Another live tournament series is taking shape, though those of you who like to regularly drop $5,000 to $10,000 on buy-ins need not worry about scraping up some more cash. This one is for low rollers. Nottingham’s Dusk Till Dawn poker club has teamed up with partypoker to launch the Grand Prix Poker Tour, a year-long tourney series that will make stops throughout the UK and mix in online tournaments, as well.
The Grand Prix Poker Tour kicks off in about a month, debuting at Dusk Till Dawn October 17th and 18th, and will run all the way through October of next year. The events are nicely spaced out, with one tour stop per month through July 2016. The penultimate stop on the schedule, at Cardiff City Stadium, does not have dates listed yet.
Buy-ins are ultra-affordable, even for micro-stakes players like yours truly. At £60+£10 a pop, the events won’t break the bank and the first three tour stops even have £250,000 guaranteed prize pools, so there’s a chance to win some good money.
There are a few unique features to the tour, as well. One is that the multiple starting flights for each event are freezeout-style. This means that while players are welcome to participate in as many opening flights as they wish, they can’t just play in the first one, survive but be dissatisfied with their Day 2 stack, and then buy-in to another flight in order to improve on it without some risk. If a player enters another Day 1 flight after making it through a previous one, he has to forfeit all the chips he already won. Thus, if he busts out in the “do-over” flight, it’s like he never made it out of the previous one. He’s busto.
Dusk Till Dawn owner Rob Yong told UK & Ireland PokerNews that the idea is to help lower bankrolled players compete with deep-pocketed players. “This Grand Prix Poker Tour is about re-vitalising grass roots poker in the UK,” he said. “The new format reflects this, with each Day 1 being a freezeout and players who choose to play multiple Day 1’s automatically forfeiting their previous Day 2 stack. This levels the playing field but means we will have to work much harder to meet the huge guarantees.”
Another interesting feature of the tour is the advent of the “Players Choice Day 1.” These starting flights are actually played online at partypoker. Those who advance past Day 1 online can then save their chip stack to use in a Day 2 at any live tour stop in the next twelve months. It gives players flexibility, allowing them to avoid the potential time and money commitment of traveling to a live tournament only to have to turn around and go home after being eliminated early. With this, players can plan better for what they will hope will be a more lucrative tourney run.
Below is the complete Grand Prix Poker Tour schedule:
October 17-18, 2015 – Dusk Till Dawn, Nottingham
November 28-29, 2015 – Stamford Bridge, London
December 2015 – partypoker.com
January 16-17, 2016 – Old Trafford, Manchester
February 20-21, 2016 – St. James’ Park, Newcastle
March 2016 – partypoker.com
April 9-10, 2016 – Elland Road, Leeds
May 14-15, 2016 – Hampden Park, Glasgow
June 2016 – partypoker.com
July 30-31, 2016 – Amex Stadium, Brighton
TBA – Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff
October, 2016 – partypoker.com
