blonde poker forum

There is no easy way to say this, so I'll not dress it up - Dave Colclough has decided to move on from blonde. He will retain his Shareholding for the foreseeable future, but will not play any role in the Management of Blondepoker Web Ltd, the company that owns the blondepoker Site, Forum, & the Cardroom.

Many of you will have read the article in Inside Edge recently. He foretold it in there - he believed that his business interests were starting to affect his game, so he said he'd be looking to relinquish all these interests & concentrate on what he does for a living - win Tournaments.

In addition, he has no sponsorship right now, bizarrely for one so good at his craft. He was offered a $250,000 deal recently, but when he told them he owned his own Cardroom, it fell through. Just about all sponsorship deals are from Online Cardrooms, so he is effectively disqualified from being sponsored. The blonde Cardroom will never make that sort of money, sufficient to make it worthwhile for Dave to be able to spurn such offers, so his logic is sound.

And then there are the business pressures of blonde. It's not easy running this sort of Site, & there were internal tensions, & a general disappointment by Dave that we'd not done much better than we have.

So there it is. It's hard to put into words how sad I feel about this.

What will happen to blonde? I own the same - equal - majority shareholding on blonde as Dave does, so it has fallen to me to take over the stewardship of the Site. I have been in touch with all our Shareholders - we have 8 or 9 - & they have all confirmed to me that they are happy to continue to run blonde under my Management. So, no other departures.

I intend to continue to run blonde, broadly, as it has been so far, but there will be more emphasis on getting the Cardroom to perform better. Oddly, that was one of Dave's biggest frustrations, that not enough "crossover" existed between the Forum & the Cardroom. To this end, I have added Kev to the Cardroom Staff, and issued a list of targets to Aaron & Kev to help them improve the CardRooms's performance. The blonde Cardroom will focus primarily on the lower limit players, the way our Skin Deal is structured does not give us the option to engage in Rakeback battles.

Live Updates will remain free-to-view, always. These are pretty expensive to run, but we know from feedback and traffic figures that these are on of the biggest "draws" blonde has, because, if I may say so, Jen & snoops do them so damn well. We will be spamming the Updates from time to time with news of blonde Cardroom comps, sorry, but we have to do better!

We shall continue to sell advertising, & I've sold several thousand pounds worth for September in the last week, a good boost to our finances.

One priority will be the implementation of SEO, something it's a mystery to me we have never had. That will increase traffic enormously.

The Mods have been made aware of the change, & are all 100% supportive, & intend to stay with us.

blonde has never borrowed, or had a bank overdraft, & I intend it will remain like that. We are barely covering costs at present, but we are covering costs, & thats key. We just need to sweat our assets better, & we will.

I have a long background in business, & I know how many beans make five. We will continue to be financially prudent & conservative in our accounting policies. One would need to be a poor judge of character to assume blonde will behave any way other than financially correct & proper in every respect under my Management.

The Cardroom Finances - pre-empting any likely question! - are ring-fenced from blonde. We don't have the ability - or desire - to be involved in "the Cage" so all BPL money is entirely safe. In addition, as I've openly said on here many times, I personally guarantee any deposits on blonde cardroom.

Dave & I remain the same poker enthusiasts & pals we were when he first invited me to hook up with him on blonde, back in October 2004. The very same day, my Partner, Wendy, decided it was time to move on, which would have destroyed me were it not for the painkilling addiction & workload that blonde gave me. So it's been good for me, in that & many other ways. A lot of water has flowed under the blonde & tikay bridges since then, who could have imagined?

In case you think someone is making a mint here, Dave has barely taken any salary since Day One, our only Wage earners are Jo, Rhow, Jen, snoopy, Aaron & Jen. I have yet to be paid a single penny by blonde in wages, dividends or expenses, & that was my choice - I am building his thing for the longer term, & my investment in time & money is, in my opinion, a sound investment. I merely point this out so that you can see my committment to blonde is long-term, such as one can be long-term at my age.....!

