Live poker is certainly thriving in the UK, with record fields at the Goliath once again, where the first ever £1m guaranteed GUKPT also took place. There’s plenty of poker taking place every single day, in casinos, at poker clubs and even in pubs where low buy-in Redtooth nights are popular all year-round. But sometimes the stakes are raised above the norm and event schedules that are anything but run-of-the-mill are rolled out, for festivals and special events. It is these that we are focusing in this live poker guide to what’s on in the UK in October 2025.
The tenth month of the year is another busy one on the UK’s poker calendar, with several significant poker festivals and events taking place across the country. There are events suited to low staking recreational players and also some aimed at more serious players, such as the PokerStars Open, where the price to play is bumped upwards. Not only PokerStars, online-backed events by PartyPoker, 888 Poker and of course Grosvenor Poker all take place in October.
| Dates | Festival | Location/Venue | Main Event Buy-In/ Guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Sep – 12 Oct 2025 | British Poker Series Championship | Genting Stratford Casino, London | £300/£200lk Guarantee |
| 30 Sep – 5 Oct 2025 | UK Poker League by 888poker – Liverpool | Grosvenor Liverpool Casino | £560/£100k Guarantee |
| 2 – 5 Oct 2025 | Victoria Deepstack | Grosvenor Victoria Casino, London | £340/£100k Guarantee |
| 7 Oct 2025 | Hippodrome Lightning Tournament | Hippodrome Casino, London | £1,100/No Guarantee |
| 9 – 19 Oct 2025 | Grosvenor UK Poker Tour – Edinburgh | Grosvenor Maybury Casino, Edinburgh | £900/£150k Guarantee |
| 10 – 12 Oct 2025 | APAT Weekends Leeds | Grosvenor Westgate Casino, Leeds | £140/No Guarantee but Gold, Silver & Bronze Medals |
| 11 – 19 Oct 2025 | The PartyPoker Tour – Birmingham | Resorts World Genting Casino, Birmingham | £500/£100k Guarantee |
| 14-19 October | Beer Poker Tour London | Genting Stratford Casino, London | £185/£100k Guarantee |
| 20 – 26 Oct 2025 | PokerStars Open Manchester | Hilton Deansgate, Manchester | £1,100/£1m Guarantee |
| 22 – 26 Oct 2025 | Grosvenor 25/50 Series | Grosvenor Casinos: Bolton, Leeds & Newcastle | £250/£50k Guarantee |
| 22 – 26 Oct 2025 | Victoria Deepstack | Grosvenor Victoria Casino, London | £340/£100k Guarantee |
| 23-26 Oct 2025 | Poker Experience Tour London | Genting Stratford Casino, London | £240/No Guarantee but Added Prizes |
PokerStars Open Manchester
The biggest prize pool guarantee of the month is on the PokerStars Open Manchester, which takes place at the Hilton on Deansgate. It’s the first UK iteration of PokerStars’ new flagship mid-stakes brand, the Main Event of which has a £960+£140 buy-in and a £1m prize pool guarantee.
Much of the festival is focused on higher buy-in tournaments, with a £2,200 High Roller and a £5,300 Super High Roller also included on the schedule, but the Main Event, which ambitiously requires over 1,000 entries to avoid an overlay, is the main focus of the week.
The cheapest events cost £220 to play, with key side events like the Mystery Bounty Cup priced at £400 and the Second Chance and Last Chance events carrying £550 price tags.
Key Tournaments at PokerStars Open Manchester
- £2,200 (£1920+£280) PokerStars Open High Roller, 21-22 October
- £1,000 (960+£140) PokerStars Open Main Event, 22-26 October, 4 starting days, £1m Guaranteed
- £550 PokerStars Open Second Chance, 24-25 October
- £5,000 (£4,559+£441) Super High Roller 25 October, 1 day event
- £400 Mystery Bounty Cup, 25-26 October, 2 starting days
Qualify Live and Online for PokerStars Open Manchester
Most of the events on the schedule have quite high price-tags, especially for local players, for whom sub-£300 buy-in events are the sweet spot. For those who have been priced-out of the PokerStars Open equation, there still exists a cheaper route to take your seat, namely satellites.
