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The Master Classics Over The Years

How “just a thought” ended up as the most prestigious annual event in the history of European tournament poker

By Rolf “Ace” Slotboom

Poker in Holland has never been more than just a moderate success. In fact, until the most recent poker boom (both live and – especially – online), Dutch poker was in fact just fairly small: There were quite a few good players, but not many players overall. For years, the Holland Casinos in Amsterdam at Max Euweplein 1 was the only place in Holland that had a legal poker game – and even with that being the case, there would rarely be more than three tables going.

Despite all this, the Master Classics of Poker (MCOP) have been able to become the biggest and most prestigious annual poker event in Europe. Well, the biggest, the biggest... It used to be the biggest, but now massive events like the EPT and also the Monte Carlo Millions seem very eager to take over. Despite this, the players still LOVE to come over to Amsterdam in November – not just for the Van Gogh Museum, for the canals, for the coffeeshops or for the Red Light District, but more importantly to play poker. The MCOP is famous for its wonderful atmosphere and the great sportsmanship – and the prize pools continue to grow as well. The 2005 Master Classics had a record prize pool of almost €2.5 million, and all events were sell-outs or close to it – including the €5,000 Main Event. I grabbed a chair and sat down with some of the driving forces behind this success.

The person at the opposite side of my table is someone I have known for years. It is Peter Voolstra, duty manager at the Holland Casinos, and tournament director for the annual Master Classics. Being one of the persons who was there from the very beginning, he recalls exactly how things got started.

“Well Rolf, it was in the year 1991 when we left the gaming area in the Hilton, to move to the venue we have now. We did not have poker immediately. It was my boss at the time, Jan Rodrigo, who had heard about the game, and thought that it would be a great idea to add it to the mix of games that we offer. The first casino we contacted about how to do this was The Mirage in Vegas. We actually went there to talk with the person in charge of the poker, Doug Dalton – yes, who is now in charge of the poker room at the Bellagio. He explained the best way to start up poker, and together with his wife Edna they came over to Amsterdam to train our dealers. Within no-time, the poker action got started, and for many years we were the only place in Holland were it was legal to play poker. From there, it was just a little step to start up the Master Classics. Frankly, it was not more than “just a thought”. We decided that we wanted a poker tournament, and we simply said: Let’s do it. As it happened, the inaugural event took place the first week of November – for no other reason than that the Daltons were here at that time. But it has remained the first week of November ever since.”

Lots of regulars right from the start

The tournament started out very small, not at all like the huge events we have now. As Peter recalls it: “The first time we certainly had no more than just three or four tables for the Main Event. It was very small, I guess we had 30 players maybe, and certainly no more than 40.” Regarding the first winner – well, even after having done some research in various places, I guess we just don’t know for certain. I had always heard that the first-ever winner of the Main Event was Gerard Dresken, a high-stakes gambler who is still a regular in our big pot-limit Omaha games. But according to Peter, it was Surinder Sunar who won the first title – and when I asked Surinder, he actually confirmed that. Surinder then also said that the tournament he won had about 90 entrants or so, much more than the 30 or 40 that Peter talked about. So, it seemed logical to assume that maybe Surinder won the second one, and indeed Gerard the first. But when I asked Gerard, he knew all the figures by heart. He said: “Back when I won, the Main Event was still 7-card stud, with a 1,050 guilder buy-in, and 96 entrants.” All in all, no absolute certainty on the first winner I guess, even though everyone agrees that Chip Winton from the U.S. was the first overall winner. As is the case with Surinder, Chip is one of the many players who have not missed any Master Classics. Another one of these regulars is one of Peter Voolstra’s closest friends in the gaming industry, Bruno Fitoussi.