So I guess that about covers everything.

It just remains to thank Dave. This is, I think, a wonderful & unique place, & without Dave, it would never have started. So it's very sad indeed, to me, that he's not able to stay on board the Management Team, but as I said earlier, he's retaining his Shares, so maybe he'll rejoin us at some stage. Let's hope so.

When we next Update, & make reference to Monty Burns, or el blondie, I know there will be a special warmth towards him from every one of you. Don't be afraid to show it - it may well mean a lot to him. He remains a poker idol of mine, & he always will.

Questions? Fire away!

What's your real age?  ;tk;

 rotflmfao rotflmfao

Sad to see Dave leave but good luck for the future!

Thanks to Dave for getting Blonde running.

Good luck with getting a sponsor, if anyone deserves a deal it's El Blondie.

What is SEO?

Service Engine Optimisation

In fairness he had no presence here, i hope you sort out a few of the things that we know aren't right (you have started that process) good luck mate, if i can help....................i won't

Correction - Search Engine Optimisation.

Bongo - explain what that is please, you will do it better than me, & they'll believe you!

I knew we could rely on you. Not.

xx

Goodbye Mr blonde himself

Or, hopefully, see you soon.

It's ok I'm happy with ignorance on this one, and it's bedtime for me!

Yes :)

good luck dave, and thanks  also to tikay as  well, blonde would be f***** without him!!!

Seconded

Only met you once and have been on blonde for about a year now but it wont be the same without you hope to cya soon
And goodluck with whatever you may do in life :)





 4h Kh Nutzzzzzzzzz

blonde is dave colclough - dave colclough is blonde!


a sad day indeed so see dave leave us. i hope things work out for dave a great player and extremely warm and friendly guy.


but life moves on and blonde moves on!

tikay and the rest of blonde staff have my full backing and support for the future, a future in safe hands.

keep up the good work tikay and the rest of the gang.

long live blonde!!!

Good Luck to you Dave - Tikay, your my hero 8)

I am reminded, I did forget one thing.

bB3.

Dave has to fly out to a Tournament - The Johnny Chan Invitational I think - in Turks & Caicos Islands (where?) very early on the Sunday morning of bB3. I believe he's been sponsored for it, & it's a huge Tourney, so he has to go.

He apologises that he won't be able to attend bB3, therefore. I had hoped he'd manage Day One, but he felt it might be inappropriate, & it's not right to press him on it.

That creates a bit of a problem, quite apart from us missing the star of our little show.

He was due to give a one-to-one lesson as a blonde Cardroom Prize. I am trying to work out how to sort this, though I'm sure Dave will honour it, though not at bB3. But there will be plenty of big names there, & maybe we will sort it that way. Please bear with me on this.

 :goodpost: :goodpost: :goodpost:
wow got to agree with inthebelly
cant say rubbish to that post  :D

all the best mate, if this is something that dave must do to get back to his former glory then he MUST go ahead with it,

Dave Colclough is a Poker player, first and foremost.

When Dave was involved with things at CinCinatti club, it was great, i remember one such night just before BB2, when we were playing the friday £40 freezeout (Monkey Matt was at the table too - as he was up early for BB2) when me and Dave were sat side by side and both had roughly 40,000 chips each wioth the 3rd chip leader on less that 19,000

...Dave still manged to rip me to bits that night, it was an immense pleasure to be sat beside him that night, and i gained invaluable experience that money cant buy from him.

i really hope to see him on the TV real soon, with something shiney on his wrist, then i'll know that his departure really was worth it.

Good Luck Dave

Bring it down mate

Scottish Dave

who won the 'one on one' prize with DC anyway?

I will offer my services to give the tuition at the bash ....

rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao

It's poker, not pie-eating.

pah, you know as much about pie eating as you do about poker snoppy !!

