blonde poker forum

Hi, I'm interested in signing up to the blondepoker poker room. Does anyone know whether rakeback is available through the site or affiliates? Also if there are any bonuses etc. that I are available I would love to hear about them.

thanks

blondepoker has no affliates and no rake back and no sign up bonuses this is because blondepoker would rather give you better reward for action points

more details are available on http://www.blondepokerleague.com/promotions

This might be a better explanation:

http://www.blondepoker.com/index.php?q=node/1470 (http://www.blondepoker.com/index.php?q=node/1470)

shame

I agree, wrong way to go IMO.

I don't think Blondepoker is big enough to get involved in bonus-pissing contests with much bigger poker companies. I like the fact they're trying something a bit different.

Andrew sums it up the way it is.

We are not setting our to be big, we just are not. The aim is just to have a friendly, comfy Cardroom, & if it pays the rent (the blonde running costs) then that will do nicely.

I agree that it's nice to offer Rakeback & stuff, but we just can't - & don't want - to get into that market right now.

There is an incentive deal though.

We will keep all ideas under review though, so we need the ifm's of this world, who constantly make positive & constructive suggestions,  to keep us on our toes!

Who said anything about bonus-pissing contests?
The best way to attract users is to offer a bonus, simple as that.

Or me at your table - surely that's a bonus.......?

I consider this forum a very nice version of "rakeback"

we would all be poorer if this forum wasn't around, and the poker-room is a pretty good chance to give something back/contribute to the costs of running blonde poker

Yes, it is, so what happens is that poker rooms get involved in a bonus/rakeback arms race, each trying to give a bigger bonus than the other poker rooms, each cutting their own throats to give away the future rake they may earn from the players (if the players bother to stay around - another problem with offering a bonus is you get people signing up who are only interested in the free money, you'll never see them again after that).

What a lovely thing to say - thank you, totalise.

I love you.

What say we have children?

Well its a bowmans wide loyalty scheme, it's not like blondepoker came up with those prizes.

It's a shame that blonde management havent yet implemented any rakeback/loyaly bonus. It's the only thing keeping me from giving it a go.

I think you'll find most bonus schemes don't allow you to bugger off with more money than you started with (they are self financing).
At the end of the day in order to pay the "rent" players are required for the skin.
More players will be attracted by a bonus, some will stay some won't. Bonuses work because some stay.

I

It's the plan to let the site "settle down" for a while before we start looking at any other schemes to attract players.

When the time is right, we wiill change things, if they need changing.

First priority is to pay the rent, the wages, & the running costs of blonde which, with Live Updates, are quite high!

I think that takes brevity to it's most extreme.......

I thought it was a very self-centred, egotistical post.

Some people are all me, me, me...

I am aware that as I have a poker room on tribeca and really enjoy this forum that I must be careful how this post sounds.

It is almost impossible to attract enough players without offering some incentive especially when you are a skin. We have spent a fortune in marketing (over 100k to date) and do not have the profile players that blonde has and we know it is going to take a long time to build credibility and trust. therivercard was launched 3 months ago and we resisted offering a bonus and it cost us. We now offer a really good incentive and we are now growing nicely across the globe. We will also improve on this offer because players know their value and as they play more they want more. We intend to have our own cage by the end of the year and then we will have the revenue to support growth into other areas.

I am saying this because I really want blonde to work, the more player’s tribeca has the better. We can then create cross promotions to our members and hopefully pull more players away from stars, party and paradise. Poker has, like any business a growth and consolidation process and there are already too many sites. I think blonde has a fantastic profile great exposure and the best forum. This however will not make people play on a site that does not give a player value. Remember Doyle also offers incentives on the same site.
I do however understand why you do not offer an incentive and if I didn’t have to I would not. I hope that your approach works and I am proved wrong but there are only so many players and there is not enough growth to keep the number of sites running. Tribeca has a good player base therefore blonde will always have player liquidity but it has to fight like us.

I hope this post is taken in the spirit it was meant, which is to help blonde to succeed.

