The clock is starting to tick down to the International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT) Event at Wembley Stadium in London and the focus is turning back to how many people are going to turn up to this event. There was a lot of criticism at the start for the over the top prize pool, with €1m going directly to the winner and many felt that this tournament would fade away long before it arrived at Wembley.
The appearance of the Dusk Till Dawn company on the scene changed all that though. DTD is a highly respected name in the UK poker industry with a lot of sensible and driven people at the top of it. With the owner Rob Young guaranteeing that the event would go ahead and the money would be as stated, there was a lot more confidence behind the event and the publicity and promotion has been building ever since. With a top name like Red Bull getting in touch for some corporate sponsorship, there has definitely been a feeling that the event is heading in the right direction. However, now that we are mere days away, it is inevitable that people are now starting to question just how popular the event is going to be.
Poker fans have a lot of questions to ask
On the Dusk Till Dawn website, Young was fairly open about the upcoming Wembley event, no doubt deciding that honesty was the best way to go. He answered a number of questions relating to the event and it was his response to the question of “how many players have you got and how many do you think you will get?” that will grab a lot of the attention. Young replied;
At the time of writing this (4.22am Tuesday morning) we have 373 player names – this equates to a prize pool of just over €1 million euros, with more guaranteed seats over the next 4 days. But how many players will buy-in directly for €3000 on Day 2a Friday and Day 2b Saturday – this is the million dollar question – literally!
I heard 700-800 players bought in for €5K at this year’s EPT Berlin – but the EPT’s are established, prestigious events so maybe it’s not correct to compare? When we partnered with ISPT they had around 30 players in Day 2 with only 12 weeks to go. At the time I said to the press that 500 runners would be a disaster, 1000 would be okay, 1500 a job well done and 2000 a miracle from the poker gods, so I am just praying that all the of hard work done by the ISPT team in promoting the event in so many different countries will pay off.
ISPT is a new organisation, a new event, a new concept, a new format, is brave attempt to challenge ‘the norm’ by allowing players to buy directly into Day 2 for an average stack, taking all this into consideration, it’s not easy to predict the number of €3k buy-ins, but we have a €1M prize pool to build on.
With the winning prize amount guaranteed, it could be a costly few days for DTD and the ISPT but poker players should be viewing this as an excellent opportunity to make some big money. The chance to play at Wembley Stadium is going to be something you will never forget but if not too many poker players are involved with the tournament, there has to be a genuine chance to win some big money at this event.
This should be an incentive for people to come along, which could of course boost the number of players that attend. There is no doubt that Young in his interview was aiming to drive home the incentives so that even more poker players attend the big event but it remains to be see whether there will be enough demand to cover the prize pool promises or whether the businesses behind the event will need to shell out.
It has already been announced that final table deals will be allowed so there is going to be a chance for the huge prize at the top of the pile to be filtered around the final table if players and the organisers agree to the figure. If poker players play their cards right, this could be a rather lucrative few days at Wembley Stadium.