There are several live £185 satellites to the Main Event, a £250 satellite to the High Roller and a £570 qualifier to the Super High Roller on the festival tournament schedule. These live satellites use a landmark format, meaning that in order to win a seat in the target event, you simply have to accumulate a prescribed number of chips. Typically the target is ten times the starting stack and that is the case for the High Roller and Super High Roller satellites, however the Main Event satellites have lower targets to shoot for. Starting with 10,000 chips, a seat is awarded when players reach a stack of 70,000. This lower ratio of 7-1 should be a popular adjustment, creating more winners from each satellite.
Online satellites and the Power Path promotion at PokerStars also provide routes to secure a seat in the Main Event.
- Read More: PokerStars Open Manchester Schedule Drops
PartyPoker Tour Birmingham
PartyPoker returned to the live poker fray in 2025 with the launch of the Party Poker Tour. After events in London, Glasgow and Manchester, the tour moves on to Birmingham, where the Resorts World Genting Casino will host the 4th leg from 11-19 October. The festival will feature a £445+£55 Main Event, a £125+£25 Mini Main Event and several other supporting sides.
There have been three Main Event winners in the short history of the tour so far, but another will join their ranks here? The first event in London had 491 entries and was won by Getnet Kassa, who edged out Will Kassouf heads-up. Deniz Orhan topped a smaller field of 257 players in Manchester in June while 256 contested the Glasgow edition, won by Zhen Zhen.
Key Tournaments at Party Poker Tour Birmingham
The schedule for the Birmingham stop is more extensive than the previous legs of the tour, with the key tournaments all returning. The week begins with the £125+£25 Mini Main Event, which has six starting flights. The €445+£55 Main Event runs from 16-19 October and has four starting days and a £100,000 guarantee. There is also a £900+£100 High Roller, a £75+£25+£50 Mystery Bounty and another showcase of the new format Tennessee Hold’Em, costing just £50+£10 to play.
At the previous stop there was also an event sponsored by poker.pro as well as the Omaha Masters. These collaborations have continued for Birmingham, with a mini-schedule of non-Hold’em and mixed-games all sponsored by poker.pro, taking place in the early part of the festival. The three games being played are Sviten Special, H.O.R.S.E. and R.O.S.E.T.
The Omaha Masters, which was well supported at the previous stop of the PartyPoker Tour in Glasgow, is also returning once again for the Birmingham leg. It consists of four tournaments including the £20,000 guaranteed Main Omaha Masters Main Event, which has three starting days and a £215+£35 Main Event. There are also some £25+£5 satellites into the Omaha Masters Main Event.
PartyPoker Tour Birmingham Highlights
- £445+£55 PartyPokerTour Main Event, 16-19 October, 4 starting days, £100,000 Guaranteed
- £125+£25 Mini Main Event, 11-16 October, 7 starting days, £50,000 Guaranteed
- £900+£100 7-Max High Roller 19 October, 1 day event
- £75+£25+£50 Mystery Bounty Turbo, 15 October, 1 day event
- £50+£10 Tennessee Hold’em Championship, 1 day event
poker.pro Mixed Games Events at PartyPoker Tour Birmingham
- £50+£10 poker.pro Sviten Special, 13 October, 1 day event
- £50+£10 poker.pro H.O.R.S.E, 14 October, 1 day event
- £85+£15 poker.pro R.O.S.E.T, 15 October, 1 day event
Omaha Masters at Party Poker Tour Birmingham
- £125+£25 Omaha Masters Big O, 16 October, 1 day event
- £215+£35 Omaha Masters Main Event 17-19 October, 3 starting days, £20,000 Guaranteed
- £25+£10+£50 Omaha Masters Saturday Party Madness Bounty 18 October, 1 day event
- £125+£25 Omaha Masters 4/5/6 Card, 19 October, 1 day event
Qualify Live & Online for PartyPoker Tour Birmingham
The PartyPoker Tour not only has very accessible buy-ins for most of its key events, but the provision of low buy-in live satellites on the schedule makes it a truly grassroots tour that anyone can get involved in, without it costing too much. There are very affordable satellites to both the Mini Main Event, costing £25+£5 and to the Main Event, costing £50+£10 included on the tournament schedule.