Taken as intended, & in the right spirit.

It's each to their own, & every scenario is different.

I don't own blonde outright, thee are several shareholders, but I have a major say in what we do & don't do. It's my belief, right now, that I don't want or intend to spend money on "direct" marketing. To start with, we don't have the cash, & I'm not about to have an overdraft. We have various USP's, &, as I said earlier, we want to let the thing settle down before we do too much. We have been open some 2 weeks, & we are delighted with the "numbers" so far. Again, being "big" is not necessarily our aim, either, we have different goals. We could spend a mill to maybe try & make 3 mill, but neither Dave nor I want to go diown that route right now, especially the hassle of building an unweildy infrastructure. Dave is a Professional Poker Player, I am a retired businessman, & that's how we want it to stay right now. Tomorrow, who knows?!

We wish you well with your venture. It's very much "horses for courses", & we would certainly not suggest your Business Plan is flawed, it's maybe just right for your aspirations. Both our Business Plans, though radically different, may well be right. Or wrong.....!

I like the post saying that your "rakeback"  is actually the BP site.

An interesting point regarding tribecca is that when I spoke with them about a site, they told me catergorically that they DID NOT support rakeback (selling against prima etc) but i guess there are ways to get round this like any system or they may have been feeding me a line. This internet stuff is a minefield.

I personally am one of the big rakers on cryptologic, around £10-£15k per month, and I only recently set up rakeback a few weeks ago, and i know a lot of players who dont bother as they play on 10 different sites etc.

I'd like to think that BP has a very loyal base, and those players will choose to play on BP to help the site improve and do the updates which are so popular. BP is by far the leading forum in the UK and maybe in europe. Its not my job to tell people how do do there business, but I would:

1. Charge a small annual subscription fee for BP (like many other web sites non-poker related do)
2. If people raked X amount on the BP room the annual subscription could be waived.

This way everyone would be helping out a bit and BP could focus 100% on there efforts on the "content" without doing all the banners and afliliates with other sites. I would do this without any doubt, we should not expect "something for nothing" as BP members. There is a stack load of work going into maintaining this site and we are all on a "free roll" and some poor soul had to find the £££ to pay the costs every month.

Just my opinion. Rob

Thank you for that Rob.

We are just not keen to go down the "who can give the biggest rakeback" slippery slope, for some of the reasons I Posted earlier.

As to your other suggestion, we are dead set against EVER charging for access to blonde Forum, or the Updates. Your theory is an interesting one, but many blondeites do not even play online, so we would be discriminating against them.

As to (non-blonde) Affiliates & Banners, this is a matter we are currently reviewing. It may well be that we decide to "bet the shop" on blonde, but that's a decision yet to be made.

Other ways of financing the Live Updates are in train, more of which in due course. But it will NOT involve blondeites paying for them.

I wonder what % of "true" blondites (say the top 250 of hard core posters/readers, do play online), I think it is the majority, and I'm sure with the new BP poker room this % will increase. I have been reading the other forums this week and think that BP is superior in terms of content, community spirit and volume of posts.

If us "hard core" members could chip in a little bit towards the costs we would feel even more involved for a small price or a small bit of our rake which were giving to the faceless "cyber businesses" who don't give a XXXX about us anyway. I know you're dead set against "blondites" paying anything for the use of BP, and would rather 3rd parties subsidised it, but us poker players gotta start supporting the good guys in poker and keeping the money circulating in the community, and what better place to start that BP, which has brought so many of us together.

Anyway, I'm just downloading joining the BP online room to see if I can find you or DC playing on there, I'm sure any rake I can generate will be offset against winnings. My username will be theyongsta in case you ever fancy a heads up game.

