In October 2013 PokerPlayer.co.uk brought you exciting news of the first-ever Sky Poker UK Poker Championships (UKPC), to be held and run by Rob Yong’s Dusk Till Dawn club in Nottingham. Five months later, and the time for talking is almost over as the first bracelet event, the £3,000 High Roller, starts tomorrow. A week long festival, the Sky Poker UKPC is expected to be a highlight of the European poker calendar in 2014. There are five confirmed Championship events (all with a coveted UKPC bracelet to be awarded), £800,000 in guaranteed prize money and a whole slew of famous poker and sporting faces expected to appear, including Sam Trickett, Boris Becker, Tony G and Jake Cody. If that wasn’t enough the £1,100 main event is also being filmed all week to create six one hour shows to be transmitted on Sky Sports TV later this year.
Dusk Till Dawn owner Rob Yong took to his blog this morning to update players on how preparations for the Sky Poker UKPC were going. The £500,000 guaranteed prizepool on the main event may have seemed ambitious at first but, with 450 players already registered through a mixture of online and live satellites, the guarantee will be smashed. A total field of 700 players would not be surprising, which is an outstanding achievement when you consider the busy marketplace in UK poker and how, until now, Sky Poker have not been a traditional powerhouse when it comes to running online satellites for major events.
Ironically, this unprecedented interest in the Sky Poker UKPC is creating some headache for Yong, with most qualifiers choosing Day 1B, Thursday February 20, to play. Yong said, ‘Yes, DTD is a damn big card room with 50 tables, but this event is really building some serious momentum now, and I am a little concerned that we could end up turning players away on Day 1B because so far everyone is choosing that day to play. Me and Simon [Trumper] have agreed there is no way we will deal this prestigious event 10 handed, just to get more players in, so our capacity is 450 and we will also need extra tables for satellites, PLO and cash games later on. The structure is so good that we don’t expect many bustouts between 1pm and 6pm when the PLO starts, therefore, I am appealing to those players who can play Wednesday Day 1A to help me out and play that day 🙂 Thanks loads for anyone that helps me out with this.’
You can read the rest of Rob Yong’s blog, which contains tons of details on the Sky Poker UKPC RIGHT HERE. You can also read our exclusive and controversial interview with DTD owner Rob Yong HERE where he goes into detail on why he thinks poker is doomed – and what he is doing to try to save it.
If you are planning on playing the Sky Poker UKPC main event this week our advice is simple – either pre-register well in advance to guarantee yourself a seat or play Wednesday Day 1A. If you just show up on the morning expecting to jump straight into the action you could be in for a long wait at the bar instead.
Despite the Sky Poker UKPC kicking off tomorrow there are still ways for you to win a seat on the cheap. DTD Online is running £100 main event satellites with ten seats guaranteed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, while live £50 rebuy satellites are taking place in Luton and Liverpool tonight, and in London tomorrow. Full details of all live satellites can be found HERE.
If you are planning on playing in the Sky Poker UKPC please let PokerPlayer.co.uk know how you get on @PokerPlayerUK on Twitter. We’ll be there covering all the action and are very excited about what could be the start of an annual tradition in UK poker. We wish Rob Yong, the DTD team and Sky Poker all the best!
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