International Stadiums Poker Tour Q & A With Stephen McClean

We talk to one of the men organising the International Stadium Poker Tour, which is aiming to host 30,000 poker players and reach a €20,000,000 prize pool next year at Wembley Stadium in London.

On paper the International Stadiums Poker Tour looks like the greatest event in the world. For a €600 buy-in (plus two rebuys), 30,000 players are expected, and a €20,000,000 prize pool is guaranteed.

However, the event, which is expected to take place at Wembley Stadium on May 2013, has been met with significant skepticism from the poker community, and not least, this writer.

The dates have changed several times, Wembley Stadium previously was unable to confirm the venue was booked, many believe that 30,000 players is unrealistic, others think organising 30,000 players with laptops would be a logistical nightmare, and questions are being asked of the Tapie group behind it, following their role in the failed Full Tilt deal.

However, despite the skepticism, the event finally appears to be gathering momentum and some questions are being answered. We caught up with Stephen McClean, who has just been appointed to promote the event in the UK & Ireland, to ask him some of the main questions poker players have been asking.

If you have any further questions that are not covered below, Stephen McClean will be answering questions from the PokerStrategy.com community in the following forum thread:

International Stadium Poker Tour: Post Your Questions Here

"We're bringing together 30,000 poker players for a historic poker tournament in Wembley"

PokerStrategy.com: Can you confirm logistically what is going to happen at the event?

Stephen McClean: When players arrive at Wembley Stadium they will go directly to their seats, if they have pre-paid and registered (having already received confirmation of their seat allocation in the Stadium) or they will be able to pay their entry to the main event at one of the 74 cashier desks provided before being allocated their seat.

Players must bring their own laptop but powerpoints and wired internet connections will be provided for every individual player along with a stand for each laptop (to make sure players are as comfortable as possible). The software will run on any standard laptop and mac, but not on any tablet devices.

After the first two days, the tournament becomes a live event, and the play will continue on the pitch.

Stephen McClean

PokerStrategy.com: What is your specific role in this event?

Stephen McClean: I am involved with player recruitment and event promotion within the UK & Ireland. I am also in charge of dealer recruitment before the event and dealer co-ordination during the live event.

PokerStrategy.com: Why is the online portion still taking place in the stadium? Would it not have made more sense to have that online first?

Stephen McClean: The online portion is taking place in the stadium simply because it's not feasible right now running a 30,000 runner live tournament in one sitting. We're bringing together 30,000 poker players for a historic poker tournament in Wembley (if we could do it all live I'm sure we would).

The fact that the main event starts online in the stadium doesn't take away from the fact that there will be 50 prestigious side events through the entire week and a huge amount of action and entertainment available for the 30,000 players in London.

"Having everyone in the stadium playing online benefits the security aspect"

Vulnerable to cheating?

PokerStrategy.com: What specific extra measures are you taking to prevent collusion/multi-accounting/shared accounting, as the online portion of the event seems vulnerable to all of them?

Stephen McClean: Every effort is being made to prepare for every possible eventuality but I think you will find that having everyone in the stadium playing online actually benefits the security aspect as we can watch all players.

The most important thing is to ensure that players cannot see other player's hole cards during play and we are preparing for this task (exact details of extra measures will be released in the coming weeks and months, well ahead of the start date of the tournament).

PokerStrategy.com: Why is there a €6,000 direct entry option, when the online buy-in is €600?

Stephen McClean: The license agreement for the event stipulates that there must be a facility for players to enter the tournament when we get to Day 3 (the first live day). The Day 3 entry facility is limited to 1,000 players only, and we expect this to fill well in advance of 31st May.

These players will start with an average stack. We expect this to be between 75 and 100 BB, depending on how quickly players have been eliminated during the first two days of online play.

PokerStrategy.com: Do you expect most players to take their maximum rebuys?

Stephen McClean: I expect the average to work out at one re-load (re-buy or add-on) per player.

"The venue is most definitely booked, Wembley have confirmed"

Wembley is confirmed

PokerStrategy.com: Can you confirm the venue is booked?

Stephen McClean: The venue is most definitely booked. Wembley have confirmed, as has Prosper Masquelier. Anyone in any doubt can contact Wembley Stadium directly on UK: 0844 980 8001

PokerStrategy.com: Are we going to see mainstream marketing of this event, on TV or non-poker magazines, for example?

Stephen McClean: I don't think so. The value of mainstream advertising is minimal for a poker event, in my opinion, but that's not going to be my decision to make.

PokerStrategy.com: Is the guarantee subject to change? It has already changed once.

Stephen McClean: The guarantee is not subject to change. I believe it has only changed previously from $30 million to €20 million, but from the time the first player has qualified or bought in (which has occurred by the way) the guarantee of course cannot be changed.

PokerStrategy.com: If there are technical problems on the day that prevent the event happening, is the prize pool guaranteed or are the players just refunded?

