The fifth season of the United Kingdom and Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) will begin on Jan. 20th, 2015 in London. The announcement was made on Monday, Dec. 8th by PokerStars, an online poker company.
The tour’s first location will be the Hippodrome Casino, a century-old building that has housed a music hall, circuses, theatre productions, and jazz festivals in Leicester Square. The Hippodrome Casino was also recently announced as the venue for the 2015 International Casino Conference hosted by ICE Totally Gaming.
UKIPT’s first stop will last from Jan. 20-25th. The event includes a £770 buy-in Main Event, a £330 London Cup, a £165 Ladies Event, a £3,300 High Roller, and constant “cash games” throughout the duration of the event. Each and every stop on the tour is guaranteed to feature a High Roller event, unlike in previous seasons, and a £1 million Main Event prize pool is expected to occur at the tour’s Nottingham location.
Though the rest of the tour’s schedule has not yet been released, the organizers have confirmed that UKIPT will be visiting Dublin, Bristol, and, as mentioned earlier, Nottingham.
Organizers also confirmed that there’d also be another summer one-off event in the city of Marbella, Spain. Last year’s champion of that event was Rodrigo Espinosa, who won €136,000 (approx. £107,000).
Last year’s fourth season of UKIPT held 14 main events, hosted over 7,700 participants, and awarded a total of £7 million in prizes from June 2013 to October 2014. UKIPT London’s main event title champion was Brett Engell, who walked away with £115,083.
UKIPT itself first started back in Dec. 2009 after the success of its counterparts: the European Poker Tour (began in 2004), the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (began in 2007), and the Latin American Poker Tour (began in 2008). The North American Poker Tour became the final branch of PokerStars’ worldwide tournament series in 2010.
