It was the poker tournament that UK poker players were talking about for what seemed like an eternity but as with everything else in life, it passed in the blink of an eye. The International Stadiums Poker Tour event at Wembley at the end of May and start of June was a huge event, giving many poker players the chance to strut their stuff on the hallowed Wembley turf. The venue moved from outside to in and at the end of the day, there was a huge €1m given out to the winner but as is the way with modern poker, an agreed deal lessened the take-home cash of the winner but there was a good prize for the final table players!
The money guaranteed for the main event was the source of most of the pre-tournament discussion and many people believed that the event would fall flat before it even got to Wembley. The fact that it didn’t and it showed a lot of people wrong in this regard can be attributed to the hard work, effort and basic support provided by the Dusk Till Dawn club in Nottingham. When it comes to good names in the UK poker industry, this club is able to beat everyone else hands down and Rob Young, the main man at DTD looked back at the ISPT event on his own blog.
A lot of poker players but probably not enough!
With respect to numbers of players, there were a total of 708 players with 428 of these players coming from the United Kingdom with 280 coming from Europe. During the event there were a total of 53 re-entries which means that the total number of entries for the event stood at 761. Rob Young spoke prior to the event taking place and with respect to the number of entries, he said that if the event welcomed 500 players it would be a disaster and if 1,000 players turned up, it would be okay. The fact that the number of people that turned up for the tournament was in between these two would be enough to suggest that it wasn’t a massive success in that regard but there were problems with the event, especially in the run-up to the event.
One of the main concerns labelled at the ISPT was the fact that it was scheduled against the WSOP. The problem is that Wembley needs to be booked well in advance and the ISPT was lined up two years ago. This was long before the WSOP announced their schedule and when it was realised that there was going to be a clash, it would be fair to say that a few hearts sank.
The concern with the clash really came home with the fact that only 230 poker players bought directly into Day 2 at the event, which had a buy-in of €3,000. This can be contrasted to the 6,400 players that were involved in the Millionmaker $1,500 event which was held at the WSOP at the same weekend as the ISPT. There is no doubt that there is a demand for high-roller poker events and a lot of poker players like playing for a lot of money but it seemed as though there was a clear favourite when it comes to catching the attention of poker players.
Will there be another ISPT?
While DTD have no current plans to be heavily involved with future ISPT events, Rob believes that there are more ISPT events in the pipeline. There have been suggestions that the O2 Arena in Prague could be a venue for a future event and in planning ahead; there is no doubt that the 2014 World Cup in Brazil is something that will host a lot of interest to players from around the world. There is no doubt that the ISPT Wembley event was a great learning experience and an event that many people will have enjoyed. It may have cost a lot of money from Rob Young and DTD but yet again they showed why they are one of the most respected organisations in the UK poker industry. Anyone looking to see how a professional poker club runs would be advised to check them out.