Stephen McClean: I've never been involved in an event that ran into technical problems before. If a tornado or earthquake hits London at the end of next May then of course players will be refunded, other than that the winners will take home the readies.

PokerStrategy.com: The website says, and has for a long time, that 2,542 players are registered - how is that when registration appears not to be open yet?

Stephen McClean: I know from experience that things can get very hectic when organising an event like this. The team has just come back from Vegas, before going to London for various meetings, and then back to Paris.

Sometimes the website is the last thing to be updated and the figure on the website only indicates the number of pre-registered players, it isn't counting fully paid and registered players yet and will be updated in the next few days with the number of players that have joined the mailing list (which is currently listed as 2,542 players).

"Just because ISPT is doing something for the first time doesn't mean it's a bad idea"

ISPT founder Laurent Tapie

PokerStrategy.com: Are you aware of any other events that are logistically like this outside of poker?

Stephen McClean: I'm aware of other major sporting events that have at least 30,000 spectators updating twitter and checking on twitter every few minutes, but no the ISPT is not something I can compare with anything else really, it's totally unique.

PokerStrategy.com: The event takes place when the WSOP is likely to start, why purposely clash with it?

Stephen McClean: The ISPT hasn't purposely clashed with the WSOP, no matter what date the event was scheduled for it would have clashed with something, it's actually perfect timing on the calendar in my opinion as all the UK & European players will still be on this side of the Atlantic.

PokerStrategy.com: How on earth can we go from previous attendance records of 1,765 in Europe & 8,773 in the US, to potentially 30,000 players?

Stephen McClean: I'm going to try to sound intelligent and quote Jonathan Swift to answer this one: "He was a bold man that first ate an oyster." Just because ISPT is doing something for the first time doesn't mean it's a bad idea and it definitely doesn't mean it can't be done.

The WSOP hosts 3,000 odd players in one sitting almost every year now, we are just hosting 4,000 for the live part of this festival but there's the added atmosphere of 30,000+ players gathering together to play the online part too.

"The thing about large poker events is that there's never a bad time to hold one"

Will Wembley host 30,000 players?

PokerStrategy.com: Most of the recent European record breaking events have been in the UK/Ireland, with that in mind, do you expect the core audience to still be UK/Ireland based?

Stephen McClean: Yes, of course there will be a lot of UK/ Irish players as we're blessed that the ISPT is on our doorstep.

There are already huge numbers of players guaranteed to travel from France, Italy and pretty much all European countries too, but I think the UK/Irish base will make up the majority.

PokerStrategy.com: Do you not feel this is economically a bad time for such an event? What with the US online audience being shut out of poker, and hundreds of millions of dollars of poker money stuck on Full Tilt?

Stephen McClean: The thing about large poker events is that there's never a bad time to hold one, and I don't think the American audience would be interested in travelling for this event no matter what situation they were in, it's European players that have the convenience of very easy travel to and from London and that's key to this event.

The only thing stopping more events of this scale is the fact that there aren't enough people with the same strong will and financial clout as the founders of the ISPT (Prosper Masquelier & the Tapies). It's important to remember how much financial commitment and how much work has already gone into making this happen, and the whole team is going to work really hard all year to make sure every player enjoys a really well run poker tournament (whether it's the main or side events).

"I was massively skeptical myself, but the scale of the event has so much appeal"

Michael Mizrachi is endorsing the ISPT

PokerStrategy.com: There has been a massive amount of skepticism from the poker community, does this surprise you?

Stephen McClean: Not at all, I was massively skeptical myself, but the scale of the event has so much appeal for me and as details become clear I think more and more players are getting behind it.

I've dreamed of being involved with an event on this scale for some time and whether the poker community gets behind it or not is basically irrelevant, because there's a €20 million guarantee on the prize-pool.

Whether you like the idea or not you're probably going to talk about it with every poker player you know between now and 31st May.

PokerStrategy.com: As an experienced event organiser yourself, you must have been skeptical too. What questions did you ask of the ISPT that made you feel confident in this event?

Stephen McClean: I asked every single question that I am being asked here, and many more. Above all I know that I am working with professionals on this event and the €20 million guarantee just takes so much balls to stick to that when faced with a logistical problem.

I have to just say to myself "we can make this run smoothly, here's how we can do it", and I'm sure the whole ISPT team is thinking along the same lines.

PokerStrategy.com: What is the timeline for things coming up? When can we expect more details?

Stephen McClean: Updates of live and online satellites for UK & Irish players are going to be coming very soon indeed (starting within the next week or so). And we'll be constantly updating all details virtually every day until next May, with as much detail as possible for players in every region.

PokerStrategy.com: We would like to thank Stephen for taking the time to answer these questions, if any of our community would like to ask him anything about the International Stadium Poker Tour he will answer questions for us in a special community thread.

Discuss the International Stadiums Poker Tour

By Barry Carter