blonde poker forum

....sponsored by Ladbrokes Poker

Did I miss an announcement?

Any freebies?

No you didn't miss an announcement, its on its way

Suffice to say Ladbrokes Poker have kindly agreed to sponsor the Rail and we are in the process of tieing up added value comps and/or a joint cardroom promotion with us providing the players (I hope) and Laddies some ££££

There will be a Ladbrokes banner at the head of the Rail, and if blondes choose to sign up via that link, blonde will benefit from their play there

As and when I've got it all confirmed, you will hear all about it

Find out why they suspended my account while your at it and why i have to send all documents in again to get it cleared when the guy on the phone told me he found them in archive but i have to send them in anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ladbrokes and I have rubbed along together for years now, and even if they are sometimes a bit reluctant to pull the lever, they have always been helpful and fair.

Welcome to the forum Laddies. It's nice to see you sponsoring the rail.

its everywhere, i stood still for 30 seconds earlier and whallop...........

;whistle;

sweet

Next .... the Lounge sponsored by DFS   ;marks;

Apparently the Samaritans are keen to sponsor the Hand Analysis board.

we need guinness to sponser blonde bash ;pokergods; ;tightend;

rotflmfao

good idea!

I was thinking "Relate" actually

I would suggest Fisher Price or Mothercare, on account of the number of toys thrown out of prams.

This is getting daft, ain't you lot making enough dosh?

The darts-based happiness could only last so long...

But I jest, the truth is that none of the mods were happy just having one Bentley each.

I think maybe the point of this is...they aren't making any dosh after all expenses of running the place are taken into consideration.  At the end of the day, Blonde is a business like any other and should be seen to be making SOME sort of profit for the lads who have it all resting on their shoulders.  I, for one, won't begrudge them this.  They're under enough pressure trying to keep us all happy, without paying for the privilege out of their own pockets.  At the end of the day, while it means a few bob in the coffers, it also means more perks for the members of Blonde.

Welcome to Blonde Ladbrokes!

whoosh?

Ian

We would like to rely on our card-room to pay costs and fund the growth of the company (investment plans are in our mind but haven't been affordable). The fact of the matter remains that that our card-room does not provide sufficient profit on its own to do this.

At the same time a number of partners want to work with us, which I take as a compliment and encouraging. These deals come, as a matter of course, with benefits to members too.

Most of the revenue we gain from these partnerships is re-invested into added value for our own comps, which we struggle to provide off our own cash resources..witness the seats to live events added in recent blonde comps. We should expect this to increase in frequency and amount in the coming months now that Kev has a sensible budget to help promote our own site.

doesn't it make kevs job harder when we are promoting so many other sites? it cant be easy to sell your own site when the forums are emblazened with other sites logos.

im not knocking here as the benefits passed to blonde members through these deals are immense it was more an observation than a critisism.

I think ifm was joking guys...ITB makes a good point though, does this have an adverse effect on the cardroom?

I don't mind them at all, doesn't affect the forum for me at all.
Very noticable that kev has been trying to get value and adding prizes to comps.
Personally I think that such added value comps should be restricted to those that actually use the cardroom, not just signed up. At least the value goes towards those that support the room.

it does in a sense, but our strategy is that revenue earned helps fund our own card-room's initiatives and doesn't affect our rake negatively. This is because the value the third party rooms provide is played as extra by blonde players, not instead of on our room

Of course if we had a card-room say twice the size (figure picked at random), then we'd have no commerical need to look for partners..we don't so we have to follow a dual pronged strategy 

yes, our financial flexibility is greater, so Kev has a budget to spend which goes back to the blonde players. He never used to!

