blonde poker forum

Hi.

On Friday, BlondePoker Web Ltd received in writing 3 months notice of Termination of our Contract with Aqua/i-poker.

The document was a complex one – 15 pages long, full of equations & algorithms, but the gist of it was that, on aggregate, the blonde players are winning players. This is, it seems, not acceptable under far-reaching reorganisation plans at i-Poker.

They went on to explain, & demonstrate, that, as an example, once the new arrangements come into place, our performance in October would have resulted in a fine in the region of $30,000, based on how much our players won. The Net Rake which accrued to blonde was about $7,000 I think, so we’d be on a net loss of some $20,000+. Because our players were winning.

We are also facing Chargebacks in massive numbers, & we have no control over them. In the latest month, these were in excess of $15,000. All dead money, which we have to pay.

This needs to be seen in the context of a number of things, which I intend to set out below.

Everything we know pertaining to the issue, will be on the Thread. We will answer all questions as fully as our knowledge permits, & honestly. There is such a bewildering array of figures, I may get some of them wrong, & Kev or Tighty will qualify or correct them where necessary.

We are happy to share the 15 page Document we received, but it’s on an Adobe (PDF?) Document, & personally, I seem unable to copy it. If “interested parties” wish to see it, just  ask, & we will forward it to them via e-mail.

I will detail below the “story so far”, warts & all.

This will include plans for blonde life after i-Poker – the options available to us.

The Chargebacks*

More than a year ago, under a previous regime, the Terms of our Aqua deal were modified, to give us an extra 2.5% Rake. We were not aware that in exchange, responsibility for Chargebacks transferred to blondepoker. Which was unworkable, as we did not have control over who Deposited money on blonde, nor did we have any means of ensuring that Aqua exercised a Duty of Care to control these Chargebacks, or pursue them.

Each month these hit us in bigger & bigger numbers – first a few grand a month, gradually growing. We tried to plug the loopholes, by banning certain Deposits, from overseas for example, & reducing more & more the upper limit of Deposits. Eventually, every Deposit had to be approved by Kev or Tighty. But still the Chargebacks kept coming, as it would appear these can arrive as long as six months after the event.

As you can imagine, the dialogue between Aqua & ourselves was intensive, & both Parties were 100% aware of the scale of this problem. Aqua eventually conceded that there was some sort of industry-wide scam in operation, & other skins were also suffering.

Even so, given the dialogue, it was something of as shock to be told last week that another $15,000 of Chargebacks had somehow appeared, & we had to pay Aqua for these. Our ire was because we felt Aqua may have warned us that these were being incurred, instead of informing us many months later.

I believe – Kev or Tighty will confirm – that these Chargebacks exceed $40,000 in 2009.

•   Chargebacks are, in effect, the cost of fraudulent or improper Credit Card transactions.

We have winning Cash players. This is bad.

Flushy has been busy trying to recruit some rake-generators – big cash players. Tournament Reg Fees don’t amount to much, it’s Cash Rake that brings the income really.

He found us a cash player recently who, inadvertently & innocently, bought things to a head., by winning about $30,000 in October, & bringing his Deposited Account value up to over $50,000.

He rang Flushy last weekend (14th-15th November) to say he could not access his blonde Account. Kev get on the case, only to be told by Aqua that yes, they had locked his Account, as he had won too much…….this in turn would means fines for Aqua, which they would pass onto blonde.

We were a bit taken aback at this. This man has had his Account closed because he won money at Poker!

In a robust exchange of views with Aqua, (we have a written transcript of the MSN Convo which I have no objections to Posting on this thread) Aqua suggested it might be a good idea if we found some players who would be prepared to “lose”. (Their inverted commas).

So Flushy had to ring his man & tell him his Account had been closed. The guy was fine with it. “No prob, I’ll transfer to another i-Poker skin where I can get more rake anyway, I was only trying to help blonde”. Bizarre that he could go to another i-Poker site, and get moré rake, but we had to lose him because he helped make our aggregate player position profitable!

The Deposit/Withdrawal Fine System.

Put simply, if our players, in aggregate, withdraw more than they deposit (i.e., win overall) we get fined.

So, Flushy’s man had no option but to withdraw his account Balance – he had to, his Account had been closed!

But when he attempted to, he was refused. He rings Flushy, Flushy rings Kev/Tighty, da de da.

We contacted Aqua & they said yes, that’s correct. We cannot allow him to withdraw all that money as it will throw the ratios the wrong way, Aqua will get fined, & blonde will have to pay those Fines.

But…..the man has WON THAT MONEY, so he must be able to withdraw it immediately. Aqua refused, & set out a schedule whereby the guy could withdraw it drip-feed fashion, a few thou per week, to stay within the ratios. Not an easy convo for Flushy to have with his man, but again, it went OK – surprisingly, to my mind, as I’d be a “bit cross” if it were me.

Here’s what we were told…..

“…..If we release all of (Player Name) Withdrawals (approx. 57,679.94 USD) at this point, we are certain to get fined as the gap would be too big and no amount of deposits would be able to overturn this situation in a 2 weeks time frame.
We will therefore release his pending Withdrawals depending on the amount of deposits we are getting in from other Skins.
I know this is perhaps not the best of answers but again, we have no other alternative or else we will get fined. …”

The Meeting.
The e-Mails were now flying in all directions, really heavy stuff, respect to Kev & Tighty, it was ugly stuff.

I was in the loop via e-Mails & ‘phone calls, Rich needed  decisions from Flushy & I, & so I decided a Shareholder Meeting was needed urgently. We convened in Luton at Noon on Thursday.

We decided we would accelerate our plans to look somewhere other than Aqua for our Cardroom. Tighty has been trying to find somewhere for a year now, but it’s not easy. We are small, & we need a Network with Liquidity. He is currently in quite advanced talks with 2 suitable parties, though we don’t know if it will work out yet.

We also discussed alternatives. Run blonde as an Affliate Site – a bit like THM -  or forget all revenue streams & just run the Forum. The Forum is separate from the Company, & the Server Costs, about £230 per month, are paid by me. (Previously Tighty). So come what may, the Forum could continue if we or I so wished. But blonde has two Employees to pay, Kev & Rich, so an income stream is needed to pay them. And we need to try & generate operating profits, to justify Flushy’s decision to sink a bunch of money into the Company. (About £60,000 I think).

We resolved to step up our search for an alternative poker Platform, or different business Model (Affiliate Site, etc) & each of us left the Meeting on Thursday with an Action List. That Action List is…..

1)   Rich is in quite advanced talks with two parties, one of whom is someone we have worked with successfully & happily over a long-time. He is meeting one of them tomorrow (Tuesday) & will pursue the other avenue urgently

2)   Flushy is dealing with a party who may wish to purchase blonde in it’s entirety. This proposal has been around for a while, but it has increased relevance now, so we are stepping up the discussions

3)   I have been tasked with discussing a potential solution with “x”, & I will do that tomorrow.

We will get commercial offers, for sure. Whether they are viable remains to be seen. As a non-profit entity, the Forum is not really under threat as such. But a commercial solution is needed to protect the Staff, & Flushy’s investment in the Company. For complex reasons, I’d quite like to protect the value of my Shares, too, as they are, in effect, collateral for some wage debts blonde has incurred, & if the Company cannot pay those debts, I want to be able to sell my Shares to pay those debts.

The Aftermath.

On Friday, the letter arrived giving us 3 months notice. It came from…..

Cytech Limited
Comapny No 22500. (That is their spelling of “Company”, not mine, which I thought odd).
1934 Driftwood Bay
Belize City
Belize

It contains the very complex algorithms that I-Poker use to assess suitable – losing – Skins. The i-Poker Logo says ”i-Poker – always a full house”.

