blonde poker forum

 
Please read al three Posts I've made before ccommenting - thank you.

The blonde - Mansion Deal - Important Announcement.

On February 20th, we made a Post adsvising you that we had cut a deal with Mansion. The essence of the Post said this (which is cut & pasted from the OP).....

blonde poker is delighted to announce that it has finalised a deal with Mansion Poker on behalf of our members. It goes like this......

- blondes who are not already Mansion account holders can sign up to Mansion through this link:

http://www.mansion.com/?trackid=248366

Alternatively, the URL also has the Bonus Code BLONDE attached to it so players can enter that in the ‘referral code’ field of the Mansion Sign up page and they’ll be eligible for this promotion.

- At the end of every week (Monday to Sunday) the top fifteen rakers on Mansion via the blonde promotion (signing up via this link only) will be given FREE ENTRY into all FIVE (Monday to Friday) of the next week's $100,000 Guraranteed tournaments, with a direct buy-in value of $500.

- A minimum of $100 needs to be deposited under the link for the player to be eligible

- We are of course aware that a number of blondes will be existing Mansion account holders. We do not wish to exclude them from this promotion, so...

- Any existing Mansion account holders who wish to participate should PM Colchester Kev with their Mansion poker nickname. Five names per week from existing account holders who are blondes will be chosen at random to get free entries on same basis as the 15 new Mansion players.

- To be eligible, players must be blonde members, signed up pre-this post

- We will make no claim on the rake of existing Mansion players who are blondes, so any existing affiliate deals you may have are hardly affected.

- all existing players will be chosen for a week's participation before any existing player gets another go!


We regret to inform you that the terms of the deal have changed, & not for the better. It still remains a great deal, but it's just not quite as good as it was.

The next three Posts on this thread will give you all the details. I have split it into three chunks to aid you in replying to specific items, & when quoting my Post.

This deal took a goodly while to set up.

The Mansion $100k Guaranteed had been heavily featured on the Forum for some time, as a result of which, most of those likely to be interested, had already signed up with Mansion, eitther directly, or via other sites. Our concern with this was that we wanted those guys to get a slice of the pie, too, & not be penalised, in effect, for signing up early.

After much toing & froing, Mansion agreed. 15 seats, plus 5 for the existing Account holders, 5 days per week - Monday to Friday.

So thats what we announced.

But......just before the promotion was due to come into effect, Mansion wrote to us, informing us that the deal would be changed, to 10 seats per week, 4 days per week - Wednesday to Saturday. Yoiks.

We got into vigorous debate with them, & Tighty & Kev fought hard to retain the original deal - we were in a real tough spot, as the Week One "Qualifiers" would expect their seats along the originally agreed lines. They explained that the deal had been given to blonde, & 2 other sites & as they had changed the deal with the other two sites, they had to  change it for us as well. We argued that as the deal, effectively, costs them nothing - the comp has an overlay of $50,000 per day roughly. But they were not for budging. Eventually, after a lot of tough talking, they agreed to retain the original deal for the first week only, so we were able to keep our promise. But from Week Two it reduces to 10 seats, & 4 days per week. Sorry, but that's how it is.

In an attempt to ensure this could not happen again, we asked for a guarantee that the deal would remain unchanged for 4 weeks, & this they agreed to.

Bear in mind, that the way it's panned out, blonde earn virtually nothing out of the deal. We get rakeback, of course, but only from those who sign up via blonde, & as most of those interested had signed up previously with others, we were left with very little scope to earn.  Buit if it benefitted the Members, then fine, that'd do. As luck would have it, the Members did OK, with a number of cashes, including Rookie's win.

We have not fallen out with Mansion, it's a long road we travel, it's just one of those things, & we need to move on.

The deal is still a corker, it's just not as good as it was.

I would like to thank Tighty & Kev. You cannot imagine how tough, & stressful this has been for them, & they both fought like lions to get the best possible deal.

So, if you are unsure how this affects you personally, please Post on this thread, or PM Kev.

Effective w/c Monday 5th March, the deal is 10 seats per week, from Wednesday to Saturday.

