Norwegian Poker NM Tournament 2020 Postponed

Restrictions on casinos and gambling in Norway led to the Norwegian Poker Championship's move to Ireland for many years, an event that went from strength to strength. However, from 2015, Oslo has been included to the annual calendar. Originally, three tournaments were held, but by 2019, the number of tournaments had grown to eight.

Both annual tournaments see quite a few thousand Norwegians competing for the prizes and the week-long tournament hosts over 75 events in both cities. Poker players in Norway now have the chance to come out from behind closed doors and enjoy their game publicly, even if it's just for a few days each year.

However, the extraordinary circumstances due to the global corona-virus outbreak this year has resulted in a postponement of the tournament that was due to be held from March 27 to April 5 2020. The new dates have been set to October 6 - 11.

A short history of poker in Norway

One of the most popular card games today is poker; however, in the past, the game was often considered one for shady characters. Chris Moneymaker was the person who put the game on the global map when he won the World Poker Series in 2003. After having qualified online, he was the winner who literally came out of nowhere.

Norway kept a tight reign on poker for many years, but their recent relaxation allows poker games to be played under special circumstances. Since 2014, even though casinos are still not allowed in Norway, organized poker tournaments have been allowed.

The Norwegian Poker Championships initially started as an underground event, but since it was officially allowed in 2015, it has gone from strength to strength.

Online poker is also restricted in the Scandinavian country, and even though players do play in online poker card rooms based in other regions, the government has taken measures to make it difficult for players by clamping down on financial institutions. However, players do find ways to by-pass these limitations.

The same holds true for online casino games. At https://www.norskcasino.com/ for example, many non-Norwegian casinos are available to play at, as they're not regionally based.

Tax issues in Norway have been the reason why some of the country's top poker players have relocated to the UK and USA. There are serious tax implications for people who play as a hobby because they are liable to tax, but no deductions can be made. This means that someone who has one big win during the year but then breaks even throughout the rest of it must still pay taxes on the original amount that was won.

Norwegian hall of poker playing fame

In 2019, Preben Stokkan was considered the country's top playing poker player by Poker.no. His position was ensured because of the long run that he had at the World Series of Poker. Stokkan's closest rival at number two is the Las Vegas-based Trygve Leite. Other names on the list include Johnny Lodden, made his break with the online game and has a fine collection of title collected on the European circuit. Jan Olav Sjavik, who has 7 international titles, is considered an old-schooler of the game.

2019 - an extraordinary year for Norwegian Championship

Several records were set at the one-week event held at the Oslofjord Convention Center in Melsomvik last year.

Here are some of the interesting records broken in NM 2019:

• Due to the record number of tournaments held in 2019, it was the year with the highest number of champions, eight in all.
• There were 4870 participants in total, a new record that broke that of 2017, and of these, 1782 were at the main event in Stokke.
• The number of unique players also increased from a record 2,446 in 2018, to 2,520 in 2019.
• The total prize money paid in 2019 was NOK15,109,364, and interestingly the percentage of women in the field numbered 6.6%, with 167 women participating.
• Participant records were broken in Deepstack with 913 purchases, 8-Game Mixed Limit with 212 purchases and there were 375 participants in Pot Limit Omaha, a record for Stokke. Turbo had 882 participants in 2019, the same as in 2018.
• Poker players throughout Norway are anticipating the next big tournament where they are sure that more records are about to be broken. In the meantime, as they await the corona-virus outbreak to subside, they are practising their playing skills.