Good luck el blondie with everything. I have never met Dave, but have the utmoet respect for his standing and ablility in poker, just what blonde is about.

Hey we would be named after a train or saga if it wasn't for him.

Now there's a thought.......

hehe, very true!

Yes all the best to El Blondie I'm sure a return to form is just around the corner   ;goodluck;

Thanks Tikay for another upfront and honest detailing of the situation which I'm sure is much appreciated by all blondes.  :respect:

It's great to have someone of your integrity and values at the helm. 
( although the train thing remains a concern!  :D )


I presume "Search Engine Optimisation" means getting the cardroom ranked as highly as possible in places such as Google when people look for card rooms?

without sounding like a piss take, tikay is the organ grinder of blonde and has imo put more time and effort into making blonde the site that it is now. the king is dead. long live the king ayyyyyyyyyyyyar, shall we change the site to,                                          www.niceoldfellawho's notabadplayereither.com

wow, no elblondie on blonde and no elblondie in cincins, thats a bit of a bugger.


I really like Dave and know after all the time I spent at tables in cincins he helped to improve my game. This must have been an agonising decision for him as he loved the blonde site and when conversing he always seemed to want to spend a bit more time on here.

To be fair though Dave needs to get back to his A game, show the yanks how its done, christ if Brian Wilson can win a bracelet surely our Dave is overdue.


Good luck Dave, I hope we see you back at the tables soon mate, PS try fullcontact they sponsor a big fish they might as well have a decent player on the books too ... lol

Regards

Billy

Its ok i am still comming.

 Thank goodness for that Flushy ::) ::) ::)

As for Dave, I am guessing that if he was having a good run and big wins that the success or not of Blonde financially wouldn't matter. But understand that he needs to get back on the winning trail and good luck to him.

 rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao ;tightend;


Now it is a shame Mr C will not be at BB3.. We will miss him not attending, but for me personally if you were not attending Tony, that would be different matter...i would be totaly devastated..xxx

Good luck Dave , I'm sure this wasn't an easy decision to make .
blonde will miss you but I'm sure we'll be hearing news of you on final tables  ;D

first off - thank goodness.  I opened this message with dread thinking the worst had happened to someone, so am slightly relieved.

best of luck for the future Dave and thanks for your input into getting this great place up and running.

Tikay, I have every faith that blonde with thrive under your direction.  I'm sure I speak not only for myself when I say we are behind you 100%. 

Long live blonde!

You will still continue to receive the same visitors to the Blonde forum, Tikay. We appreciate the work put in by you and all the mods.  I am sure it will continue with the same high standards it has until now.  Good luck, I speak on behalf of everyone when I say you have our support  :)up.

The Turks and Caicos Islands has no significant railways

Good luck Dave.

It was cool to meet dave a couple of times when he was one of the first pros i saw play poker.

Online cardrooms are a very difficult proposition now. Look at the failing of all in poker just yesterday and there was significant money behind it.

Thanks Dave - Hope you don't become a stranger in these parts.

I wish you all the best for the future - and I look forward to reading Snoop and Jen repoting on your next big win.

Be lucky.

Correct, Search Engine Optimization. We are as good as any Poker Site in many respects, but they all whop us good & proper on SEO, & we need to address this failing. Type a players name into google followed by poker (e.g., Luke Patten Poker) & we are NEVER top-listed. Try "Luke Patten Poker (5th), Ash Hussain Poker (3rd), Julian Thew Poker - he gets blanket coverage here - 9th!

to my civil service conditioned brain SEO will always be Senior Executive Officer!

Sorry to hear you are leaving Dave and I wish you all the best in the future.  I certainly will be cheering you on in the tourneys and hope you get back that winning form.  It was also great to meet you at that Catman bash in London a while back - it was, for me, a great experience and one I'll remember for a long time.

SEO can cost a fair bit of cash too, I hope you continue to get the support on Blonde to achieve this goal.

