Had a great experience at the Unibet Open thanks to the community!
Entry posted by BonusPater
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The below blog post was written by Remco aka Remk_95.
Who am I?
I am a 21 years old guy and I am still studying. I play poker for almost a year now and I mainly play the satellites for the Unibet Opens and UK Tour. I started with some sports (mainly soccer) betting on Unibet, but that was just for a few euros a week. Almost a year ago I decided I wanted to try all the things at Unibet, so I tried the Casino, played some Bingo and finally also got to the poker section of the site. When I got to the poker section I tried playing some freerolls and used the tickets you get when registering. At that point a miracle happened. I managed to get a 2 euro UO ticket into a 10 euro one, and when I played that tournament I got a €50UO ticket out of it. I then played the €50UO ticket and got an €250UO ticket! That was when I thought I wanted to take it more seriously, because my beginners luck was obviously not going to last forever. At this point I also found my way to the Unibetpoker twitch channel, which I am still enjoying at this moment. My alias there is remk_95 and I mainly play on the poker tables with the aliases RK_95 or AlwaysFoldKK. I learned a lot at the twitch channel and at that point I started playing the satellites. I also broke down the €250 ticket to start a real grind. Till this point the ticket rolls keep growing slowly, but steady. I even managed to qualify for the UK tour leg in Brighton!
The story
In the same week I qualified for Brighton in December, the Bucharest betting competition was running on the community. Although I can’t join the community, Stubbe-Unibet was so generous to let the Dutch people participate in the UO Bucharest betting competition. I didn’t even saw that post in the thread, but Jonny2192 pointed it out for me in the twitch channel, so I still owe him something! I send an email to the community guys, got a log in (only for that competition) and placed my bets. On Friday morning when I was at my internship, I saw Stubbe made a post in the thread about the competition. After I read that post I first couldn’t believe it, but it was true! After qualifying for my first live tournament in Brighton in that week, I got a community package for the big brother of the UK tour, the Unibet Open in London!
*Insert big time jump*
The road to London
A few weeks before the Unibet Open started I got a mail from Marco-Unibet about the details of the package. I could even bring a guest for free in the hotel, so it would have been a mistake to not take anyone. My dad wanted to go with me anyway, because it was my ever first live event and he would like to do some sightseeing in London. So everything was sorted out and off we went, we were going to London!
Unibet Open London
At Wednesday the 22th we went to the airport pretty early because it was a drive of approximately 1,5 hours and you should get at the airport rather early. On the airport everything went really smooth and we got on the plane on time. After we boarded the pilot said there was a small delay because of the storm, but the flight went really smooth and we arrived on London Heathrow at 1 pm local time. We bought a card for the underground and after 2 switches from underground, we arrived at the hotel. We checked in and I went to the welcome desk from Unibet where everyone was very friendly. I asked a few questions to a Dutch employee of Unibet called Leon, and he sorted everything out perfectly, so a big compliment for him also! I went back to the hotel room, relaxed a bit and then my dad and I ate something quick at the MacDonalds and we went to the casino.
We walked in and I had a quick look if I could find anyone. Luckily I recognised Stubbe pretty soon and we talked a bit to get to know each other. Marco arrived just a few minutes after that and at that point I also met DavidP_Unibet, who are really nice guys as well. I went back to the bar because it was still pretty early and the satellite that I was going to play started at 20.00 pm. I saw Davitsche standing there, and as promised the first thing I did was giving him a high five. About half an hour later I met Jonny2192 who also would play the satellite. We then went to register us to the tournament and waited for the seat draw to be announced. When it was published I went to the table I was placed on, and at that point I was really nervous. I was going to play my first ever live tournament and was really unconfident about how it would go and if I was going to do the right technical things on the table, not even counting in if I would play good poker. To make a long story short: I don’t remember a lot of things about the hands, got up a bit, got down a bit, but eventually I screwed up with a bluff on the river after approximately 1,5 hours of play. At that point I was a bit disappointed that I busted and also pretty tired, because it was a long day of travelling and a lot of nervosity. I went quickly to Jonny, who was playing on the same table as Will Kassouf. Jonny did pretty well at his table and I think he was up a little bit when I saw him. Because I was that tired I then backed off to the hotel to get a good night sleep, so I could start fresh at the Thursday.
