Launched in 2007, the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour brings the excitement of the big game experience to a casino near you. The tour is a series of poker festivals that take place throughout the UK and online. Each festival features several warm up events with buy ins ranging from £100 - £500 and a £1,000 four-day main event. At the end of the year the stakes are raised to £2,500 for the tour's Grand Final, which take place at the Grosvenor Victoria casino in London. The tour is run by Grosvenor/G casinos, whose dedicated team of professional tournament directors, supervisors and dealers ensure the smooth running of each and every event. For the first three years the tour was run in conjunction with Blue Square Poker, but gcasino.com took over the online partnership in January 2010.

Prize money for the eleven main events in the tour's first year topped £3.5m and it was recorded and televised for Channel 4. Indeed, television coverage of every leg of the tour's inaugural year helped create a whole new host of British poker superstars, taking live poker in the UK to an unprecedented new level. Professional players, keen amateurs and Internet qualifiers were amongst those who sat down each month to battle it out for a place in history and life changing amounts of money.

In 2008 the tour was not televised, but if anything, it was even more competitive than in 2007 as new events were added to the schedule and the rankings system was extended to include all side events as well as main event. 2008 concluded with the inaugural Champion of Champions tournament, a £75,000 event open only to players who had won events during the 2008 tour. In 2009 a the Summer Series was added to the tour's repertoire, consisting of several mini-festivals during the summer months, each with £500 main events. The Champion of Champions tournament also returned in 2009 with an increased prize pool of £100,000. It was won by Dundee based Haitao Wu. The prize money for the GUKPT rankings was increased to £50,000 and it was Luton main event winner Richard Gryko who triumphed, outscoring Ireland's Martin Silke by just half a point to take the £20,000 first prize and the title of GUKPT Player of the Year. Total prize money in 2009 topped £5.5m.

 

The 2010 Schedule

Event	Location	2010 Festival Dates	Main Event Dates
Leg 1 - £1000 Main Event	G Casino, Bolton	January 18th - 24th	January 22nd - 24th
Leg 2 - £1000 Main Event	Grosvenor Casino, Walsall	February 20th - 28th	February 25th - 28th
Leg 3 - £1500 Main Event	Grosvenor Victoria Casino, London	March 18th - 28th	March 25th - 28th
Leg 4 - £1000 Main Event	G Casino Bury New Road, Manchester	April 17th - 25th	April 22nd - 25th
Leg 5 - £1000 Main Event	G Casino, Coventry	May 17th - 23rd	May 21st - 23rd
Summer Series Leg 1a - £500 Main Event	G Casino, Blackpool	May 26th - 31st	May 30th - 31st
Summer Series Leg 1b - £300 Main Event	G Casino, Thanet	May 28th - 31st	May 30th - 31st
Summer Series Leg 2a - £500 Main Event	G Casino, Luton	June 9th - 13th	June 12th - 13th
Summer Series Leg 2b - £300 Main Event	G Casino, Aberdeen	June 9th - 13th	June 12th - 13th
Summer Series Leg 3a - £500 Main Event	Grosvenor Casino, Walsall	June 22nd - 27th	June 26th - 27th
Summer Series Leg 3b - £300 Main Event	Grosvenor Casino, Newcastle	June 24th - 27th	June 26th - 27th
Summer Series Leg 4a - £500 Main Event	G Casino, Sheffield	July 21st - 25th	July 24th - 25th
Summer Series Leg 4b - £300 Main Event	G Casino, Dundee	July 22nd - 25th	July 24th - 25th
Leg 6 - £1000 Main Event	G Casino, Luton	August 7th - 15th	August 12th - 15th
Summer Series Leg 5a - £750 Main Event	Grosvenor Victoria Casino, London	August 23rd - 30th	August 29th - 30th
Summer Series Leg 5b - £500 Main Event	G Casino Bury New Road, Manchester	August 26th - 30th	August 29th - 30th
Leg 7 - £1000 Main Event	G Casino, Brigton	September 11th - 19th	September 16th - 19th
Leg 8 - £1000 Main Event	G Casino, Blackpool	November 6th - 14th	November 11th - 14th
Grand Final - £2500 Main Event	Grosvenor Victoria Casino, London	November 18th - 28th	November 25th - 28th
Champion of Champions Festival	G Casino, Coventry	December 1st - 5th	December 4th - 5th

Now in it's 4th year, the GUKPT continues to be the UK's largest and most prestigious poker tour, with eight legs and a grand final scheduled for 2010. The Summer Series has been extended with ten mini-festivals taking place between May - August. New for 2010, the Club Championships makes its inaugural appearance, enabling the big game experience to reach all 23 poker rooms in the Grosvenor/G Casino estate. The 2010 Champion of Champions tournament will have a £150,000 prize pool, while £100,000 is up for grabs via the National League. Once again, the GUKPT rankings will have £50,000 in prizes, making it the richest poker rankings system in Europe.

With up to 400 players, each of the slow structured £1,000/£1,500 main events takes place over four days, after a week of warm up tournaments. While most players simply pull up the money to play, many qualify for much less cash via a variety of regular online and offline satellite tournaments. In 2010 the tour will be accessible to more players than ever before, with super satellites taking place four times a week online in the poker room of www.gcasino.com (from February) and on www.bluesqpoker.com. There are also more live super satellites than in previous years, with a ten-seat-guaranteed qualifier taking place in each host club the week before each festival starts and a last chance satellite the night before each main event gets underway.

To view the complete schedule for the 2010 tour, please click here.

For years Grosvenor casinos have been the major provider of poker festivals in the UK. The GUKPT cements the group's status as the home of British poker. Blue Square is the UK's oldest online bookmaker, having opened for business in 1998. Gcasino.com is the group's newest online gaming site, with a full suite of casino and slot games available. The online poker room of gcasino.com is due to launch in February 2010 and will host GUKPT satellites and other related tournaments. See you on the final table!