Master Classics of Poker

The year was 1991, at that time poker was not so well known in Amsterdam or almost all of Europe, that was when Ron Pool working for the Headquarter asked Jan Rodrigo, at the time of Holland Casino, Amsterdam City centre, and Peter Voolstra, Duty Manager at Holland Casino and who later he would become Tournament Director of the Master Classics of Poker (MCOP), he wanted to know more about what this game was that they talked about so much. In the same year they went to Las Vegas (US) and got in touch with Doug Dalton, who at the time worked at The Mirage casino, to understand a little more about poker tournaments. Doug agreed to show what the tournaments were like and even traveled to Amsterdam with his wife Edna to train the dealers. In a short time, poker became well known in Amsterdam due to the Holland casino, which for a long time was the only place where poker could be played legally in Europe.^[2]

The first Master Classics of Poker (MCOP) took place in November 1992, as Edna and Doug Dalton were in Amsterdam and could help with the event, from then on the event always takes place in the first week of November. In 1992 it was a Seven-card stud event whose champion was the Dutchman Eng Angh, winning a prize of ƒ18,600 (~$10,449^[3]).^[1] In 1993, they had several tournaments in different modalities, such as No Limit Hold'em, No Limit Seven-card stud, Limit Hold'em and Limit Seven-card stud and had registration between ƒ200 (~$105^[4]) and ƒ2,000 (~$1,050^[5]).^[2]

Between 1993 and 1998 there was no main event, it was only in 1999 that a tournament was created in the event schedule that would crown the Master Classics of Poker (MCOP) champion, the same as what happens nowadays in all world series, having a main tournament, the most prestigious and several parallel tournaments. As there was no main event, there was confusion as to who was the MCOP champion each year at the beginning, as the No Limit Hold'em event was not always the one that attracted the most players, which is why in 1994 the tournament that attracted the most players was Seven-card stud, won by the Dutchman Gerard Dreskens, who by many was considered the first great MCOP champion, but later, seeing the records, the players, together with the organization decided on the champion of the Limit Hold'em tournament as the champion of each year, making Englishman Surinder Sunar crowned the Master Classics of Poker (MCOP) champion in 1993.^[2]

Between 1992 and 2000, the official currency of MCOP was the Florin (ƒ), and from 2001 onwards the official currency changed to the Euro (€).

Since 1992, MCOP takes place annually in November and only in 2020 due to COVID-19 was there no MCOP^[6].

In 2021, Pieter Boers (Director of Gaming & Services at Holland Casino) announced the return of MCOP.^[1]

MCOP and Holland Casino applies the so-called TDA (Tournament Directors Association) Poker Tournament Directors Association rules for tournament poker.Holland Casino

• Official site
• MCOP on Twitter
• Holland Casino Poker on Facebook
• on The Hendon Mob