Thursday
After we woke up we got breakfast and went to the underground. It was time to do some sightseeing! We went to the Big Ben, saw the London Eye, which was unfortunately not working due to the storm, and went to see the house of parliament, Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace. It was pretty stormy, but it still was very nice to see all these things. We went back to the hotel in the end of the afternoon, I relaxed a bit and then went to the dining room to get some food. I met vongrundal there, who said he was still waiting for his brother gommen to arrive. A few minutes later Stubbe, Marco, YpresX and AndreiBN also arrived at the table. We had a quick chat and after that I went back to my room to quickly fresh up before going to the casino again. In the evening I got to play my second tournament, another satellite to the main event. When I arrived at the casino the other members from the community were also there and I met Gommen and MoreTBC. MoreTBC, Vongrundal, YpresX and I were playing the satellite, and Marco increased the pressure a bit by putting a last longer competition on the community. Kwasozlop, Bizarre12 and VikingsAF were the members that chose me for lasting the longest, so a big thanks to them for trusting in me, but as they know by now I unfortunately wasn’t the good pick. I was doing fine and felt way more relaxed then on Wednesday, so I also could focus better on the poker side of things in this tournament. I went up and down a bit and was playing OK. The funniest hand before the break was when I had KK. I opened from early position, got a call from the cutoff and also the BB called.
The flop was AQJ, and the BB open folded to me. Just before the moment I wanted to Cbet, the guy behind me also folded before I could do any action. So I welcomed the chips from the pot because two people folded without me doing anything. Another hand I remember was the hand against YpresX. He shoved his last ~6 BB with 55, I reshoved my ~14 BB with JJ and got no other calls. No cards on the board that helped the 55, so I got some extra BBs. Unfortunately that also meant I eliminated a person from the community. At this point the average stack in tournament was around 20 BBs so everyone was pretty short and I felt I was doing okay. I lasted till the first break, so I was still in after 2 hours of play. Half an hour after that I still got approximately 16 BBs, and I minraised with Ah8h from the cutoff. Got no calls until the BB went all in with his remaining 8 BBs and at that point I decided to make the call. He shows KcTd and I was a slight favourite to win the hand. Unfortunately there was a 10 on the flop and I got no help on turn or river, so at that point I was down to ~8 BBs. I lost three blinds or something and then shoved my remaining 4/5 BBs with K8o. The only thing I really remember from this hand is that it ended up in a 4 way all in on the turn. Allthough I had Kh and there were 3 hearts on the board already (including the Ah), there wasn’t a fourth heart on the river so that meant I was out of the tournament. Luck was not on my side this evening but think I played pretty ok and the most important thing, I had a lot of fun! At that point I went to the other tables to see how MoreTBC and Vongrundal were doing. Vongrundal had a nice big stack and he might even have been chipleader at some point. MoreTBC was very short but managed to win a few chips every time. Lucky for us at that point they got moved to the same table, which made it a lot easier to follow the action. At that point they were crushing the table. I think Vongrundal kept winning hands and also moreTBC got his stack to grew a lot. I don’t want to tell the complete outcome of the final tables, because I think MoreTBC might be going to tell it on his on blog and I don’t want to cut the grass from under his feet (EDIT: He already did in his post). It lasted till 2.30 PM or so, and it was really fun to sweat with the guys and at some point I even got to the feature table with AndreiBN, YpresX and Marco!
Friday
My dad and I got up a little bit later than normal, and went to the underground to travel to the completely other side from London. There we visited the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and after that, we took the underground to the St. Pauls Cathedral. The underground is a really nice way to travel in London, it is pretty cheap and they will follow up just minutes after each other, so you don’t have to wait long. After the St. Pauls Cathedral we went back to the hotel. The soccer team we support in Holland (FC Twente) had to play on Friday evening, so we watched the game on our laptop. It was a very boring game and it ended up in a draw, so that was a bit disappointing. After the match ended I went back to the casino to have a few drinks with the other guys. It was really fun and at some point a few guys wanted to play a game of poker. We then went back to the hotel and sat down in the lobby. We played some poker and after a few hands Stubbe got his favourite hand 43o, the flop was 42A. I don’t recall the exact action but after a 5 came on the turn Stubbe went all in and Marco called him with A6s [edit by Stubbe: @MarcoV how can you make that call, when you know 43 is the only hand i play? :D] . You can see the river below.
As you can see Stubbe was really unlucky and he became the dealer from this moment, which was then again unlucky for MoreTBC, who was sitting to his right. He lost some chips almost every hand just because Stubbe was a bit of a clumsy dealer :) [edit by Stubbe: it was the sleeve of the hoodie, it was the sleeve of the hoodie! - and the beers probably didn't help]. But to be honest, I think we still are all happy he did the job, because I don’t know if the rest of us was capable of doing it any better at that moment. Personally I was eliminated in a 4way all-in with Marco, Vongrundal, VikingsAF and myself, the 4way allins didn’t work out for me this weekend. Marco had 22, I don’t remember exactly what vongrundal had, Vikings had A7 and I had AJ. There was a 7 on the board and suddenly Vikings was the big stack and 3 others were eliminated. I remember Davitsche late regging to the tournament playing pretty aggressive. He got it in with KQ and AndreiBN called him with A3 or A4. AndreiBN won the hand and we were down to three players and if I remember correctly (It was pretty late and I had a few drinks :Smile:) YpresX was eliminated shortly after that. That meant VikingsAF and AndreiBN were heads up. Only remember the final hand where VikingsAF continued his rungood! All-in with 62s against AndreiBN’s 55. I think Vikings made a straight so he won the tournament! After the all-in I think it was 4am or something so I went to bed quickly after it.
