blonde poker forum

The Tour is Back in Town

Although the GUKPT website is yet to be updated (it will be within the next few days) with full details of next year’s tour, here is a sneak preview for Blonde of what is in store.

The Schedule

Leg 1 – Brighton (January)
Leg 2 – Walsall (February)
Leg 3 – London (March)
Leg 4 – Manchester (April)
Leg 5 – Newcastle (May)
Leg 6 – Luton (August)
Leg 7 – Bolton (September)
Leg 8 – Thanet (October)
Leg 9 – Blackpool (November)
Grand Final – London (November)

In addition there will be an online GUKPT Festival on Blue Square (and skins) in July, the week after the WSOP ends.

There will also likely be a Link event in June or July under the GUKPT banner and the Grand Prix will also be included as part of the GUKPT, but final details of both of these events will not be announced until April at the latest.

The monthly leagues on Blue Square Poker (and skins) will become GUKPT monthly leagues.

Most of the GUKPT festivals will be full week festivals (the only one that isn’t a full week is leg 5 in Newcastle).

The schedules at most of the festivals will be similar (although there will be some minor variations at most of them).  The Brighton schedule is slightly different since that had to be finalised sooner than the others and the Vic events are somewhat different as well, featuring higher buy in events plus hi/lo and 7-card stud too.

A typical festival week will look something like this

Monday - £200 NL Hold’em Freezeout (2 day)
Tuesday - £300 DC Hold’em Freezeout (2 day)
Wednesday - £100 PL Omaha Rebuy/£250 PL Omaha Freezeout (1 day)
Thursday - £1,000 NL Hold’em Main Event Day 1a
Thursday (eve) - £100 NL Hold’em Freezeout (1 day)
Friday - £1,000 NL Hold’em Main Event Day 1b
Friday (eve) - £100 NL Hold’em Freezeout (1 day)
Saturday - £1,000 NL Hold’em Main Event Day 2
Saturday (late afternoon start) - £300 NL Hold’em Freezeout (1 day)
Sunday - £1,000 NL Hold’em Main Event Day 3
Sunday (afternoon start) - £200 NL Hold’em Freezeout/£100 NL Hold’em Rebuy (1 day)

Alternates will be accepted in all events.

There will be super satellites for the main event in the afternoons on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at each festival and single table satellites will be available most evenings.

Online super satellites will continue every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday on Blue Square Poker (and skins). There will also be a ‘bargain bumper’ super satellite on Tuesdays with a lower buy in and on Mondays there will be a super satellite for side events (these packages won’t include expenses but can be used for events at non-GUKPT Grosvenor festivals as well).

The blinds structures will be standardised across all festivals, as will the prize pools. I will start another thread about this in the next day or so, so leave specific comments about this out of this thread.

Added Value

In total £200,000 is being added. I won’t reveal the full details of how this is being distributed, but it includes

-   A Champion of Champions Event with a £75,000 prize pool
-   £30,000 in prizes for the GUKPT Leaderboard (rankings)
-   Seats in the Grand Final for Main event winners
-   Added prize money for all events in the online GUKPT festival
-   Seeding the prize pools of live satellites for GUKPT events

The Champion of Champions Event

To win a seat in this event (which will take place sometime in December at a venue yet to be confirmed) one has to win any scheduled GUKPT festival event with a buy in of £100 or more (excluding satellites). The winners of the online festival events and the monthly online leagues will also win seats in this event.  The number of starting chips each player receives will be dependent on the buy in of the event they won to qualify for it, e.g. main event winners receive 10,000 starting chips, side event winner receive 5,000/7,000 chips depending on the type of event won. Players who win more than 1 event will get more chips (up to a maximum of 25,000 per player). There will likely be 70-80 players in this event, so a seat will be worth roughly a grand. The main reason I wanted to introduce this event is to effectively add value to every GUKPT event, whether it is a side event or a main event. I tried unsuccessfully to get this event up and running 2 years ago but I am pleased to say that it will now become a reality.

The GUKPT Leaderboard

A more competitive rankings system than in 2007 with points being awarded for the top nine in every side event as well as the top 18 in the main events. The online festival and monthly online leagues will also count towards the rankings. Last year the prize money for the Leaderboard was £10,000 so this represents a significant increase. The top 18 at the end of the year will get prize money and the winner will also be declared the GUKPT Player of the Year.

I will be going offline shortly, but will answer any questions any of you may have as soon as I can get back online again.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Awesome,

Now to try and qualify for some!

Can't wait..........See you in Brighton.

nice job Jack!..I have to play one of these this year...

Liking the Omaha comp potentially being a regular fixture on the side events roster

Who needs Vegas?