Online qualification has been running all-year on PartyPoker and it’s not too late to bag your seat in one of the final stages of the Tour Path satellites, which take place on Sunday nights.
GUKPT Edinburgh
Leg 6 of the 2025 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour takes place at the Maybury Casino in Edinburgh from 9-19 October. The first weekend of the festival is centred around the £175+£25 Opener, which has six starting flights a £50,000 guarantee. After that the Mini Main is the next warm-up act before the Main Event gets underway on the Thursday 16th October, with its £900+£100 buy-in and a £150,000 guarantee.
The Main Event in Edinburgh is slightly cheaper than some of the other stops on the tour, which is better suited to the local poker economy, enabling more players the chance to take part in the UK’s premier Main Event.
Key Tournaments at GUKPT Edinburgh
- £175+£25 The Opener, 9-12 October, 6 starting days, £50,000 Guaranteed
- £220+£30 Mini Main Event, 12-15 October, 3 starting days, £100,000 Guaranteed
- £1,500+£150 High Roller 15-16 October, 1 starting day
- £900+£100 Main Event, 3 starting days, 16-19 October, £150,000 Guaranteed
- £300+£40 GUKPT Cup, 18-19 October, 1 starting day, £30,000 Guaranteed
Qualify Live & Online for GUKPT Edinburgh
Grosvenor Poker has a unique online qualifying offering, which awards live event credit to satellite winners rather than issuing tickets to a specific event. There is a daily satellite on Grosvenor Poker, with variable buy-in amounts, offering varying amounts of live credit as prizes. Players can accumulate an unlimited amount of live event credit and can use it to buy-in to any live tournament within Grosvenor’s vast network of poker rooms. This credit will never expire and can be left dormant for years before being used.
888poker Live Liverpool
The 888poker Live Liverpool festival is already underway, having kicked-off at the end of September. It began on September 29 and runs until 6 October at the Grosvenor Casino in Liverpool. Its not as long as the 888poker Live event in London last month, but includes two multi-day tournaments and several other familiar tournaments are also included on the schedule, such as the KO Rumble and the Big Shot. There is also a seniors event and a 2-day high roller with a £1,000+£100 buy-in.
The £220+£30 Opening Voyage is the first marquee event, with three starting journeys before the Voyage continues to sail for a second and final day. It has a £50,000 guarantee and concludes just as the £500+£60 Main Event is beginning the first of its four starting days. It has a £100,000 guarantee and will conclude on Sunday 5th October.
As this festival is already underway, its too late to win your seat via an online satellite at 888poker, however they are still running weekly, as the next event after this one is being held in Coventry in November. There are however live satellites included in the festival schedule, which cost £112+£13 to play, from which one in five entrants will win a seat.
888poker Live Liverpool Highlights
- £220+£30 Opening Voyage, 30 September – 2 October, 3 starting days, £50,000 Guaranteed
- £500+£60 888poker Live Main Event 2-5 October, 4 starting days, £100,000 Guaranteed
- £1000+£100 High Roller, 1 starting day, 2-3 October, £50,000 Guaranteed
- £220+£30 NLH Big Shot 5 October, 1 day event, £20,000 Guaranteed
APAT Weekends Leeds
The Amateur Poker Association & Tour had its World Championship of Amateur Poker in August and in October they are holding an APAT Weekender in Leeds on the second weekend of the month. There are four events on the festival schedule, which takes place at the Grosvenor Leeds Westgate Casino for 10-12 October. The events are all very affordably priced and the top three in each receive gold, silver and bronze championship medals as keepsakes.
- Event #1: £115+25 NLH Championship Event, 10-12 October, 2 starting days
- Event #2: £58+12 NLH Saturday Event, 11 October, 1 day event
- Event #3: £58+12 NLH/PLO Mix- ROE Event, 12 October, 1 day event
- Event #4: £58+12 NLH Sunday Event, 12 October, 1 day event
- Read More: APAT World Championship Report
Poker Experience Tour London
The Poker Experience Tour event can be, for want of a better expression, experienced again in October, when its second full festival will take place, from 23-26 of the month, at Genting Stratford in London, or as it used to be known, Aspers. It’s a low buy-in affair, with delightfully quirky and inventive features.
