GUKPT - From Birth to Boom

By Jonathan Raab and Mike Butlin

Before the GUKPT

During the late 1990s, before the poker boom, most casinos in the UK viewed poker as an unprofitable activity, and many closed their cardrooms to replace them with more profitable gaming machines and tables. Grosvenor Casinos was the only major UK casino chain to keep its poker rooms open, while other operators were backing out of poker. However, just a few years later when poker's popularity surged, the casinos that had abandoned it gradually began to reintroduce poker into their clubs. During the years in which they were the sole major operator to offer poker across their estate, the dozen or so festivals a year that Grosvenor ran formed the backbone of the UK poker circuit.

Other operators were also staging poker festivals, but with more cardrooms than any other chain, Grosvenor dominated the festival scene. In 2005, and even more so in 2006, the number of festivals in the UK rocketed. In 2006, Grosvenor alone staged over 20 festivals - most of them weeklong affairs. The Broadway, Star City in Birmingham, and poker-only clubs in London, such as the Gutshot and the Western, also contributed to the overall increase in festival poker in the UK by staging more and more events of their own.

I [Jonathan Raab] started representing Blue Square at live poker events in 2004, and I attended every Grosvenor poker festival on the calendar during 2005 and 2006. During this time, I got to know most of the players who travelled the UK circuit playing in the festivals. I heard far more bad-beat stories than I would ideally have liked to, but it was a very revealing time for me, as I gradually got to understand what poker players wanted, their opinions on how to run things for the better, and their thoughts for what the future would hold for live poker in the UK. At this time, Blue Square was adding in the region of £3,500 to every Grosvenor festival, which may have helped contribute to the jump from 13 festivals in 2005 to over 20 in 2006.

With both Grosvenor and Blue Square being owned by the Rank Group Plc, poker presented one of the best opportunities for the group's online and offline divisions to work together. As well as adding prize money to each festival, Blue Square began to run online satellites to Grosvenor events, and by 2006, more players qualified for the Grosvenor Grand Prix via Blue Square than any of the casinos that ran live satellites. Blue Square was finding new customers from promotion at live poker festivals, and through the online satellites, it was also introducing new customers to Grosvenor casinos. The group's live and online poker offerings were complementing each other very well.

Getting Started

In 2004, the European Poker Tour introduced the concept of the poker tour to Europe, and having staged its UK events at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London, the Grosvenor chain had firsthand experience of the buzz that such events creates within the poker community. The idea of running a poker tour of their own was met with a warm reception when it was first discussed in 2005, but it was too late in the year to do anything about it for 2006. Thanks largely to Ben Warn, Blue Square's commercial director at the time, Blue Square committed a seven-figure budget to stage and televise a poker tour in Grosvenor casinos, and in January 2007, the GUKPT was born. Having seen the success that the EPT had helped bring Pokerstars, Warn saw the GUKPT as the next logical step to furthering the relationship between Blue Square and Grosvenor, and as something that would help provide a unique selling point for Blue Square's online poker room. The key to making the tour successful was to bring the big game atmosphere to every location on the tour. The television coverage on Channel 4 was undoubtedly the single biggest factor in achieving this, but the key to keeping the players coming back for more was to stage well-run events, with good blinds structures, deep stacks, and life-changing amounts of money to be won.

During the first year of the tour, everything centred around the £1,000 main events. Most of these tournaments attracted upward of 300 players, and with a 30-man TV crew entourage, the Tour was an exciting place to be. However, during this first year the side events took a back seat, and many regular players lamented the loss of the more traditional poker festival setup. The focus had moved away from weeklong festivals with one tournament per day and had concentrated itself instead on one four-day tournament of high-stakes action. It was never the intention to disregard the side events, but when so much money gets invested in just 11 big poker tournaments, it's hard for that not to become the focus.

The Second Year

The Tour is now in its second year, and although the main events are still the reason that most people come to take part in the GUKPT, the side events now have a much more important role to play. For the second year running, Blue Square has invested heavily in the GUKPT. It may not be on TV this time around, but the Tour's sponsor has once again contributed £200,000 of added value; £75,000 of this is being used to create a new event called the Champion of Champions tournament, for the winners of every tournament on the 2008 Tour - side events and main events included. The Tour's ranking system also now includes side events and has £30,000 in prizes up for grabs for those at the top of the leader board.

Using the added prize money in this way has helped return the emphasis of the GUKPT to that of the more traditional poker festivals of the past. Even without the TV coverage, the number of runners taking part in the main events in 2008 is comparable to those of 2007. There are also growing numbers of overseas players taking part at each event, as news of the tour gradually filters through the European poker community. We have already had an overseas winner (Canadian Leo Kam, who won the London leg of the tour in 2007), but it will not be long before someone from continental Europe takes down a GUKPT main event.

