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UKIPT SEASON 4 ANNOUNCES EXCITING NEW STOPS AND £500K GUARANTEES

LONDON, UK – January 31 PokerStars.com today unveiled the first stops for Season 4 of the hugely successful UK and Ireland Poker Tour UKIPT, which will include events in Marbella, Galway and the Isle of Man, and the introduction of £500,000 Main Event prize pool guarantees at every event.

The new season will kick off with an event in Marbella on the Costa del Sol in Spain, and for the first time, will partner with the popular Estrellas Poker Tour to create a week-long poker festival.

Galway 'poker village'
Another first for the tour in Season 4 will be the UKIPT Galway stop in August, where PokerStars will build a special ‘poker village’ to host a two week festival being held during the illustrious Galway Race Week. Highlights will include a one-week Cash Game Festival - the Irish Bridge Masters - and the inaugural UK versus Ireland Heads-Up Championship, with the second week focus on the Main Event.

In October, the tour will head to London to the opulent Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden, followed by a visit to the Isle of Man in November. Following the massive success of the Nottingham event in Season 3, the UKIPT will head back to the Dusk Till Dawn poker club in December where the schedule will include the very first 6-Max Main Event in the history of the tour.

Fresh and new experiences
Along with the exciting new stops, the UKIPT is also adding £500,000 Main Event prize pool guarantees at every event in Season 4, meaning a first prize of at least £100,000 at every event.

Speaking about the Season ahead, UKIPT President, Kirsty Thompson said: “After three successful UKIPT seasons our challenge for Season 4 was to try and continue that success whilst offering fresh and new experiences for our players. PokerStars is in a unique position to marry two tours, and by taking the UKIPT on holiday to Marbella we are making the most of our far reaching poker network, and adding a £500k guarantee to each of the Main Events increases the excitement factor”.

UKIPT Leaderboard
As in previous years, Season 4 of the UKIPT will continue awarding players points in the UKIPT Leaderboard, which will award the overall winner with buy-ins and free hotels nights for all Season 5 stops.

How to enter
Free-to-enter satellites to win a seat to the first stop of Season 4 of the UKIPT start in April on PokerStars.com where players can enter cash satellites starting from as little as €1.10 or play for free.

The full UKIPT Season 4 is still to be finalised and the full schedule will be announced soon on www.ukipt.com. For further details on all confirmed Season 4 stops, please email ukimarketing@pokerstars.com

You can download the full press release here including the current Season 4 Schedule

PokerStars blog: www.pokerstarsblog.com
Web: www.pokerstars.com
Email: ukimarketing@pokerstars.com
Facebook:www.facebook.com/ukipt
Twitter:www.twitter.com/ukipt - #UKIPT

For details about the Estrellas Poker Tour, please visit www.estrellaspokertour.com

Some great looking changes and additions, not sure about the Isle of Man thing though, I guess thats going to be full of industry types.

Five stops, only three of which are in the UK or Ireland.

It's not the full schedule, more to be announced

I realise that. Excited to see what's next. The Algarve? Malta? Kavos?

Joking aside, I do think it's a bit odd to have a stop in Marbella. The Isle of Man I can understand more.

I still love the UKIPT and think it will continue to improve. I just think it's an odd move on various levels.

Prague and Amsterdam make sense too.

This year they have to do a Wales leg.

They tried last year to be fair. But as a proud welshman I wholeheartedly agree. Please let it be Cardiff and not Swansea though.

Still 770?

500K guarantees on a 6 max for Dtd might be hard to acheive, or is there a big demand for 6 max?

edit:

£1100 buy in wonder if it will get 500 plus entries?

Press release doesn't say. Wil try and find out.

Sorry yes it does, I am an idiot and didn't read it properly. No they will all be 1,100

That's disappointing. I usually go out of my way to play the DTD leg. £500 was a sweet price point. I could just stretch to £700. £1000 is too much for me to be able to justify playing it :(

Perhaps that is the idea, the Business Model - to tempt you to play Satellites on the site that sponsors the Tour? Seems reasonable to me, they don't run Tours because they are nice people, even though I'm sure they are.

Have they actually announced the schedule/dates?

For the first five legs yes.

UKIPT Season 4 Schedule
MARBELLA
June 13-17
CASINO MARBELLA
€1,000 + €100
GALWAY
August 8-12
VOLVO RACE
€1,000 + €100
LONDON
October 2-6
CONNAUGHT ROOMS
£1,000 + £100
ISLE OF MAN
Oct 31-Nov 4
VILLA MARINA
£1,000 + £100
NOTTINGHAM (6MAX)
Nov 28-Dec 2
DUSK TILL DAWN
£1,000 + £100

DTD leg is same weekend as GUKPT grand final?

Seems like a positive schedule, but the Marbella one is odd and confusing.

Is Isle of Man not classed as being in the UK? Why can't they have a tournament there, they used to back in the day, right?

I don't play online satellites though. I always (well, 99% of the time) just buyin directly to tournaments.

But yeah, you're right. It will probably encourage a lot more people taking shots at the sats which is good for them.

Just a shame it doesn't work out for me personally :(

Isle of Man isn't part of the UK, no. It's a crown dependency like Jersey.