I was actually very pleased with this – problem solved. Because now our players can withdraw player Deposits without us being Fined, or Aqua saying “no you can’t” one would assume, as players will want, & have the perfect right, to withdraw, if the Room is imminently closing.

We wrote to Aqua to conform this. They replied….

“…..The balances left in the system in mid February will be returned to the players, and we will be speaking to iPoker to confirm that there will be no adverse affects from this.
I apologise if this is a little vague at the moment, but a lot how we proceed may be influenced by your requirements……”

So we don’t have a clean answer as to whether we will get Fined, because our Players will all have to withdraw, & we’ll have no Deposits, so our Deposit/Withdrawal ratio will be “bad”. But there is no risk to players Deposits whatsoever, so far as I can tell.

Rich replied to that this morning – this is all very “now”  thusly…..

“….As to our requirements, not sure yet. Depends on where we want to go and will need to advise.
 
As per Friday if you could confirm please that any withdrawals can go through unfettered from this point (given that we are being forced to leave) and also loyalty scheme payments will be paid as per normal in the few months before termination please….”

I have been poking around over the weekend to see if any players on other i-Poker skins are facing the same problems. I did hear of one who claimed he had been told he could not withdraw “on demand” (in deference to Deposit/Withdraw Ratios) but I’ve no evidence to support that.

So that’s where we are, really. It is what it is.

The whole thing is beyond my understanding. Why should we have to recruit losing players? Why should winning players be a bad thing?

We can see nothing in our Contract that covers this, other than “catch-all” Clauses that say they can do whatever they want, standard commercial legalese.

I think the clue is at the bottom of the letter we received, on every page.

“Registered under the laws of Belize”.

hello tony

Wow if you hadn't only just returned I'd say aggressive things about ipoker but I'll just wish them a fast demise. Utterly ridic.

Where will the blonde cardroom be moving to?

Hello Rick. ;)

It has yet to be decided. See notes above.

Is my money safe?

How much can I withdraw if it is?

Sorry to hear about this but forgive me for thinking of myself here.

VC have kicked a bunch of winning players off their site, a couple of threads about it on 2+2

this is prob the best thing that could have happened no? they kick you off they can't fine you anymore

trouble with affliiate thing is that we are all already signed up everywhere, need new forum members/new players, also need to give RB to be competitive ldo. why not do under the table iPoker RB :)

GL

I think - if I read it right - that you can withdraw and will need to but this is being allowed by i-poker whereas before they were stopping the withdrawals...I think.

Hi Eck

There is no indication that money is anything other than safe. As you can see above the cage has indicated that all balances will return to customers as the end of the notice period

Withdrawals now, as you can also see I am urgently seeking an answer to that. I would hope no problem in withdrawing anything now but until I have it in writing that they will allow this as of course they should, then I am in the same boat as you

The trick would be to go an affiliate route where the degree of overlap with our players exisiting accounts is small, or where some arrangement is made to classify players with us

Don't also think any under the table rb on IPoker survives too much longer

Could go to a new network and open up a new skin but the set up costs are HUGE relative to likely income, liquidity is low on a lot of the networks accepting business, and we lack economies of scale to cope with those costs.

Thanks Rich

Hadn't fully read all of the above.

Is this even legal?

Gl Tikay/Tighty et al in fighting these phuqqin crooks.

Half serious comment. Give us £xxxk and I'll find out. Might get a trip to Belize out of it lol

as if online poker didn't have enough of a bad reputation already - it's unbelievable that providers can restrict people from playing simply because they are winning players. for me, that kinda brings the whole credibility of online poker into question.

Would I be right in saying that the best thing for Blonde at the moment would be for everyone to wait on withdrawing their balances until you get things confirmed ?

Obviously, knowing that the cardroom is closing imminently means players want their money out, but I don't want to do that straight away if it has a potential impact on you guys in the way of more fines.

As long as the balance is safe in the cage and will be returned at the end of the notice period, I'm happy to wait.


I'm not talking about much money for me personally, but a lot of small balances all adds up, I guess.

Belize -  'owned' by Lord Ashcroft, who also lists the Conservative Party as one of his many aquisitions in the not too distant past!

bit of a silly question really but are these 2 team qualfiers still getting played in next couple days for APAT team championship, thought here would be best place to ask.

Just to re-affirm that one, as it's critically important to the Players.

All the Players will get all of their money. There is no suggestion whatsoever to the contrary.

What remains unresolved is if blonde will be Fined because the Withdrawals will obviously outweigh the Deposits, & thus we wil be in breaach of the mysteriously unfathomable Ratio Rules. You should see the algorithm!

So the Players will get their money, but blonde may end up with a whacking great fine. The lesser of two evils really.

I've got no money in blonde at the moment and you can be sure i won't be giving i poker another penny after reading this. Hope you guys manage to get something sorted out elsewhere soon. All sounds very shady to me but i'm guessing the costs of getting this to a courtroom are just too much to consider and it's 'safer' just to cut the losses and get out.

Yes

ok np's

Yes very much so, thanks


However once we were informed we have to announce with a duty of care to the players we have and once we have announced we accept that players are going to be nervous and some will want to withdraw

The financial consequences of people withdrawing might be unattractive if fine ratios are not waived but got to be open about what is going on

and one more spot up for grabs now

I wonder if Mr Channing and the other owners of Blackbelt Poker are on a similar deal with i-poker. One of their unique selling point was to offer coaching and tutorials rather than rakeback.The upshot being that the more players they tutor to become winning players the bigger the fine they will get from i-poker!

I should point out that the blonde league http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=45351.0 WILL be going ahead as planned, first game Tomorrow night at 8.30pm.

Right, spam over ... From a personal point of view, I am absolutely staggered by the way ipoker run their business, it has been apparent for a long time that they did not want small skins on the network and were coming up with x,y and z to make it impossible for the small skins to earn a wage .... they got their share though, oh by christ did they ... 30/40k of rake, out of which after fines and charge backs we were getting a couple of grand on a good month, a couple of hundred on a bad month, and we owe them on a terrible month !!!

Why do they want all the players on 3 or 4 big skins ? ... well I don't know tbh, the liquidity on the network isn't affected,so why ? ... I suppose you could look at the skins recently moved to ipoker and wonder if in their negotiations they asked for this to happen, who knows, we can only speculate.

I have been proud to run the cardroom on blonde and proud to have gained us a reputation for great customer service and speedy responses to any problems ... this will of course continue right up until the day comes when we leave ipoker ... lots of things are being discussed and lots of avenues need exploring, at the moment we have no defined plans.   I hope to be involved in the future with blonde in any capacity, we will just have to see what happens.

I would also like to thank everyone who has ever played on blonde, and remind you again that it is business as usual for the time being and I fully intend on winning the league !!

Good luck at the tables

Kev.

Likewise, what sort of deal are Badbeat on? They have their own skin, Grandslam, and common sense would suggest they have a massive % of winning players.

best solution fine wise would be a transfer to another site with bankrolls intact not sure how likely that will be
or pokerstars buying out blonde gving flushy and tikay loads of money and pokerstars the best forum in the UK

Good Post from Kev, & respect to him for doing a great job underr exacting circumstances, ditto Tighty.

A riminder that the current blonde League WILL continue, & there is the added value of free entry into January's 20-20 DTD Weekend. It's on the table, help yourself.

Do all poker networks and cashiers do this to the skins?

It sounds completely looney to me. Do the players (and the skins/poker sites) not pay rake to use the network? I can't see what difference it makes which site has winning players. Sure Blonde Poker probably takes more out than it puts in but it's not ipoker who is paying the players anyway, the money they win comes from other players and therefore means more hands are being played and the rake goes up. Also Blonde poker players probably have a higher volume than most other sites so they generate more rake I would have thought?

I am sure it is more complex than this but I can't see why Blonde should get a penalty for bringing high raking players to the network, players who can be relied upon to return month after month and continue to make money for ipoker.