The Players

Aside from the great structures, deep stacks, and big prize pools, the next best thing about the Tour is the camaraderie amongst the players. About one-third to a half of the field at each leg could be considered to be Tour regulars, while locals and online qualifiers make up the rest. With every passing event, the players are becoming more and more familiar with each other, and the better they know each other, the better the atmosphere is among them. There are lots of characters on the Tour, and several have made it to the final table of one of its main events. Mouthy Roberto Romanello made two final tables during 2007, and entertained or annoyed (depending on your opinion of him) at both with his trademark grilling of opponents when facing them in big hands. "Will you show if I pass?" was one of his favourite lines. Surprisingly, it worked for him quite a lot of the time.

Barry Neville, who finished as runner-up at the Manchester leg in 2007, was another unforgettable contender, who memorably (for the wrong reasons) sang to his opponents. Quite a few players gave in to his serenades and handed over their stacks without further ado. More recently, Mark Dalimore, who finaled in Newcastle this year, became known for his extremely intimidating stare. Paul Parker is forever known for his sartorial elegance, and James Dempsey for precisely the opposite reason. Good-natured Adam Wilkinson is the player most likely to still be at the bar come closing time, while Nik Persaud always seems to be in a good mood, despite missing out on the ultimate prize on more than one occasion. Persaud is the Tour's most consistent player, having made three final tables and two additional 10th-place finishes.

The Future of the Tour

The GUKPT looks set to continue in 2009, and although the details are still being worked on, it looks likely that it will be a similar format to 2008. The innovative Tour has always been prepared to try out new things. Last year, we ran a heads-up tournament, and it's possible that we may run a shorthanded event in 2009. This year, the unique Grosvenor Grand Prix has become part of the GUKPT. It's the biggest pot-limit hold'em tournament in Europe, but unlike most other poker tournaments, it's not possible to buy in directly. Everyone who takes part in the final stages in Walsall in late October will have qualified via a £50 rebuy satellite. Added prize money is a rarity these days as far as live poker is concerned, but £25,000 is being added to this tournament. There are many reasons why the GUKPT has proven to be a successful formula, but none more important than giving something back to the players in the shape of added prize money. If this philosophy is maintained, the Tour should have a very rosy future.

GUKPT Online

An entry fee of £1000 ensures a very large prize pool at every leg of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour. Leg 7 of the Tour in Luton recently attracted 376 entrants, and hence, a prize pool of £376,000, with winner Sam Trickett collecting an incredible £106,050.

Such amounts are life-changing for the vast majority of poker players, but of course the £1,000 buy-in is also prohibitive for most. Luckily, hundreds of players have been able to experience the thrill of playing live GUKPT events by qualifying online with Tour sponsor Blue Square Poker. Even better, a number of players have been able to go one step further by qualifying online and going on to cash at the main events. Here is a quick rundown of some of the most successful online qualifiers in GUKPT history:

Leg 2 of the first season of the GUKPT in 2007 (Walsall) was a runaway success for online qualifiers, with both the winner, Jerome Bradpiece, and runner-up, Billy Ngo, qualifying via Blue Square Poker. Jerome collected £111,600 from a $100 satellite entry, and Billy picked up £59,400 for just $27! Leg 4 took place in Manchester, where Barry Neville also converted his $100 online qualification by finishing second and receiving a very respectable £47,000.

There have been several of multiple GUKPT online satellite qualifiers on Blue Square Poker, and one of them is Jonathon Butters, who finished fifth at Leg 6, winning £14,350 from his online qualification. It's not just the online players who have converted a small satellite win into a GUKPT cash, as Leo Kam proved when winning Leg 9 of the Tour and £119,590 after qualifying for £50 in a live satellite at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London.

2007 finished with a bang for online satellite winners as the final table of the grand final consisted of four players who qualified online at Blue Square Poker. This included Sami Yusuf, who eventually finished in second place, pocketing a cool £106,900.
This year has once again seen online players hold their own at the live events, with three online satellite winners at the final table at Leg 2, and four more at Leg 3. Even more impressively, the final table at Leg 5 this year consisted of three Blue Square Poker players who had qualified via online freerolls, including Ian Farrell, who finished as runner-up and made £33,075 - out of nothing.

Blue Square Poker proudly supports and gives generous value to the GUKPT. New players to the site can attempt to follow in the footsteps of these online qualifiers who have spun-up a small satellite entry fee into big money at premier UK live poker tournaments. There are $100 rebuy satellites every Wednesday and Friday night on Blue Square Poker, as well as a Sunday night $250 freezeout. All of these take place at 9:15 p.m. (BST). There are also daily feeder satellites, via which you can qualify for much less - including freerolls at 5 p.m., 8 p.m., and 9:15 p.m. every day.