Of the 10 seats, we will allocate 3 per week to the originally defined "existing Mansion account holders", and 7 to new sign-ups. That seems about the fairest way we can sort it.

The seats will be from Wednesday to Saturday inclusive, not Monday to Friday.

Finally, & slighty at a tangent, this brings us to the Post by Piccolo170, in which he severely criticised Mansion over what, if I recall correctly, was something to do with him trying to work off a Deposit Bonus, which had gone awry, & he'd lost some money as a result. We took the Post off, & it caused a bit of a hoohah.

We explained why we removed it at the time - here was a new Memberr, we had no ideas if he was correct or not, & he'd joined blonde especailly to Post this "Mansion moan".

Some fairly cutting Posts were made attacking us for removing that Post, for example....

Why don't you put up a permanent sticky saying that any negative comments about any site that Blonde is associated with will be deleted - that would make things clearer.

Another, better phrased if I may say so, was this.....


Quote from: madasahatstand on February 25, 2007, 11:21:02 am
if this is a critisism of an affiliated site, does it affect the advertising revenue? in other words, if any blondes criticise the people who are advertising on here, does it affect the income? if so its something i didnt consider before and will have implications for members here if they do have something valid to say with a negative edge.

only a thought and a difficult call for the mods. almost like a conflict of interests really

To which I replied.....

It IS a tricky call Mad, but not for the reasons you suggest. The fact that a Post or thread may or may not affect our Affiiate Income is not relevant, and as I am sure you know, the shareholders & Mods on here all have great integrity, which, largely, reflects the nature of the Members.

The fact is, we, as Mods, are ALWAYS suspicious of first-time Posters, as to their real motive for joining blonde. To be a part of our Community, or to use us? The Forum is free to view, so we have the right to take a close look at Newbies to make sure they are genuine, are not spammers, & are not simply working across all Poker Fora with an axe to grind. In this case, it appears to be the latter.

If you, or any other established blonde Member had made the Post, we would have looked at it in an entirely different light.

OK, so that is all true. Niow add this to the mix. The Piccolo Post occurred at the precise moment where we were trying to persuade Mansion to delay the introduction of the revised deal, so that we could keep our promise to the blondes for week one. It seemed to us that this was hardly the time to be sticking our elbow into Mansion's ribs. So we added that to the basket of reasons to consider when deciding what to do with the Piccolo Post. And remember, blonde stand to earn almost nothing out of the Promotion, but the Members are getting $4,000 per wek of value. So the Members were foremost in our mind when we made the decision to Delete the Piccolo Post.

So there you have it!

Thankyou!!!! finally an explination regarding the influx of APAT posts!!!!


Sorry, wrong thread ::)

Bolt, a nut, talking about wrong threads.....

very clever ;hattip;

I like it! I let out a wrench-ed groan...

Cheers tony, cant say im not a bit disappointed but still an awesome deal. Am more upset at the fact my chance of getting drawn weekly is now decreased. Oh well! Get it drawn!

EDIT- And obviously a huge thankyou to Tighty and Kev for not giving in!!  ;applause;

mad as a bag of spanners, the lot of you

What with Ginger becoming a Mod, answers to the Mansion post question etc, maybe the blondeites will give everyone working hard for them (i.e. TK, Tighty, Kev, Baron etc) a bit of leeway & patience?

We're all pals aren't we?

I don't have a problem with Blonde's conduct in this - I'd still like to say well done for coming up with this deal in the first place and apparently keeping it alive despite these problems.

Mansion's behaviour, however, appear to be poor, to say the least. I did notice - and wonder about - the lack of a timeframe in the post about the original deal, which said 15 players "each week" but made no mention of how many weeks the deal would last. But while "each week" might reasonably mean only four or five weeks, it clearly doesn't by any measure mean just one.

Mansion haven't just done a deal with Blonde - they've also done a deal with each of the Blonde members who have signed up to them on the terms that they presented, through Blonde, on this forum. I signed up knowing I wouldn't get any rakeback, but that this "deal" was in place as compensation. Now I have less compensation, since the chances are I now need to spend more to get a place in the tournaments, and I also receive less, as there are only four tournament entries at stake.

