The massive Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba has signed a deal with Oceans Sports and Entertainment agency, agreeing to promote the International Federation of Poker’s Match Poker (formerly Duplicate Poker) international tournaments.
The major publicity opportunities inherent in the Asian agreement will go a long way to realising IFP president Patrick Nally’s ambitious target of presenting the game of poker to 2 million people before 2020
In a presser this week Nally described the partnership with Alibaba as a powerful sports marketing force:
“I am delighted that their energies, attention and resources will be focused on launching and promoting Match Poker and that they share my belief in its massive worldwide potential,” he said.
Match Poker is played to Texas Hold’em rules and for points rather than money; teams are seated at separate tables and dealt the same hand at each, after which the action commences. On conclusion the chip counts are calculated and converted to points, and the team that completes an agreed number of hands with the highest number of points wins.