One year of UK tours

[jonny2192]

Unibet have just completed there first year of the UK tour.

I really enjoyed all the events I played and found it reasonablly easy to satellite into them and would recomend them to any one wanting to try out a live game.

All the locations were good but I found Brighton quite hard to get to and rather expensive hotel wise, though its a nice big poker room and nice setting, even though the casino itself is quite a bit away from the hotels. Manchester,Glasgow and Nottingham were all pretty easy for me to get to from central England.

I like the structure of the game and felt you have plenty of time to wait for good spots.

The Unibet guys and Doug(TD for all the games) were very welcoming and always had time to talk to us all.

A few thoughts on things I would like to see in the future(these things have been discussed after a few beers but I will put them in writing here):-

Included accomdation or a discounted rate for online qualifiers.

A longer break to grab some food or something simple like chip barms while playing,some people are travelling quite a it and coming straight to the casino so it becomes hard to fit dinner into a busy first day.

Some better coverage of the game, It was a good step forward with the blog in the final game but I think more could be done in that respect.

What do other members think?

 

 

 

[MathrimC]

The UK Tour is the perfect challenge for people with a daytime job and a limited poker bankroll. The turbo qualifiers take only 45 minutes to complete,  the package value of €500 is very attainable, and the weekend trip and live tournament are a much bigger reward than you can ever get investing the same time in micro stakes cash or mtt's. My estimation is that it only takes about 15 to 20% of the time it would take to grind to a Unibet Open package.

For accomodation, it can indeed be expensive to find something if you qualify last-minute, and ofcourse I wouldn't mind a discount. As for coverage, live streaming would give me sick bragging rights with my friends 😏 But for all those changes, the most important thing for me is that the package value doesn't go up.

 

[FeelsBadMan]

The UK Tours are awesome. I noticed the satellites pretty early on when the tour started but since I'm on the other end of the EU and my bankroll was really small at the time, I didn't even consider playing them because I prefer not to win seats for something that I might not attend or that I might not afford attending (I will not make stupid financial decisions just for the thrill of maybe booking a win). The package includes some cash but usually not completely enough  to cover the hotel and trip... it's worth spending a 50-100€ on top of the package to play if you're in it just for the fun, but having no real job I have to think about the profitability as well. Eventually ended up getting a package starting from one of those 4€ UK tour twitch giveaways, and then another one, and another one, and now I'm playing every UK Tour and will continue to play them hopefully for a long time from now. It's probably the most accessible (and generous) satellite system I've ever played and that solved the profitability issue by always having at least 2 packages for every tournament, which gives more chances to play the tournament (got some decent live play experience because of this, which I didn't really have much of before) and more cash for the trip. Been asked a bunch of times at the tables why would I come all the way from Romania to these tournaments, and the answer is because it's #worth # hashtag . Didn't have much success in the actual tournament (1 smallinsh cash) but I'm still really glad I attended them.

/advertisement over :haha:

As for improvements, what Jonny said, but what I would like most, is for more community/twitch members to end up joining the events, since that's the best part of these events. I guess that's on you guys to actually play the sats :haha: , but maybe also some competitions to get more members there would be cool (Members that would actually go if given the opportunity). Obviously as a reg of the tour I'd just sit out these competitions and watch the carnage unfold 🆗

[ChapInAChair]

I've really enjoyed the UK Tour and like @FeelsBadMan I managed to grind up from the low stakes satellites to play the events that were way out of my bankroll at the beginning of the year (thin brag). I agree that they're a good route to the live arena for players who don't usually play that kind of stake. I particularly enjoyed  the community element of the Glasgow leg and putting more names to faces/avatars. I was disappointed to miss out on Manchester but I'm looking forward to the 2017 events.

In terms of improvements I'd quite like to see, if possible, the following:

• Food. Nothing spectacular but perhaps a something like a small sandwich buffet during one of the breaks would be good.
• Accommodation. I'm not sure what the answer is on this one but arranging accommodation for Brighton and Nottingham was a bit of a pain in the arse. It might not be workable but if were possible to get a group booking on a budger hotel near the venue in advance then it would certainly make things a bit easier.
• Chips. I really quite like the UK Tour chips but quite a few people grumbled about the similarity between the yellows and greens. I don't personally mind too much because I'm not colour blind and I'm able to read the numbers written on them but it's worth considering.
• Location/Package Cost. I found Nottingham and Brighton quite difficult to get to and I'm a UK resident. I'm sure Brighton will be in next year's schedule as the south-east has a big catchment area but venues where the non-UK guys can fly to more easily (or changing the package value to accommodate) could be worthwhile. Again, I'm sure the options are limited by other factors but I think it's probably worth a mention.
• Avoid ten handed tables. The oldest grumble in poker but I'll just stick it out there anyway.
• Trophy. I've run pretty horribly live this year so it would nice to get one of those lovely trophies on my mantelpiece next year.

 

All very minor but like I said, I've really enjoyed playing the UK Tour and I'm sure the same will apply next year. Congrats on the first year and keep up the good work!