You make a good point about the potential restrictions. We've introduced that we only give passwords out for third party added value comps to those who have blonde card-room accounts. Maybe the next stage as the amount we are offering through partners increases, is to take that a stage further and only giuve out passwords to active rakers. We've been a bit nicey nicey to be frank lol

we have more than two pronges on our fork lol ladbrokes, william hill, poker trillion, dusk til dawn, virgin, mansion, gala etc etc

but i get what your saying tighty hopefully it wont slow up the growth of the blonde cardroom.

two prongs..a) third party sponsorships and promotions and b) blonde card-room

virgin, dtd, mansion were active in 2007, and not now

to date none of it has slowed the growth of our card-room and members here get GREAT customer service and promotions on our room and a range of added value from others

i was jesting tighty lighten up lol

i'm fine Paul. I slip into corporate mode FAR too easily..... ;)

Who are we kidding?!  In fairness.  How many times do I have to sift through mountains of posts on Sunday ALONE (never mind the rest of the week) where someone is looking for a PRO on sites OTHER THAN BLONDE?  Yet we've been left alone to do that.  We have, in effect, been promoting all the other sites anyway.  Without interference from Blonde, but also without benefit to Blonde. 

 

im never looking for PRO i never go that deep  :(

I may do if I can ever win a KK va AK or a KK vs QQ race

An interesting thread, with lots of good points.

Of course, we'd prefer that blonde Cardroom Revenue was sufficient such that we did not have to accept Sponsorship from competing Sites. But it's not, so we do......blonde Cardroom revenue is running at about 400% avove it's levels of 18 months ago, but costs have increased, too, & we want to improve the Site, the Updates, &, most of all, pay the Staff properly.

The Wm Hill Sponsorship goes towards (but does not meet) the Update Costs.

The income from the Poker Trillion Deal, (aside from providing some joint Promotions with Poker Trillion which benefit our Members) has, if I'm not mistaken, all, or nearly all, been passed across to Kev to use as he sees fit on the blonde Cardroom - Freerolls, Added Value, whatever he decides.

A significant % of the income from the Ladbrokes Deal has also been passed to Kev for him to use on blonde Cardroom Promotions as he sees fit.

So as you can see, most of the Sponsorship Income has found it's way back to those who play on the blonde Cardroom, & thus, in turn, to you, the Members. Assuming you play on blonde, that is.

We recognize that there is a possibility that allowing rivals to sponsor parts of the blonde Forum may act against the best interest of our own Cardroom, but until & unless more folks play blonde, it's Hobson's Choice.

We are grateful to all those Sponsors for their support, just as we were to DTD last year

We don't believe the Sponsorship detracts from the blondePoker site (overall) in any way. THM, the yadstick by which most UK Poker Fora are judged, do much the same thing.

blonde is now profitable, financially sound, secure, with no debts, & no liabilities. An admirable situation, all things considered.

We thank all Members for their continued support, &, in partricular, the Staff for their endeavours..

I think it speaks volumes for the popularity of blonde poker to the masses that company's such as Hills and Laddies want to get involved.

Good Luck to all and long may blonde poker continue to flourish.

Agreed with active rakers to maybe some comps......ie the "free" £300 live seat comp run recently .a fantastic added value offer!

Members really should play on Blonde. There's easy money to be had most Friday's when I get back from the pub.

how about some semi regular added value tournaments with a $$$ plus FPP buy in?  If there was value to be had it might encourage people to build up some points playing on blonde, and in the interim it's a bit of a 'thank you' to those that play there regularly.

Good idea

I hope his Lordship, the Overlord of the card-room, considers this

IMO all added value blonde comps should be for people who rake on the blonde site, simple as that..

All good feedback ... Plenty of ideas for me to look at, thanks all.

............sigh

I will have my $20 dollars ready for you again tonite Suffolk, whilst enjoying the updates.



I don't really like playing online, I'm crap at it, however I do try wherever possible to support the Blonde orientated comps that Kev sets up. My way of saying thank you for all the other benefits of being a member of this forum.

Any additional benefits through links with other sites is always welcome IMO.

Geo

FYP

Aha! One mug opponent already. I'll have to make sure I stay sober enough to turn the lappie on now. Laters!

I think it is a terrific endorsement that you can attract such paid sponsors, well done.  A lot of hard work and sacrifices have made BP what it is today and I am glad to see that the stakeholders are starting to get their just rewards.  Keep it up.

