New Events Confirm Poker Action Is Hot in the UK and Ireland
Judged by a host of recent announcements, the UK and Ireland remain one of the world’s biggest poker hotbeds. A new tour, The Action Poker Tour, recently joined a congested roster of tournament festivals in the Irish Republic. The latest roadshow utilizing hotel function rooms across the island is the creation of Jason Tompkins.
The Action Poker Tour promises unique energy and excitement. It certainly has a unique structure. ©ActionPokerTour
Tompkins, better known by his online moniker, blaaaaaah666, has appointed respected local tournament director Liam Delany to officiate at events. The pair have successfully gained the support of WPT Global. The relationship will allow people to qualify for Action Poker Tour events online for as little as $4.40.
Clocking the Action and Excitement
“This tour will have a social aspect to reach new players and bring a unique energy and excitement to Poker in Ireland,” says the Action Poker Tour’s mission statement on its website. Details of its unique blind structure are also listed. If proving popular and successful, this new schedule of play could lead to other operators tinkering with their ‘clock’.
The Action Poker Tour’s €300 main event buy-in – subject to an 11 percent registration fee deduction – buys players a 50,000-chip starting stack. The opening level of play runs for one hour but levels 2, 3, and 4 last just 20 minutes. Thereafter, blinds rise every 30 minutes. At level 24, the timeframe is extended to 40-minute changes.
40-minute blind levels continue until six players remain when they revert to 30 minutes. When three players are left, this drops back to just 20 minutes. Throughout, there is a single big-blind ante that matches the size of the big-blind.
Two Action Poker Tour events took place during March. The first, in the southeastern town of Carlow, generated a €23,000 prize pool. The second, staged in Dublin’s City North Hotel, surpassed its €30,000 guarantee.
WPT 500 Returns to Dusk Till Dawn
WPT, one of the best online poker sites in operation today, has also forged an alliance with Dusk Till Dawn poker club in the UK. The Nottingham venue – generally considered to be the finest poker room in the British Isles – will play host to a WPT 500 event between May 26-29.
There has not been a live WPT 500 competition since December 2019, albeit three subsequent editions were played online at PartyPoker. Dusk Till Dawn has hosted three editions of the £500-entry competition in the past.
In November 2014, 2,133 players generated a £1.06 million prize pool. Local player Elanor Gudger claimed a £140,000 first prize. Twelve months later, Wales’s Richard Harris collected £150,000 by outlasting a field of 1,615 players. On this occasion, organizers took a hit on a £1 million guaranteed prize pool.
There was another shortfall in 2016 as 1,835 players contested another £1 million guarantee. This time, Benjamin Winsor took the bulk of the money collecting £182,700. Seven years later, the Dusk Till Dawn WPT 500 features a lower guaranteed prize pool of £500,000, and the entry fee is slightly higher at £560.
