While American poker players are busy following the activity from National Poker Week in Washington, DC, poker players in Russia are in mourning after their government removed the “sport” designation from the game.

The move means that most poker clubs in Russia will be forced to close and leaves the status of the European Poker Tour stop in Moscow in question. Poker, and gaming halls offering any form of poker, are now under the designation of gambling.

“We have made a change in the Russian list of sports, approved by the order of the Russian Physical Training and Sport Committee on January 1, 2004. We have stricken poker off the list,” said Vitaly Mutko, Russian Youth, Sport and Tourism Minister.

The Russian Gambling Bill, signed in November 2006, forced the closure of gaming halls that did not meet certain regulations including square footage and financial liquidity. Those restrictions make it unlikely that any of the poker clubs which have popped up in Russia’s poker boom of the last 18 months will be able to survive.

“We are in mourning,” said Dmitry Lesnoi, founder of the Russian Federation of Sport Poker, the group largely responsible for the government’s original decision. It was Lesnoi’s work that paved the way for the creation of the PokerStars-backed Russian Poker Tour and the upcoming EPT event.

The EPT event in Moscow is scheduled to begin August 17 and run through August 23. The removal of poker as a sport will also make it more difficult for international players to acquire the necessary visas to travel to Russia to play in the event.

Russians have seen an increased presence at the top of international events over the past two years beginning with Alex Kravchenko‘s final table appearance at the 2007 World Series of Poker. In 2008 Ivan Demidov made the final table of both WSOP Main Events in Las Vegas and London and just weeks ago Vitaly Lunkin won a bracelet in the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament.

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