Live European Poker Is Back Starting With London’s GUKPT
Author:
Roy Brindley
Indications the wave of Covid-19 Omicron variant infections have peaked and a realization the strain is less harmful than its predecessors has seen authorities across Europe relax restrictions on its citizens. Resultantly planned poker events are going ahead as originally scheduled and new festivals have appeared on the European poker calendar.
Holland remains in partial lockdown, but the World Poker Tour has agreed with the state-owned Holland Casinos to host a WPT DeepStacks event in Amsterdam. ©GettyImages
Amongst the first, beginning on January 26th, is the opening leg of the 2022 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT). It will be played in the Poker Room at the Victoria Casino on Edgware Road, London.
Where You Can Play a GUKPT
The 2022 GUKPT season will be the 15th edition of the annual series. It will feature a total of 12 main events across the country. Venues include Manchester, Reading, Edinburgh, Luton, Coventry, Leeds, Blackpool and London Victoria.
This year entry fees will range between ￡750 and ￡2,000. The one exception is the ￡150 entry, Goliath. It is a tournament that has earned a place in the record books as numerically the largest live event staged outside of North America.
Played at the Grosvenor Casino Coventry in the Ricoh Arena, in 2019 the Goliath attracted 9,300 entries over seven day-ones of buy-ins.
Something for Pockets Great and Small
This month’s curtain-raising London GUKPT festival has a full complement of side events including a ￡560 Mini Main, a ￡2,200 High Roller, a ￡1,250 High Roller PLO 4-5-6, a ￡170 Bounty and a ￡130 Seniors competition.
Grosvenor, successful as a land-based and online casino, run online satellites into GUKPT events six nights a week. Additionally, they have frequent daily feeder satellites where you can start your GUKPT journey from as little as ￡1.
Rescheduled Seefeld Schedule Released
In December Casinos Austria announced the first leg of the 2022 Casinos Austria Poker Tour (CAPT), due to begin in January, would be rescheduled. Providing no further details, there was skepticism the popular tour – cancelled in its entirety in 2021 – would get underway at its traditional starting point, Seefeld in Tirol.
Nevertheless, organizers released a full schedule of events this week. Beginning on Thursday, February 24th, an eleven-day CAPT Seefeld festival will feature a €2,000 Main Event supported by side-events starting at €112 and topped off with a €5,400 High Roller.
With a new law set to come into effect at the start of February, Austria plans on becoming the first European Union country to make vaccines mandatory. This will likely prohibit visiting players that would normally rely on a negative PCR test to take part in a social gathering.
WPT Chooses Amsterdam as Venue for Second Live Leg
Holland remains in partial lockdown, but the World Poker Tour (WPT) has agreed with the state-owned Holland Casinos to host a WPT DeepStacks event in March. The second live leg of the 2022 anniversary WPT tour, the planned competition will be staged in Holland Casinos Amsterdam.
Full details of the festival are yet to be announced but the dates are cast-in-stone. The event, Covid-19 restrictions permitting, will begin on Friday, March 25th and will conclude eight days later. The feature WPT DeepStacks Main Event will have a €1,200 entry.