Yes, running Online Cardrooms is not as easy as it seems, everyone needs an angle, or a niche. Our niche ought to be our blonde Community, crossover from our Forum, but crossover is extremely low. We will work on that.

All-In Poker & BPL are - were - very different animals indeed. I won't comment on their situation, but BPL is structured extremely conservatively & prudently, it's a bog-standard, simple, business model, with no frills or sexy buttons. Simple is best, imo. Look at PokerStars if you need convincing of that.

Yes, plenty money, but a basic tool of any Internet Site such as ours.

Just woken up to this sad news, but hay these things happen and Dave has to move on the way he thinks best.
I thought he was struggling with his commitment to Blonde,and his other commitments.but he IS a known figure in the poker world and deserves e  the opportunities that sponsorship can provide.
I am sure he will  be as friendly as ever, and still take time to chat to us bit players.
I for one will follow his exploits with interest.

As for Blonde, with Tikay's guidance,and the backup team (both paid and unpaid),massive work effort, I'm sure it'll move onward and up wards.

See you  all at BB3. ;tk;

good luck david in your ventures. brad is dissappointed about his 1 to 1 with you:( never mind, he'll get over it:)
As for blonde, its a thriving community and will go from strength to strength based on its current formula. i was a little concerned about the spamming aspect as this place offers a relaxed advertisment free haven. keep an eye on it and it should be okay. tikay will be more than capable of keeping it going. he has until now.

good luck

mad

So Jen gets paid twice??? A double salary - wow!!!!

Good luck Dave - we will miss you

Good luck Tikay - you will need it

I am quite sure Dave WILL still give Brad his 1-to-1 tuition Mad, but it won't be possible at bB3 if Dave does not attend. But  he is a man of his word, and it WILL happen.

The Spamming? I hear you. We will keep a sensible balance, and if we go OTT, I'm sure the Members will give me a nudge......! But we gotta do better to make this place viable, to pay the staff proper wages, to improve the Updates, and, dare I say it, to give the Shareholders some return for their efforts.

Thanks Mad.

Best of luck Dave.

And don't be a stranger.

Trace
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Wow. Best of luck, Dave, I can understand why you came to such a difficult decision.

Tikay - you are a genius and deserve every success with Blonde. You have an excellent team around you and in Jen and Sloppy you have the BEST updaters in the business.

I know the site is in extremely capable hands and all of us will no doubt express our huge support at BB3.

I might even let you steal my big blind as a mark of respect.

new sponsored pro for Blonde...Tony G or Ariston?

Good luck to Dave in his other pursuits & Blonde in going forward.

This poker business stuff.  It's not easy, is it?

Gl to DC in his time away from Blonde.

I always thought the amount of people that used the forums and actually used the poker site was very low. Lets hope some fresh initiatives and incentives to refer people up on it is in the not too distant future. BPL could do with a boost in numbers, if you love the forums & updates show your support for it to remain free by playing on their poker site!

Spot on Acid, thank you.

Ariston ??

If that bloke had any business sense he would get sponsored by the "talking Pages" ;)

Plus he would need to have blonde hair, so that means either a wig or we get a tin of white gloss and paint his head :D

Hello Russ if you are reading, I assume you are going to Bolton today ?

Genius? Steady now. (Thank you for the e-Mail Simon)

Believe this or believe it not, yesterday, in "another place", I was described - wait for it - as "A God", & "tikay for Prime Minister".....I kid you not. The only way is down now. Ah well, I enjoyed the ride.

I am reminded of Red-Dog's signature.....

""Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW, What a Ride!"

He will be at Bolton in a PRO capacity & has promised me a drink. His "rider" Mr Womble has made Day Two!

Congratulations on your elevation at blonde Tony!  I know the business is in very sound hands and the future looks bright with you at the helm.