It's much like - indeed, I would say precisely the same as - me signing up to get their bonus offer, only to find that after a week they cut that bonus by 20% and said I needed to rake more to get it.

As a further point, I would guess that my hypothetical example of them cutting the bonus would amount to breach of contract. And I'd like to suggest that, since we signed up using promotion code "Blonde", under terms presented on Blonde and relating to that code (which I assume were entirely accurate) that the case in point also amounts to breach of contract, with each individual customer that they have acquired through this route, if not with Blonde itself.

Those are my main issues with this, and the ones I'd like to see generate dicussion - but as an aside I'd like to ask if Blonde themselves had any contract in place outlining the terms of the deal, or whether they always knew it was unclear - beyond the significant "each week" mentioned above - how long the promotion might last?

Good post Moskvich.  I didn't think I'd get much chance of making the top 15 each week but having given it a go for the first week and somehow made it, I've carried on for the 2nd week.   I would think I'd stuggle to make it now but will see and if I make it this week, I'll  have another go.

I can see why Mansion want to go back a bit on this deal as they're probably spending quite a bit on it.  I don't know how much I raked last week but I'd be gobsmacked if it were anywhere near the $500 value I got from them, but it's pretty bad just changing the deal one week into it. 

Oh I would like to add that I am very grateful for the opportunity though.  A $100 buy in is well beyond my bankroll and it's great to be able to play in such a high value tournament for me and for that I have to thank Blonde Poker :)

Lol, ok this is the first I have known about the Mansion promotion, I just signed up, Its just a shame I never noticed it before, Probably not too noticable from the APAT and Sky Threads  ;ifm; ;ifm;

From my point of view the deal is a corker even with the changes, I really cant see anyone arguing that.

It is a great deal, but I signed up hoping to scrape into the top 15 and have played the cash games there pretty exclusively since the promo, turning down the rakeback offer on Blonde for one thing and neglecting my silver status at Stars.  At the levels I play at, I doubt I'll make the lucky ones now, I may be wrong but I doubt it.

I'm taking it week by week though, if I make it, I'll try again next week, if not, I'll be back to my usual poker rooms.

It costs them nothing m8, the 100k gtd is there everyday with 500 runners, if they put 200 players in they are still adding 50k, that's why its so stupid of them as it costs them nothing to keep to the original deal!

that's true, never thought about that Flushy!

As Tikay pointed out, they aren't spending anything on this deal - it's a $100k guaranteed with a big overlay, with or without this deal. It didn't cost Mansion $500 to put you in those tournaments. It cost them zero, and they gained your rake for the week.

The only people who lose out in this deal are arguably those who buy in to the 100k with their own money, since the field is bigger and their chance of winning it fractionally reduced. But since there's still a big overlay, it doesn't actually matter to them whether I buy in for $100 or get my buy-in for free - their tournament is exactly the same in both cases.

This deal was very much win-win (even win-win-win) - Mansion got new players and raked more rake at no cost, Blonde got a little of that rake for themselves, and the players turned their rake into tournament entries.

What appears to have happened is that Mansion have since decided that win-win isn't good enough for them - they want to be winning more than anyone else.

So now they've got their new players they want to make them rake more to get what they promised in the first place, and they want to give less back to those players.

Whether it is or isn't still a good deal really isn't the point here, and to be honest I'm quite surprised that other posters are happy to say "ah well, it's still a good deal". Yes, respect still due to Blonde for coming up with this deal at all. But absolutely no respect due to Mansion. If they cut your sign-up bonus in half tomorrow, would you say "Ah well, it's not as good as it was, but it's still free money, so it's still a good deal".....?

I was already a mansion account holder, i have raked dust for them over my 9 months, so far i have got out of them:

$1000 free bet which hit, thankyou.

A trip to the world cup with full hospitality on Mansion's private Jet, thankyou.

Free entry to the $100k for a week, thankyou.


I can hardly be upset with them changing this deal when it is clearly out of character for this company, someone has fucked up at Mansion HQ but i am willing to let it go without the need for boycotts and pitchforks.

West Ham have just gone 3-2 up against Spurs.