See you guys in Luton. Rob

rob even though the hard core of us poster would be willing to pay to access the site what makes blonde great imho is that everyone is welcome no matter how much they play how big there roll is and how little they post

i respect the views of a first time poster or a voyeur who never post as much as i do red dog or kev who dont seem to ever stop posting

a charge or a minium amount of play might put these people of and that would detract from blonde

hopefully the quailty of blondepoker will attract players and the fact people can sit at a blonde table without getting called a ******* ****** ******* after they get lucky will attract players

personally i think anyone who gets chat bans on the blondepoker site should get forum bans

and that should be enough to attract the right people to both the site and the forum

and the AP and the chance to sit at a table with some of the top pros for 5$ will enable the site to pay for the upkeep

"If us "hard core" members could chip in a little bit towards the costs we would feel even more involved for a small price or a small bit of our rake which were giving to the faceless "cyber businesses" who don't give a XXXX about us anyway. I know you're dead set against "blondites" paying anything for the use of BP, and would rather 3rd parties subsidised it, but us poker players gotta start supporting the good guys in poker and keeping the money circulating in the community, and what better place to start that BP, which has brought so many of us together"

This is exactly my sentiment, and whyI am vehemously against blonde paying r/b. Its not like the money is going to disappear into the engine tank of the MD's ferrari, its going to go back to us anyways, in the form of improved site/features etc.

People always say how much they like the forum, this is a great chance to show it

One other thing I thought of, the problem with offering bonus', is that it wont strengthen the community, it will just attact the people looking for a free piece of a pie (even though it is self financing) How would people feel if there were blonde tournies with money added where half the field were people that contributed nothing to the forum, and were just there for the free dollar? It would compromise the community feel, and if someone was sat at a table with 8 unchatting unknowns in a blonde-only tournament, I am pretty sure they would have plenty to say about the matter.

I probably generate in the region of $15,000 a month in rake, and whilst I like the forum, I dont like it enough to cost myself $4200, but I certainly like it enough to contribute a % of that... how much I wil play is a matter of personal preference, but I certainly am of the opinion that people should be happy that they get the opportunity to help blonde grow, rather then cry because their EV is impacted by a tiny %

Im sure there are a lot of revenue opportunities out there for the live updates, which the general public would be happy to pay for. Eg text messaging of major news from big tournaments to mobile phones at 25p per go could be a decent earner.

Tony,

As Andrew said the rakeback wars are in full flow at the moment and althought available on many sites it is in my opinion amazing how badly thought out these promos are from the business point of view.

 I know of one site ( it isnt Hills before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion) that is giving 40% of a players full rake back which is ludicrous. I know many players will be on good rakeback schemes but for every pound this site makes from these players they are giving 32% away as a revenue share to the provider and 40% back to the player. When you add in the marketing of these promos and the handlng of these schemes by staff they are making around 20p in every pound that these players provide.

It may well be great for recruitment but it is too big a price to pay imvho.

I am a bit tied up right now, deep in two decent online comops, soon as I bust out (there;s confidence for you) I will respond to these fascinating Posts.

Thanks for your patience.

istead of rakeback i think sites would be better off lowering there rake

but a rake war betweent he major networks would lead to the premature end for some smaller networks which in the longer run would be a bad thing for the players

It is coming Iron. The exes that some of these sites are running to would amaze you.

Rob, if you are gonna play from time to time on blonde Cardroom, that'll do for me, the rake you will generate helps to pay for the site, which is what it's all about.

And I have no doubt that Dave & I will play on the DTD site when it opens.

I have had a dozen or more PM's & e-mails asking why it is I continue to mention, on the Forum & elsewhere, that I still play on Wm Hill, Blue Square, Laddies, Sporting Odds, ditto ditto ditto.

These well-intentioned questions miss the point entirely. We are never going to be a one-stop-shop, "blonde cardroom or nothing" place, we will always want to disseminate info on ANY or ALL Cardrooms, because that's the nature of blonde. (Spam, of course, we won't tolerate). We want poker players to visit blonde to keep up-to-date with the wider poker community, & if they can continue to do that here, well, the odd one or two may well feel able to join our Cardroom.

Well said Iron.

"Small players" are what we desire. "Keeping the blonde community spirit, & transferring it tio the Cardroom" is critical.

