888Holdings is the parent company for a number of well known gambling brands and one of their most popular brands is 888Poker, the second largest online poker website in the world. The company also hosts popular 888Live poker events across the world and recently announced that it lives series will be heading out to the United Kingdom in October.
London’s Poker Action Heats Up In October
The 888Live London Poker Festival will take place over a period of 12 days at the popular Aspers Casino in London. The tournament which runs from October 5 to October 16 will see more than £650,000 in guaranteed prize pools and is expected to attract the best poker pros in Europe as well as hundreds of amateur poker players who want to win big and make a name for themselves on the global poker circuit.
Tournament organizers have scheduled a number of exciting poker events during the 12 day poker tournament and will kick things off with an opening event that has a guaranteed £120,000 in prize money. However the events that will get the most attention and publicity will undoubtedly be the high roller tournament and the Main Event. The special high roller event has a buy-in of £2,200 and a guaranteed £50,000 to the eventual winner while the Main Event has a buy-in of £1,100 and a guaranteed £400,000 in prize money.
Action Clock To Be Introduced
Poker players who attend the 888Live London Festival will be introduced to an Action Clock for the first time. This will be a new experience to poker players who have never played under the pressure of an action clock and it will take some getting used to. 888poker decided to introduce the action clock in order to cut down the amount of time players take during the game and to push them to make decisions faster. 888Live will be using a basketball type of shot clock in both the High Roller and the Main Event.
Global poker operators are doing everything they can to make the game of poker more interesting and appealing to both players and a global audience. One of the things that 888poker wanted to improve was speeding up the overall game because they found that poker players were spending too much time thinking and remaining idle than actually playing and taking the game forward. The time wastage did not go down well with viewers as they had no idea what was running through a poker players mind. The action clock is expected to reduce and remove those idle time periods and make the game more action packed.
Aspers Casino Welcomes Action Clock
Not everyone has been welcomed the action clock as many players feel pressured into making quick decisions due to a forced time limitation. John Scanlon who is the head of poker at the Aspers Casino is not one these people as he is a huge believer in the action clock. Scanlon wants poker players to understand that it is not the intention of 888poker or the Aspers Casino to impose additional pressure on the players but it is being done to ensure that the game progresses smoothly and that players have a better overall experience.
The plan is to make use of the action clock only during the high roller and Main Event. Scanlon remains confident that poker players who participate in these two events will be happy to use the action clock and experience fast paced poker action.
888poker Hosting Satellite Events For London
888Live London Poker festival has high roller events but also a number of other events with more reasonable buy-ins that makes it easy for poker players from all walks of life to participate. Poker players who cannot afford the buy-in to the high roller or Main Event but would still like to take a crack at it; can take advantage of the online satellites that are being hosted by 888poker. Some of these satellite events have buy-ins starting at $0.01 and the winner will be eligible to participate in the opening event and the Main Event, depending on the satellite event you select.