Good.

Just noticed from Tikay's original post that he says Mansion changed the terms "before the promotion was due to come into effect".

I guess the important question begged by this is whether that means they changed the terms before new players signed up, or that they changed them after the deal was posted on the forum and players signed up, but before Monday when the first of the five tournaments started.

If the latter - people signed up and then they backtracked - then they've behaved appallingly.

If the former - then they've still behaved appallingly as they shouldn't have allowed a deal that they had no intention of keeping for more than a week to be advertised.

From where I'm looking, the only situation where Mansion's behaviour is acceptable is where they changed the terms of the deal before it was advertised on Blonde and therefore before anyone signed up for it. That situation would depend on Blonde knowing that the deal was highly unlikely to last but deciding to advertise it anyway. Tell me it ain't so...

That's obviously fine if that's the way you feel. On a personal level I'm not exactly fuming either - the chances are that I don't stand to lose a great deal through this. But I still think you miss the point. For one thing, I believe your entry was totally free, in that you were an existing sign-up - that's not the case for those who signed up through Blonde, for whom this deal was one of the conditions on which they played and raked on Mansion. And for another, if they have effectively breached a contract, whether with Blonde or with their new players, then they've breached a contract. It doesn't matter that they've been nice people before. To be honest (and this is in no way intended as a dig at you, but maybe slightly at your post) it matters even less to a new player whose deal has just changed that they flew you in a private jet to the World Cup. Hope you can see what I mean - it's just not relevant.

Well bokked.

I see the point you are making, all i am trying to do is show that this company has a history of being very generous and so in this 1 case where they appear tight i am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt rather than think they are an evill poker site. I think someone at mansion stuffed up.

If they fly me off to the next European Championships in a private jet, I'll forgive them ;)

There is a little history here with regards to Mansion changing T s and Cs after the fact - and I haven't told this story before, so please bear with me.

Some of you might already know that I won a seat to the Mansion Poker Dome last May; it was during Mansion.com's first month of operation, and I actually appeared in the second ever episode. (I was chip leader for a while, but finished 4th... my QQ vs oppos KQ... don't ask!) Also on that week's show was {WSOP Omaha Hi Lo Bracelet Winner and Full Tilt 'red name'} Perry Friedman, who eventually lost heads up to the same player who busted me.

Qualifying for the Dome cost me just $0.01; that's how much the tournaments on Mansion were running for at that time - Freerolls, with a 1c "fee". I beat 90-something players to the win. Mansion flew me out to Vegas, put me up at Caesar's and flew me back after the show; and for the record, everyone I met there were nice, friendly, helpful, and I had a great time.

---

Now, we were told point-blank by the people running the Dome show that we could requalify online if we were unsuccessful that evening; they were adamant on this point, there was no hesitation about it, they were sure of their facts and were were told of this several times throughout the trip: If you don't win, you can try again.

Perry Friedman was the one who brought the subject up, having been unable to get a straight answer on the subject up to that point, because there was no mention of it in the terms and conditions he'd gotten hold of (I had been unable to get hold of any T s and Cs for this promotion, because they had not been posted on the Mansion website yet, this was very early days, and the Mansion website was in any case very unstable and had a habit of crashing the browser that was trying to read it - not the best scenario in the world).

So, after I returned, I set about trying to requalify for the Dome. I really wanted to be the first person to win a second seat and try again... except that Perry beat me to it! He won his second seat just a few weeks after our heat.

By now, Mansion had published T s and Cs for the Dome on their website, which included a section in which it mentions that a player cannot win two online qualifiers... which directly contradicted what we'd been told - face to face - in Vegas.

According to Perry, the clause about not being able to win two seats in the Dome was not in the copy of the T s and Cs that he'd obtained prior to our heat, back at the start of June 2006. He feels that they added it at some later date, and (understandably, considering the amount of money at stake) wanted them to adhere to what he saw as the original agreement. Mansion stuck to their guns and gave his seat to the next-highest runner up in his online game.

(Perry's full version of events can be found at his MySpace blog (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=75725780&blogID=136317806&Mytoken=A65D2EA1-B274-4B27-BAC9442A131F9C7E73361570): Friday June 23rd 2006 entry.