Hopefully Tikay/Kev/Tighty can find a new network as losing the blonde cardroom would be terrible. Either way I will not be playing on ipoker after Blonde leaves the network.

problem is the big boys object to the fact they spend much more money on bringing in players  then the smaller sites attract the big rakers cheaply by saying look you can play all these fish and its easy to win money thats why noiq was kicked off earlier in the year

In reply to Rod...

Amazingly, the Player who had his Account forcibly closed simply transferred to.....another i-poker skin.

One player, via PM, asked for a copy of the Termination Letter & back-up docs from Cytech, & I have forwarded it to him.

Happy reading Sir. Don't wanna spoil the ending, but it all ends in tears.

I heard this morning from an impeccable sourcer that one Skin (NOT on i-Poker) gets a Monthly Bonus because it has, in aggregate, losing players.

It pays to lose appasrently.

So if we could send all our players busto, we'd be just fine. And we are having a jolly good try.

this is what confuses me...and is a perfect example of how greedy people can fuck up a perfectly good business model.

cardrooms are in general risk free. Apart from your operating costs, there is never any chance of someone hitting the jackpot on your coin. all the money being played for, is the players own money. Its a win win situation - someone wins a million dollar tournament on your skin, then you get all the publicity, and good vibes without it costing you anything. unlike for example, if someone gets a 10 horse accumulator up at willie hills, then they will stand there and present the cheque, albeit through gritted teeth.

so whats gone wrong ? i am interested as to what actually happens when say for example 1000 players each stump up 20 bucks on their favourite skin to play an MTT. say for example, 10 of those players are on blonde, and 990 are on blue square. And a blonde player takes down the tourney for 8 grand.

where does this money come from ? Do all the tourney fees for all the skins go into a shared pot ? Or so blonde/aqua have to stump up the 8 grand for the winner ?

i am genuinely interested in the answer to this.

Laz - the Prize Pool sits in a "collective pool", & the winnings come from that - NOT the Skin of the winning player.

The problem is not really Tourney-Related, as almost nobody makes serious money in Online Tourneys, & blonde players are no exception. The problem is winning Cash Players. In blonde's case, the Player who was winning big was 99.9% certain to be playing against players on another Skin/'Site, as we have very few big Cash Players.

Laz, players put up money for an MTT the prize money is generated by the tourney buy ins. Players pay a rake and that is split between network and skin.

Its really amazing that companies get away with operating that way.

It does really show the sense in Betfair and Sky Poker operating their own software (as bad as it may be :) ) if these are the options.

but does the same principal not apply for cash games as for tournies ? that all the money generated by a cash game  goes into a collective pool, and the winning players are paid from that.


i am just struggling to see the justification of a penalty for winning players, because it doesnt cost the skin any extra since their winnings come from losing players.

I am not sure how relevant this is :
ecoop
 if there is a overlay who makes up differance ?

Hugh

card-rooms, pro rata according to their size in the preceding period

The issue is one of competition within the network

One might assume that IPoker actually owns two large skins and thus it wants to get as much business onto those skins as possible, and prevent players leaving those skins and playing on smaller skins

In essence IPoker is moving away from a skins model

No matter that we do not spend a penny on marketing, and pay rakeback less than many on the network, we are caught in the cross fire of those rooms who do and are seen as unfairly competing with Ipoker's favoured/owned skins (through which it makes a fortune)

In what order are the biggest cardrooms on Ipoker?

BlueSq top?

Prob VC no?

Titan, I think.

i am really struggling to get my head around this. the whole things reeks of 'anti-trust' and anti-competition.

you should see the letter they were sent its quite a read :O

so many numbers n algorithm's

I'd love to test the legals, but no resources to do so after the year we've just had

if they are kicking you off the network why not just refuse to pay the fines?

Will be testing the legals that way!

Shame BlondePoker could not go down same route as Blackbelt & have white skin from BoylePoker , maybe worth you guys looking into this

Not sure if this has been posted above...

If flushy really wanted his money out in one go couldnt he just 'lose it all' to one of his mates who is on another skin and just get it in a bulk sum that way?

Also if someone won big in one of the ECOOP off blonde then there might be no chance to cash out?

I wondered this. Why not get all your players to set up an affiliate deal with another iPoker skin, ideally one on a CPA basis, then get them all to play HU with their rolls against these new accounts, lose, get the affiliate payment and withdraw all the wonga from another skin.

Nice and simple with no potential repercussions at all

PHA has made all Blonde players big winners imo

I'm confused by that. What money? (serious question). I'm not aware he has large sums deposited on blonde Cardroom, in fact I'm sure he has not.

Anyone that has a significant sum on blonde could 'lose' it to a reputable blonde on another site..........

Will the SAS scheme be effected by this?

Sorry if this has already been addressed above, only scanned the thread and about to go back to the start as my head hurts trying to make any sense of it.

think he's talking about flushys mate the winning cash player

In a word, Yes.

I will be writing to the guys who are already on the scheme tonight.

Possibly/presumably/hope so, but that's not what he said.

To be honest, all therse "dump off" theories are all well & good until anti-collusion detects them & confinscates the proceeds - & they might.

We 100% suggest NOBODY DOES THAT. Do so at your own risk & peril if you do.

...bit hopefully reinstated if/when we transfer to another Network/Site.

ipoker do not want their cash rooms full of rakeback grinders and professionals.

Which makes sense when you look at the big picture. Ie new, amateur players are the lifeblood of the network, if they stumble across a 6 max cash game with 5 professional sharks, they are going broke, usually very quickly, in a maximum of 4 weeks, possibly never to return to the game, which is devastating for the long term growth of the network

on the other side of the coin, you have smaller sites, strugglng to make ends meet, paying under the counter rakeback deals in excess of 50% with the sole reason of attracting the same players that ipoker does not want, the high volume pros

the result being an unavoidable collision beween site owners and struggling smaller ipoker skins

unfortunately i cant see any compromise, the industry is not growing anymore, ipoker is continuing to clamp down on what they perceive to be the the parasites of game, and smaller skins have no other viable routes to make a living

ipoker wants the smaller sites out, they have the legals all tied up, it looks like game over im afraid

What happens if there's an overlay in a tourney? Do the skins cover it or ipoker?

Try harder Tikay.

I'd suggest you start by spending more time on PHA.

Overlays on guaranteed comps are shared between skins on a % basis which is bloody complicated, but for skins such as ours the cost is relatively small.


Other things like the Omaha rake races and other promos are a cost to the skin, again it is on a % basis, most of these we try to participate in.

Pfft! I may have been away, but I can still spot a wind-up.

sorry yes i did mean his mate

Welcome back mate.... ;D

Good to see you Bud. Where were you yesterday? - I drove all the way to DTD just to see you, & you were not there!

No worries. I do NOT recommend he tries that though.

Is Aqua that is mentioned in this thread, AquaGaming?

OK, I'll abandon the trial for now then and restart when it all settles down.

Aqua is the cage that we use on the ipoker network Matt

I was out with the dog. Went for a walk in the Country. Little place called Ticknall that you probably haven't heard of. Really nice little village and fields and trees everywhere.

Much more entertaining than poker if I'm honest. You'd obviously be more than welcome.

I'll be there for the £300 weekend so hopefully will see you then.

Ticknall - course I know it. Been in the Reservoir there. And I do mean IN it.

I cannot play the £300 Main, as I am booked to work every Saturday now until next Spring, but I'll play the Sunday 2nd Chance Jobbies.

Ah, I see. Thanks. Best of luck with sorting this problem out / moving somewhere new.

I didn't get to see the resevoir. We just walked in the woods. I drove back past it I think but it was dark by then. I guessed it was some kind of resevoir anyway. Is there a low stone wall lining the road that goes on for ages?

