PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site, has introduced the UK and Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT). A total of nine events will play out beginning in Galway on December 11th.
The first UK-based event will be held in Manchester on February 11th at the Grosvenor G Casino. The Galway event, which serves as the kickoff tournament of the inaugural UKIPT series, will be part of the Irish Poker Championships. Players will descend upon the Radisson Hotel for the €2,000 buy-in event and the tournament crowns a champion on December 14th. In 2009, The Irish Poker Championship was brought to you by PartyPoker and saw 24 year-old Rory Rees Brennan bank €160,000 for the win in its Main Event. Seven out of the top ten finishers were Irish.
Team PokerStars Pro member Vicky Coren, a Brit, discussed the newest poker tour in a press release distributed this week: “This is an incredibly exciting addition to the range of PokerStars live events. Here is our own local British and Irish tour, nicely accessible for those who can’t travel abroad very often or who save their foreign travel for larger international events.” Champions of UKIPT events will take home an entry into the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) London Main Event next October. PokerStars officials noted that EPT London will also serve as the UKIPT Championship Event.
Here is the schedule for the first-ever running of the UKIPT:
UKIPT Galway (Ireland): December 11th to 14th
Radisson Hotel
€2,000 buy-in (9% juice)
UKIPT Manchester (United Kingdom): February 11th to 14th
Grosvenor G Casino
£500+50 buy-in
UKIPT Coventry (United Kingdom): April 8th to 11th
Grosvenor G Casino
£500+50 buy-in
UKIPT Nottingham (United Kingdom): May 13th to 16th
Dusk Till Dawn
£500+50 buy-in
UKIPT Killarney (Ireland): June 24th to 27th
Gleneagles
€1,000+100 buy-in
UKIPT Brighton (United Kingdom): July 15th to 18th
Rendezvous
£1,000+100 buy-in
UKIPT Scotland: TBA
Venue is TBA
£1,000+100 buy-in
UKIPT Dublin (Ireland): September 9th to 12th
Burlington Hotel
€1,000+100 buy-in
UKIPT London (United Kingdom): October 1st to 10th
Hilton Metropole
£5,000+250 buy-in
UKIPT tournaments are expected to attract some of the top names in the poker industry, including PokerStars sponsored pros Coren and Teddy Sheringham. The former added that the presence of the UKIPT in Northern Europe will continue to grow the game: “The buy-ins are great: big enough to make chunky prize pools, not so big that they’re a huge drain on resources. It’s about time there was a serious, respected tournament with a £500 buy-in, like the new ones in Manchester, Coventry, and Nottingham.”
Ireland has laid claim to a crop of accomplished poker players, including Andy Black, who finished fifth in the 2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event for $1.75 million, a tournament ultimately won by Joe Hachem. Black finished seventh in the 2007 EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final for nearly $320,000 and won an event during the PartyPoker Premier League in London in early 2008 for $250,000. Other top-tier Irish players include Liam Flood, bracelet winner Noel Furlong, Ciarán O’Leary, Marty Smyth, and Padraig Parkinson.
PokerStars also sponsors the EPT, Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), Russian Poker Tour (RPT), Czech-Slovak Poker Tour (CSPT), and Italian Poker Tour (IPT). Its marquee land-based event is the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, which takes place each January at the Atlantis Resort and Casino in the Bahamas. In 2010, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is a stop on the LAPT and EPT circuits.
PokerStars will host a £10,000 freeroll for the top 100 players on the UKIPT leaderboard at the end of its first season. The top three players will also receive sponsorship opportunities to play in the second UKIPT season. Visit PokerStars for satellite information.
