GUKPT News

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!