It certainly had the feel of being an area of water. My sat nav went blue as well which was a bit of a clue.

I was a bit jealous of the whole area tbh. I love Wollaton but it's like a big city there compared to Ticknall. I could happily live there.

Your efforts to prevent this happening are much appreciated  ;)

Mantis is an Aqua spy? I knew it!!!

 >:(

Such a sick rubdown.

Serious answer though is that he cant do that anyway as his account has been locked, he cant actually log in!!

On a side note Tikay/Rich i will send an email later (i literally got up 15 mins before the ECOOP started) but hopefully another avenue for us.

Ipoker are crooks.  Blonde owners hold your heads high you clearly have your players best interests at heart.  I very much doubt any player money is at risk here although playtech seem to be taking huge libertys with it.  Its a shocking attitude from Playtech and the best thing we can do is just play elsewhere.  GL to all involved sorting blonde out in this mess.

Look forward to it JD. Been quite a day, one way & another.......I'm seeing the other people tomorrow, & Rich has his meet, too. We'll be turning away offers by tomorrow night. Maybe.....

this true?


from

http://www.egrmagazine.com/news/254667/playtech-poker-chief-rakeback-price-war-killing-the-industry.thtml

Not quite,playtech own 30% of william hill online,which is a subsidiary of william hill.

I must address this, the thrust of which I agree with, and put blonde's card-room in context with it

blonde originally started a card-room in 2006, via a company called Bowmans on the Tribeca software (RIP, long gone but never forgotten)

Subsequent to that Aqua bought Bowmans and a blonde shareholder at the time negotiated a new contract. Also IPoker bought the Tribeca software and closed it down

We thus inherited a relationship with IPoker rather than actively sought one. I personally through two years have found them virtually impossible to work with.

In October 2008 IPoker began its process of cracking down on unscrupulous competitive activity from its skins via fines policies. After an initial hiccup becuase our configuration of players was not naturally aligned with the interests of the network, I am actually proud to say we have not incurred a fine since November 2008 because we have done what we can to stay within the policies.

Now IPoker is introducing a new network policy from January 2010, which characterises each of their players as "sharks" or "fish". I kid you not. No matter that we operate within the previous policy our mix of players (you are all sharks) is such that the auto fine generated by the calculation they are introducing makes it impossible for us to make any money from the card-room.

Returning to clarkatroid's post, we've not put in place unacceptable levels of rakeback. Indeed many of our players play with us to support us despite better inducements elsewhere on IPoker, we're not "parasites" leeching off the marketing efforts of the big boys and nicking their customers. It just so happens that we have some customer loyalty and a forum that helps us promote cheaply.

However under Ipoker's policy we are lumped in as "undesirable"

You really couldn't make it up, and its been an unwinnable battle for some time now, at substantial cost to the company and personal cost to its staff and shareholders and then you have to consider the chargebacks with no audit trail available to us which have cost us thousands. These chargebacks have been a bit like trying to put a big balloon into a small box. You squeeze one part in, try and close the lid and another part pops out. Completely unmanageable.

As to Ipoker ownership, well its a matter of public record that Wm Hill bought Playtech, and a matter of firm speculation that IPoker owns Titan. Somewhere in deepest Tel Aviv where IPoker is based, all this makes sense. However logically insisting that every operator on the network has losing players overall does not lead to a successful and sustainable network.

Ah, the iPoker Network Policy.  The most recent incarnation is indeed a sight to behold.  Maths had always been a strong point of mine but I gave up halfway through reading it and will have to return to it later in the week.

As clarkatroid was saying, unfortunately Playtech have been somewhat forced into taking some drastic action to try and combat the rakeback cannibalisation in the network.  The ideal would naturally be that everyone played fair and stuck to a cap on "loyalty bonuses" etc. but this was never really going to happen.  Therefore they have come up with the "fine the shark pools and reward the fish tanks" idea.

Personally i'm not a fan, and after getting my head round the document will put my own thoughts across.  I actually quite like an idea that Jonas Odman from Bodog (http://www.egrmagazine.com/blog/264347/weve-found-the-solution-to-the-rakeback-problem.thtml) put forward recently as their new model to avoid rakeback wars on their newly launching network.  It is similar to what Playtech is doing, but just not as aggressive.  Basically the rake generated by players is redistributed according to their win/loss ratios.  Therefore a net losing player will earn the skin much more than a net winner, with the biggest winners actually earning very little for their skin "owner".

This avoids the unfortunate scenario that Blonde find themselves in, as there would be no fines and possibility for losing - winning players just wouldn't earn them very big profits.  Interestingly this also massively affects loyalty schemes, because effectively you wouldn't be able to offer much at all for the custom of a winning player.  In some ways it is like the Betfair changes that charge the most profitable traders for using their service.  In this Bodog model, the big cash game winners will be sacrificing loyalty rewards or rakeback in return for nice fishy games created by skins spending money on marketing to bring in the casual players that will earn them the most revenue.

I wish Blonde the best of luck in finding a suitable new partner.  Happy to chat anything through if you want another opinion, although Flushie did try that on the weekend but left it too late and i was too battered to say anything sensible  :)

lol deleteaments

fyp

i've been trying to get my head round all of these algorithms and stuff laid out by iPoker and i generally would say im good with numbers but like jamie i think im gonna take some time out tommorow to properly read through the document and see if i can make light of it tbh.

hope you guys can get this sorted out :/

we need to find a way to get Guy Laliberté to sign up for a blonde account, problem solved!

Not QUITE true Rich.

In the middle of algorithms & equation that made made go dizzy ( & I am pretty cute at Maths, C & G & all that), & legalese eveywhere, it suddenly reverts to forum Kidz-Speak & refers to the future categories as.....


Large Fish

Medium Fish

Small Fish

Small Sharks

Medium Sharks

Large Sharks

Note also the Registered Company is a Registered Comapny!

just shark and fish? no category for break-even rakeback pros?

ye its the fact that its even in the header of the bloody letter!

nope the break down is pretty silly really im just currently attempting to read through this again and try get my head around it a bit more.

So what skins/Networks are you now looking at?

I'd prefer to keep that private for the time being. As soon as we have something concrete to announce we will. It is the nature of these things that a lot of phone calls are made, meetings undertaken etc and there are a few ideas from tikay in the early posts on the thread of the sort of things we are looking at

Just a quick question. Does anyone know when the withdrawal options were changed?  The way I've always done it seems to have disappeared :(

Hush you - it's you buggers that have the temerity to win that caused this problem. Can't you try a bit harder to lose? You'd be very welcome if you did. ;)

PM Kev please and he will investigate. We are not aware that any options have been removed

Cheers Tighty :) Will do

i'll be a losing player if this Cytech Comapny will pay for my losing? lol

Very interesting post. The Boss Media network policy, although pretty stict and not properly enforced (mainly with regards to rakeback) is thankfully not quite so draconian and ridiculous sounding as the iPoker one.

Well I've definitely done my bit in that respect on blonde!

!!

You & me & a few others, too.

+1

A plus to all this is that Blonde Poker players are all Sharks.... Therfore it follows that the discussion on Blonde Pokers Forum makes it the required reading for all aspiring poker players and those wishing to improve...

Seriously though this is complete tosh...as was said earlier its pure greed from the network that has caused this..

the reason that people play on ipoker's shitty software to start with was because it was a fishy network, now it's because of the RB. If they cut everyones' RB then everyone will go play on full tilt instead. I have said this before but I noticed it again today, deposited on FT to clear a bonus and the SW is a million times better than ipoker and at the stakes I play there seem to be worse players.

and also if they don't want grinders why do they let you play 16 tables at a time? going back years to when playtech were just an online casino company they were always known to be shady, party were as well, even more so tbh but they both started making so much money that i guess there was no need to steal from their customers anymore. 

