Grand Prix Poker Tour

Dusk Till Dawn has done some great work this year for the grass roots poker scene. The Grand Prix Poker Tour seems to be a great success so far. For a $109 buy in, players are able to get a chance to play a multi-day event with the same sort of feel as a major live tournament. The tour is stopping all over the UK and is using iconic football stadiums to host the events to add to the prestige of the tour. The events boast a $250,000 guarantee, with the winner receiving something in the area of $35,000 for their troubles, not too shabby for $109! The tour also provides a £500 high roller to whet the appetites of people with deeper pockets, I final table bubbled the £500 at St James Park, but a lot of my friends from the Geordie poker scene made the final table, with the eventual winner being a pal of mine Dan O’Callaghan so hats off to him on taking that one down for £10,000!

The tour recently came to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, my home stomping ground, which meant I was more than happy to play the event, especially since it was hosted at St James Park, an iconic part of my home city. I had planned to skip the event and make the final table of EPT Dublin, but I decided to bust out early and come home for the GPPT!

The event was run with the usual DTD efficiency and professionalism. The dealers and floor staff did their usual sterling job and the venue was amazing. I’ve been to football matches as a kid at St James Park with my Dad and my Gramps, but I had never been inside the actual building itself, it’s an ideal place for events such as this and having so many good childhood memories of St James Park it made it really special to get to go and play poker there. The eventual winner of the main event was Nathan Farnaby for $35,000. Many congratulations to him on such a nice score!

The GPPT has many more stops coming up, Leeds in April, Brighton in July and Cardiff in September as well as online events in between. Playing live professionally I can’t really travel to these events cost effectively, after the travel and hotel costs it makes making a profit quite difficult, but I absolutely love that DTD are offering this tour. It really helps grass roots poker to have a main event style event in an iconic venue in people’s home towns and gives people the chance of a big score for a modest buy in.

The only negative I can really say is that DTD need to bring their own caterer to the events! St James Park really needs to sort out their menu as I tend to like to see more diversity than: Burger, different kind of burger or chips. I’m pretty sure this was out of DTD’s hands, but maybe on their next trip to St James Park (please come back!) they could have a word while organising the event to see if a more palatable menu could be brought to the experience.

Next up for me is the Irish Poker Open this Easter! To say I’m excited to go back to the town I proposed to the lovely Emma in and started my poker career in is an understatement. I’m actually travelling out to Dublin a week or so before the event so that I can play some cash games before hand. It will be fun trying my hand at the cash game format having spent my 4 years of professional poker focusing on tournaments. Some poker festivals can be a bit stuffy, with little table talk and serious faces all round. This is never the case in Dublin, even when the EPT came to the Emerald Isle the craic was abound despite the renowned seriousness of the tables at an EPT. It would be great to get another deep run in the Irish Open (yes I realise how greedy that sounds coming from me!) So I’m hoping all the theory work I’ve been doing away from the tables pays off!