Pokerstudie & The Festival Series partnered up
Nowadays there are numerous websites or communities that take care of coaching poker players. Websites with integrated training modules, assisted by seminars, podcasts, and live streams. In the Netherlands, there was no website for this until a few years ago, when Ruurd Nauta, Marthyn Lakerveld, and Robert Douna, came up with the idea of transferring their poker skills to the Dutch Community. 'Pokerstudie' came to light and has since 2021 become a trending and reliable poker concept in the Netherlands.
Melvin TF: Hi Ruurd! First of all congratulations on the collaboration with The Festival Series. We are very pleased to have you guys on board! Can you tell us a bit about the origins of Pokerstudie?
Pokerstudie: ‘’Hi Melvin. Yes, thank you! We are very enthusiastic about it to be part of such a great event as The Festival Series. In terms of Pokerstudie, it all started a couple of years ago when, Marthyn Lakerveld, and Robert Douna, had some talks about creating a poker platform where we would share our knowledge with the rest of the country. We knew each other already through poker and played many tournaments together such as the weekly tournaments in Leeuwarden, home games, and sometimes the bigger events around. At some point, mainly due to our success in poker in general, we wanted to share our experience with the poker community. In the Netherlands there were no online courses to be found, so we saw the opportunity and took it.
The pandemic played a main role in this as well because suddenly we all had a lot of free time as the live events all got cancelled of course. After some brainstorming sessions together, we didn’t hesitate once and directly started producing content for our website, such as videos and tutorials. Soon after we started, our 4th crew member joined along in the name of Koen Meutstege. He was already making his way up as a poker coach, and it was a match made in heaven at first sight, because of his experience and knowledge gained throughout the years.‘’
Melvin TF: To have a group of friends combining their experience is just amazing to work with, as I can imagine you all have your own set of skills. How does it go with the division of tasks?
Pokerstudie: ‘’As we all were already providing coaching privately, different kinds of skills and how we combine these, are something that comes to light after a matter of time. If I speak for myself, the mindset part of poker and the preparation for tournaments are really my things. I am more of a pure live poker player. Koen and Marthijn are primarily online players and reached a very decent level, so this is their scope. Robert also of course, but he also knows a lot about community building for example. Working as a team is very productive instead of being alone, as the reach is much bigger, and working together is much more effective when it comes to the quality of it all.’’
Melvin TF: On social media, we can follow a lot of the adventures of Pokerstudie. Where you recently went with a group to the Czech Republic to play live poker. Is that something you guys are doing regularly?
Pokerstudie: ‘’We are giving mostly seminars online, but lately we went indeed to the Czech Republic with a bunch of members of our community. It was very nice to actually give a live seminar to our members. Such seminars are exclusively for our members, but if there are people on the spot interested to join, they can always take a membership and join our training. It is a very nice thing to do, just before Main Event, for example, to just do some ‘sparring’ within our team.
In May we obviously are coming to The Festival Series in Malta. Koen Meutstege lives in Malta so he will be here for sure. And Marthyn Lakerveld and I are going there as well, alongside our newest team live player Jelmer Schuurman. Besides these names, there will be more members making the trip to Malta, which we are all looking forward to.
I’ve been myself to many live events, as well as to one of the previous stops of The Festival Series in Bratislava. For sure event is at the top of my list. It was above all expectations to be there, especially because of the great ambiance. Everyone around was very happy, there are numerous side events to be played which I like a lot. To win an event means getting an amazing unique trophy, which is really cool.
Not everything is about gambling and poker, that’s why this event is so special as it offers nice hospitality events outside the poker tables, and it attracts me. Every one of The Festival is welcoming you with open arms, and the family feeling is really present there. The Main Event has got a very nice structure, which is a big value of course. And you have tournaments for everyone. From small to bigger buy-ins, and medium to big-sized playing fields.
Another great asset is that there are so many online qualifiers available for everyone all over the place. Unfortunately for The Netherlands, there isn’t that much of a choice just yet due to the regulation changes, but at Unibet, there are great value satellites available. Which we, as Pokerstudie, focus a lot on in our training methods.’’
Future Perspectives
Pokerstudie has become a familiar face in the live scene recently. At many events in The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Malta, you can find people wearing these great hoodies or polo shirts with a ‘graduation hat’ on them as their symbol. As you all know, live scores are all to be found on www.thehendonmob.com, and so it does for these four gentlemen. It does not really give a complete view of players’ results, as they play mainly online and perhaps also live cash games and home games, but it does give you an insight.
Currently, they are not offering any other language package as Dutch, but we are certain that sooner than later everything will become available in other languages such as English as well. Make sure to keep an eye on their social media for any movements in the near future!
| Ruurd Nauta ($96,556) | |||
| Tournament Name | Buy-in | Place | Prize |
| WSOP Circuit Rotterdam - Monsterstack | € 550 | 2nd | € 21.326 |
| Utrecht Poker Series - Main Event | € 550 | 5th | € 8.880 |
| Dutch Classics Rozvadov - High Roller | € 550 | 1st | € 11.111 |
| Marthyn Lakerveld ($224,976) | |||
| Tournament Name | Buy-in | Place | Prize |
| WaSop Namur - Super Side Event | € 335 | 3rd | € 18.520 |
| CEP Barcalona - Main Event | € 500 | 4th | € 33.000 |
| Dutch Classics Rozvadov - High Roller | € 550 | 1st | € 24.846 |
| MPF - Spring Edition - Main Event | € 550 | 1st | € 71.000 |
| Robert Douna ($36,204) | |||
| Tournament Name | Buy-in | Place | Prize |
| Benelux Classics Rozvadov - Main Event | € 250 | 5th | € 25.300 |
| Koen Meutstege (S30,446) | |||
| Tournament Name | Buy-in | Place | Prize |
| Dutch Classics Rozvadov - Warm Up | € 115 | 1st | € 2.952 |
| MPF - CasinoCoin Cup | € 1,000 | 4th | € 13.000 |