Play el blondie, or The Rookie, for $5 or $50 or $500. Play jen or sloppy or ifm for $5 or $10 - jeez, these $5 SNG's have been more fun than anything I can recall. Where else can pokerists get that? It's as much about fun as money. Chili whopped El Blondie tonight at $10 Heads-Up - that means a POT to Chili, or her ilk.

We don't need to do expensive Marketing campaigns, or give shed-loads of "incentives" away - we have more than enough going for us if we remember how we got where we are.

If folks will only join if we give them financial "incentive", welll, frankly, they are not our target market.

And totalise, as ever, is right on the mark, especially his paras 4 & 5.

Thanks Laz. Some of these "add-ons" to our Live Updates are currently being evaluated, watch this space!

Blonde is a brand; a small niche brand at the moment, but a brand none the less.  In my experience it is unique in its 'feel' and community spirit. 

The moment you charge for access to the forum you  become exclusive rather than inclusive in spirit and the brand would be dead in a month.  90% +  of members have less than 100 posts.  How many would pay a subscription rather than revert to lurk mode?  Preventing lurkers would be even worse - no-one would ever join.

Any battle fought on financial muscle  would be hopeless, including rake wars. Better to stand aside and be different, even if any individual initiative (such as the card room) has to be tested and then abandoned if it doesn't make a contribution.

Blonde needs to generate income from leveraging its user base through paid advertising, merchandising, the new poker site, joint initiatives with compatible partners such as Cincins/DuskTillDawn, etc. whilst continuing the growth in members by playing to its strengths:

1. English language, so it is accessible to the largest possible audience (particularly for the live updates which probably generate a significant number of first time visitors);

2. Brilliant live updates that combine the factual stuff with some wonderful 'colour' background,  banter and  inter-reaction with the online railbirds;

3. Contributions from the full range of players from  purely social players to the top level pros and from novices to  ;tk; and all points in between;

4. Strongly moderated so that no-one needs to don their flameproof overalls before giving their view - and I'm not on my high horse here as I have had my knuckles rapped  (and still have the tyre tracks across my back)!

5. A number of key contributers who are top notch in their field, whether it is poker expertise, wonderful writing (not necessarily poker-related), humour, mickey-taking, railbirding or pie-eating.

Making a commercial success of Blonde won't be easy in a crowded marketplace, but the foundations are there in my view.
 
I'd better stop now as I've used up my 2006 quota of 'nice' and I'll make myself throw up if I go on any longer.  Back to being a grumpy old curmudgeon from now on.  ;goodvevil;

Bobby knows this business inside out, & I am much heartened that he sees it the same way that we do.

Turnover means naff all to me, big does not necessarily mean beautiful.

Turnover is Vanity, financial prudence is sanity.

Tikay, just to clarify where i'm coming from.
I assumed the cardroom was meant to be a way to support the main site/forum/live updates etc. and therefore attracting as many players to the skin as possible is the aim.
You yourself questioned Rob because he may not have been maximising his business strategy, it turns out he is prepared to do it his way or no way which is commendable.
I want this place to succeed more than many folks on here and i will add my tupppence worth to that end.
So if you want help handing out flyers or anything else i will :D
(though when i was a kid i used to deliver free papers......straight into a bush lol).

I have just had a look at the action points incentive and to be honest it's possibly even better than rakeback.  Than the rakeback i get on tribeca at the moment anyway.

I play a fair bit of cash and earnt 260 K action points last month, which equates to about $800 in rakeback.  On the blonde site, my action points would get quadrupled giving me over a million per month, just short of a 20 inch LCD TV which retail pretty close to $800.  Within three months i'd be able to get a brand new laptop.

So don't dismiss the bonus scheme completely, looking into it its a good scheme and much, much better than anything offered by Victor Chandler for example who don't offer any sort of rakeback or action point duplication.

Turnover is Vanity, financial prudence is sanity, London is urbanity.


Well you try thinking of something that rhymes with sanity

Bobby, it's patently obvious to anyone with half a brain cell. Many sites are spending more than they can afford, they are glory-huinters who just want their name in lights. Read the poker mags & count the Ads, then work out what the cost must be.

