D-Day Poker To Launch Tomorrow

It’s no April Fools’ Day joke folks; tomorrow D-Day Poker will unite over 100 different live poker venues in Europe’s largest and most innovative collaborative poker tournament in history. Since nothing of the sort has ever been attempted before, no one’s quite sure what the collective turnout will be, but regardless of how many players actually buy-in D-Day will easily be the most expansive live tournament to ever hit Europe.

How Does D-Day Poker Work?

The tournament’s organizers have coordinated play times with over 100 pre-approved poker venues across the United Kingdom (though with sponsors like the Irish Daily Star and PokerIreland.ie there’s a clear emphasis on the Irish portion of the event). You can check out a full list of those venues here. To get a seat at one of the hundreds of historic D-Day tables, you need only register with one of the venues before the tournament’s start tomorrow. That privilege will cost you a relatively modest €60 plus any applicable operator fees.

Play will begin simultaneously at all locations at 9pm. Each player will receive an 8000-chip starting stack, and the blinds will raise every 20 minutes as determined not only by a time keeper at each venue but also by the official D-Day Poker clock. Regardless of how large the field is at any given venue, play will run until the players have been narrowed down to just 25% of the original entries.

The tournament directors from each location will report back to the event organizers with their list of qualifiers as well as their respective chip stacks. Because of the sheer size and complexity of this tournament, Day 2 of this unprecedented event won’t commence until May 27. In the meantime, any interested players that missed their chance to qualify via the live D-Day 1 competition can still qualify online every Friday in April at sponsoring site IrishEyesPoker.com.

Is D-Day A Real Tournament Or Just A Gimmick?

That’s the question that a lot of poker fans have been asking, especially since the tournament’s organizers are only predicting a prize pool of around €100,000. Do the math and that translates to well under 2000 entries. In other words, the D-Day Poker event may be Europe’s largest tournament when it comes to land area, but it’s far from it in terms of playing field, prizes or prestige. (That title has been applied to everything from the WSOPE to the International Poker Open.) Still, it’s a novel idea that will give a lot of European amateurs a chance to experience the kind of well-promoted live poker tournament that’s usually only accessible to pros. Speaking of pros, no significant players have yet committed to participating in D-Day.

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