Congratulations on the new initiatives Jon, this looks like a good step forward once again. 

Where on earth is Thanet?

It's the new Western point casino, opening soon in Broadstairs [ the neweest 'in' seaside town] Down the A2 in Kent.
Word has it, includes 200 seat card room.

looks good.
However no Welsh or Scottish venues..bit dissapointing

Good luck to all who take part!!


 Td Th

Can I just say, big up Mr Raab. Ive had a proper look at the plans this morning over a cuppa and it looks flawless. For poker players, created by poker players. Even little things like satelittes for the side events are a massive step forward. If someone had shown me this two years ago I would have assumed its a joke.

I cant wait to donate to some of the prize pools

This looks excellent JR, nice work sir  ;hattip;

Tournament Poker in the UK has just taken a huge step forward - at last, some co-ordination & structure, & I believe the whole Poker Year will soon revolve around this, well done Lord Raab. I'm particularly pleased to see the Festival scene re-vitalised, & the almost 100% freezeout policy.

Terrific news to start the year.

I agree this al looks amazing for the GUKPT

but is there any chance that the over festivals that the casinos run will be getting more support from Blue Sq and or Grov

The use of the Blue Sq chips
Online Sats for Qualifying
Better advertising
Added seats for live Sats

Good stuff, looking forward to Brighton.  ;)

BUMP

"on Mondays there will be a super satellite for side events (these packages won’t include expenses but can be used for events at non-GUKPT Grosvenor festivals as well)."

was one piece of news in the initial post

That's devolution for you

Grosvenor do not have any Scottish casinos

Indeed, at present there are no Grosvenor or G casinos in Scotland, however one is due to open in Aberdeen next year, so it looks very likely that the GUKPT will make a stop there in 2009. As for Wales, I agree it is a shame we are not returning to Cardiff again this year, but hopefully we will again in the future.

Outside of the GUKPTs, there are not that many casinos that will be running other festivals next year. Luton, Walsall and possibly Blackpool or the Vic are the only ones and we are only talking about maybe half a dozen festivals in total. I'm not counting 2/3 day weekend mini festivals as festivals. Other casinos are going to treat the GUKPT coming to town as the opportunity to run their one decent festival a year.

It was only during 2005 and 2006 that Blue Square supported the Grosvenor festivals with added value, which amounted to £1,500-£3,000 per festival. In 2005 there were 12 festivals, while in 2006 this had leaped to over 20, although many of these were only 2-4 days long and not what I would call a real festival. In any case, the money that was added overall in both of those years was tiny compared with that now going into the GUKPT. I think it is being spent better by distributing it to the larger number of clubs running GUKPT events than by weighting it towards the few venues that run more festivals than others. Adding money to any Grosvenor festival might also encourage some clubs to have a go at doing a festival simply to gain some added money and thus flooding the already overcrowded UK poker festival circuit with yet more events. It would be better for most clubs to concentrate on having good weekly schedules with one bigger monthly comp such as a £250 or £300 than running festivals, which are very costly to put on.

Having said that, I do want to do as much as possible to help these other established festivals, especially those at Walsall and Luton, which are clubs that rely on card room income more than others. Allowing packages won in the online side events satellites to be used for non GUKPT sats is one way in which we are supporting them. I am also hoping to be able to add some value to all non GUKPT festival events by giving the winners of all events seats in $300-$500 online tournaments, but this has not been confirmed yet.

Jon i figured you are the person to ask.


Is the Grosvenor Brighton closing in Feb?

No idea

Great tour Jon, good luck with this years comps.

Keeps improving year on year Jon, well done

Im just hoping i can get my aim of qualifing for one this year, never afford to buy into 1, but god loves a tryer..

Think there is Grosvenor opening up in Dundee in 2008 - probably still wouldn't want to come here for a stop.

looks like allot of hard work gone into this well done john it keeps getting better and better

will the poker6 be part of it this year

are these the comfirmed dates this year
Leg 1 Jan 14-20 Brighton
Leg 2 Feb 11-17 Walsall
Leg 3 Mar 3-9 London Victoria
Leg 4 Apr 21-27 Manchester
Leg 5 May 12-18 Newcastle
Link Event July BC Various
Leg 6 Aug 4-10 Luton
Leg 7 Sep 1-7 Bolton
Leg 8 Oct 13-19 Thanet
Leg 9 Nov 10-16 Blackpool
Grand Final Nov 24-30 London Victoria

As far as I have been told, it is not closing. The only casino to have closed is the Grosvenor in Liverpool, which shut down last week.