These kind of ridiculous rules are going to have such a big impact on organisations such as Bad Beat, Black Belt etc. What will they do as they only ever have winning players??

I think what has probably happened is that all of the small skins have become a victim of their size. 

A while ago a few of the bigger gamning companies realised that, after adding poker rooms, their casino and sportsbetting profits were going down and the reason for this was that poker had become so popular that many of their biggest and most valuable players were playing a lot of poker and losing money.  Because they were losing to these horrible good poker players they then had less money left to be able to lose in their online casinos and on the horses, football etc and all they were getting in recompense was a tiny amount of rake and when they are members of networks that money isn't even going to someone that is one of their customers and often it is simply going into the back pocket of a poker pro.  This was the reason some big sportbetting sites left networks and, I would guess, has led them to put pressure on the networks to cut down on the winning players especially those coming from smaller cardrooms like blonde.  Of course these big gaming firms don't have the intelligence to actively go out and get big rakers and inbcrease their revenue that way.  It is very shortsighted but I have been in board meetings of big gaming firms where they have discussed this problem and how to deal with it.  Basically if a pro, or good player, wins they will never get a shot at that money and they don't like it so they try and feeze them out.

I heard the most realistic option is PKR....

Which method?

obv titan are losing player to better offers and thats why they want the other rooms shut down

titan wont be getting charged because ipoker own most of that site!  ipoker is a joke

Least you don't have to worry about that seeing as they closed all your accounts because of that scam you pulled.

suck my balls murph =]

they only closed my boyles account

This idea certainly seems to be a step in the right direction. If I understand it correctly:

Player A and B play a pot and generate $1 rake. Player A wins the pot and gets 10% of the rakeback, Player B gets 30%, the skin of player A gets 10%, the skin of player A gets 30% and the network operator gets the last 20%

I have picked these percentages from thin air btw, obviously other factors come in to play like affiliates and sign up bonuses. Am I right or have I missed the point completely?

What's wrong with the current way? e.g. 75% to 85% to skin, 15 to 25% to software provider.

Skin chooses what to do with their percentage (within network rules).

nothing but the big boys dont like it
they attact the fish by there name and advertising
while the smaller skins dont need to spend on advertising they just offer
bigger RB to the sharks who like the fish the bg boys bring in

then the sharks take all the money off the fish and the big boys have to spend more money on advertising
while the smaller sites just sit back and get rake from the big boys advertising spend

Wow, I'm famous. I use google Alerts, for business reasons, & this popped up this afternoon, from another Website called, I think, "Poker News Headlines". I don't recall being "damning", I thought I pretty much just reported the facts. Must be a bitch to be proper famous!

".....Blonde Poker, one of Europe’s most popular poker forums and websites, has been given written notice by iPoker to leave their network. The skin, which has one of the smaller player groups on iPoker, has been given three months to leave the network by iPoker.

Tony “Tikay” Kendall was damning of the decision by iPoker chiefs. Tikay, one of the founder members and shareholders of the website, said; “On Friday, BlondePoker Web Ltd received in writing 3 months notice of Termination of our Contract with Aqua/i-poker. The document was a complex one – 15 pages long, full of equations & algorithms, but the gist of it was that, on aggregate, the blonde players are winning players.”

He went on; “They went on to explain, & demonstrate, that, as an example, once the new arrangements come into place, our performance in October would have resulted in a fine in the region of $30,000, based on how much our players won. The Net Rake which accrued to blonde was about $7,000 I think, so we’d be on a net loss of some $20,000+. Because our players were winning.”

Where this leaves Blonde Poker now is unclear. The recession has certainly hit the British poker market and many are arguing that due to over-saturation of online poker rooms in the UK it is difficult for many businesses to get a foothold in the poker industry.

iPoker have yet to respond to Tony Kendall’s comments. To read the entire thread on the issue please click here.

Poker News Headlines only advertises established and well used online poker rooms on the iPoker network. Those large skins are perfectly safe to play on whether you are a winning or losing poker player!......

Ah, I guess that makes sense. I can understand it being a network priority to protect their biggest sites. Just a shame it means they have to unfairly punish the smaller ones in order to do so.

More, even!

This was on "betastic", which, though I'm not entirely sure, may be a Gaming Website.

".....Popular online poker site Blonde Poker has been told they have to leave the iPoker Network as too many of its players are winning. The shocking request, believed to be the first of its kind, will give the poker skin just three months to find a different network to operate on.

In a statement on the Blond Poker forum, co-founder, Tony ‘Tikay’ Kendall said: “On Friday, BlondePoker Web Ltd received in writing 3 months notice of Termination of our Contract with Aqua/i-poker.”

“They went on to explain, & demonstrate, that, as an example, once the new arrangements come into place, our performance in October would have resulted in a fine in the region of $30,000, based on how much our players won. The Net Rake which accrued to blonde was about $7,000 I think, so we’d be on a net loss of some $20,000+. Because our players were winning.” He went on to say.

Member’s of the forum were quick to condemn the iPoker Network’s reasons for removing Blonde Poker, with one commenting that it is “utterly ridiculous” and another questioning whether “it is even legal”.

Blonde Poker has been quick to reassure players that they will not lose any money during the fiasco....."

More still!

This was on Bluff Europe. Clever bit of kit, that "google Alerts". Free, too.

"......Blonde Poker set for iPoker axe... due to winning players
 
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
The future of online poker room Blonde Poker is in the air due to an extraordinary decision from hosts, iPoker. The iPoker network has given the skin three-months to leave the network due to them having an excess of winning players.

Writing on the Blonde Poker forum, co-founder and shareholder Tony ‘Tikay’ Kendall said, “On Friday, BlondePoker Web Ltd received in writing 3 months notice of Termination of our Contract with Aqua/i-poker. The document was a complex one – 15 pages long, full of equations & algorithms, but the gist of it was that, on aggregate, the blonde players are winning players.”


Kendall added, “They went on to explain, & demonstrate, that, as an example, once the new arrangements come into place, our performance in October would have resulted in a fine in the region of $30,000, based on how much our players won. The Net Rake which accrued to blonde was about $7,000 I think, so we’d be on a net loss of some $20,000+. Because our players were winning.


The site is in talks to find an alternative network. Players have been assured that their money is safe....."

phuh wish these news items would report that the reason we have too many winning players is because of flushys posts on PHA

Damn, google alerts is not perfect.

It just reported....

Google News Alert for: Tony Kendall

Robert Kendall, actor and author, dies at 82

Which is wrong an two counts.

he was 84 and never an actor?

The ideal world for a poker network would be one where every player was break-even in skill, ran equally averagely, and only ever dropped money to the rake i.e. into their pocket.

What actually happens is money funnels up the levels to the point where it is withdrawn from the 'poker economy' by players who actually cash-out when they win and spend the money on hookers and blow actual real world expenses.

I can see why this particularly hurts the bigger skins who are trying to attract newbies via advertising and who are suffering at the hands of smaller skins who are focusing on high volume rakeback hungry pros or semi-pros, but the way ipoker are going about managing this just seems absurd.

Of course some people will point at all this and say 'ooohh online poker is so dodgy it should be banned' but really it's a perfect illustration of why the government should be embracing the industry, getting the companies to onshore, and apply some proper, simple regulation.

Well yes, some Regulation would be nice, & ultimately, protect the players.

But really it's about messing with the free market, trying to manipulate supply & demand. Leave the market to it's own devices, & it will be fine. Interfere with free market forces & all hell will be let loose.

Agree with that.  Makes more sense to have enforceable legislation in place, rather than rely on laws of other countries who might not be completely above-board in what they enforce.  Of course, that's not to say it would be any better with the companies here.  In fact, it won't/can't happen, as they'll be taxed to buggery if they operated out of the UK.

You need to keep it pithy if you want to make the Grand Junction Chroncicle.