It's where PokerStars head office is based so I can see the rational behind having a tournament there.

You might be thinking of the original Poker Million, which was on the Isle of Man.

Yeah and there were some other tournies there, I recall from seeing those weird three legged flags on old skool player Hendon Mob databases.

It's kind of odd that they have a UKIPT in Spain before they have one in Wales.

begeroo, get to pha!

Is that Welsh??? :)

Mid-June event sigh

tbf marbella was quality for the estrellas tour, sick value, fun place to be. Shame about it being in June tho.

fyp

Bit strange to change the format of the most popular leg of the tour to 6 max, which will almost certainly lead to a sell out and lots of players missing out.

oioi 6max home leg. lets go!

rather have it in Marbella than in some godawful place in the UK. there is some 'exceptional' spanish poker talent!

Completely agree. Seems to me like the last one you'd want to change.

Maybe the only place that could run it?  6-max comps are good though, but yeah - it was the 'flagship' event of the tour.

Absolutely. I wish DTD brought them back into the regular schedule. Must be a logistics issue and I've no doubt it will be a success.

:) Yeah, but there are already tours in spain. I liked the fact the UKIPT felt very British and local.

Maybe they want the flagship event to be at the Hippodrome

Surprised the grand final this year isn't at the Hippodrome tbf.

The Landmark is a bit posh for poker players!

fyyp

rofl but what chip denomination would you use on the turn in single raised pots pleno??? :p

Theyre surely gonna have 3 days 1s for DTD to fit all the players in.

day 1 online? :P

Galway will be great in August in Race Week...a must IMO

Hotels will be a squeeze on race week in Galway?

yeah for sure. Raddison blue is booking up already

It's not the full schedule,unlikely but not impossible that there could be a regular leg at DTD as well as the 6-max

Hi all,

So that was a lot of new information in one press release and I think some of the messages may have been confused. To clarify:

- This is only the first half of the UKIPT Season 4 schedule. We are still announce a minimum of 5 other stops which will help the balance of the tour.

- SPOILER ALERT: There will be a second event at DTD in Season 4.

- Galway Festival - For those who don't know, Galway race week is HUGE with 500,000 punters in Galway throughout the week. We are setting up a ‘PokerStars Village’ from scratch in the centre of town and holding a cash game festival during race week (logistically a UKIPT would not work during race week).

The UKIPT itself is not 2 weeks long and will be taking place from the 8th-12th August after race week has finished and will be part of the larger festival happening over the two week period. Hotel availability should be much better during the UKIPT week.

- Marbella – We are trying to keep the tour fun and appeal to new and more experienced players alike. We envisaged a week in the sun where you can take the family or have a lads week away whilst also getting a fix of UKIPT, We want to re-create the atmosphere of a UKIPT in Marbella which we think could be a lot of fun.

Flights are relatively cheap from the UK, there is a massive ex-pat community in the area, Gibraltar is a short drive away and Marbella caters really well for the British visitor. We realise this might not be for everyone but we thought we would give it a bash and see if you like it.

- We wish it was as simple as just pointing at the areas on a map that we would like to take UKIPT to and just doing it but as i'm sure you can imagine, it isn't. There are not that many venues that have capacity for the numbers we currently see at UKIPT events (before you even take into consideration an available land based partner, a commercially viable deal and gaming licenses etc) so it can prove difficult to reach all areas that we/you would like. We are always open to suggestions however if you know any hidden super casinos ;)

Cheers,
 
Jamie

 Thanks for the update Jamie.

Getting back to more important matters, can I just say the freebie bags/shirts/hoddies etc you get at the tour are fantastic quality and much appreciated....the wife's still happily wearing Stars stuff from years ago  :)

Cheers for the extra info Jamie. And totally understand the reasoning. Was possibly an error to launch with so many non-core events, but what do I know?

And Cardiff. Seriously. Wales is still a part of the UK.

Thanks! A couple of years ago? Seems like we should make them more cheaply so you have to come along more often and get new ones ;)

I actually agree in and ideal world but it was also important for us to release our dates for 2013 I think.

We should hopefully have the complete schedule announced by the end of Season 3 in March and are confident there is something for everyone.

Do you know how small it is in there?

Do you mean the casino or the poker room? Obv nobody is suggesting they run a UKIPT in the poker room.

And flagship doesn't need to mean biggest. Besides Jamie has already adressed this point by saying there will be another UKIPT at DTD.

Could they hold a big event in the casino? Doesn't seem like there wouldb e a lot of floor space in there.

If you're asking me I have literally no idea. I was simply making a suggestion.

I would have thought it would be safe to assume Stars would want to run events in a venue they have invested a chunk of money in. It's a 90,000 sqft venue though so am sure if there was a will there would be a way.

I've been there a couple of times, and can't see how it could hold more than 200.

They have a comp there next week with a 200 cap. Though only one start day, so i suppose they could have a 400 cap, if they have 2 day 1's.

 :dontask: Casino logistics has never been my forte.

This might please you Cf...

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/ukipt/2013/275-ukipt-series-launches-this-friday-132086.html