GUKPT

Last Updated on September 17, 2026 by Bala Kumar

Introduction

If you’ve spent any time around a UK poker room, you’ve probably heard someone mention “the GUKPT” the way people mention the WSOP or the EPT, as shorthand for the tour that’s just always been there. The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour has been running since 2007, and in 2026 it’s celebrating its 20th season, which in an industry that sees tours come and go every few years is genuinely rare. It’s not a glamorous, globally televised series,  there’s no ESPN deal, no PokerGO stream of the final table,  but it doesn’t need one. What GUKPT does well is give UK players a reliable, repeating circuit of festivals they can actually plan a year around, with buy-ins that stretch from a few hundred pounds to a few thousand, and satellites cheap enough that almost anyone with a Grosvenor Poker account can find a way in.

This guide walks through everything currently known about the 2026 season: the schedule, who’s won what so far, how the tour stacks up against Grosvenor’s other big festivals, and how to actually get a seat without paying full price.

How We’d Rate GUKPT

This is our own read on the tour, based on what’s publicly available — not something Grosvenor puts out itself.

The 2026 Season at a Glance

• This is season 20 of GUKPT, running January through November 2026
• Nine regular legs on the calendar, plus the UK Open, the Goliath, and the season-closing Grand Final
• Combined Main Event guarantees land around £5.7 million once every leg is counted
• Buy-ins run from £500 at the smaller stops up to £1,800 for the Grand Final
• The season wraps at The Victoria in London, 19–29 November, with a £500,000 guaranteed final
• You can enter online through Grosvenor Poker or in person at the host casino

How a GUKPT Main Event Actually Runs

The structure barely changes from city to city, which is part of the appeal — once you’ve played one, you know roughly what to expect at the next:

• A few Day 1 flights, usually two to four, often with a faster turbo option thrown in, and re-entry is allowed until late reg closes
• Late registration typically stays open right through Day 1, sometimes bleeding into Day 2
• Stacks around 20,000–25,000 chips to start, with levels lengthening as the tournament progresses
• No livestream — if you want to follow along without being there, PokerNews’ live blog is your best bet

What’s Happened So Far in 2026

Eight of the nine regular legs are done, plus the UK Open and the Goliath. Here’s where things stand:

A couple of these were genuinely notable results, not just another leg ticking by.

Luton’s Main Event made history. Renee Xie beat 395 other players to win the £560 event for £35,435, and in doing so became the first woman to ever win a GUKPT Main Event — a milestone that had gone unclaimed for the tour’s entire 19 prior seasons. Sanjay Ranchhoddas finished runner-up for £28,545, with a three-way deal earlier at the final table having already locked in solid money for the last few players standing.

The Goliath broke its own records. This is Grosvenor’s mass-participation festival, run under the GUKPT banner in Coventry, and 2026’s edition pulled in more than 12,000 entries — the biggest field the event has ever seen. Damon Burch-Hyson came out on top for £365,520.

Glasgow debuted, and a train driver won it. GUKPT had never been to Glasgow before 2026, the city replaced Edinburgh on this year’s calendar. Bernie McGinlay, who works full-time as a train driver and plays poker recreationally, took down the inaugural Main Event for £38,240 after years of good-natured teasing from his regular poker friends about never having a trophy to show for it.

Leeds Where the Tour Is Right Now

The tour is currently in Leeds, running from 24 September through 4 October, and this is actually its tenth visit to the city over the 20 seasons GUKPT has existed. The Main Event carries a £900 buy-in and a £200,000 guarantee, split across three starting days before it plays down to a winner on the Saturday and Sunday. Around it sits the usual mix: a Warm Up, a Mini Main, a PLO event, a High Roller, and the closing events that wrap up most GUKPT stops. We’ll update this section once the leg is finished.

What’s Left in 2026

Blackpool is one of the tour’s more popular stops with regulars, and then everything builds toward the Grand Final back at The Victoria — the closing chapter of the 20th season and the second-biggest guarantee of the year after the UK Open and the Goliath.

Who’s Actually Winning These Things

A few names have stood out across the season. Damon Burch-Hyson’s Goliath win is the single biggest score of the year so far. Bryan Taylor, a Scottish player who started out mainly grinding cash games, has picked up multiple titles this season — Glasgow, Manchester, a London High Roller — and currently leads Grosvenor’s season-long points race by a wide margin. And then there’s Renee Xie, whose Luton win matters less for the size of the prize and more for what it represents after two decades of the tour not having a female champion.

Beyond the headline winners, the fields themselves tend to be a mix: UK-based regulars chasing points across the whole Grosvenor calendar, local recreational players who show up for whichever leg lands nearest them, and a smaller number of overseas entrants who tend to appear more at London or the bigger showcase events.

Getting In Without Paying Full Price

Most people don’t just turn up and pay the £1,000+ buy-in outright — there’s a whole ladder built for getting in cheaper:

Any credit you win online doesn’t expire, and you can use it as partial payment toward a bigger tournament if you don’t want to spend it all at once.

Twenty Years of GUKPT, Briefly

• 2007 — The tour begins in Bolton. Praz Bansi wins the very first Main Event, turning £1,050 into £75,000.
• The years that followed — GUKPT builds out its regular stops: London, Luton, Manchester, Leeds. A young Sam Trickett wins Luton in 2008, not long before he became one of the biggest names in British poker.
• 2020 — COVID forces the tour online for a season.
• 2022 — Timothy Chung wins £185,560 in London, still the biggest prize the London leg has ever paid out.
• 2025 — Manchester’s Main Event smashes its guarantee, with Juxian Du walking away with £455,170. This also turns out to be Edinburgh’s last year on the schedule.
• 2026 — The 20th season. Glasgow replaces Edinburgh and gets its first-ever GUKPT stop. Renee Xie makes history in Luton. The Goliath pulls in its biggest field yet.

GUKPT Isn’t the Only Thing Grosvenor Runs

It’s worth knowing how GUKPT fits alongside Grosvenor’s other big festivals, because they get mentioned in the same breath a lot:

None of these are competing tours in the way, say, the WPT and EPT compete with each other. They’re really all part of the same Grosvenor ecosystem, feeding the same national points race and often held at the same venues.

Where This Leaves Things

Twenty seasons in, GUKPT’s identity hasn’t really changed — it’s still the tour built for players who want a full year of UK poker to plan around, rather than one big showcase event. Nobody’s tuning in for a TV broadcast, but plenty of people are booking a hotel in Leeds or Blackpool because they know exactly what kind of tournament they’re walking into. This season has already given the tour one of its more meaningful moments in Renee Xie’s Luton win, and there’s still Blackpool and the Grand Final to come before the 20th year wraps up. We’ll keep this page updated as those results land.

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