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Ola ‘Odd_Oddsen’ Amundsgard and Norwegian politician Erlend Wiborg kick off their 10,000 hands heads-up session on 7 December at PokerStars.
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One of the very best PLO players around, Ola ‘Odd_Oddsen’ Amundsgard has decided to prove that the Norwegian legislation is wrong to consider online poker a game of luck and therefore to ban in the country. In order to do so, he has challenged the Norwegian politicians for a 10,000 hands heads-up game. He stated he would be able to beat any of them in this run, regardless of hands and luck.
Most likely, Amundsgard himself was surprised to hear that parliament member Erlend Wiborg accepted the challenge shortly after its announcement. Wiborg supports the legalization of online poker in Norway and agreed to play to get more publicity for the cause that might be able to help further it. The 10,000 hands challenge is running for NOK 1,000,000 ($170,000), which Amundsgard covers from his own money, if the politician wins. If ‘Odd_Oddsen’ is victorious, Wiborg does not have to pay.
According to the latest press release, the challenge will be running from 7 December 2013 through 7 May 2014, at $0.5/$1 PLO tables and on a minimum of two tables at a time. The starting stack for each table is 100 BBs with auto reload. Once the effective stack is over 300 BBs on any of the tables, they close it and launch a new one.
Both players have 100 buy-ins; if this limit is met before the 10,000 hands, the challenge is finished, as is if either party gives up. Judges of the challenge will be Frode Fagerli, Sigurd Eskeland and Andreas Torbergsen.
On Saturday, the Felic conference centre hosts the opening session. Despite the live setting, the players clash online on two separate computers. The audience will be able to follow the game on screens; the host room is PokerStars, so you can follow the event online as well.
100% luck?
According to the Norwegian legislation, poker is a game of chance rather than skill; i.e. they consider it 100% gambling. Of course, any player can say that skill outweighs luck by far in the long run.
“I make this offer to demonstrate that poker isn’t merely a game of luck (which is the status of the game according to the current legislation in Norway), but a mind sport based on skill, like chess and bridge,” Torbergsen said at the time of announcing the challenge.
Ola ‘Odd_Oddsen’ Amundsgard is the most successful high stakes PLO player of the year with $1,848,476 in profits in 106,771 hands at Full Tilt Poker and $1,713,635 in 108,994 hands at PokerStars in 2013.