
2SpainSpainDenmark
3UKPolandIreland
4IrelandRussiaRussia
5NetherlandsSerbiaEstonia
6HungaryNetherlandsSpain
7LithuaniaCyprusLithuania
8SerbiaDenmarkBosnia
9CyprusBosniaPoland
10RussiaFranceFrance
11BosniaUKCyprus
12EstoniaEstoniaHungary
13PolandHungarySerbia
14DenmarkLithuaniaNetherlands
Seat 4Seat 5Seat 6
1Netherlands
(Jorryt van Hoof)
United Kingdom
(Barauskaite/Mahrenholz)
Cyprus
(Xaris Zittis)
2RussiaPolandSpain
3HungarySpainLithuania
4FranceIrelandBosnia
5EstoniaNetherlandsPoland
6UKRussiaDenmark
7BosniaHungaryEstonia
8LithuaniaSerbiaFrance
9SerbiaBosniaHungary
10PolandFranceUK
11IrelandDenmarkIreland
12SpainEstoniaSerbia
13CyprusLithuaniaRussia
14DenmarkCyprusNetherlands

 

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

 

DPSB_HeadUp_Teammeisterschaft_12052013_Pokerverein_KoenigsbrunnAt the end of Season 4 of DPSB’s ‘HeadsUp Team League’ Hanover hosted this year’s final playoffs on May 10-12. For the first time ever the official German federation also crowned Germany’s champion in individual poker. In its team variation 12 pre-qualified teams across the country competed for the title of team champion.

Starting with the individual championship on Friday, each of DPSB’s associated clubs were allowed to nominate up to four players, which resulted into a diverse number of 69 participants from 24 different clubs. Due to the unique event structure game play lasted until 2am in the morning until Germany had his first official poker champion: Johannes Schubert from Pokerclub “All In” Winsen (Luhe) e.V. It was his final hand of AK which beat challenger Suksan “Suki” Atsha Ria from SV Arminia Hanover who had 10’s.

On Saturday the playoffs of DPSB’s team championship started with the following 12 teams participating in four groups out of three: 1. Pokerverein Königsbrunn, THC Mönchengladbach, Poker Bären Berlin, Black Bullets Berlin, Poker Piranhas Hamburg, All In Poker Hannover, Hot River Amberg, SV Arminia Hannover, Bad Beat Bremerhaven, High 5 Holdem Düsseldorf, River Kings Hof, and 89 suited Poker München. At midnight a winner of each of the four groups was found to compete in a semi final on Sunday.

In each of the two matches between High 5 Holdem Düsseldorf vs. Hot River Amberg and 1. Pokerverein Königsbrunn vs. Black Bullets Berlin, the Bavarian teams won through to the final. With Team Berlin, who made it to the podium, it was a much closer battle between the two finalists, from which 1. Pokerverein Königsbrunn with player Daniel Biederwolf, Daniel Siebenhaar, David Berger and Norbert Bachl came off as winners.

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.

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