Aspers Casino in Stratford, London, is set to be packed to the rafters between January 30 and February 4 thanks to the £1 million guaranteed London Poker Festival. The team behind the successful Irish Poker Tour, Killarney Poker Festival, Irish Poker Tour London, and many other series is behind the London Poker Festival, which all but guarantees its success in the English capital.
At least £1 million will be awarded across the London Poker Festival, with every tournament, including satellites, featuring a guarantee on their prize pool. The largest of these guarantees tips the scales at an impressive £500,000, which is reserved for the £700 buy-in London Poker Festival Main Event.
London Poker Festival Schedule
A £500 buy-in, £100,000 guaranteed Mystery Bounty tournament raises the curtain on the London Poker Festival at 2:00 p.m. GMT on January 30. Later that day, at 7:00 p.m. GMT, the one-day £150 London Festival Opener awards not a penny less than £10,000.
The £700 buy-in London Poker Festival Main Event is the tournament everyone heading to Aspers Casino wants to win, not least because the prize pool is guaranteed to payout half a million British pounds!
The £500,000 guaranteed Main Event has five starting flights, including a turbo-structured Day 1F. Main Event players receive a 40,000 starting stack and play to 30-minute levels on each Day 1, except Day 1F, which has a 12-minute clock. Fifteen levels are scheduled on each flight, with one re-entry permitted before the end of the ninth level.
| Level | Small Blind | Big Blind | Big Blind Ante |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| 2 | 100 | 200 | 200 |
| 3 | 100 | 300 | 300 |
| 4 | 200 | 400 | 400 |
| 5 | 200 | 500 | 500 |
| 6 | 300 | 600 | 600 |
| 7 | 400 | 800 | 800 |
| 8 | 500 | 1,000 | 1,000 |
| 9 | 600 | 1,200 | 1,200 |
| 10 | 800 | 1,600 | 1,600 |
| 11 | 1,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 |
| 12 | 1,200 | 2,400 | 2,400 |
| 13 | 1,500 | 3,000 | 3,000 |
| 14 | 2,000 | 4,000 | 4,000 |
| 15 | 2,500 | 5,000 | 5,000 |
Although, naturally, most of the London Poker Festival tournaments are No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha lovers have a handful of events featuring their favorite discipline. The largest of these is the 7-Max London Omaha Championship, a £1,650 behemoth of a PLO event with a £175,000 guarantee slapped on its prize pool.
Derek Baker Crowned Champion in Irish Poker Tour’s Galway Poker Festival Main Event (€83,500)
Satellites Galore for the London Poker Festival
Of course, buy-ins of £700 for the Main Event, and £1,650 for the Omaha Championship could be outside the constraints of some players’ bankrolls, which is why there are several live satellites running throughout the London Poker Festival.
In addition, PartyPoker is running satellites where two £2,400 London Poker Festival packages are guaranteed. Those packages award:
- £500 Mystery Bounty ticket
- £700 Main Event ticket
- Five nights at the Hyatt Regency Hotel worth £1,000
- £200 credited to your PartyPoker account to help with costs
Those PartyPoker satellites use the online poker giant’s “phase” system, where you can buy into any phase you wish except the final. Phases come in buy-ins of £2.20, £11, and £55; progress from the £55 buy-in phase and you take your chips through with you to the final.
The last of those finals takes place at 9:00 p.m. GMT on January 21, so time is of the essence if you want to win your way to the London Poker Festival for as little as £2.20.
Last week’s final awarded three packages. Ireland’s Morgan McGlew, Finland’s Tero Maaranen, and Byron Borburg of the United Kingdom each secured a £2,400 package. Fourth place finisher, Alexandru Cristian Munteanu bubbled a package but still took home £990 for his efforts.
Stay locked and loaded to PokerNews throughout the London Poker Festival to discover who wins big at Aspers Casino Stratford in the coming weeks.