No plans for a Poker 6 in 2008 I'm afraid, but I will do my best to get it revived at some point. There are some minor changes to the dates above, but only as far as the start days of the festivals are concerned. There are no changes to the main event dates. Full schedules (including side events) of all festivals are being finalised now and will be up on the GUKPT site soon.

john ,hi and a happy new year to you and you lovely missis.
 i hope you putting sheffield on the map for  2009 .
they tell me they are building a new massive casino near the othe one .
i hope so as it will save expences fo me .
well done once again on sorting the best tournys in briton ,uncontested.

my rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs are not working properly arrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggg.

Why is there no Plymouth event ?

Did you go to the one this year in 07? The field ended up being pretty small. Oh, and its Plymouth.

There are 20 Grosvenor/G casinos with cardrooms. Expect there to be some changes to the schedule each year to enable as many of them as possible to get on the GUKPT map at some point.

plymouth should be a must ... ONLY cos the entertainment from passing hordes of drunk women was 1st class.

the casino was shite although the staff were probably the best and friendliest at any grosvenor i have visited.

So the answer is no then

I understand the direction that you arre going in but Luton (my local casino) has a festival in 2 weeks time.
There is no advertising inside the cardroom.
Not a single sat has been run yet.
If you ask for the structures of the event you are told they havent been decided yet
The festival isnt listed at poerineurope

All i can see is the festival being a total flop  like the last few non gukpt festivals.

Demand is still out there as Westcliff Southend just proved.

Also the cardroom is now promoting a Grov. online pokerroom instead of the BlueSq site. Does this make any sense. Surely if BlueSq did more advertising in the cardroom they could support the room more.

The answer is read my post more carefully - we are supporting them by running online satellites once a week that can be used for non GUKPT festivals. Hopefully by next week I will also be able to confirm that every non-GUKPT festival event will have added value in the shape of free entries to online events (in the region of $300 - $500 buy-ins).

The Grov online cardroom is a skin of the Blue Square cardroom and in any case this has no bearing on Blue Square suporting or not supporting the Luton cardroom. It is not Blue Square's responsibility to support Grosvenor cardrooms or their events, but we will do what we can all the same. Although it is too late for the Luton fessie in a couple of weeks time, there is likely to be a page in next year's GUKPT brochure broadly advertising the dates of non-GUKPT festivals and I will be dedicating a page on the GUKPT website to promote them as well.

TBH I won't worry too much about the non-GUKPT festivals as long as the GUKPT side events have good clocks and good structures.

I understand what your saying Tom

I just believe that if something is worth doing its worth doing right

therefore they should either pull the plug on the side festivals completely or run them properly

grov that is not blue sq

I have nothing but gratitude for all efforts from Alright Jack  i know the scene wouldnt be anywhere near the quality it is without him

I don't agree that the plug should just be pulled on all other festivals. While I thinjk its important to streamline the calendar and not run too many festivals, Walsall and Luton are the exceptions as far as I am concerned as they have been running established festivals for several years and particularly in the case of Walsall, the casino might not exist at all if it wasn't for poker, so I think they need to be able to run more than just one a year. 

The main problem in advertising them is the lack of marketing money at Grosvenor for festival brochures, etc - see the Rank share price for an explanation of why this is the case. If I had the money to give to them to do this out of my own pocket, I would (well maybe not, but you get my drift).

lol john the money your on (and you never spend any mikes words),
you should be able to fund them all .

In all seriousness. With inside rumours of takeovers, plummeting share prices, freezes on pay-rises, the cancellation of bonuses and a plunging marketing budget, this might be the last year we'll see the GUKPT being run.

I've had first hand experience of Grosvenors (provincial) ineptitude, and these events will be a sore loss to the industry.

Immodium should sort that problem out Barry ;)

---

It should be another exciting year for the gukpt, looking forward to it.

I know Flushy is champing at the bit to defend his worst dressed title this year...

shouldn't that award have gone to you seeing as that it's you that dresses him in the morning?

Flushy and JC discuss their plans for the day...

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1800000/images/_1802452_morecambe_150.jpg)

Is it true Flush's going to wear striped pyjamas and play the Gukpt as Andy Pandy this year?

morning...what the hell's that?

Sorry I can't take any credit. The only sartorial advice I've ever offered flushy was "stop buying gay shoes." Considering my other piece of advice to him was "you should join the gym and get in shape", you can guess how seriously he always takes these nuggets of wisdom.


Given the choice I'd be the legendary Eric Morecombe but that would make Flushy Ernie Wise, the straight guy...

Surely not....?

(http://media.funlol.com/content/img/confused-look-cat.jpg)

Hi Jon,  Ihave not seen it anywhere but are sunset and vine doing 2008 when i left it was still up for discussion if the tv cameras where coming back?