The very best of luck in the future Mr C.  There is a tremendous network available at blonde, and I'm sure opportunities will arise from your many contacts here.  I will certainly mention your availability to the people you did that little gig for, on your return from Vegas.

Des.

Me a sponosored pro lol nice one roland but its gone way past april 1st this year. I started the year running badly then confounded the problem by playing badly. If you run bad and play bad the only thing you could do for a sponsor is sit at the bar and socialise (that jobs already taken by Kev).

All the best with blonde Tikay- I can't see there being that many changes really as I am sure not the only one who classed this as your baby anyway.
I hope things turn around for Dave as well obviously.

Good luck Dave, class is permanent.

All the best Dave & I hope you get the results on the tables. Here's hoping you use the site more now as a normal punter - like the rest of us  :D

Sorry, I'd gone to bed so didn't see this. You seem to have answered it ok though!

All the best to Mr C

Tikay,I know the site will go from strength to strength under your guidance.

If there is anything I can do to help, please feel free to ask,Iam sure most blonde's feel the same.

Kind regards
Shelly
xxxx

All the best to Dave for the future and thanks for giving us so much here at blonde.

Whilst its a sad day, change can be positive and I am sure that blonde will adapt and become even better than it is at the moment.

Good luck to Tikay & the rest of the crew, you have our full support here at blonde.

in terms of seo be careful who you use i have a few friends who have been ripped off by companies claiming things that they never get.

We have all been very lucky to have Dave contributing to the Blonde experience. I hope his form returns with a vengeance.

DC is undoubtedly a class player, and if blondepoker has hindered his chances of sponsorship, then it must have been a heart wrenching decision to pull out of blonde, and a tough but correct call. All the very best Monty and kick ass.

With Tikay still at the helm I am sure service will remain the same and continue to grow, as this is undoubtedly the freindliest, most informative, professionally run poker site around. with a community second to none.

Long live blonde, and all who sail through her :respect: ;slavedriver;

Here Here :)  couldn't happen to a  nicer bloke  :-*

 ;goodluck; to El B!!  :)up

Every success in the future Dave,and if any pro deserves a good sponsorship deal its you.

As Silo said it was great to meet you the other month...and an excellent schooling it was.....I always push in with pocket Queens now ;)

Leaving Tikay in charge of the bridge....now thats's another matter ;D

Good luck Dave,

Many thanks for getting such a great site/community together

I have been away from this thread for a few days.  Sorry if this has already been answered, but these kinds of threads are like ant colony's, they move fast. 

When will Dave's pic be moved off the BlondePoker League site?    Should it not be tikay that is grinning at us when we go on to play a few hands?   :D

Well the bad news is that yes, Dave's pic will be removed from BPL shortly, it's in hand.

The good news is that it will NOT be replaced with one of me!

I shared a table with Dave at Bolton, in the Semi-Final & he was cruising to the Final, I tried it on with him once or twice - he was BB to my Button, but he saw me off majestically, just as Jen did to me at Gutshot. There must be SOMEONE who I can steal off?. Then, holding A-8 on a 8-8-3 flop, all of his & Mick Fletcher's chips found themselves in the middle in the blink of an eyelid, & he was toast, Mick was holding 8-3. When your luck is out at this game, it's a cruel, cruel, game.

 :hello:

I don't even TRY & nick yours, they are nailed to the felt. A man has to know his limitations.

Rumour has it Red hasnt posted a blind since 1998.

Just read this and have to say not surprised. Dave was at Barcelona, we were on the same table and he was at the same time as playing, organising hotel rooms for people, on the ohone constantly and also trying to play a hand of poker. he said then that other things were taking up time he should be spending concentrating on poker - so good luck to him, lets see a sponsorship deal soon!

Will Dave be using this forum to keep us up to date with all that is happening to him?

Everybody here has some sort of "connection" with him and would be nice to hear from the man himself on the way his career is going.

absolutely

yep, hopefully he will have the time to post almost as much as he used to.