April 25, 2018

Anonymous Dutch player wins big online

Filed under: General,Online by Orangemaster @ 12:51 pm

Recently, an anonymous online Dutch poker player calling themselves ‘Daenarys T’ (from the character Queen Daenarys Targaryen of the Game of Thrones television series) won 1.000.044 US dollars (about 817.930 euro) during the Sunday Million Anniversary Take 2 online poker tournament.

As a profile photo, the person used a picture of amateur Dutch poker player Tim ‘FysioTim’ Hendriks. Hendriks himself said he wasn’t playing, reacting calmly to someone using his Twitter profile picture to play the tournament. However, he was a bit shocked that people thought he had become a millionaire.

Here at 24HQ where poker is a thing, we’re still miffed by the 2016 decision that considers poker a game of chance, which means anyone who wants to organise poker games needs a permit, profiting the state monopoly of Holland Casino. If you believe it is a game of chance and have money, hit us up, we’ll fix that.

(Link: ad.nl)

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March 8, 2016

Poker is now a game of chance, says court

Filed under: Gaming,General by Orangemaster @ 9:35 am

The battle to outlaw poker has been raging in the Netherlands for at least a decade, and the main issue was that the courts considered poker a game of skill and not a game of chance.

A court in Amsterdam recently ruled that regardless of the skill of the players, there is still an element of luck, therefore it is now considered a game of chance, which means anyone who wants to organise poker games needs a permit.

In 1998 the Attorney General had ruled that poker was a game of chance, giving as an example that playing several tables at once online, ‘multi-tabling’, is much more about strategy and relies a lot less on chance. This means that the lower court rulings of 2010 and 2014 that had taken the ‘game of skill’ side of things have now been overturned.

The case that went before the Amsterdam court was about Texas Hold’em poker games going on in a café in Bussum, North Holland where a permit wasn’t necessary because they didn’t need one for a game of skill. Now that the court has decided after 10 years that poker is a game of chance, both tournament organisers have been given a suspended fine of 1250 euro each and the bar owner 500 euro. The court went for suspended fines because the case took a long time to sort out.

The court found a way to choose the version of poker that profits the state monopoly of Holland Casino. I disagree that poker is a game of chance because without skill you’re just a donkey throwing your money away.

(Link: www.ad.nl)

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November 13, 2014

Jorryt van Hoof breaks Dutch poker record in Vegas

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Orangemaster @ 6:57 am

Poker player Jorryt van Hoof from Eindhoven finished third this week at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, beating last year’s seventh place scored by Dutch trailblazer Michiel Brummelhuis. Now the highest ranked Dutchman ever in this event, Van Hoof goes home with 3,8 million USD (over 3 million euro).

Although Van Hoof prefers playing PLO (pot-limit Omaha) cash games, he still surprised many by having made it to the ‘November Nine’, the nine players who get to participate in the WSP. In fact, Van Hoof even started out as the chip leader.

After being eliminated Van Hoof tweeted ‘Thank you all for the amazing support, I truly appreciate it! It’s been one heck of a ride and a unique experience’. First place went to Sweden’s Martin Jacobson and second place to Norway’s Felix Stephensen.

(Links: www.ed.nl, www.pokernews.com, Photo by Jam Adams, some rights reserved)

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May 14, 2011

Teenager’s boastfulness costs him 370,000 euro poker prize

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 7:15 pm

In March of this year the Jonker family of Kerkrade in Limburg seemed to have struck gold when father Jos (47) reached sixth place in an online poker tournament, netting him a cool 370,000 euro. The happy story turned sour quickly when 17 year old son Jimmy was found boasting in online forums that it was him that had been playing the finals, drawing the attention of organisers PokerStars.

Yesterday PokerStars decided that since it was against the rules for the underaged to play, it would not pay out the sum to either of the Jonkers, opting instead to donate the prize to an organisation that tries to promote responsible gambling by battling, amongst others, gambling by the underaged, AD reports.

Jimmy Jonker had been participating in the tournament using his father’s account, and the handle Zeurrr (Whiiine). The Jonker family refused to comment to the newspaper.

The Sunday Million tournament had almost 60,000 people compete for 11,825,600 US dollar in prizes.

(Link: PokerStrategy.com. Photo by Jam Adams, some rights reserved)

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August 10, 2010

The battle to outlaw poker rages on

Filed under: Gaming,General by Orangemaster @ 10:57 am

Back in July, an organiser of a Texas Hold’em poker game in The Hague was found not guilty, as his tournament was considered a game of skill rather than a game of chance. This, of course, irritated the Attorney General who wants to outlaw these poker games and is appealing the decision. Since the government has a monopoly on games of chance, it is missing out on this poker money.

In the mean time, while the Dutch have been months without a government (we had elections, but the parties can’t agree who will form the coalition), a café in the town of Glane in Twente is playing poker to its heart’s content. The current (‘demissionary’) Minister of Justice told the café to stop, but the court ruling is still on the café’s side: poker is currently considered a game of skill and not a game of chance.

So, the question still stands: will poker games be outlawed or will the appeal work? First, a new government and then we’ll see.

(Link: depers.nl)

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July 3, 2010

Poker considered game of skill by court

Filed under: Gaming,General,Sports by Branko Collin @ 2:15 pm

Against heavy odds, a poker tournament organiser was declared not guilty by the criminal court of The Hague last Friday, Algemeen Dagblad reports.

Earlier judgements, including one of the Dutch High Court had, held that poker is a game of chance. The defendant, who had organised a Texas Hold’em tournament in The Hague in 2006, argued successfully to the contrary.

The three judges weighed expert opinion, the opinions within the poker community (the prosecution had claimed that poker was generally considered a game of chance), and the opinion of the defendant. The court also held that a general principle of law such as presumption of innocence had to be adhered to: the prosecution was expected to show scientific evidence that poker is not a game of skill.

Finally when looking at the little scientific evidence available, the court favoured the research by Peter Born and Ben van der Genugten (2009) over psychologist W.A. Wagenaar’s study. The latter argued that whether a poker game is a game of chance also depends on the individual players’ perception of the game. The judges felt that this made Wagenaar’s model unsuitable for predicting whether a specific game or tournament is a game of chance.

In the Netherlands, the government has the monopoly over games of chance.

Are there any lawyers in the house willing to predict what this verdict will mean for future poker tournaments in the Netherlands?

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May 23, 2008

Man wins 980,000 euro in casino poker game

Filed under: Gaming,General by Branko Collin @ 6:26 pm

Last Tuesday a man won 980,000 euro in a poker game at the Holland Casino in Rotterdam. The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, played a relatively rare variant of the game called Caribbean Stud Poker in which part of the winnings go into a jackpot. A royal flush managed to help pry loose the contents of this jackpot.

Owner Holland Casino, the state-owned and only legal casino company in the Netherlands, declared that this was the highest jackpot in Rotterdam ever.

(Link: Z24 (Dutch), Photo by Jam Adams, some rights reserved)

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