Official ISPT Payout and Structure

Simon Trumper

ISPT Wembley Tournament Director, Simon ‘Aces’ Trumper, is a true legend in UK poker. In 2004, he topped the European Rankings amassing over $1 million in tournament winnings and became a household name by winning Channel 4’s Late Night Poker. In 2006, he joined fellow poker players, Rob Yong and Nick Whiten, as the third founding member of Dusk Till Dawn, Europe’s largest live poker venue. Seven years on Simon was awarded European Staff Person at the GPI European Poker Awards and Best UK Card Room Manager at the Bluff UK Poker Awards. Following on from last week’s press conference, Simon has released further details about the format of ISPT Wembley.

“When the DTD ISPT agreement was reached, I was asked by ISPT to conduct a review of their current format. The addition of the €1 million guarantee to the winner presents a small window of opportunity to make certain refinements but going forward, there will be no changes to the payout, structure, format or concept. After discussions with fellow poker players such as The Hendon Mob and other respected poker people, I am pleased to confirm that ISPT have agreed to the following;

Official ISPT Payout & Structure

The €1 million guarantee to the winner must be concrete but also easily understood; to ensure complete transparency we have published the ISPT Official Payout. The payout needs to be smooth and factor in the new €1 million guarantee; therefore 50% of the players at Wembley will make the money with a min cash of €540, with 85% of the prize money paid to the top 10% of places. I believe this is the most suitable payout to reward Day 1 €270 players for making Day 2 whilst incentivising Day 2 €2700 direct buy ins. The Main Event will use the WSOP main event structure but with a progressive clock, Day’s 2 and 3 will be 60 minute levels, Day’s 4 and 5 will increase to 75 minute levels and Day 6 will be 90 minute levels.

Friday Day 2a

Wembley Stadium has been booked from Friday 31st May, so we are able to make Friday Day 2a which gives all players the extra choice of playing Day 2 on Friday or Saturday. Players who are eliminated on Friday Day 2a will have the option to re-enter into Saturday Day 2b for €2700+€300. The number of re-entries will be very low because the vast majority of the field will make it through to Day 3, but this should make the tournament more financially attractive to Day 1 non UK players who face extra travel costs and are short stacked, with this change these players can now choose to play Friday Day 2a leaving themselves the option to re-enter on Saturday should they bust out with a short stack on Friday

UK Live Day 1’s & Live Satellites

There will be at least 8 Online Day 1’s taking place during May on DTD’s online poker room, www.dusktilldawnpoker.com, however, many poker players do still prefer to play live, especially at buy-ins over £200. Our monthly £300 Deepstack gives players the choice to play Day 1 live or online – 100 players choose online and 400 players choose live. With this in mind, there will be at least 4 Live Day 1’s at the DTD Club, with 10% taking their chips through to Day 2 at Wembley. DTD has capacity for 500 live Day 1 players and players that make Day 2 will have the option to travel on complementary coaches that we will organise from DTD to Wembley on Friday Day 2a and Saturday Day 2b. We will also be rolling out a live satellite program to win Day 2 €2700+€300 seats, these live satellites will be held in casino card rooms across the UK with the successful players receiving 50,000 chips and the choice of playing Day 2a or Day 2b.

The Poker Room at Wembley

ISPT has hired the pitch and all of Wembley’s conference rooms including the Bobby Moore, The Atrium, The Great Hall and The Wembley Suite, all areas have been licensed for the poker tournament. The plan is to have 200 poker tables on the pitch, protected from any rain but in keeping with the ‘wow – are we really playing poker on the pitch at Wembley feeling’, Wembley’s events team are working alongside ISPT and DTD on the best possible solution, there are a number of workable options. The conference rooms will also have 200 poker tables, whilst the weather in June should be suitable to play on the pitch, we cannot be over confident after experiencing the acts of god that have thwarted DTD’s guarantees in the past – snow, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes are regularly sent to Nottingham coincidentally when we have a large guarantee to hit.

Side Events & Cash Games

I Prefer not to finalise the side events schedule just yet, I would like to have a better idea on the main event player numbers before we publish the full week's tournaments. These will be comprehensive selection of side events and in addition to these, we are also in discussions with APAT, ESPT (European Synchronized Poker Tournament) Pokerfest.ro, Sky Poker Tour, Genting Poker Series and Blackbelt Poker Live to have their own branded side event during the ISPT week. In terms of cash games, we are in discussions with casino card rooms in London to provide ISPT players with transport from Wembley and we hope to confirm details as soon.