Unibet Ambassadorship

Myself and my wife Emma have a bucket list. Some of the items on that list are joint goals. Things like “see the northern lights in Finland” or “go bungee jumping”. Some of them are personal goals, like “hold onto more than 3 square inches of the duvet for an entire night without Emma yelling at me in her sleep” or “win an argument about housework”. I have poker goals too of course, one of which for me is the obvious of winning a WSOP bracelet which is probably more achievable than my other personal goals.

I never actually had “become a sponsored pro” on my bucket list. I had always been open to deals with some poker sites, but after so many sponsorship deals got abused after the poker boom, with many players simply turning up, getting as much free value out of the deal as possible and then never really giving anything back, most sites really pulled back on their investments in brand ambassadors. I had worked with Paddy Power after I won their Sole Survivor promotion, but I decided not to renew it after the year was up after negotiations broke down.

I made my goals revolve around becoming the best player I could be and balancing my poker life with my social life with my married life. Unibet however, having moved away from Microgaming and releasing their own standalone software have decided to make a big push at the market which has involved taking on 3 new ambassadors and I am one of them.

This past weekend saw Unibet Poker make the announcement just before they kicked off the Unibet Open event in London. Alongside myself, David Lappin and Dara O’Kearney will now be representing Unibet Poker as their brand ambassadors!

Despite this having not been a direct goal of mine, this is the biggest news of my poker career since winning the Irish Poker Open back in 2013. I’ve talked so highly about Unibet for years in this blog and to finally be able to work alongside them is an incredibly exciting opportunity. Unibet’s ethos revolves around providing safe and fun poker, with their focus leaning towards taking care of their recreational players (which in turn takes care of their more serious players). Their biggest push towards these goals is their new software, which does not allow HUD’s or seating scripts to help keep the playing field level and stops bum hunting. Not only that, but you can actually change your screen name 5 times a day, so you can be as anonymous as you like at the tables.

So, what are Unibet paying me to do exactly?

I think one of my biggest assets will be my previous experience of being a teacher. The skills I developed then are going to be invaluable in my new job role. For starters I will be streaming my play on Unibet Poker via twitch.tv four times a week for at least 20 hours a week. You’ll be able to find me at twitch.tv/iansimpsonpoker. I’ll be making all of my announcements about streaming over at my new Facebook page “Ian Simpson Poker” and via twitter @IanSimpsonPoker so please give those two pages a follow and a like so that you can see my announcements. My initial streaming schedule will be Sundays from 5pm, Mondays from 5pm, Wednesdays from 5pm and Fridays midday until 5pm. My evening streams will probably last until at least 11 o’clock but will often run longer. I might tweak this schedule in the future, but it seems like a good starting point.

But that won’t be all I will be doing for Unibet. One aspect I am particularly enthusiastic about is delivering seminars at the Unibet UK tour. I’m still working on what exact content I will be delivering, but it will be strategy aimed at beginning to intermediate play. I’m really looking forward to using my old teaching skills to help up and coming players learn about the game. The first of these seminars is planned to be delivered during the Brighton festival. This is a £200+£20 buy in tournament, which runs between the 17th of March and the 19th of March at the Rendezvous Casino.

Another of my roles will be to create video content for Unibet Poker. I’ve already come up with a whole load of topics for these videos. Some of them will be based around strategic concepts like 3-betting and continuation betting and others will look at edges you can gain away from the tables like living healthily and bankroll management. Keep an eye on my new pages as well at the Unibet social media pages to see those videos as they are released throughout the year. We will also be doing giveaways via these social media pages so they are well worth a follow.

I really intend to give this new chapter of my life my best shot. It’s such a huge opportunity for me and working alongside the superb team that Unibet already has in place really sets me up to make this a real success.