The first leg of the Champions League quarter final games threw up some interesting questions. A lot of them surrounding David Beckham and whether he can still run but other questions like did the officials have money on PSG to score and did Borussia Dortmund’s strikers have money on themselves not to score? Beckham’s limited involvement aside, there was no British or Irish involvement in the premier tournament in European football but that doesn’t mean that the Brits are out of the running for European glory.
No, we’re not talking about Eurovision and that’s not just because we don’t fancy Bonnie Tyler’s chances of success. The main focus for Brits in Europe turns to Cyprus and the upcoming European Nations Cup which is being held in Paphos. This is the first International Federation of Poker (IFP) event of the year and it takes place between the 12th and 15th of April at the Annabelle Hotel.
Technology is at the forefront at the IFP event
It promises to be a landmark event because there will be no poker cards or live dealers at the event. This is not an oversight in that someone forgot to bring the cards or the dealers have all been sacked it is down to the fact that all players will receive hold card information and all other essentials via their smartphone. This will ensure that every single play that is made in the game will be stored and then made available to review and watch again.
It is quite an intriguing set-up and there are a number of distinct rules and structural components. For instance, there will be players from 14 different countries sat at each table but each nation will occupy a specific seat at every table. This means that if the UK team is sat at Seat 1 on the first table, someone from Team UK will be positioned on seat 1 at every table.
Also, every player from each nation will receive the exact same cards. Again, using Team UK at seat 1 as an example, if table 1 receives a pair of Kings, every Team UK player sat at seat 1 of their respective table will receive a pair of Kings. This provides an interesting scenario and it can be seen how different poker hands pan out thanks to players making different decisions from the starting situations.
Team United Kingdom consists of Daiva Barauskaite, Karl Mahrenholz, Ben Roberts, John Eames, Neil Channing, Ross Boatman and Barny Boatman. Team Ireland consists of Cat Taylor, Dara O’Kearney, Dermot Blain, Eoghan O’Dea, John O’Shea, Mick Graydon and Padraig Parkinson.
Hoepfully the technology is up to the task because it will be a right kerfuffle dealing and shuffling cards to make sure every table gets the same run of cards!