Meanwhile, the ingenuity, not to say complexity, of some of the schemes some sites come up with to attract players, would be laughed at in any half  decently run business.

The best sites don't bother with these - they go for quality of product, and first class Customer Support. It will take us a while to get there, but that's the goal.

And I repeat my earlier Doomsday warning - some small sites WILL fail in the near future, taking punters cash with them. Listen to the howls of anguish then!

A while back, when interest rates were, say, 5%, a certain Mr Clowes was offering "investors" 10%. Many was the gullible fool who rushed in at this "too good to miss" offer. They lost their cash - quite obviously - & he done a few years inside. Poker Sites are no different, it's a simple equation of income versus expenditure.

We will keep our outgoings low, even if it means missed opportunity. It's safer that way!

Hehe, our special buddy 12BarBlues has got the temperature right too. At least, I think he has. How are you big man?

I'm fine!  It's just my bankroll that is sick  :D

I've just re-read that guff I spent ages writing.  A better version would be:

''Blonde is different.  Play to your strengths - stay different.''

There, 30 seconds instead of an hour!

Profanity?

ifm - I know where you are coming from, be sure of that. You have a special place on blonde, and your feedback is as welcome as any, more than many. Indeed your Post has, in effect, been the catalyst for some tremendous debate in this thread.

You are RIGHT. It is, first & foremost, a means of paying for running blonde, & all that entails. But it ain't necessarly the case that we need to attract a lot of players to do that. Plenty of low-stakes action, and a few high-rollers, is all we need, & we think we can attract them without spending a bomb on advertising or incentives. If we keep our Overheads to a minimum, the cardroom wiil generate all that we need. But it won't if we give away 75% of our anticipated income via "incentives" & the like, because then we have to attract 4 times as many players! That would make us "busy fools", turnover holds no interest to me whatsoever.

It astounds me how much money is wasted on advertising. They used to say that Mr Colman, of Colmans Mustard fame, built his (very considerable) fortune on what was left on the side of plates. Advertising is similar. 95% of Marketing spend is wasted. Trouble is, nobody even knows where the 5% is.......

To be honst WelChief, I have not got my head round the "action points" scheme, but you have convinced me!

Well the actual maxim is......

Turnover is Vanity.

Profit is sanity.

But CASH IS KING.

That applies to any commercial organisation, be it a poker cardroom, or an ice-cream factory, and it's universal.

Jeez, I'm delivering some sermons tonight. I apologise, but "business" is my thing, with thinking outside the box my speciality act. I'll shut up now, I promise.

I just wanted to post and say what a great thread this is, it really shows blonde for what it is, a fantastic community where opinions may not be shared but are respected.

I can see why you were a successful businessman Tony.

One of the real issues for online sites is marketing, i cannot remember the exact cost of an advert in say PIE or Cardplayer but it is at least 2-3k depending on length of agreement and loyalty of site.

 It is more expensive to advertise in the sports mags that now cover poker in a big way. I was once taken to lunch by one of these new mags, the sales girl was very thorough but she made the mistake of showing me the rate card after we had ordered the food. This was a new mag and she wanted 16k for an advert on the back cover. I actually laughed and told her she had to be kidding,the problem is these mags are getting that many sites advertising in them that they can keep putting the price up because nobody wants to be left behind.....and someone somewhere will want that backpage ad. When the mag came out Pokerstars had bought it.

There is no way to track the spend in mag ads as there is no direct link to new accounts unless you use a bonus code or designed web link so it is in accounting sense'dead money'.

Imho in the position that Blonde has at the moment it does not need advertising because the level of players in the cardroom at the moment does not justify the expense of a concerted ad campaign at 2-3k a publication.

imvho what Blonde needs now is exactly what it has got and the real strengths of this site are not measurable in financial terms.

oh and in the poker site world the saying is.

player numbers for vanity, profit for sanity. ;goodvevil;

Just had a read of this interesting thread.

