Manchester and back again

February 15, 2010 by Nick Wealthall

Just finished the Manchester UKIPT. It was the second leg of the tour but the first in England and it looks like this tour is going to be a full on ride. Originally we’d thought about 300 players for the event but ended up with 520 with poker tables spilling onto the gaming floor and everyone struggling to keep up. Not only that the atmosphere was great – already the tour has a great mix of serious poker and people looking to have a great time. I’m seriously excited by the potential of this tour – I think it’s going to set records on a regular basis and discover lots of new playing talent. More than that I think anyone that comes to an event is going to have a really fun experience. On the first morning of the weekend I hosted an poker tutorial where online qualifiers could attend for free and discuss some tournament hands and share their ideas – Julian Thew (just signed to Stars) was there to lend his expertise. Doing this sort of thing and when people get together to talk poker new ideas always emerge – they’ll be one at each UKIPT event so hope you can catch one.

In other news my own poker playing is suffering at the moment. I’m struggling to find time to play when I can be fresh and focused and it’s so tough to do well against good players when you’re not at your best. Having said that I’m running horribly in 2010 – way below expectation – and I’m only slightly down so I feel like I’m playing okay and it could be much worse! Had fun the other night where at one of my tables a reg was abusing a fish for his ‘bad play’. This is a massive pet hate of mine – first because he should be encouraging the bad player if he says anything – and second because its full on rude and borderline pathetic to do it behind the safety of an internet connection. Anyway this reg was already tilting and after I stuck my oar in he went off the deep end jamming away a couple of buy ins before quitting….it was something so see

Away from a frustrating run and aggression in the chat box I was reminded in Manchester of the charms of playing live. At the end of the tournament I sat down in a late night low stakes cash game with some locals. The emphasis was on fun and in the space of a couple of hours I was slow rolled with Aces, offered to be set up with a 24 year old Russian model and bought Don Perrignon… I swear the game was low stakes! Sometimes poker is just the most fun you can have in the world – even on Valentines day!

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