Tournament Time

Fall has come around, and that means the Dutch poker scene is once again under the spell of poker tournaments, organized by Holland Casino. After a year of playing the smaller tournaments at one of the casinos, friends' homes, or at the local bars, we will have the chance again to measure our strengths against the best of Europe. The Master Classics of Poker (MCOP) is about to start. As usual, Holland Casino promises bigger fields and larger prizes. And, as usual, it will probably deliver, but it seems like it will have to install a few poker tables in the kitchen this year to top last year's turnout.

The popularity of poker is still growing at a great rate in the Netherlands. This is a conclusion made from many observations, but a good example comes from taking a look at the series of tournaments Holland Casino has organized as a warm-up for the MCOP, the Dutch Championship of poker. This series, visiting all the branches of Holland Casino, provides the Dutch players with a chance to battle for the title "Dutch champion of poker" at a moderate price, and it sold out before any marketing campaign had even started. The series consists of only no-limit hold'em, so it might be a little presumptuous to call the winner the best poker player of the Netherlands, but, of course, these initiatives can only be applauded. As you read this, 36 players have qualified for the grand finale by scoring a top-three place during the local tournaments. On Oct. 22, they will duke it out for the title and the prize money. Among the qualifiers are poker pros such as Rolf Slotboom, as well as relatively new and unknown players.

National competition and tournaments are, in my eyes, important aspects of the professionalization of poker in the Netherlands, and the Dutch poker union (Pokerbond) agrees with me. Pokerbond (see Card Player Europe, July 2006, for a full explanation of its activities) has recently launched its new website. All poker players from the Netherlands can go to www.pokerbond.nl to learn more about this great organization and its plans for developing and expanding the poker world in the Netherlands. A growing market needs guidance, and Pokerbond is a nonprofit organization, so we can expect this union to act in favour of the players. It is currently representing the Dutch poker community in a series of meetings with Holland Casino, the current sole provider of legal poker games. It also communicates with the Dutch Ministry of Justice about the legal state of poker. Needless to say that such endeavours are better undertaken as a group, and Pokerbond needs as many members as possible. I think it's important to stand together in this matter, and if you are a Dutch poker player and haven't subscribed yet, I suggest you do so as soon as possible.

Then how about this as an indication of the growth of poker: Recent polls on pokerinfo.nl show that almost 50 percent of our community have taken up poker only in the last year. With the growth of the website traffic and professionalization of PokerInfo, the time has come for a completely new and improved website. Since its beginning, many new poker players and writers have joined the PokerInfo army, and together we created the number-one informative poker website of the Netherlands, with a community that still grows on one side, but has more than enough experience on the other side to provide new players with tips and tricks on poker, whether it be technical questions, legal matters, or just to find someone to share bad-beat stories with. The new website has recently aired, and can be found at its old address, www.pokerinfo.nl.

Anthon-Pieter Wink is a writer for PokerInfo.nl.