European Nations Cup – Cyprus 2013

Watch Live Stream on April 13 and 14

Streaming times will be: Between 12-8pm EET+2 on both Saturday and Sunday (10AM-6PM UK Time).

European Nations Cup

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

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

Such is the interest in the event that many countries beyond the 14 competing nations are taking the live event stream to follow the action in the wonderful surroundings of the Annabelle Hotel in Paphos.

“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.”

Team UK is among the stronger teams on paper, boasting a line up of established poker professionals. Captaining the team is Barny Boatman. Other team members are Neil Channing, Ben Roberts, Jerome Bradpiece, Daiva Barauskaite, Ross Boatman and Karl Mahrenholz. A few of the established players representing other nations are Ivan Demidov (Russia), Eoghan O’Dea (Ireland), Rob Hollink (Netherlands) and Ana Marquez (Spain).

International Federation of Poker

Founded in April 2009 in Lausanne, Switzerland, home of the Olympic movement and most other sports federations, IFP champions poker as “a mind-sport of strategic skill”, alongside chess, bridge, draughts and Go. As it campaigns to clean up poker’s image, and lobbies legislators to separate poker from gambling, IFP’s member-nations now number more than 50 worldwide, from Australia to Brazil. IFP events do not involve buy-ins or gambling. IFP has Observer member status of the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) and SportAccord, the general assembly of international sports federations. IFP is working closely with Harvard and the recently established mind sport Research Network at the Berkman Center, Harvard.