---

I remember being very angry when I heard about all this, basically because it taints what was for me, a great experience. Now, I don't wish to sound ungrateful to Mansion by retelling this story. The last time I told it, a friend of mine branded me as greedy for wanting to win again, so I have kept schtum under the banner of "benefits of the doubt". As with Flushy, they spent a lot of money on me and my own contribution to Mansion's total revenue has been less than negligible; although with the money that they have been giving away since they joined the online poker market, it does not seem like this concerns them overly.

My point is just that it forced me to look at them in a new light. I don't know why they have made the decisions that they have made, but as a result of this mix-up I treat them less as a 'generous' site than I would otherwise be disposed to.

Here is the similarity I wanted to highlight: Just as my trip was soured by my wasting hours of my life trying to requalify for a prize that I would never have been awarded, I think this deal has been slightly soured by after-the-fact changes that have been brought in. As Newmanseye said,  that does not mean it's not still a good deal.

I just wish that they'd told us back in Vegas that we couldn't requalify; no-one's feelings would have got hurt, I wouldn't have wasted my time, and I would have been singing Mansion's praises through the entire second half of 2006. Similarly, the deal that's on the table now would look fantastic - if we Blondeites didn't know what we were supposed to be getting.

we had our original deal confirmed in writing before we announced (and I posted the full details of it) but there was no set timeframe for it laid out...

As with most v generous marketing strategies, budgets change, targets are met and priorities develop I suppose.

Was just wondering when the draw will be done for this weeks 3 enties?

I will be doing the draw at 9 am tomorrow morning, im trying to get sky to cover it live, but they havent come up with the asking price... Radio 5 live have also been on to negotiate exclusive rights, but i said NO, Alan Green is a pompous twonk, sack him and we have a deal.  they declined.

So you will just have to watch the forum tomorrow for details ;)

 :)up

Dont know why im asking really, i'm crap at poker and i never get lucky in draws!!!!!!!

It ain't so

The terms were changed after they were posted on the blonde forum and blonde players had signed up but before the first week's names from our promotion had been given to Mansion

That said, mansion does a similar deal/promotion with two other sites/organisations and we know for sure that the deal as changed for everyone. These other deals have been running for longer than ours, in part because of the negotiating complexities caused by our insistence that blondes who were existing Mansion players were included.

I therefore suggest that the timing of the change only a few days after our announcement is an unhappy coincidence not deliberate "appalling" behaviour to use your word.

I would like to Thank Blonde for the opportunity to play in these highly overlayed tournaments. I hear what some people are saying that Mansion have changed the original terms. I am slightly surprised as they are still on average 400-500 entrants short of making the full target per tournament.

Tony some feedback you can give to Mansion would be to offer some other smaller tournaments during the day. You have to wait ages for the sit and go's to fill up which forces someone like me ( a tourny player) to play cash games to get the necessary action points to qualify for the freerolls. It must be tough for these new sites to get off the ground particularly since they have stopped their American clients.

I have watched PartyPoker go through similar problems in recent months but they seem resurgent again and are building numbers by getting people from countries like Germany.

Its been fun playing against some of the guys from Blonde and railing Flushy and ElBlondie adds a dimension rather than just watching unknown names.

Will the lucky qualifiers be told at 9am ish too Kev?  I'm keen to know if I've made it again or not :D

Great post, but the 50p rule still applies.  :)

It will all be done after i have dictated it to my PA, and she doesnt function until at least 3 coffees .... I have to get info to Mansion by 12 at the lates and then need to get them to confirm, seeing as the comp entries dont include monday nights now ... we arent in such a rush.

But i will let everyone know ASAP tomorrow.

When am i going to get my go??

 :redcard: for trying to induce enquiries to enable shameless chirp.

lmfao- he's nothing without my railing anyway!

My situation is pretty similar to Graham's in that I saw the deal and thought the potential value on offer too good to resist. This was especially true when I factored in that many Blondes must already have Mansion accounts plus the original thread didn't seem to generate loads of replies from potential new signups either.