Lol, how very perceptive. I might just, too.

I just told someone moments ago that the way I feel right now, I may well commit murder very soon.  A selection of victims is under consideration.

Then you Posted that!

In reality, the situation that i-Poker are in, is not disimilar to that faced by many manufacturers who sell their wares through multiple distributors / retailers.
(i.e. their different customers bidding against each other for end user business, and therefore ultimately eroding margins).

I respect the fact that they are trying to take hold of the situation, and come up with a solution that is medium to long term sustainable.
Unless I am missing something, I cannot see the justification for calling them greedy / crooks - just out to make the best of their business, like most people out there.

Eeerm well we made the max deposit like 250$ then got 16k in chargebacks with no proof, what would you call them instead of crooks? That was 16k in a month, we always get 5k plus a month.

The charges are certainly OTT, but there does seem to be a clarity about their forward direction, and how they want their skins to behave - i.e. go out and recruit new players ....... players new to poker.

What has BP tried to do to achieve that............. pretty much nothing as far as I can see.

It doesn't make BP wrong in any way, but sometimes two partners have to agree to go their separate ways as they have different ideals and goals. This is one of those situations.

That really is astonishing. Somewhere there is data itemising each fraud, if they cannot show you this surely they are committing fraud against yourselves.

Wrong wrong wrong Sir, we have brought a good number of new players to ipoker, some pretty big rakers too ... we cannot however keep these players because they win ... work that one out!  Now i assume when we close, they will go to another ipoker skin and be welcomed with open arms because that particular skin has a bigger number of players so that their losers will compensate for him.

Ah, so Aqua don't have their own payment gateway?  Playtech run the cashier for you as well?

Party did the same thing IIRC. Empire/Intertops/Multi + others helped them build up their player base then Party got greedy and tossed them off the network.

Transferred on Playtech cashier about a year ago, at their/Aqua insistence

Totally incorrect. Gross rake has doubled this year, the majority of that from players new to Ipoker via us and in no way cannivalising numbers on other skins

Are you sure these bills aint coming from the Nigerian Foreign Minister?
Seriously though,if I was being hit with demands like that I would be insisting on a full breakdown and justification for every penny before paying them anything.
As you are all seasoned businessmen I assume this has been done.

Yeah don't want to harp on at you as kev and tighty have already said their piece but you couldn't be more wrong, we have aggressively sort to bring big rakers onto ipoker who haven't been on ipoker before.

Yes thanks

I have a full breakdown. Not one name I recognise, and not one penny has been recovered.

I won't go on, but its a nasty situation with zero visibility for us into the cashier and therefore not a lot to fight back with

I assume the fraudulent deposits lose their money ?

can you transfer BP so it becomes a white skin under a big skin like BoylePoker just like BlackBeltPoker  , not sure if you get as much % rake but should not suffer fines + they can deal with cashier etc for you , if not may be better for Blonde to get good affiliate deal somewhere

It dont make sence what Ipoker does with there treatment of winning cash players , maybe it is to protect thier own skins ( Titan & CDpoker ) but do they only want the skins with Sportbooks on there

No, under the t and cs of the cards it is returned to them and the chargeback falls on skin or provider depending on contract

Thank you. All options currently open including thoughts like yours quoted and progressing as quick as I can.

Cool, will watch with interest. The Merge Network looks quite good front end wise

by the way, I see this thread and the implications of it quoted on a lot of forums. All interesting stuff with some good perspectives from all sides.

If anyone reading it is interested in talking to us or effecting introductions or has innovative ideas and solutions, I'm all ears.

Please contact me on rich.prew@btinternet.com.

Yes it does, and I have spoken to them thanks. I went for a lie down after the set up cost was given to me, but still....

We don't have that choice - they stop the money at source, deduct it from what's due to us in Rake & Fees each month. So this month we ended up £7,000 negative.

We do think there was a lack of "Duty of Care" in them accepting these dodgy deposits - at nil risk to Aqua, & 100% risk to us.

Just tell them you are no longer in charge and that they need to speak to someone called Peter in Monte Carlo. It's worked for others.....

Rofl!!!

if only that would work with all other aspects of money collecting too.

I did lol at this, its so close to the truth! Rakeback is the major issue for skins of ip & the new policy on deposits/withdrawals is one way of tackling that issue which i support.
Regulation imho is desperately needed but who is going to invest in a cost that could run into millions,its survival of the fittest. Anyway back to the real world expenses.

i am pretty astonished at this.

whenever i make a deposit on BP  it shows on my bank statement as Aquapay. so they are the merchant. and BP have no visibility or control over which transactions are approved or declined. and yet BP have the ultimate responsibility of ensuring that all deposits are kosher.

what kind of crazy fucked up shady business are these people running.

Omg! just read this, Ipoker what a disgrace! how can we really trust any online poker site now...maybe it really is only safe to trust the Stars and Tilts of this world who run their own site with no skins and fines etc...or does stuff like this go on behind the scenes, maybe this is where the DOOM SWITCH comes in... ;D

hey guys, just reading all this and almost dying. I am going through the process of getting an Ipoker skin at the moment and would love to talk with some of the owners or main guys of this site. Please PM me if you dont mind chatting. Thanks

/blonde disolves
/mkdir BlondePoker2
/wipe all dept and shit hanging over
/take all users to blondpoker2

k.

I have replied to your e-Mail.

I had an almost identical e-Mail from someone else going down the same route this morning.

Good Luck to you, is all I can say!

Yup, simples.

I had the very same choice when I was 31, & refused to do it. It cost me £32,000 & my job, & left me totally boracic, but I never regretted it for one moment. In fact, I ended up better off by doing the decent thing.

It's about decency & honour, rather old-fashioned admittedly.

When a Company does that, it avoids all it's Debts, & can start the next morning, almost identical name, same crew, same staff, same everything. And someone on the other side - someone the company owed - will have lost their money. Hey-ho, that's life, eh?

In this case - Blonde Poker Web Ltd - the biggest creditor is one Richard Prew - Tighty. Because he worked without pay for over a year, & paid out of his own pocket for the Server Costs, & other incidentals.

See where I'm going with this?.......

GG Tighty???

Didnt have u down as that kinda of guy TK

Yeah I said it in a flippant manner but I know its not that simple. I just wish it didn't casue so much stress and strain on the people that run blonde as its meant to be fun and pleasent to be around. You could always backhand pay Tighty from blonde2 expenses :)

Yup, that was the idea. I kinda got that one wrong, eh?

Tighty WILL be seen right, a few others, for lesser amounts, too. A bit of it has been paid recently - fair play to Flushy who has loaned the Company the cash for that - so we are on the way.

Yup, that's me. Grinmer Kendall. I'm gonna get me a key-logger next.

Tikay

i know its still early days ...but you mentioned that you are in talks with other sites for moving Blonde...How is that going? i appreciate market sensitivities may make it difficult to comment..

Don't bother.  You wouldn't know how to work it anyway.   rotflmfao

he is still trying to work out how to use a key ring

It's going very well, embarrassingly weill actually.

We have 5 or 6 viable options,. & they have all been progressed rapidly in the last few days.

At LEAST one of them is ideal, just what we want, but we want to explore them all before we make a decision.

The work is all being done, non-stop, by Tighty, & Flushy has come up with two viable ones, too. All I do is read & reply to all the e-Mails, though my contacts in the Industry are quite useful. It's amazing how helpful they have been, too.

We will collate all the options, then convene for another Shareholders Meeting, & decide the way forward. A pretty short timescale, too.

One man with no commercial interest in this, but has been astoundingly helpful on a personal basis, is Joe Beevers. Never understimate his value to the UK poker scene.

After our chat at DTD I'm starting to spot your subtlety.