I am currently playing all my cash on Full Tilt due to beta testing Poker Tracker 3, as soon as they do a release with support for Blonde then I will switch all my cash play to Blonde as I don't get any rakeback with FT.

For tournys I will prob stick to FT due to better structures, with the exception of any special Blonde comps.

I was under the impression that PT3 now supports ipoker.

Goooooo Ladbrokes!!!

I like that one.....and not just because I'm drowning in points :)

First they sponsor Jaffa, now they are sponsoring the blonde forum!! Who the hell is in charge over there?

No only Full Tilt, Party and Poker Stars at the moment. Probably be at least another month before any more sites get added as they are not even introducing the HUD until the beta version after next.

well done blonde.,,.,.personally i done my boooolooox on laddies,but im crap anyway.

if its good for blonde then its good for me,i think sometimes forum members think they are shareholders,and they get to decide whats what,,,,just remember when it all first started and tikkay and his staff got nothing,
i hope blonde gets sponsored by every poker site out there,as for me one of the best things from blonde is the
100% free live updates.,.,it makes you feel as if you are there....... now tikkay has become a thousandaire give him slack and let him savour the moment of how his little tiny acorns are growing into mighty oaks...............
i rekon the blonde website in a few years will be worth MI££IONS and then,people will know,not all blondes are daft/..,.,....,

Would you ever go into partnership like this with another iPoker client? And no, Mick Lacey didnt ask me to ask for him.

Had discussions with one such a while ago. We also currently promote Paddy Power/Irish Open on Main Site (straight advertising revenue)

In terms of another IPoker room having tenancy/naming rights of a forum board to advertise then probably not as the risk to our own rake is too great.


In terms of something different, maybe.

Are there any sites that offer updates that you have to pay for?

no idea.

will probalby regreat saying this...why do you ask?

Everyone bangs on about Blonde's free updates, i just wondered as i assumed that was industry standard. I have yet to come across a site that asks you to pay for updates.

Any regrets?

 rotflmfao rotflmfao

lol..well I try not to bang on about it, in fact you'll struggle to find a post where I have!

I am unaware that any charge but of course whether you are talking about AWOP, Poker Verdict, THM, PokerNews, Cardplayer for example they all have affiliate operations, or card-room operations or subsidising from magazine subscriptions and advertising to provide the sums required to pay for their updates..and these updates provide traffic which if good boosts rate cards which then allows more updates/investment elsewhere in the business

We of course, in that we have a card-room, look for sponsorship and 3rd party partners are no different from any of our competitors..our operations (even at their most basic, server charges to allow the forum to be up and running) have to be funded and staff paid etc etc

Regrets? nope..a subscription or pay to view model isn't on the agenda at all

It's not you who goes on about it, it is more the general blonde public and a gent going by the initials T.K.



Just wondering if i was missing out on a pay per view premium service on another site.......:D

The fact that the blonde updates are interactive is a big plus in my opinion over the other sites offering the same free service.

Plus I also feel the standard of the update reports in general is better on blonde than elsewhere, but that is just my opinion.

You miss the point ever so slightly Lord Dempsey. All Updates - on all sites - are free. So when I mention that they are free, it does not require much imagination to see what I'm really saying. If some folks don't like our Updates, fine. There are other Update services out there.....nobody is forced to read ours.

I also struggle to see why our Staff should tolerate insulting & derogatory remarks as to the quality of the work they provide, & it seems right to me that I should defend them. And I do defend them, at the cost of snide remarks (not by you, I hasten to add) aimed at my loyalty to the Team who produce the Updates. So be it. I offer no apologies for defending my Staff.

And that Greyhound of yours needs a new Kennel name.  "TJ" is taken already, it seems. ;)

Just a thought guys, but the first thing you see when entering the Laddies-sponsored section is a Willy Hill logo!

 rotflmfao

We're breaking down generations of corporate antagonism

Next, watch us broker the merger.