German wins World Poker Championship and earns $ 8 million | Culture and Lifestyle in Germany and Europe | Dw

On Thursday, November 18th, the name of the player who won the unofficial World Championship of Poker – the WSOP Main Event was revealed. It was Koray Aldemir from Germany. The prize pool was $ 8 million.

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the most prestigious series of poker tournaments in the world. There is no official poker world championship, but the WSOP is unofficially considered to be one. The World Series is held every year at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas and lasts several weeks. The series ends with the so-called “Main Event”, the winner of which is considered the winner of the entire tournament and the “world champion”.

The series has been running for 50 years. Last year, the tournaments were canceled due to the pandemic, but this year they decided to hold them – in compliance with all possible security measures. Until today, the title of champion went to the citizens of Germany only two times.

This WSOP gold bracelet is the world’s most prestigious poker award. This season, the trophy went to Koray Aldemir

Koray Aldemir, 31, during the “main event”

According to media reports, Koray Aldemir grew up in Berlin and got acquainted with poker 15 years ago. At first I just played with my friends, then I started participating in tournaments, in the end I decided to quit my studies and become a professional player.

See also:

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  Russian playing cards

  “Geographical maps of Russia”, 1830

  In the collection of Eduard Schweigert, a German collector of playing cards from Russia, there are many rarities. Some of the most valuable are these, made in 1830. They are a kind of textbook on political geography. The maps show not only the suit and dignity, but also the coats of arms of cities and regions of the Russian Empire, folk costumes and distances to the nearest settlements.

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  Russian playing cards

  Prototype of Russian maps, 1830-1840s

  Craftsmen from Lübeck were invited to make the first Russian playing cards, so they looked like cards typical for the northern regions of Germany. These are, for example, the arrangement of figures, flowers in the hands of ladies, an orb and a scepter for kings, an ax for jacks. The colors used in the coloring of Russian cards – red, yellow and blue – are also similar to German playing cards.

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  Russian playing cards

  Playing cards of Alexander III, 1892

  It is reliably known that Emperor Alexander III played with these cards. True, only once: with Lieutenant General Nikolai Schroeder. It happened after the imperial hunt in the Oranienbaum Palace in the winter of 1892, and after a good game and conversation, the emperor presented the deck to Nikolai Schroeder in memory of the last evening.

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  Russian playing cards

  “Russian style”, 1911

  These sketches were influenced by an album of photographs of the 1903 Imperial Charity Ball, costumed in the style of the 17th century. The kings are represented by the tsar with power in hand and by the boyars of the time of Alexei Mikhailovich. Ladies are shown in festive national clothes, jacks are young falconers and archers. This deck was created in the national style, oddly enough, by a German artist B. Dondorf.

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  Russian playing cards

  Revolutionary cards without the double-headed eagle, 1917

  In Russia, the ace of diamonds was decorated with a special vignette. Along with the image of a pelican’s nest with chicks (a symbol of the Orphanage) and floral ornaments, imperial symbols in the form of a two-headed eagle were necessarily placed. These cards, issued after the February Revolution of 1917, are one of a kind: the design has not yet been changed, but the two-headed eagle on the ace is gone.

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  Russian playing cards

  “Don deck”, 1918

  “Don deck” fully corresponds to its name: instead of kings, queens and jacks – chieftains, Don Cossacks and Cossacks. Four suits reflect the history of Don: on the cards of diamonds we see suits of the 16th century, of clubs – of the 17th century, of hearts – of the 18th century, and of spades – of the 19th century. Aces are also decorated with drawings that correspond to the era. For example, the ace of clubs shows the coat of arms that existed even before Peter the Great.

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  Russian playing cards

  Theater for export, mid-1920s

  The cards seem to resemble art deco ballet posters with a reference to Diaghilev’s Russian ballet seasons with their decorative, emphatically theatrical costumes. The sketches of the maps were made even before 1917, but they began to be produced in the mid-1920s. – and mainly for export. Since the production was limited, these cards are among the rarest.

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  Russian playing cards

  “Antifascist”, 1942

  The king of spades Hitler with a skull and the book “Mein Kampf”, Mussolini with a bloody ax on his shoulder, the Hungarian Admiral Horthy and other cartoons about the allies of the “Fuhrer” were drawn in besieged Leningrad. The starving artist V.A. Vlasov, who worked in a room where there was no electricity, in his life did not take cards in his hands, but he managed not only to create whipping caricatures, but also to observe all the proportions.

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  Russian playing cards

  “Anti-religious”, 1943

  The cards of the anti-clerical deck are a box with a double bottom: in the foreground – clergy representing one of the four world religions, and in the background – their supposedly insidious thoughts and deeds. I drew maps of S.D. Levashov, artist and one of the leaders of the Card Factory.

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  Russian playing cards

  “Kazakh fairy tales”, 1993

  The cards are made in the spirit of ethnographic stylization: grotesquely large-haired characters in bright clothes, with oriental broad-cheeked faces and almond-shaped eyes. The cards are based on Kazakh fairy tales: jacks represent young batyrs, ladies – their beautiful brides, and kings – Kazakh khans. A team of artists worked on the deck, but it is not known who exactly ordered these cards for printing.

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  Russian playing cards

  “Modern”, 1996

  Few designer decks have been released in Russia in recent years, but this one is one of them. The drawings were made by the artist V. Nikolaeva. Laconic forms and colors, elegant eroticism and Latin indexes – stylistically, the cards resemble black and white miniatures by Aubrey Beardsley.

  Author: Veronika Prokhorova

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