UK AND IRELAND POKER TOUR

By Mick McCloskey

As exclusively revealed in the October edition of this column, Poker Stars have now confirmed their involvement in sponsorship of the new UK and Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT). Billed as the tour to suit all pockets, details of the nine tour events have now been released. Three are being held in Ireland, one in Scotland and five in England with buy-ins ranging from £500 + 50, to the tour finale with a buy-in of £5,000 + 250. The tour kicks off in the Radisson Hotel, Galway and incorporates the Irish Poker Championship, running from 10th to 14th December. The other Irish events on the tour are at the Gleneagles Hotel in Killarney, with a buy-in of €1,000 + 100, from 24th to 27th June and at the Burlington Hotel, Dublin from 9th to 12th September, also with a €1,000 + 100 buy-in. The winner of each leg of the tour will receive a paid entry to the £5,000 London EPT event next October, which will also double as the UKIPT Championship Event.
The UKIPT will have its own Points Leader Board where players will be able to track their progress against other local players and professionals. At the end of the season the top players from the UKIPT leader board will be rewarded with great prizes, including a £10,000 free roll for the top 100 players and the top three players will receive various levels of Poker Stars.com sponsorship to events during the UKIPT’s second season.
Team Poker Stars PROs attending the events will lead question and answer sessions ahead of play at selected UKIPT events giving players the opportunity to up their games with top tips from the PROs. Pokerstars.com will be running satellites for all events, at all levels, and from what I can see so far, interest in the Galway event is widespread with players from places as far apart as Australia, China and Alaska trying their luck.
Full details of the PokerStars UKIPT schedule and updates can be found at www.ukipt.com

IRISH POKER CHAMPIONSHIP

The IPC is now the Irish flagship event and opening leg of the new PokerStars UKIPT. It takes place from 10th to 14th December at the Radisson Hotel in Galway. The schedule now looks like this:-
Thursday 10th December
6pm – Player party at the Radisson Hotel
8pm – Super satellite at the Eglinton Casino, Galway. €300 + 30 freezeout.
Friday 11th December
4pm - €2,000 main event (4 days)
Saturday 12th December
7pm – Two day side event - €500 + 50
Sunday 13th December
7pm – Two day side event - €320 + 30
Monday 14th December
3pm – Side event - €225 + 25
I understand that there will be no TV coverage this year but there will possibly be live streaming of the event online.
Full details can be found at www.IrishPokerChampionship.com

N. IRELAND POKER

Although I write a column about Irish poker, it seems I am not really able to play the game legally where I live. The Northern Irish authorities still seem to have a Neanderthal attitude to the live game. Although I can do as I please online by way of poker or gambling of all types, a civilised live poker game seems to be out of the question. A brand new club opened recently in Belfast, operated by a fully incorporated and licensed events company. Within a couple of weeks they got a call from the local police inspector informing them that they were breaking the law and that they needed to close. The owner invited the police to come and inspect the place during their next tournament. The police duly arrived one night to witness a civilised game going on between groups of sober well behaved people from all sides of our sometimes troubled community, the players stopping only for a nice cup of tea and a chat during the break. The police were asked to consider what they had seen in the club and discuss it further but sadly they were not about to have a change of heart. The club was duly ordered to close with a financial loss to the owner and the loss of a popular amenity for the club members.
Come on guys. It’s not exactly the crime of the century. Maybe it’s time for the powers that be to have a rethink. Hey, never mind maybe, let’s do it.

TEAM PRO

It has been announced that Galway’s Jude Ainsworth has become the first Irish Team Poker Stars Pro. Jude won the Irish Poker Championship in 2008, picking up around €180,000 and went on to win almost 1 million dollars online in Poker Stars Spring Championship of online poker main event back in April this year. Seems the more you have, the more you get. Just jealous Jude. Best of luck in your new role as Team Pro in all the Poker Stars UKIPT events in the upcoming first season.

Finally, may I take this opportunity to offer all Poker Europa readers best wishes for the Christmas holiday season and hope you all have a peaceful and profitable poker new year.

If you have any news, views or events, you can contact me by email to mickymccloskey@hotmail.com