Unibet Open Dublin preview with David Lappin

In 2020 Unibet are offering a more ambitious live calendar and today we chat with Unibet Pro and Chip Race Host to learn more about it.

The Unibet Open Dublin is partnering with the ACOP and European Deepstack Championships, which famously has a very deep structure. How does the Unibet structure compare with the deepstacks?

David Lappin: Both are 3-day tournaments that will finish by the Sunday evening. Both start at big blind 100. The differences are the starting stacks and the clock. The European Deepstack starts a hefty 1,000BBs deep with a 30 minute clock on day 1, 40 on day 2 and 50 on Day 3. The Unibet Open is a bit smoother throughout. It gives you 300BBs and a one hour clock. Another key difference is the Deepstack is unlimited re-entries and the Unibet is single re-entry to the 1C turbo flight only.

And right now Unibet are running satellites to both events?

David Lappin: Our live schedule has ramped up for 2020 so there’s now a satellite almost every night of the week for one of our live events. In terms of this festival, you can qualify for the €570 European Deepstacks on Monday nights and the €230 ACOP on Tuesdays. Both guarantee two seats but we are already smashing that so expect 4-5 seats generated in those in the weeks to come. Every Wednesday there’s a €250 seat only satellite for our upcoming UK Tour event in Aspers. For the three Wednesdays in February there will be €1100 seat only satellites for the Unibet Open. On Thursday nights there’s a €550 Deepstack Open Seat satellite. Saturday is the 3 x €500 UK Tour package satellite and Sunday is the big one - the 5 x €2000 Unibet Open package satellite!

If you can satellite into one, it makes sense to try and satellite into the others to make the whole trip cheaper. The ACOP and Deepstack satellites are seat only, but there is a poker rate still available of €99 a night at the Bonnington Hotel.

"We have a live community freeroll"

There are some interesting events on the Unibet portion of the schedule, first off, what is Irish Poker?

David Lappin: Yeah some people thought that meant Irish players only. It’s actually a format like the game Pineapple which is like Hold’em but you get dealt three cards and have to discard one of them, either before or after the flop depending on the variant.

Unibet are famous for their Ladies Events, which I believe uses the ‘Queens Rules’ format where a Queen is ranked higher than a King?

David Lappin: That’s right. It has been a passion project of the Unibet events team after they launched it three years ago on International Women’s Day and it has become a regular fixture at our live stops.

It’s live! Check out the schedule for the 1st Unibet Open stop of 2020 in Dublin. Join us for the craic @bonningtondub Feb 26-March 1. #UnibetOpen #UODublinhttps://t.co/MyyuBSarpj pic.twitter.com/wAFVl4ucET

— Unibet Open (@unibetopen) January 8, 2020

I see you have a community freeroll too, what is that and is it only for existing Unibet community members?

David Lappin: The community freeroll is a freebie tournament. If you have won a package to the event and the side events are otherwise out of your bankroll you can jump into this. It will usually feature an ambassador or two and members of the Unibet community, but it is open to all.

"We have more recreational players on this tour"

That’s nice because it really sucks if you win a package, bust day one and then are stuck there for a weekend.

David Lappin: It’s a nice idea. I don’t know the prizes for this specific one but it’s usually merchandise, online tournament tokens with the winner maybe getting something a bit chunkier like a UK tour seat.

Unibet are one of the few poker rooms who have a genuine community around them, the only other one I can think of are Sky Poker. I take it you get a lot of players who come to every single event?

David Lappin: Yeah I can think of 40 or 50 names who you wouldn’t see at every event but I know they try to satellite into most of them, so maybe they get to two or three events a year. Then we have a lot of travelling midstakes players who go to all these events. There’s actually a pretty big overlap between us and the MPN tour with these players - I guess both tours are very focussed on player experience. The ratio of recreational player to pro is a lot higher than on other tours pros.

It looks like you are putting a lot behind this event compared to previous Unibet Opens, why is this one so special?

David Lappin: What I really like about this festival is that it’s a bit more ambitious but we have the perfect partner in the perfect city to pull it off. It’s 18 days long but if you are at the lower rolled end of things, you can do a ten day break encompassing the ACOP and Deepstacks. If you have deeper pockets, you can do the ten days encompassing the Deepstacks and Unibet Open. If you’re a true grinder, you can do it all! Also, there are a couple of quieter days early each week which are the perfect days to take off so you can sight see around Dublin. You could visit the Guinness Storehouse or Jameson Distillery, do some shopping on Grafton street or have a few pints in Temple Bar.

If you are thinking of qualifying for this festival you can do it alongside our easy to cash in Unibet Rake Race.