Change isn’t always for the good, but we think the new IFP logo is change for the better.
The same spirit with which the IFP has evolved since then is captured in the new logo that is both modern and elegant. We hope you agree.
In what is a significant step for poker across Germany, football club SV Arminia Hannover has added poker as an official sport to its portfolio, becoming the first club to do so alongside more established sports such as football.The news, reported on the club’s website and by the German Poker Federation (DPSB) yesterday, will add a further layer of respectability to the game in Germany which has often struggled against unfair stereotype.As detailed on the SV Arminian Hannover website, the club took the measure to acknowledge the increasing interest in the game, working with the DPSB to connect the game of poker with wider sports.
The aim of the new club is to provide members with a regulated gaming operation. It will also entitle players to attend the German championship and play a leading role in promoting poker as a sport in Germany.
In addition, the division of the club, headed by Claas Kähler, will offer training facilities, club championships and open tournaments which are hoped will generate new interest, bringing new players to the game.
Stephan Kalhamer, the President of the DPSB Stephan Kalhammer expressed his delight with the news.
“I welcome the words of Claas Kähler, in cooperation with Arminia Hannover, to write a piece of poker’s sporting history,” he said. “That this is being done, especially in the complex legal circumstances surrounding the state of Lower Saxony, is particularly pleasing. If you make it there, you make it anywhere.”
Poker becomes one of a number of sports under the SV Arminia umbrella, including football, table tennis, handball, gymnastics, children’s gymnastics, hockey and inline skating.
It seems the press’s favourite poker player these days is Olympic champion Michael Phelps.
That’s if you believe what you read in the papers.
Yesterday the British newspaper The Daily Mail ran a story detailing Phelps’s winnings during a recent trip to the poker tables of Las Vegas. They quoted a TMZ report suggesting that the 27-year-old walked away from one cash game at Caesars Palace having won $100,000.
All nonsense according to Phelps, who tweeted:
@MichaelPhelps: I wish I won a 100k…. Haha not true tho:(
Phelps began playing poker several years ago but admitted that it’s a form of relaxation rather than anything more serious.
“I love to play, and it’s fun,” Phelps told Card Player magazine in 2008. “It’s exciting. This is a good time for me to learn some things, to pick up a few things in poker, to try to read people and [learn the] mind-set that goes into it and everything — just to try something new.”
Phelps, who has sponsorship deals with Visa, Omega and Hewlett-Packard among others, may play down his prowess at the tables, but his former roommate Jeff Gross believes the Olympic swimming champion is no “fish”.
“Mike is easily one of the best celebrity poker players around,” Gross told Card Player last year. “Overall, I’d say he treats the game seriously and loves the competition, but it’s just a hobby. Once he finishes up his career at the 2012 Olympics in London, I think you’ll be seeing him competing more in live tournaments.”
We may yet see Phelps at the business end of poker tournaments around the world. For now stories of big wins remain fiction, although it may be true that he spent that evening at a nightclub. But that’s hardly headline news in Las Vegas.
The World Mind Games continue in Lille, France, with early round events in Bridge, Chess, Go, Draughts and Xiang Qi all taking place today.
But even when the Games come to an end next week, it will not be the end of play, with SportAccord planning their own online version of its Games later this year.
The 2012 World Mind Games online tournament will aim to attract the some 300,000 participants who took part in the successful first event of its kind in 2011.
Tournaments in each sport, backed by their member federations and the International Mind Sport Association, will take place in September and October and will be played on the major online platforms. With categories devised based on skill level, organisers also hope to attract younger players, as well as those who compete in universities.
Go to the World Mind Games website for more details of events this week. Additional information about the online games will be available soon on the SportAccord World Mind Games website.
When chess players reach Grandmaster status it’s an honour they possess for life. No one can strip them of it. It’s for keeps, recognised not only in the chess community but also beyond as a mark of intellectual prowess – even non-chess players are familiar with the word “Grandmaster”.
Solomon, 32, from Mitchells Plan, was part of the South African team at the 2012 World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. Now he is recognised as being among the best in the game, making history at the same time.
It’s a ranking process absent from poker, which has Players of the Year and other annual awards, but nothing as definite or long-lasting as an official designation such as Grand or International Master.
In chess however, Grandmaster is the highest ranking any chess player can obtain. As you’d expect it’s not easy to achieve. A player must perform consistently to a rating of more than 2,500. For reference a strong player is usually rated at around 2,000. The world number one, Magnus Carlsen, tops 2,800.
Furthermore Solomon becomes only the second Grandmaster from sub-Saharan Africa and only the eighth player from the continent ever.
Should there be “Grandmasters” and “International Masters” in poker? It’s a theory that IFP is working on as it develops its own ranking system for players around the world. Perhaps one day poker’s equivalent highest rank will be as familiar and need as little explanation as the designation “Grandmaster.”
For now you can read the full story about Kenny Solomon on the IOL news website.