The schedule is centred around the £70+£40+£70+£60 Main Event, which has a unique format, known as PROMYS, which stands for Progressive Mystery Bounty. For those who are feeling lazy, the buy-in adds up to £240, £40 of which is the fee, while the rest is split into three distinct prize pools: regular, Progressive Bounty and Mystery Bounty. As per regular Mystery Bounty events, those prizes can only be won when players are in the money, but the progressive element is in play from the start of play.
The schedule also includes a HendonMob partner event, with a THMC seat added to the prize pool, £65+£15 Nightly Turbos and a £65+£15 Joker’s Wild charity event in aid of Raft. Satellites into the Main Event are cheap and one hopes cheerful, priced at £24+£6. Additionally, the £100+£20 PLO event is sponsored by Poker.Pro.
There are various gimmicks that also spice up the festival, such as the resurrection freeroll, in which any player who starts the last level of the day with more than 50% of the starting stack, but fails to make it into Day 2, gets a chance to win their way back in. There are also added prizes for the Main Event winner, consisting of a trip to an overseas poker event.
Poker Experience Tour London Highlights
- £70+£40+£70+£60 PROMYS Main Event, 23-26 October, Added Prizes
- £100+£20 Poker.Pro 4/5/6 card PLO, 24 October, 1 day event
- £100+£20 TheHendonMob NLH Event, 25 October, 1 day event, 1 x THMC Seat Added
- £65+£15 Joker’s Wild in support of Raft, 25 October, 1 day event
Beer Poker Tour London
The Beer Poker Tour never seems to stop serving up its pint glass trophies and returns to London for its fourth stop of the year in the capital from 14-19 October. It might as well be known as the Beer Poker Residency at Genting Stratford. This time the £155+£30 Main Event has dispensed with the gimmick of being a double mystery bounty, as it was for its June edition and is back to having a regular vanilla format. It has seven starting days and a £100,000 guaranteed prize pool.
It’s a fun tour, with drinks and merchandising flowing quite freely, plus free pizza parties every day for those in the Main Event. There is also a Mystery Bounty, a PKO, a bomb pot and three PLO side events rounding off the tournament schedule.
Beer Poker Tour London Highlights
- £155+£30 Beer Poker Tour Main Event, 15-19 October, 7 starting days, £100,000 Guaranteed
- £80+£20+£50 Mystery Bounty, 14 October, 1 day event, £10,000 Guaranteed
- £100+£30+£100 High Pressure PKO, 19 October, 1 day event, £10,000 Guaranteed
Other Events
There’s so much going on in October that we don’t have time to fully write about everything on the schedule. In addition to those we’ve already mentioned, there’s several other poker events worth noting.
Grosvenor Casinos 25/50 Series takes place in. three venues this month: Bolton, Leeds and Newcastle. These are £250 buy-in events, each with four live starting flights and all run on the same dates, 22—26 October. There is an online starting day at Grosvenor Poker on the day before the live starting days begin. The 25/50 name refers to the fact that played start with 25,000 chips and there is a £50,000 prize pool guarantee on each of them.
On the same dates as the 25/50 events is the Victoria Deepstack, 22-26 October, but it also takes place solo earlier in the month from 2-5 October. Very similar to the 25/50 events, it costs £300+£40 to enter and has a £100,000 guarantee. There is also an online starting day at Grosvenor Poker, the day before the first of four live starting days begins.
For those in the capital looking long for a regular fix of high stakes tournament action, the one-day Hippodrome Lightening Tournament returns on the 7th of October. Starting at 6pm, it costs £1,000+£100 to enter and is run on a 25-minute clock. Players start with 20,000 chips.
One other festival running in October is the British Poker Series Championship at Genting Stratford (formerly Aspers) in London from September 29th to October 12th. It’s a two-week long festival with several multi-starting day tournaments, including a £260+£40 Main Event, with a £200,000 guarantee and countless starting days. Day 1 flips are also included, as a last minute route into day two/guarantee saver.
