Our Events
Second Chance £100,000 Poker Classic
Genting are a huge multi-national company with origins in Asia.
They purchased Stanley Casinos in 2006, creating Genting Stanley
which is the largest casino operator in the UK with 46 outlets.
Genting Stanley incorporates 3 main casino brands of Circus, Mint
and Maxims with a few other stand alone upmarket casinos in London
such as Crockfords and Palm Beach.
In June 2008, Genting Stanley launched their online casino and
poker site, called Circus Casino. To help promote their new online
poker room, Genting Stanley ran a big poker festival at the end of
October 2008 called the Second Chance £100,000 Poker Classic. The
festival ran from 30th October - 2nd November 2008 at Circus
Casino in the Birmingham Star City complex. The centre piece of the
festival was the main event which cost £500 + £50 to enter and
had a prize pool that was guaranteed to be at least
£100,000.
Living it Loving it were hired to provide the following
services with regards to the festival:
Tournament Website
We built and maintained the festival website
which contained all of the details the general public needed,
including our contact details if they wished to register or had any
questions about the event.
Recruitment of Direct Buy-Ins To The Festival
We took telephone registrations for the festival. Players
would call us and we would take card payments over the telephone
and enter their registration details into a system we had developed
for managing the event registrations. There were 3 separate
tournaments that players had the option of entering
- they could enter 1, 2 or all 3. The main event cost £550 to
enter and there were two other side events which each cost £110.
The player details and payment were be transferred over to Genting
Stanley a week before the tournament. We also provided an online
registration form that allowed players to register themselves for
the tournament.
Management of Activity Before and During Event
We undertook the management of the blog and forum activity
leading up to, and during, the main event by posting
weekly updates on the festival on the top 25 poker forums
which was designed to increase interest and promote the
festival. Each forum was checked daily and any questions
or comments responded to.
Online Qualifiers
We set up tournaments on various online poker networks that
provided seats to the £100k festival.
Poker in the Pub
A number of our own Poker in the Pub players won seats from us
for this tournament and an exclusive freeroll tournament was
created for our members with seats to the £100k tournament up for
grabs.
Genting Stanley National Poker Fesitval (GSNP)
After the success of the Golden Sands Poker Festival
in Torquay we launched the Genting Stanley National Poker
Championships.
The event consisted of three individual festivals running
simultaneously from 26th - 30th March 2008 in Circus
Casino Manchester, Circus Casino Nottingham and Mint Casino
Southend (formerly known as Spielers Rivercard Room).
All tournaments were no rake, no fee events so every penny
collected was paid out to the winners. The structure for the £500
main event was the same as the Golden Sands as all of the players
appreciated the very generous amount of play that it allowed.
The GSNP League was launched on 7th January 2008 in 23 Genting
Stanley casinos across the UK. This was a ten week league
where each casino ran their normal weekly poker tournaments, but
the registration fees went to creating seats in the GSNP
Championships for the winners and those players who reached the end
of league playoffs. All of the normal prize money generated
by the buy-ins was paid out to the players who made the
money on the individual league nights. This gave players the
opportunity to qualify for a big poker festival through live play
as opposed to online.
To cater for those that preferred the convenience of online
play, qualifiers were also made available on sites on the Boss
Network and Full Tilt Poker. Satellites were running on the Boss
Network with buy-ins from as little as $1 + $0.1. The Full Tilt
satellites started in January 2008 with weekly qualifiers leading
to a monthly satellite tournament.
Those players wishing to buy-in directly could do so at any
Genting Stanley Casino or over the telephone by calling the
in-house support team that we operated.
Golden Sands Poker Festival
The Golden Sands Poker festival was a 3 day celebration of
Poker taking place in Stanley's Torquay Casino on 17th,18th and
19th August 2007. The Festival itself consisted of two £50
no-limit holdem re-buy side games, a £100 no-limit Freezout and the
£500 main event which was run across two days. The Stanley casino
has a classic elegance and is conveniently located with a variety
of cafes, restaurants and pubs closeby. Torquay is known as the
'English Riviera' with pavements lined with palm trees, an
impressive international harbour and attractions to suit everyone's
tastes. Situated on the South Devon coast Torquay was the perfect
setting for this significant poker event.
The structure of the tournaments was as follows:
Day one - the tournament began with a £100 no-limit
holdem freezout. Players and spectators had a chance to
introduce themselves to one another and they were given
the opportunity to explore the casino and its enchanting
surroundings.
Day two - the main event kicked off on 18th August with an
impressive guaranteed £30,000 prizepool. In the afternoon, for
those spectators who wanted to have a game of their own, there
was a £50 no-limit re-buy tournament.
Day three - the final day of the festival and the second
day of the main event saw the competition heating up and the
players salivating at the approaching final table showdown!
The final game starting just after the main event final kicked
off as a £50 no-limit re-buy, for those who just couldn't get
enough of the action!
During the festival Stanleys were also holding various other
side games and throughout the festival there was a free buffet
provided for players and spectators.
Pokerface 2007
The highly anticipated Pokerface 2007 was the inaugural
event, sponsored by TheRiverCard.com, and was a huge
success. The event culminated in a winner who
became a poker pro for a year. The other eight at the final table
all won World Series of Poker main event packages worth
$12,500.
The winner's package contained $100,000 to be used for
tournament buy-ins in their home country and throughout the
world. This included the WSOP 2007 main event, the Australian
Masters main event, and a top European event, plus many other
preliminary and local events of their choosing. On top of
this, the winner received $30,000, which was to cover all of their
travel expenses, plus $70,000 as a salary.