In fact, Bruno was here in Amsterdam long before this first Master Classics had actually taken place. The reason was simple. At that time (1992) he was a full-time poker pro, specializing in cash games, and when he heard that a new poker room had been opened in Amsterdam, he simply decided to move over there. Bruno: “Right from the start, I loved everything over here. The casino, the staff, the city – I was equally fond of it all. I was making my living here, playing 30-60 guilders split limit, and averaging about 1,000 guilders a day. So, I actually built part of my bankroll here. This was the time when there was still lots of chess and backgammon action over here, and I often played in the Chess Café with people like (the other) Rolf, Evert & Jeroen. Then the MCOP started, and I loved that even more. Ever since the start we have had a large contingent of French players, and even today with all these young Scandinavians, I guess the biggest crew is still from France. I genuinely loved the time back then, even more so because Doug Dalton was around – Doug who has been my best man when I married in Vegas.”

Large prize pools – Big names

Right from the start in 1992, the Master Classics continued to grow in a very steady pattern. I have been with the MCOP myself for about five years now (in my role as tournament reporter), and every year - almost without exception – I could say: “We have yet another record prize pool.” An important role in this success is played by the Two Women behind the Master Classics. First of all, there is Adèle Bruijn, who for many years was responsible for promoting the event abroad. She used to travel to all the major events in Paris, Vienna, L.A. and Las Vegas to recruit as many players as possible – and she did a terrific job. For years, Adèle was basically the “face” of the Master Classics, and when the players had questions or needed something, Adèle was the one they would turn to. In the year 2003, she was joined by her good friend Marie-Louise Overtoom, and the following year Marie-Louise actually took over. The object is still the same after all this time: Taking good care of the players, and making them feel welcome.

Marie-Louise: “Nowadays we don’t actually have to convince the players anymore that it would be worthwhile to come over to Amsterdam – everybody basically knows. But we still go and travel around from event to event, thereby showing the players that we truly care about them, and to confirm the bond that we have. The players know that we know that most of the tournaments will be a sell-out anyway – yet we still come over to the major events, and people appreciate that. In fact, we still keep adding large sums of money to the prize pool, again knowing that in many cases we wouldn’t need to – as most of the events would be a sell-out anyway, and we simply cannot host more than 270 players under the current conditions. But because we are committed to this event and will stay committed, I think we have established an excellent relationship with the players. Even though it is harder nowadays with all these young players who may qualify online through satellites that we don’t even know about, we still try to make them feel welcome the same as these players who have been with us for years.”

Adèle: “We are proud that we have been able to get so many big names to attend here. It may seem like no big deal to get players like Phil Hellmuth, Mike Sexton, Eric Seidel, T.J. Cloutier, Ted Forrest and Layne Flack over here, but I can tell you that these people don’t like to go outside of the U.S. – even more so, because in the past the link Amsterdam / Poker was not automatically clear to them. But these players did come over – and they loved it. Mike Caro has even given a seminar here once. Or what about John Bonetti? He was well over 70 when he came here for the first time – and his passport showed that he had never been abroad before!

The future

Despite all these big names that used to come over (and some still do), the fact is that recent changes in worldwide poker have had a considerable influence of the position of the Master Classics in all this. Because of the mission statement of the Holland Casinos (regulating rather than actively promoting games of chance like poker – games of chance according to Dutch laws, that is), the MCOP cannot jump on the Internet / sponsorship / TV wagon like other tournaments can. Peter, Adèle and Marie-Louise have made a tremendous effort in trying to make the MCOP an integral part of the televised European Poker Tour, but unfortunately, rules and regulations stood in the way. For a large part this was because of the sponsor of the EPT, an online poker site – and according to Dutch laws, it is prohibited to “gamble” on the Internet. Because of all this, there is the genuine danger of all kinds of European events getting bigger and bigger because of the almost unlimited possibilities that they have with regards to television, Internet and sponsorship, while the Master Classics cannot keep up with that pace. As a result, the MCOP could then lose some of the appeal that it still has now, especially to the sponsors of some of the most famous players. So, the future of the MCOP is not entirely clear, even though it is clear that the event should be strong enough to survive at least the next five, six years in its current format.

