Pokér officially recognized as a mental sport in Mexico

Last June 2017, it was announced that Mexican pokér was officially named a mental sport by the National Commission of Physical Culture and Sport (CONADE).

In response to this, Alejandro de la Flor López, treasurer of ADN Pokér México, declared in an interview for La Afición that they will seek to bring people closer to this sport and show them its importance, in order to separate it from casino games, as it is commonly known.

"We will seek to start separating pokér from vices, trying to make people understand that it includes many factors, it is a sport of cunning, intelligence, probability, statistics; it goes beyond a casino game," mentioned Alejandro.

Recently, ADN Pokér México announced the tournaments that the association will hold for this year, as well as the Mexican Series of Poker, an event in which four pokér festivals will be held with 15 tournaments in different modalities.

"We will hold four pokér festivals in the 2018 series, each one with 15 tournaments of different modalities. The first one will be from April 16 to 23 in Cancun," pointed out Alejandro.

Similarly, Alejandro López assured that the events will be open to anyone who wants to play and that, starting from 2018, they have an affiliation process to make registration easier.

"The event is open to anyone who wants to play since they do not need to qualify. The only requirement is that they join our website in order to participate," added López.

Due to the approval of pokér as a sport, it will have greater social acceptance, however, a restriction imposed by CONADE allows only adults to play it.

"There is a restriction from CONADE that indicates that from the age of 13, you can learn and watch pokér, but only from the age of 18 can you practice it, so only adults will be able to participate in the Mexican Series of Pokér events," declared López.

In order to achieve the recognition of pokér as a sport by CONADE, certain requirements had to be met, including demonstrating that pokér is "a broader game".

"After fulfilling many specifications to be considered as part of CONADE, we managed to obtain a positive opinion," concluded López.