Poker Tournaments: British Poker Open

British Poker Open - BPO

The British Poker Open (BPO) is one of the most important Poker tournaments in the UK. The first British Poker Open (BPO) was held in London in April 2005. It was an all-new event deviced to generate a Poker event that raised the interest in the game within the UK. The launch of the British Poker Open coincided with the launch of The Poker Channel, the first television channel entirely dedicated to the game of Poker.

The first edition of the tournament would run for close to a month between April and May of 2005, and would have a prize pool of over 200.000 pounds. Besides this fact, the different rounds and final would be filmed and broadcast live making the British Poker Open UK’s biggest live televised Poker event.

One of the aims of the BPO was to summon top players  from USA whom had not played in the UK before. This turned out to be possible and the 2005 BPO had World Poker Champion at the time Greg Raymer, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer, taking part of the event. These professional players brought the Bitish Poker Open much further media exposure.

There is another set of Poker tournaments in the UK that became one of the most important events in the Poker circuit in the last years: the Great British Poker Tour (GBPT).