Peter: “Yes, there can be no doubt that the way we do things now, we could easily stabilize our current success. But we also acknowledge that under the current situations, we may have actually reached the maximum of what we can achieve. Still, we will try to do whatever we can to continue the growth. An important role here is for Harrah’s, the host of the World Series of Poker. We are their first license holder in Europe, and we could use this to our benefit in many ways. The fact that we have given Thomas Middleton, the winner of this year’s Main Event, a free ticket into the World Series plus $5,000 for expenses, is a first sign of our increasing commitment to the World Series – a commitment that in turn should benefit the Master Classics as well.”

Some final stories

Now obviously, when you’ve been around for so long, in all those years of Master Classics, there should be lots of interesting or remarkable stories – right? Adèle is the first to bite. She says: “Well yes. Especially if you are around people like Marcel Lüske or Devilfish, you can just wait for them – they will always come up with some new or funny things. Like this year, Devilfish is walking around with four young and beautiful, sexy girls on this arm, all of this to attract attention to himself and his site. Well, I can tell you – it works!”

Peter adds: “Well, I guess the most remarkable thing we had was last year. Unlike this year when we had no less than 264 entrants for the Big One, last year we were very eager to get just 191. Coupled with the 9 extra spots we would pay ourselves, €45,000 total, this would have added up to a total prize pool of one cool million – the biggest prize money we ever had. But then Adèle got a call from Devilfish, saying: “Well, I am in Nice now with Freddy Deeb and Harry Demetriou. We are stuck in a plane accident, and we will not be able to attend.” Adèle then replied: “Well yes Dave, sure you are. Where are you. You are walking up the stairs right now or are standing right behind me as we speak – correct?” But as it happened, lightning had struck in their plane that had departed from Monaco, where they had played a big event. One of the pilots had been hit, causing him to lose his conscience – and a second pilot had been forced to make an emergency landing in Nice. This was the night before the Main Event, and obviously - having experienced a horrible accident like this – the three players were not all that eager to jump on another plane. What it meant for us though was that we ended up a mere two players short of the 1 million prize pool we had so much looked forward to!”

The final word is for Marie-Louise. She says: “Yeah, that was a horrible, amazing and funny story, all at the same time. A story that I like is this one. It was a couple of years ago, when Omaha was still very much on the rise. But we could not host it, as – yes, again by law – we are only allowed to offer a limited number of games. And hold’em and Omaha accounted as two separate games – even though obviously they are both poker. Because so many players loved to play Omaha, our cash game action was much slower than usual, as lots of players would go to some illegal clubs where they could play the game. Peter then decided that all this had to be put to a stop. He made a couple of phone calls to people in high places, and within a day he had his permission: The Holland Casinos were now allowed to offer Omaha. But he didn’t give away the big news immediately – he waited until all players were seated for the start of another tournament. He then had his usual story of “Best of luck” and “Show great sportsmanship”. And just when everybody was ready to start playing, he said: “Oh yeah guys, before I forget. One more thing: From today on we also offer Omaha.” He got rewarded with the biggest cheer we have ever had over here. People stood up applauding, and the poker action on that night was unlike anything we had ever witnessed. Peter: “Yes, that was a great night. I guess the players simply appreciated the fact that again, we had been listening to their wishes. In my view, this is probably the one reason why we have been able to turn the Master Classics into such a spectacular and successful event – not just once or twice, but over such a long period of time now.”

The Dutch annual “Master Classics of Poker” originated in November 1992. The largest buy-in tournament at that time was a 1,050 guilder (€480) freeze-out. Nowadays, this event has a €5,000 buy-in. The 2005 Master Classics had a new prize pool record of €2.44 million total, and the winner of the Main Event received a check of no less than €528,000 – the biggest single prize ever to be awarded in the entire history. As in previous events, the Master Classics have added large sums of money to the prize pool – and it is expected that in the future, they will continue to do so.

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