#150: “Sent to Nottingham”

During the Englis
h Civil War, captured Royalist troops were ‘Sent to Coventry’ where they were ostrocised by the locals. This was regarded as a particularly cruel form of punishment, unless of course you were already from Coventry in which case I assume you were sent to Nottingham.

The most recent stop on the UKIPT was at the famous Dusk Till Dawn venue. Situated in an industrial estate beside the motorway on the outskirts of Nottingham city, The DTD is considered one of England’s premiere poker rooms/warehouses. Normally adept and innovative on the organisational front, Pokerstars have a great track record with their live events. Unfortunately, last weekend was the exception to the rule.

The system for registering was idiotic, that is, if you managed to register at all. The physical schedule provided different information to the online schedule which was also different from what was displayed on the screens within the venue. Then, when you did finally register, you were placed on the same table as your 4 friends who were before and after you in the queue. Breaks were taken when they weren’t scheduled and scheduled breaks were disregarded and played through. Many of the dealers were unfamiliar with the game and aside from lacking the dexterity to actually flop a flop, they were incapable of calculating a sidepot or awarding the pot to the correct player.

And then there was the hotel…

Adorning the stairwell of the Park Plaza Hotel Nottingham is an enormous safety net. I can only assume that previous residents of this crappy accommodation felt the same way I did about their stay, except they actually had the balls to throw themselves over the bannisters rather than spend another minute there.

The bedrooms were awful. The £5 per day internet charge was a disgrace. Only one plug socket in the room worked. The TV was smaller than an i-pad and the bed had the firmness of a child’s trampoline. The breakfast buffet was repulsive and eating from it easily represented my biggest gamble of the weekend. It boasted such delicacies as cardboard-ified eggs, stewed beans and rashers that possessed a colour and consistency that would turn the stomach of even the hardiest of breakfast-rollers. All in all, I have nothing positive to say other than I am positive I will never go back to Nottingham, a charmless industrial hell-hole devoid of culture, colour or places of interest. I sincerely hope the UKIPT and Pokerstars seriously consider dropping it from their otherwise excellent tour.