INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF POKER launched

[Press Release]

INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF POKER launched by seven countries …ambition is to have poker accepted as a ‘mind sport’ and to bring end to legal restraints


At last, poker has its own global governing body - an international federation founded on the same legal criteria and principles as those of other mainstream sports. Its first President, acclaimed poker writer Anthony Holden, says this is “the only way to free poker from the cruel and unfair restraints of gambling legislation across the globe.”

The International Federation of Poker (IFP) was established by seven founder-member countries on 29 April 2009 at a historic ceremony in Lausanne, Switzerland, a venue symbolizing international sports cooperation; Lausanne is the home of the International Olympic Committee and many other international sports federations.

The founder members are…

• Danish Poker Federation (Denmark)
• Fédération Française des Joueurs de Poker (France)
• Stichting Nederlandse PokerBond (Holland)
• UK Poker Federation (UK)
• Russian Sport Poker Federation (Russia)
• Ukrainian Poker Federation (Ukraine)
• Associacao Brazileira de Poker (Brazil)

Negotiations with 20 other countries are well advanced, and many of them are expected to join the Federation over the coming weeks.

Mr Holden, who was elected IFP President at the Lausanne meeting, said that poker had developed beyond all predictable measure over the past decade, and had now become a major international ‘mind-sport’. But the international coordination and representation of the game had not matched the speed of its expansion. Thus there were conflicting levels of acceptability around the world.

“The Federation will begin by helping to make an international case for poker as a ‘mind-sport’. We have already had encouraging conversations with the International Mind Sports Association, based in Paris, who organise the Mind Sports Games alongside the Olympics every four years. If we can achieve membership, it will help the game become legal everywhere and start eliminating the restraints some countries are imposing on the game.”

IFP will also draw together all the arguments, evidence and testimony gathered around the world by national federations or their equivalents which have been called upon to contest restrictive laws or punitive taxation.

IFP will also be working to standardize tournament rules internationally, as well as compiling international rankings alongside each member-nation’s national rankings. These will be used to determine the teams sent to IFP-approved events. IFP also plans to stage international team poker events along the lines of golf’s Ryder Cup, tennis’s Davis Cup etc.

Currently under construction, a state-of-the-art website will soon be launched for IFP. This will provide a forum for international debate on all aspects of the ‘mind-sport’, as well as the latest poker news from all over the world. Its custom-built TV channel will also offer footage of numerous TV poker events past and present.

Above all, IFP will be working to demonstrate that poker is a ‘mind-sport’ of strategic skill, not a mere game of chance, so as to win it exemption from gambling legislation throughout the world, and place it on a level of respectability and acceptance alongside bridge and chess.

For more information, contact IFP executive director Oliver Chubb at :

+44 (0)7540-826778



ANTHONY HOLDEN

President & Chief Executive

International Federation of Poker (IFP)

Anthony Holden is an award-winning author and journalist, whose 30-plus books include bestselling biographies of the Prince of Wales and Laurence Olivier, Shakespeare and Tchaikovsky. He has also been a war correspondent, diarist, critic and editor, writing for all major publications on both sides of the Atlantic in his 40-year career.

Holden is equally well-known for his books about poker. Big Deal: A Year as a Professional Poker Player is frequently described as a ‘cult classic’, enjoying no fewer than six editions since its first publication in 1990, with worldwide sales now well into six figures. Holden’s long-awaited sequel, Bigger Deal: A Year on the New Poker Circuit, finally appeared in 2007, followed in 2008 by an expert strategy manual, Holden on Hold'em.

A Vegas regular since the 1970s, Holden won TV’s first Celebrity Late Night Poker on Channel 4 in 2000. In 2006 he won his $10,000 entry to the ‘main event’ of the World Series of Poker by beating three world champions (Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem) in a London tournament organized by PokerStars. He also represented England in TV’s 2006 World Cup of Poker.
Holden was a PokerStars-sponsored player before being appointed the first President of the International Federation of Poker (IFP) in 2009. A popular and respected figure throughout the poker world, he now leads an events-organizing team seeking global recognition of poker as a skilled ‘mind-sport’ rather than a game of chance.