I in particular loved that one.

wp

Some see you next tuesday tried to get me with what i can only assume was a keylogger link on MSN this morning luckily their patter was just a bit too see through for me to fall for it. Pretty amazing timing really as even i can't find a poker account with a positive balance at the moment.

ok im being thick - whats a key logger?

a trojan virus that hackers get installed onto peoples PCs/laptops and then it send everything the person enters to them so they get password and access to banks and poker accounts and email etc etc etc

A man stuck in Amsterdam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging = serious answer 

LOL u should see the things we use in misuse investigations... ud never use a pc again....

lol just as blonde/aol starts behaving this happens sigh..........

Myself and MC now have RSA security tokens, gg Tikay.

Plan B, poison your DNS and capture your login details (and valid RSA token) that way, just have to log in when you do. It's been done for online banking ;)

Is there any possibility of blonde not moving anywhere, and the cardroom at least ceasing to exist?

Yes of course if I can't/don't do a deal then that is what happens

As tikay said early on in the thread, you can have a forum on its own for £200 or so a month.

However blonde is a Ltd co with shareholders and staff. You have to replace the (former) card-room income to pay staff, invest to grow and give Flushy and the other shareholders the possibility of a return in the longer term.

If you don't have a card-room, or (super)affiliate relationship into a cardroom,then how do you make it financially viable?

Forums are tricky things, tough to monetise the traffic via ads, tough to get people viewing the forum converted into revenue for sponsors..so we all have some sort of card-room/super-affiliate/multi-affiliate relationship with online poker providers whether you are talking AWOP, THM, EMS etc etc

So more GG Flushy than GG Tighty

Ongame Network is exhibiting at EGR Live in London, UK from 30 November to 1 December 2009.

Would be amazing to see blonde resurrect the good old Tribeca.

On a more serious note, I hope all this comes good in the end for Tikay/Tighty and Blonde etc as they don't deserve this as they ave given so much and tbh (myself included) a fair few of blonde members havent supported the cardroom before this episode.

If you want to attract more fish, use better bait

A $100 freeroll every night , works on some sites.

 Rest assurred, where ever you go,  I will follow

You guys run a great poker site

A bit late in the day for that kind of advice Mr Crow.

No worms for you.

A kid named Kellett.

Sorry, I'm not quite so good at the subtlety shit.

wow just read the whole thread, always had a feeling that iPoker were a load of dicks after a bad experience on CD Poker (one of the rooms which I hear they have a piece of).

oh yeah idea for new room to bring in the fish.  get acebarry to spam the worlds messages boards.  that ought to bring in dead moniez weeeeeeeee

What's he done now??

I should do this sort of thing by pm but it's more fun for me not to.

He was in Amsterdam for the Master Classics and let someone play on his laptop.

He had a key logger on his Lappy and then logged into said persons account and.....

Was that at the most recent Masters Classic the other week? Who was the other player.

You should run an online poker detective agency.

Sigh, Cos

Discretion is not exactly your watchword.

Yeah the other week, can't remember the other guys name. Not British iirc.

Detective agency would be pretty pointless - loads of people know about this. I just like outing these c-nuts.

Why should it be?

There could be several blondes who will meet this kid anywhere round the country. By outing him I might stop a blonde from getting their balance emptied in the same way.

has DI Papertits had any joy in tracking down Spacefrog yet?

Let's just say I know everything.

lol - did you PM him then? What's his name? Oh and can you ask him when he's gonna make his fecking breakfast?!

I agree with cos in this instance.  Why should't people be warned of - if nothing else - being on ones guard if they have heard something about a certain person?

It depends on the source of the rumour, if it's actually true, and what evidence you have.  If someone said the same about you (as an example), you'd be well hacked off as there'd be no foundation to it.  If it's true and can be substantiated, then yes - people should be informed.

This. And if Cos is certain that this is true (eg the police have investigated or whatever) then the facts and evidence should be presented rather than just an accusation.

/:-| /:-| /:-| /:-| /:-| /:-| /:-| /:-|

what idiot puts a key logger on there own pc/lappy

are we sure that the guy didnt just leave the remember my id box ticked?

Fair points, so its not true then?

Sorry, I thought it WAS common knowledge.

i've no idea i havent seen a poker player since Leeds
but with tighty and greeksten making seperates posts about it i think its common knowledge

but i still want to know why on earth anyone would ever key log there own lappy

Just to be awkward, I'm going to throw a +1 in here.  


I even heard bits about it in Ireland, so it's hardly a secret.  

At the end of the day, he's not a member of the blonde 'family' and nothing wrong with giving a wee heads up to our own who may not know.  

Not sending a lynch mob round to hunt the guy down, just saying, 'Lads...watch yerselves and your laptops.'

This is all diverting attenton from a Thread which is very important to blonde, & about which I have quite a bit more to tell you.

But I was the one who, rather stupidly perhaps, made an obscure reference to key-logging. So it's my fault.

1) The story has whistled round the poker world, anybody likely to be affected already knows, but it's unsubstantiated AFAIC.

2) I believe it's true, or largely so, but I have no proof. Others allege they have, I have not.

3) Name names to protect others? (Or satisfy their curiosity?). No - the guy is well known as a grimmer already, not a soul in poker, & certainly not in blonde, would trust him an inch. So there's no need, & it would be ill-advised imo.

No it is true. What motivation at all would I have to lie?

Cheers for defending me by the way Maria.

Think Kinboshi is having a braindead day or just wanted to be pointlessly obsreperous.

Also just wanted to say sorry to Tikay - I know he meant it as a discreet comment to be picked up on by those who knew but I really think other poker players have a right to know about this.

Sorry Tikay, yes I was thinking that we were hijacking the thread a little.  Apologies sir  :-*

Oh and pretty sure that tournament players will want Ongame and us cash fish will want Cake poker.

Cake Poker's the only network I can think of that allows p2p transfers (except Cereus, which I refuse to even install), and I think the SAS will work better on something like this, rather than the palaver people have to go through to get money transferred over.

My office. You need a good slap. ;)

Ahh, P2P transfers, the grimmers friend.

Sigh the word is spank tikay

Video please or it didn't happen.

With sound if possible. Thx.

 ;tracet; Off Topic!!

Nah, slap was the correct word.

i knew there was a reason i became a mod

tikay i will sort out the spanking of chili take a bit of work off your shoulders

Is there actually a topic to this thread. Sorry I thought it was random ramblings so just joined in.

I'll go back to my quiet place now.

Bye........

Sadly, yes, it is a grimmers friend. But to be fair, without it we wouldn't have staking, or the SAS, and I think poker wouldn't be as big as it would be. A very useful tool for players, but as you say, a very useful tool for crooks as well.

However, I didn't come on here to argue about p2p transfers, and I will gladly download, join and play my meagre amount of HU cash play on whatever network Blonde joins (except Cereus and whatever network Trillion whatever they're now called are on).

Last word on this - at least on this Thread please - the guy has already been named & shamed (caught in the act, in fact)  - on blonde - a long time back, & subsequently Banned. So you should already have him on your "avoid" list, & if you don't know someone well, my advice is don't lend 'em money, stake them, or trust them.

Luton awaits.

Fortunately, perhaps, I have time issues tonight, so can't reply to that.

I hope I can resist replying tomorrow, too, because that's a humdinger of a Post, & I might just jump on my hobby-horse........

BTW, thank you for your support.

Errm to steal passwords...

not sure about you guys but i cant remember the last time anyone asked to borrow my laptop to play poker
dont most f the internet pros take there own lappy with them when they travel
so it seems so random a thing to do install a key logger on the off chance someone wants to play on it

I've seen a lot of people play on others' computers. 

+1

A question about grimming in general pls. If you have a guy who has a rep for stealing money and generally defrauding poker players how can that guy be out and about on the poker circuit? And why is the subject talked about in hushed tones? And why just avoid them and look the other way? Whatever happened to battering someone like that? There seems to be a strangely passive attitude to this issue and continuing to play cards with such people seems to be part of the problem. Whether that be in tournaments or indeed HU.

