We recently conducted a study of 2,000 adults where we asked them about the best celebrations in sport and which sports required competitors to be able to psyche out their opponents in order to succeed and unsurprisingly poker was ranked up there in the latter category.
Twenty percent of the people surveyed ranked poker as the “psyche out” game, narrowly behind tennis (21%) and nicely in front of rugby (15%).
In 2010, the game of poker was officially accepted as a mind sport by the International Mind Sports Association, ranking it alongside the likes of chess and bridge. Everyone knows that the mental game of poker is crucial to success and being able to get inside the heads of their opponents is what sets the elite poker players from the rest of the field.
Poker players have the chance to psyche out their opponents at Aspers Casino, Stratford City between July 30 and August 2, 2015 when the partypoker WPT National London festival heads there. The £200 buy-in Accumulator, which features a £100,000 guaranteed prize pool, is one of the most exciting live tournaments on the calendar, one that is attended by professional poker players and poker lovers alike.
Grace McMillan of partypoker said: “Psyching out your opposition is a huge part of sport and we are glad we can offer the opportunity for people to put this skill into practice. What better way to practice your psyching out skills than at a game of poker at WPT National London!”
Daily qualifiers are online at partypoker now and run until July 19. These qualifiers feed into the daily Seat Only satellites or the weekly package-awarding satellites with buy-ins starting as low as $1.
Should you go all the way and win the WPT National London Main Event, you may want to celebrate extravagantly because poker winners have some catching up to do when it comes to being ranked among the best victory celebrations.
Football, unsurprisingly, was way out in front with 40% of the vote with Formula 1 closing in behind with 22%.
F1 victories are traditionally celebrated on the podium where the winner is draped in a wreath and sprays champagne at anyone within reach. While we can’t guarantee that you won’t find yourself ejected from Aspers Stratford if you coat the walls, tables and patrons with champagne, winning WPT National London is definitely a good enough excuse to pop some corks and crack open some bubbly!
Speaking of F1, Sky Sports’ lead presenter of F1, Simon Lazenby, is going to be at the WPT National London festival and helping host some exciting and fun activities throughout the week – it really will be poker in the fast lane!
Throughout July 14, Simon is on several radio stations talking about F1 – of course – poker and a whole host of other subjects so listen out for him on the likes of Radio Yorkshire, Minister FM, BBC Radio Oxford and Siren FM and if you miss him the first time round, make sure you check out each of the station’s catch-up shows on their respective websites.
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