Saturday
After a good night sleep my dad had the idea to visit Wembley. We looked at the website and saw there were only mini tours for that day, because the final of the league cup was on Sunday. We decided to give it a try and took the underground to get there. When we arrived it looked massive from the outside, but it looked even more impressive when we got on the stands. What a big and beautiful stadium that is! They were preparing for the final, so there were some things going on at the pitch that would also happen the next day before the match. It was really nice to see it and really added something to the tour. We then decided to go to Wimbledon to see that stadium also. It was a pretty long travel to get there and because of the community side event I was going to play in the evening we didn’t have enough time to take the whole stadium tour, so we only bought a ticket to visit the centre court and the museum. It was really nice to see the centre court! If you look at the event on the television it looks as a very big stadium, but if you are really standing in the stadium it is way smaller then you would expect. Anyway, it was really nice to see it and after visiting the centre court we took a quick look at the museum. Although I think it is a really nice museum with a lot of interactive things in there, we didn’t had the time to take a really good look at it, so after a quick visit we went back to the hotel. When we arrived back in the hotel, I almost immediately got back to the casino to play the community side event. It was really nice to have a tournament with only people from the community. It had a hyper turbo structure, every 7 minutes the blinds went up, because it was important that it was finished before the bounty tournament. The casino needed the tables we were playing at and some of the community guys were also going to play it, so the structure was fine. I went out after a 3way all-in with AndreiBN and Stubbe. Andrei had A7, I had A8 and eventually Stubbe called with A9. No suckouts this time and Stubbe got us both eliminated. I was fine with it and had a lot of fun in the tournament. I would have loved to pick up a bounty, especially the bounty on MoreTBC’s head. The poo hat was really worth fighting for, but eventually UhlenPoker got it on the final table. Upside from this: Uhlen promised he is going to wear the hat at his next stream, so really looking forward to that! (EDIT: he left it in London, so Marco took it, but eventually he should wear it on one of his streams!) After the side event was finished we watched Vongrundal, AndreiBN and Vikings playing the bounty tournament, but except vongrundal taking one bounty I don’t think anyone else got something out of it. We then went to the players party with some community guys. It was really fun at the players party, but I think I had a few beers to many, especially counting in that I had to leave at 7pm the next morning. We walked home to the hotel with a group I don’t remember from who were in it. I only remember I talked a lot to Davitsche, while Satu was guiding us home perfectly!
We arrived back at the hotel between 4 and 4.30 am and I had to leave on 7am, so that was quite a short night. But I still am really happy I didn’t miss it, because I had a really good time and it might be a one-time experience! I had a hangover on Sunday, and when we arrived back on Schiphol I was really tired. When I got in the car I immediately fell asleep and only woke up just before I arrived home. I was completely exhausted after a great weekend!
During the event I spoke to a lot of people from the community, Unibet employees and also some of the ambassadors. The beautiful thing that stood out for me this event was that everyone was so friendly and accessible. I heard from Ian, David L and Dara that they are probably all going to stream on twitch in the future, so also really looking forward to that! I think it’s a great improvement for the twitch stream, because last months there wasn’t too much streaming going on at the Unibetpoker channel, but as said before, hopefully and probably this is going to change in the near future!
I had a great experience at the Unibet Open in London and I am really grateful I could get there due to the community guys! Also I am really happy that I met a lot of, in the words of AndreiBN, lovely people! Everyone was really friendly and I think we had a great community group together! I had an amazing time and hope to meet some of you again at future Unibet events. I will be playing in Brighton in two weeks, so if you are going there I hope we will meet, it’s always nice to meet some new people! If not, I hope I manage to qualify for one of the other events so I can meet you there, but that is still a long way to go. I am looking forward to the moment I can also participate in this great community, but we will see when it happens. For now, one last thanks to everyone making this community so great. Although I can’t post here, I really like following it and reading all the stuff! A big compliment for Stubbe, Marco and Jeppe for doing a fantastic job!
Remco – Remk_95
@BonusPater, @jonny2192, @MarcoV, @DavidP_Unibet, @DaVitsche, @vongrundal, @gommen, @YpresX, @AndreiBN, @MoreTBC, @VikingsAF
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