"The online grind is juicy during the WSOP" - Ian Simpson

We chat to the Unibet Pro and Irish Open winner about the Unibet UK Tour, mixing Vegas with online and his Twitch stream.

So as our audience reads this you will be at the Unibet UK Tour Newcastle - are European live events during the WSOP softer than most?

Ian Simpson: Our live events have a fairly different niche in the poker market to those who are making the pilgrimage to the WSOP. Our audience is very recreational player heavy. Most of our comps are pretty soft for that reason alone. There’s still some overlap though, and for sure online and live comps this time of year are even softer.

Was it a conflict for you to play this tournament in your home town of Newcastle rather than an early Vegas start, or do you not do a full series?

Ian Simpson: I don’t do the full series. I did a month of it once, and for the last week I was miserable! I missed home so much, and missed my wife even more. I love travelling for poker, but I love coming back to Newcastle even more. I’m doing 19 days of the Vegas grind this year which I think is a good compromise between life at home and life at the felt. Besides the online grind is pretty juicy this time of year. Lots of crushers are over in Las Vegas where they can’t play online. The icing on the cake is that Unibet are having an online Las Vegas Summer Series for the duration of the WSOP. I won’t be able to chase the leader boards for the added value, as I’ll miss too many of the tournaments being away in Vegas for 19 days. But the individual tournaments on offer will be great value and good practice leading up to the live grind.

In Vegas I plan to play the $10,000 WSOP main event and everything between $500 and $1,500 for the time I’m out there. I’ve always wanted a bracelet and the tournaments at the Rio are the softest in Las Vegas anyway so I’ll be spending most of my time over at the Rio chasing the dream.

You have previously won a big tournament - The Irish Open - how does that skew your goals and motivation? Is it hard to motivate yourself for say a GUKPT when there are EPTs and such taking place?

Ian Simpson: The beauty doing this for a living is that if I lack motivation, I can almost always just take the day off and play the next day. I’ve never had trouble with playing the main event of a live trip though. Having a previous win just makes me hungry for another 1st place finish! However after busting the main event of a trip I do sometimes find I lack the enthusiasm to register a smaller side event. It’s something I’ve gotta work on going forward for sure to make the most of a live trip.

"Unibet events are accessible for all player levels"

I spoke to your Unibet colleague David Lappin last month and he said he thinks Unibet have the best live tour and I agree its probably best for lower stakes qualifier types, what are your thoughts?

Ian Simpson: I wholeheartedly agree. We have a robust satellite tree online leading into all of our live events which makes it really accessible for players of all bankrolls. The events team at Unibet work hard to put on a good show. They pick destinations with plenty of vibrancy to them, so if you do bust the tournament you find yourself in a great place to explore. We also have legendary player’s parties which have historically been some of the most fun nights out I’ve had whilst travelling to play poker. This year the Unibet Open has been to Sinaia for our first ever Ski edition of the tour and to London which is full of culture and night life. We’ve got Malta and Paris to look forward to for our last two stops of 2019 in September and November respectfully and I’m really looking forward to both of these events.

How different are the UK Unibet events from the main Unibet tour?

Ian Simpson: The most obvious difference is that the Unibet Open is a €1,100 event and the UK tour is a £220 event. Both tours have plenty of online qualifiers making them great value. And both have a friendly relaxed atmosphere about them.

The UK tours have a quaint local casino vibe about them. You can often spot the regulars of the casino enjoying the bigger than normal event at their local casino. The Unibet Opens are very diverse with players coming from all over to play them, while the UK tour naturally has a lot more local/UK players attending, as travelling from abroad for a £220 event isn’t cost effective. That doesn’t actually stop a bunch of our community attending the UK tour from overseas though! It’s great to meet up with so many people who watch my stream on every live stop, especially when they make the effort to attend an event whose flight & accommodation costs are often bigger than the buy in! We’ve got such a friendly community at Unibet and it’s always a pleasure to see them in real life at the events.

"Satellites take a long time to realise their equity"

You streamed two big satellite wins this year - the PSPC and the WSOP Main Event - are we overlooking them as an industry?

Ian Simpson: I adore satellites. They give me such a rush even if they’re for a relatively small target tournament. I think it comes from the early days when I had only just discovered online poker. Winning a satellite back then was so much of a bigger deal, as getting to play live events over £50 was such a rare occurrence for me. The rush I used to get then is the same now, even if I’m qualifying for a tournament that would be within my bankroll reach anyway.

I don’t think the industry is underusing them. It’s pretty rare there’s an event I want to play that I can’t find a satellite for. One thing to be conscious of is the bankroll requirements for them. I won the $12,600 WSOP main package, which obviously sounds amazing, but I did close to $4,000 of my bankroll getting it! You’ve got to take into account that satellites take a long time to realise their equity. After qualifying you have to cash before you make any money back. That being said, when you do cash the ROI can be huge!

You are a regular streamer for Unibet, what do you get out of streaming personally and what do you offer the audience that other streamers may not? I notice you stream higher stakes than a lot of other streamers.

Ian Simpson: The biggest boon to my stream is that the community we’ve built is full of friendly supportive people. From freeroll grinders up to people who play similar scale tournaments to me, we’ve got a diverse bunch of people all railing each other regardless of the stakes the community member is playing. It means so much to me having people on my rail, many of which I’ve never met before, and I know the rest of the community love the support we all give each other.

I do my best to talk through my thought processes so that my audience can learn from what I’m doing. This also helps me learn in turn, as sometimes I start analysing a hand and realise I’ve made a major cock up!

I’ve played a few high stakes tournaments this year on stream and had the fortune to convert some of them into good scores mainly in the form of live events packages. Not only that, but Dara O’Kearney was kind enough to make a special appearance on my stream where he reviewed my satellite play! I was pretty stoked to have the satellite legend not only review my play but come onto my stream to do it. I’ll be looking to do more of these hand history reviews on stream in the future for sure, as I think people get a lot out of watching a study session.

You can follow Ian Simpson streaming for Unibet live on Twitch.