It was almost midday one day back in December 2009. I was searching my local town for somewhere I could send a fax – how old fashioned eh? My phone rang and it was Paul Jackson. Not significant in itself considering Paul and I had recently set up in business together. “That fax you are sending, don’t. We need to talk”. In my hand was our contract with a major UK bookmaker who had agreed to be our partner in launching our online poker site. I had been working hard to get everything tied up. Paul had other ideas.
“I’ve been talking to this guy at Maxims in Birmingham. He wants to do business with us”
“Who does he work for” I asked
“Circus”
“Who? The circus?!”
Fast forward 6 months. The aforementioned UK bookmaker had been kicked off the Ipoker network that we were so keen to get onto and we were working in partnership with a company who would soon rebrand as Genting
That guy that Paul had met in Birmingham was this guy. Mr Gary Oakes.
Who would have had this name on the tip of their tongue if posed the question in the title of this blog? Then again, who of you would have answered Genting if asked who is the UK’s biggest gaming company?
Gary heads up the team in charge of poker for Genting and if you hadn’t already realised they are flexing their Malaysian muscles in a serious way in UK poker. Not only is he switched on to the UK poker market but he is always listening for people’s opinions and feedback on how to make their poker offering a cut above the rest. After the week that has seen the Launch of the new Genting Poker Series tour it is clear to see they mean business. You only had to look around the card room at Star City this weekend to see:
- Both Genting’s head of poker & head of live poker (exc London)
- 1 head tournament director with 2/3 assistants
- A team of 4 doing the tournament registrations
- 2 dedicated tournament bloggers
- A team of 3 doing videos updates
- Another team of 3 looking after the running of the live stream
- 2 dedicated commentators
This of course on top of their hand picked “best of class” dealers from across their estate who all received extra specialised training and it was no surprise to see the whole thing go off as smoothly as if this had been the 101st leg they had ever done, not the 1st.
Each of the 6 legs of the tour have a 100k guarantee. The 1st leg ended with a prize pool of almost £150,000. The structure used is truly the best possible for a 3 day tournament
Playing this event for 2 days I had chance to chat with lots of players. The field featured many local players. Most of whom had never played a GUKPT and couldn’t even tell you what the letters UKIP or T stand for. Genting is bringing a new group of players through onto the mainstream UK tournament scene and UK poker will be a better place for it. £400 seems a perfect level to pitch these at to attract the new blood that the UK tournament scene is crying out for in the wake of ever decreasing tournament field sizes
The Genting Poker Series is just another reminder of everything Genting are doing. Flicking through this Month’s Bluff Magazine, every other page was an advert from them showing off another set of great promotions be they at the newly acquired Fox Poker Club in London, the prestigious Palm Beach casino, the London Mint or any of their other poker friendly UK venues.
Anyone who was part of the Las Vegas giveaway promotion that we ran last year in association with Genting will know that it’s not just live poker that they have their eyes on. 10 packages to the WSOP added to regular network tournaments (exclusive to us and Genting) gave just a flavour of the money Genting have to share with their UK players. Sitting snuggly under the Genting poker umbrella, Poker Encore enjoy being able to share this with our players and look forward to even bigger and better things coming in the near future
Paul Jackson has made a lot of calls throughout his 40 year poker career (some would argue not as many as he has made folds) but the one he made to me that day in 2009 may just be his best yet.
If you want to be a part of the UK’s newest poker tour qualifiers and direct buyins are available on Poker Encore for each leg of the 2012 series now see here
If you’ve never made a deposit with us before – we will give you a free GPS satellite token when you do – see here