I think the "point" of the cardroom, after maintaining the excellence of blonde by covering its overheads, is to have a cardroom which is fun - just like the forum.

It's meant to allow the rookies to mix it up with the El Blondies and the bracelet winners. It's mean to be flame free in our SNG's like it is in our forum.

Rakeback, whilst not completely ruled out yet, is maybe something that is an incentive to the more serious player and the bonus and rake whores. To the average blonde I would like to think that the community of the cardroom is the appeal.

I for one would rather have $3 STT's where my aces get cracked by 47 (Robert you git!) but I have a laugh, than worrying about my rakeback each month. I can worry about that elsewhere.

IMO that's not the "point" of the blonde cardroom.

As tikay said, people who are just going to join up for the great rakeback deal or the huge sign-up bonus aren't really the customers we're aiming for anyway.

I agree, some great points have been made in this thread.

My only gripe with the "WSOP hands" promotion is it only benefits Hold 'em cash players. What about those of us who are O8/PLO8/PLO and SNG players?

I love that vanity, sanity saying, i'll stick it in the next presentation i do.
I do a slide (as part of the monthly presentation) and part of it is sales v budgeted sales and cash v budgeted cash.
When i say even though we had sales of £2.2m last month against a projected £1.8m our cash is £600k down some of the guys just don't understand how catastrophic it can be.
There is no point selling everything you have if you don't get paid for it.

Great thread BTW

As Rob pointed out earlier in the thread, Tribeca have recently changed their position on this and are now 'anti-rakeback'.  Doyle's Room pulled their rakeback scheme for new players as a result.

Sheriff

I have to say this is the best thread I have read.

I think BP has a great future with so many loyal and passionate supporters. I have owned advertising agencies for nearly 20 years and have rarely seen such a community spirit.

I made my point earlier and I stick by it but I respect and admire the feelings of the posters and hope that BP continues to grow.

 :D :D :D :D

Yes, Prima have also been anti-rakeback for new players since the start of the month. Also, the basis behind the whole Party/Empire split a while back was Party trying to kill rakeback on their network - all the Empire sharks (who were on rakeback deals) were encouraged to signup with Party as all the fish had been taken away from Empire.

These sorts of things are indicative of the online poker market moving into the consolidation phase - we're moving out of the initial 'landgrab' phase where new poker rooms can emerge and establish big markets. We're now seeing the big players look to lock in profits and market share. It will be increasingly difficult for a new poker room to emerge who could grow to the size of Party/Pokerstars without the big boys taking measures against them (witness how Ultimatebet crushed Pokershare when the newcomer starting enticing the UB players away).

Of course, that won't affect Blondepoker - there's enough room in the market for niche rooms to tick along with a tidy profit.

bobby1 says......

player numbers for vanity, profit for sanity.

Not heard that one, but it'll do nicely!

I like this phrase so much that I'm going to steal it for future use.

Completely agree with 12barblues's debauking of robyong's suggestion to charge blonde users an annual fee. I believe that such a thing would destroy the blonde as we know it. The community that has been built would slowly crumble.

It's the best poker forum not because of the excellent live updates, not because of the bang-up moderators, nor the fine work done on the technical side of things, although this all helps. Blonde is #1 because of all the blondites.

A lot of us get a fair bit out of blonde, but we also put a lot in. Blonde would not be what it is today without the sterling contribution of it's 2,910 members. If we were ever charged for using this forum, even if it was just £1 a year, I, for one, would be mortally offended and promptly bugger off elsewhere. I was mightily relieved to hear Tikay state that he was dead against the idea.

Having said that, I'm happy to support blonde, because I choose to, not because I have to.

There's a difference between playing recreationally and playing for a living. It's possible to do both.
I'm not about to switch to blondepoker to play all my games. I'll still earn my daily crust at my chosen site, but will use blondepoker's skin for most of my recreational play.

Whilst harping on about the fine community spirit, probably a mistake not to say......

 :hello: thachipmover  ;welcome; to Stepford

We all got a little sidetracked, nobody said that I don't think.

Well done on prompting an interesting debate with your first post.