To be honest my rake too would have been minimal and I was just hoping to "get lucky" by the offer being underscribed.

But as luck would have it I gained free entries into $500 worth of tournaments and for that I heartily thank both Blonde and Mansion.

I was tempted to withdraw and run for the hills at that point but felt the opportunity to play at a far higher level and buy-in than I usually play at was too good an opportunity to miss.  Plus it wouldn't have really been in the spirit of the promotion either!

So I played my five tourny's with the result that I cashed in a couple and was only a 50/50 shot away from repeating that in another couple too.  A thoroughly enjoyable week and useful in testing the water that these higher value tourny's aren't necessarily that much tougher than the little ones.

Unlikely that I'll have raked enough to qualify again this week but I certainly will be paying to enter a few more of these whenever I have a free night.  So, for what it's worth, Mansion have gained a new customer from this promotion and it does seem a wins all round scenario.

Huge thanks to Blonde especially Tighty and Kev for negotiating this deal, much appreciated guys!  ;thankyou;

Well technically it could cost them if everyone they gave free entries to then subsequently withdrew from each tourny and pocketed the cash!

What am i chirping about???

Oh, you must mean when i won it last monday for $24k. Gotcha, will try not to chirp deliberately  ;)

Good, glad we got that sorted, we don't want any deliberate chirping, do we...  ;)

Thanks for clarifying.

I'd like to echo other people's comments that this was (and still is) a very good deal for those involved on the playing side, and to thank Blonde for arranging it. And I accept that the delay in alerting players to the changed terms was only the result of Blonde's efforts to keep the original deal in place.

I still think Mansion's behaviour is unacceptable - if they were going to change the terms during the first week of the Blonde promotion then they shouldn't have let it be advertised in the way that it was at the end of the previous week. Companies don't just make snap decisions about these things - and if they do then they should give their customers adequate notice of changes. I'm also still quite surprised that so few people appear to be bothered by the principle involved.

But I'll stop complaining now. Thanks again for the opportunity in the first place. Cheers.

I don't agree with the principle, but what can I do about it?  I'd rather not get worked up about it and be resentful, I'll just get on with things and if I'm in, I'm in.  If I'm not in, well it was nice while it lasted :)  Whilst they are happy to give me $500 worth of tournament entries, I'm happy to contribute my small amount of rake to them.

You can't eat principle....

I think the thing that rankles with me is the pettiness of Mansion over this.

Over the last few months I've watched as Mansion have seemed to give the impression that they're allergic to money. Huge overlays every night and that Poker Dome thing have seen tremendous value for players who want to take advantage of it. And yet, there has been little to no improvement in their software over the last few months (no four colour deck, inability to swtich sound off are just two simple things they're not addressed).

Then, they set up this deal with Blonde (and a couple of other forums) but quickly realise they made the terms too generous. If Mansion were some little poker room starting up, who had to watch the pennies, then you could understand them if they made a rick they'd want to change the terms, as it could really affect them negatively. But Mansion are sweating money out of every pore. They don't seem to realise that the small amount of money they might save by changing the terms will probably not be worth it when compared to the impression they give of their competance.

Yes, they were attempting to give us something for nothing so I'm not moaning at some great injustice which has befallen me, and all kudos to Kev and Tighty for fighting for the corner of us Blondes who already had Mansion accounts. It just annoys me that a company which is so big, which has so much money behind it, and has employees who are earning big money (tax-free) can show themselves to not really understand the industry they work in.

The draw has been made and independantly auditted and the lucky kippers chosen few ARE ..... (in no particular order)

booder
womble
jungle cat

And in through the rake criteria (again in no particular order) ARE .....

TwistofFate
Zebediah
themug
JaxtheLad
canoeinggnu
crosscourtbh
Graham0573


CONGRATS to the chosen ones, and god and Mansion willing, same time, same place, next week for the next lucky list.


Good luck at the tables, Rookie took one down in his week .... can you match that ??

Thanks Kev...

Matching RookieITB's showing wont be easy - as chance would have it qualified for tonights event in a $20 rebuy earlier today. Aim is to FT one of these babies....

GL fellow blondietes