World Poker Federation

Back in 2007, poker was still treated as a taboo. 🎓

Almost everything universities published about the game framed it as an addiction and a social problem. That’s what Norwegian researcher Niri Talberg found when he went looking into the subject.

It didn’t match what he saw at the table. So he ran his own research, handing out questionnaires in high schools and matching the answers against the students’ grades.

The result was surprising: the students with the best grades were exactly the ones playing the most poker.

That led to Niri’s master’s thesis and PhD, making him the first Norwegian to earn a doctorate studying poker. ♠️

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Underwater poker is real. 🤿🃏

Lee’s Summit Underwater Recovery, a volunteer water rescue team in Missouri, is turning their everyday work into something wild: the 1st Annual Underwater Poker Tournament. Every dollar raised goes straight back into their equipment and training.

Play it, watch it, or just try to picture it. Here, everyone really is deep stacked. 😂

November 7, Blue Springs South Aquatic Center. Details on Lee's Summit Underwater Recovery

Would you have the nerve to sit at this table?

No champion’s bracelet at the WSOP? 🤨
Exactly that!

The first-ever WSOP Main Event champion only received a silver cup.

The bracelet, poker’s most coveted piece of jewelry, was created years later.

👉 Swipe to see the full story.

Only one made it. 🏆

New voting rules this year could have let in up to 6 players at once. 8 finalists were in the running. Only 1 crossed the line.

His name is Jason Koon, and he got there with 23 of 33 possible votes, the only finalist to clear the threshold.

To understand how he got there, you have to go back to a hip injury at 20 years old. A roommate taught him poker during recovery, and that accident turned into one of the most decorated careers the game has ever seen: over $77 million in earnings, 12 Triton titles, and 2 WSOP bracelets. 🏅

Not everyone on the ballot got the same outcome. Scott Seiver missed the cut by just 3 votes. Isai Scheinberg and Shaun Deeb came up short too, despite resumes built over decades.

That injury two decades ago opened the door to one of the most brilliant runs in history, at the tables of another sport. ✨

👇 Comment below: who do you think should be in next year’s Hall of Fame class?

Billionaire CEOs share a habit, and it’s not what you’d expect. 🤓

Bill Gates, David Einhorn, and even the Kellogg School of Management have all found the same thing in poker.

What their stories share isn’t luck. It’s deciding well under pressure, with incomplete information. You don’t learn that from a spreadsheet.

The WPF sees this up close every day: poker is a skill recognized by business leaders around the world.

👉🏻 Comment below: what else has poker helped you with, beyond the table?

Women just broke records at the WSOP. 🤩

A year ago, Leo Margets sat down at the Main Event final table and became the first woman in 30 years to get that far. She finished 7th, and that moment might have sparked something bigger.

By 2026, the numbers exploded! 💥

431 women played the Main Event, up from 369 the year before, a 17% jump and the biggest number this tournament has ever seen. Kristen Foxen had made a deep run of her own in 2024, finishing 13th.

Two strong runs, back to back, right before the field grew like never before.

The Ladies Championship broke its own record too, with 1.475 entries this year, the biggest women’s poker event ever held, and its third straight record-breaking edition.🎉

Poker is being taken over by women! 🔥

The WPF is watching this movement closely, and fighting for more women to find their way into poker, in every country where the game exists.

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Which rules were debated at TDA Summit XII? 🤔

Every edition, tournament directors, dealers, floor staff, federations and other poker professionals from around the world come together to debate important topics in the poker universe.

WPF was there to follow these discussions closely.

👉 Swipe through to see the suggested rules and the topics that are still up for debate.

Worth noting: TDA has no regulatory power. Its role is to bring the community together to discuss relevant topics in poker.

So, which of these suggestions makes the most sense to you?
💬 Let us know in the comments.

An easier way to clear up doubts about poker rules! 🤩

WPF, in partnership with TDA, just launched Poker TD Assistant. An app built for tournament directors, dealers, and floor staff who need fast, reliable answers about the official TDA rules. 📲

No more flipping through a rulebook mid-tournament. Just ask, the same way you’d ask a friend, a tournament director, or a floor. And get your answer right away.

You can even ask by voice, hands-free, while you’re working the floor. 🎙️

The full official TDA rulebook lives inside the app, always up to date. And every ruling you make during a session gets saved, so you can check back on it later.

Available in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.
For Android and iOS. And the best part: it’s free.

It’s not just another rulebook. It’s a rulebook that talks back. 💬

👉 Download Poker TD Assistant now through the link in bio.

25 years of TDA! 🤩

Last June 29 and 30, the World Poker Federation took part in TDA Summit XII, in Las Vegas.

Two days with tournament directors, operators, associations and specialists from around the world, all discussing the same thing: the future of competitive poker.

Rule changes came out of it. Real ones, the kind that reach tournament tables everywhere. ✅

And the WPF didn’t just talk. In partnership with TDA, we launched Poker TD Assistant, an app that answers rules questions in plain language, right from a phone. 📲

This is what building poker as a global sport looks like. Federation by federation, rule by rule, summit by summit.

Did you follow this year’s TDA Summit?
Tell us in the comments. 👇

A poker pro at the World Cup! ♣️⚽

Sergej Barbarez spent 14 years as one of the Bundesliga’s most feared strikers. In 2001, he shared the top-scorer title with Ebbe Sand and became a legend of the Bosnian national team.

When he retired in 2008, he walked away from soccer and spent nearly a decade playing poker professionally, competing in some of the world’s biggest tournaments, including the WSOP.

In 2024, the Bosnian federation came calling. 🇧🇦

He had never managed a team before, but he took the job. To reach the World Cup, he knocked out Italy on penalties.

Poker shapes people for any competitive arena. Barbarez is proof of that.

Tag someone who needs to know this story. 👇