With EPTs, GUKPTs, APATs and numerous other festivals of the -T variety, August is shaping up to be a slobberknocker of a month for poker fans, and is perhaps a sign that the industry is beginning to emerge from the other side of the recession relatively unscathed. Poker is, like any other industry, based on supply and demand, so for the August calendar to be so heaving with events must surely mean that the demand is indeed there.
Well, opinions may be mixed, as while the already flagging WPT is entering foreign territory, the GUKPT has been similarly slipping with numbers reaching a season low in Coventry where Stuart Rutter barely made £40,000 for his victory. Even the Walsall leg, which once saw Brown Belt Jerome Bradpiece top a 360-thick field to take home £121,600, could only lure 206 up the M6.
A few years back, the GUKPT was the staple of the UK poker circuit, and a celebrated Tour that produced a bubble of excitement at every stop. For a good while, the GUKPT was big news, but times have changed, and these days what was once the most anticipated circle on the calendar, is now something that feels a little outdated and, in many people's minds, "just another tournament".
At first, I assumed the buy-in was out of reach of most pockets, but the £500 Summer Series events were equally disappointing. Instead, I believe that the explanation is multilayed, and started with the removal of the television cameras from Season 1. This exposure brought the Tour to a wider audience, and the added razmattaz attracted the circuit pros in their masses. When they disappeared the following Season - likely solely due to the expenses involved - it was inevitable that numbers would suffer as a result.
Like all Tours, the GUKPT's enemy is age, and once you have umpteen previous champions, with numbers, and subsequently prize pools dropping, the prestige of being the latest GUKPT Champion simply isn't as valuable as it once was. Throw into the mix the lack of satellites, guaranteed prize pools and marketing budget - all of which influence one another in an almost domino effect - and I believe drastic changes (which may simply be an injeciton of funds) are required to halt the slide down an increasingly slippery slope. With the innovative Jonathan Raab hanging up his Blue Square boots, the GUKPT may be short on ideas, which if there's no money to spend, will be all they have left to somehow successfully thrive in the current market.
It would be easy to point the finger at the emergence of the UKIPT, but the GUKPT was suffering long before PokerStars entered the fray. They've simply made the GUKPT's attempts of recovery that much more of an uphill struggle. PokerStars are a global, corporate machine with oodles of money. They can create online qualfiers, they can market their events and they can add the glitz and glamour that the GUKPT once had. If they want to dominate the UK poker circuit, then they can, and the early numbers appear to cement that claim.
The arrival of PokerStars is likely positive for poker, but only if they don't blow everyone else away. When there's healthy competition, the poker players prosper, but when there is just one dominant company, the ruling body can mold the offering in such a way that their benefits heavily outweigh that of the players, and this is what we see in Vegas. If there were a rival World Series, then the players would be getting a lot more back.
But don't listen to me, hear what the pros themselves have to say. In a trio of videos for Black Belt Poker, I asked Neil Channing and Nik Persaud about the upcoming schedule, and which events they would be tackling.
In today's clip, the Black Belt Poker co-founders discuss the aforementioned UK-based Tours, highlighting the importance of the upcoming week for the GUKPT, as well as the influence of the UKIPT. As Nik astutely observes: "Luton is a real litmus test for the GUKPT."
Next time, Neil and Nik will take at look at September's schedule with the inagural London WPT and the prevelance of High Roller events.
Read Part Two...