Koen Roos cashed in tournaments in 50 nations in 2025. [Image: Shutterstock.com]
“Something one man can think about, different males could make actual.”
– Jules Verne (Across the World in Eighty Days)
Fifty flags
In poker we are likely to measure greatness with novelty checks and pewter tat. Cash is the scoreboard, however bracelets, trophies, and rings are the foreign money of status. Nevertheless, tucked away within the Hendon Mob database is a quieter type of achievement, one measured not in {dollars}, however in tiny digital nationwide flags. Every represents a match money in a unique nation and, in the appropriate palms, that clump of pixels can quantity to one thing far larger than a line on a résumé.
Roos’s model was about racing in opposition to the match schedule
Flying Dutchman Koen Roos understood this higher than most as he spent 2025 turning poker into one thing that may have impressed Jules Verne himself. If Across the World in Eighty Days was about racing in opposition to the clock, Roos’s model was about racing in opposition to the match schedule. By the top of the yr, he had collected 50 flags, every earned the exhausting method, by surviving lengthy sufficient in a reside occasion to achieve the cash.
It’s straightforward to say the quantity out loud and miss the insanity behind it. Fifty nations means 50 separate poker ecosystems, 50 journeys and 50 instances that variance may have ruined your day. Generally the bubble burst in a packed poker site at a glamorous vacation spot. Generally it was in a lodge operate room that hosted a marriage the earlier weekend. By means of all of it Roos stored exhibiting up, shopping for in, grinding his stack and, when vital, summoning his inside cockroach.
Wanderlustful
The uncooked quantity is spectacular, however the actual story lives within the logistics. Cashing tournaments in 50 nations inside a single calendar yr requires greater than good poker fundamentals. It requires stamina, flexibility and a tolerance for airplane meals that borders on heroic. One week, you are attempting to play sport principle optimum versus seasoned regulars in Monte Carlo on the European Poker Tour. The subsequent week you make exploitative changes in a small native match in Reykjavik.
jetlag follows you from desk to desk, from continent to continent
Opponents come and go, however journey shortly turns into the first antagonist on this story. Airports blur into one lengthy hall of departure gates and overpriced espresso. Resort rooms turn into indistinguishable. Just like the shark bum-hunting the whale, the jetlag follows you from desk to desk, from continent to continent. The march to 50 should have been, at instances, a lonely journey with simply an anthropomorphized map of the world for firm.
Just one individual on planet Earth may have actually understood his plight. In 2024, the wanderlustful Canadian, Dominick “Dino” French, cashed in tournaments in 48 totally different nations. On the highway for 300 days, what began as just a few back-to-back poker journeys snowballed into an obsession. His flag rely began creeping upward. Twenty nations turned 30. Thirty turned 40. By the top of the yr, Dino had logged 80 cashes and made 46 ultimate tables to go along with his 48 flags.
A poker odyssey
It felt like a type of pleasant information that may survive untouched for years, perhaps a long time. It was quirky, a lot larger than the earlier report and ridiculous in the very best method. Nevertheless, Roos appeared on the quantity and determined that it was assailable. With a fastidiously plotted expedition, he may optimize for flags.
Roos turned poker’s model of Jules Verne, globe-trotting with a goal. With chip stacks as an alternative of steamships, he traversed the planet on the quirkiest of adventures. When he ultimately acquired the Hendon Mob Award recognizing his 50-country achievement, it should have felt much less like a victory ceremony and extra like the ultimate web page of a poker odyssey.
There was no million-dollar payday ready on the end line, however there was a trophy acknowledging a lot greater than being the final individual standing in a poker battle royale. Roos may lastly stand nonetheless and rejoice all these small victories. It took him 11 months to go world wide, however he planted 50 flags as he went.