As far as i know the grimmer did get a kicking this time, along with the disappearance of his passport (pretty com imo)

I asked a Cake skin to review their P2P policy.  I was considering putting a few people up on their site, so wrote to them declaring my interest, asking for guidance on how I should operate to keep within the rules etc.

To withdraw a P2P transfer, you have to earn X number of points per $ withdrawn.  They also told me they wouldn't be happy with the concept of having a player "back" others and to stand by whilst HQ considered the position.  I am still waiting for a reply.

So all things considered, Cake would be the end of SAS.

Quick update.

We've been really surprised - pleasantly - by the number of approaches we've had, some from the most unerxpected of quarters.

Tighty has been flat to the boards, responding to, & having dialogue with them all.

Discussions continue, & some new suitors have emerged, so the process will continue for a while yet.

Our way forward will depend on how these discussions continue.

I must give thanks to some guys who have been most supportive.

I already mentioned Joe Beevers, who has spent much time advising us on some stuff, (with no self-interest), & it's been the same from DTD. Simon called & wrote, Rob wrote to me from Portrugal to say if we needed help, just say, & Nick Whiten rings daily to see if he can help.

Wht has really taken me back is how many people have e-Mailed me to say they are about to start a new Skin on i-Poker. I had 4 such e-Mails, & for everyone who wrote to m to say that, I wonder how many did not.

Interesting times.

This needs its own separate thread imo. This is such a pet hate of mine.

Despite the face that we are gamblers I have always thought (obv wrongly) that there was a gentlemans agreement that any gambling debts are honoured, including loans.

I have been disappointed to find that this is rarely the case as far as I can see/hear.

I wish this was true

you can always move money around in another way,e.g. neteller

+1

I sat and read through this the other night, all appears rather rubbish to be honest,
It does however sound pretty promising with regards to finding a new card room home, Ill try and keep some money saved for wherever that new home shall be.

Cheers, seems getting it off the site is difficult too.  Several days at a time so far :(

It wouldn't be just playing. With such large sums of money often in players accounts there are many ways that criminals will try and scam you. There have been a number of high profile cases involving issues with people pretending to be someone else on AOL or MSN to get transfers and there was also a case that I heard about that happened in a US card room.

Players are often doing exchanges PS > FTP etc and some times for cash. Say you were approached in a live card room by someone you thought you knew and they wanted dollars on FT for example. They get out $500 in cash and ask you do do the transfer. You say that you will do the transfer as soon as you get back to your room as you are involved in a game/ tournament, but they want the money online now as they want to play. So they get their laptop for you and whilst they look away you log in, make the transfer, and log out again. When you get back to your room a few hours later your account is empty.

The safest thing is never do a transaction with someone unless you know and trust them 100% and you have SPOKEN to them and also do it on a machine that you are 100% sure is clean.

A quick update on where we are.

It's a bit of a shock to find we are being courted by so many organisatiions - 5 or 6 at the last count, & Rich is talking to an additional interested party today. We have not approached anyone, they have all come to us.

The proposals on the Table cover the full spectrum - another blonde "skin" (not on i-Poker), Super-Affiliate Site (the THM model as it were), plain multi-affiliate, & Forum only.

The preference - naturally - is a model that safeguards the jobs of Rich & Kev.

We should have a better feel for our way forward very soon.

The almost wholly constructive feedback on here has been wonderful, thank you.

And, again, a big up to my friends in the Industry, who have been so supportive.

We also have two aces up our sleeve - two industry individuals have told me many times, "if blonde ever gets in a hole, talk to me, I'd support it". We shall see - that would be last-chance saloon.

Top post there by Joe.

I shall go to the grave musing on why poker players are so trusting & gullible. That includes me, I hasten to add, as I've been done over a treat, including recently.

I knew Trigg was the mastermind behind everything!!

Lolol. Amended now.

Yeah, I was also starting to think about this and iPoker seemed the easy option.

Obviously now I'll be holding fire to see how Blonde get on.

Really hope this all works out well for all concerned.

Lot's of good progress today, i can genuinely say i am very excited about the future of blonde.

havent read the whole thread yet but this is a fantastic idea, incentivising companies to actively signup fish and start a much healthier cycle.

and ridic key point number 2

someone pm me detail about kellet, i dont mind him and get along well/ hes always been fine 2 me, but want details.

sounds a lil bit gay imo

fine to you as in letting you borrow his lappy for a bit?

For the record, whilst we hope our players will carry on business as usual until we leave in February at the latest, I got a deal done with IPoker that no blonde Poker player withdrawals from now on leave us subject to fines.

So, if you are a cash player and want to withdraw in the normal scheme of things but were concerned about the impact that might have, there's no need to be.

Here endeth the public service announcement.

So better to withdraw now or later - or simply no difference?

Why the hell do you care?

No difference as to fines

Obv prefer everyone to play as much as possible in the next few months, and not withdraw....but realistic that until people know what's going on there will be uncertainty

How do these differ?

Super affiliate would be ONE partner, possibly exclusive (ie no other sponsors,partners)

Multi-affiliate...affiliate deals with a number of partners

i dont think there is a non whinge thread so:
requested withdrawl of some funds and its gone through already
ty i poker / blonde

Mmmmmmmm    .....       interesting to note that BillyHill are now being advertised openly on raketherake;

http://www.pokerloyaltyprograms.com/PokerWilliamHill.html

I wonder if the people at pokeintheeye have ever read George Orwell's book, 'Animal Farm'?

Just a brief Update, & for reasons of delicacy - & that "time & place" thing again, not too much detail.

But we've been a bit non-plussed by the amount of interest shown in blonde, &/or it's Card-Room.

Let's be right, it's not - except, perhaps, in one case - because anyone likes (or even dislikes) us, it's a commercial thing, & there's some low-hanging fruit.

We are now up to no less than 6 suitors, all of whom made the first move, & contacted us.

Two arrived on the scene quite late, one as recently as 3 or 4 days ago, & Tighty is trying to jiggle all the paperwork & stuff, & there are more NDA's flying about than I've seen in years.

One has moved their proposals to "offer" stage, so Tighty has a right bit of plate-spinning to cope with.

I think we'll know where we are before Christmas.

But we never expected this level of interest, & more pertinently, from which quarters it would arrive. I'm shocked, amazed, & very pleased.

I just want the place to settle down securely. And it might just.

Good <EOM>

If there's one man to deal with it, guaranteed it's Ricky P.

Prew Diddy will sort it No Diggity No Doubt!

I think we should move to www.realdealpoker.com as someone pointed out a few weeks back.
[  ] Its the way forward!

if we are all just gonna 1 table :P

Every half hour you would see Prew Diddy and Compton Kev trying to fix the machine in the background.

too busy captaining the Australian cricket team I would have thought.

Hi Tikay,

really sorry to hear the problems that have been going on, just find it really weird you can be penalized for having winning players!! the world has gone completely insane in my opininon!!!

Thanks Maf,

PS - It's good in the hood, bro. ;)

you forgot " everydays a good day! " as well! cracking site this! looking forward to using it!

There have been some unexpected developments in this matter, & I will outline then now, in a series of 4 or 5 Posts.

I am speaking on behalf of the major, acting, Shareholders, who carry the responsibility, Rich, as Company CEO, & Kev, as Card-Room Manager.

Any questions, just ask, & between us, we will answer them all, cleanly.

First, a quick recap of where we were.

As you know, one of our winning players had his Account closed, & that was compounded by Aqua's initial refusal to allow him to withdraw, as it would bring us in breach of the somewhat extraordinary Deposit/Withdrawal Ratios, & we would be facing massive fines far beyond our means.

Subsequently, Aqua & i-Poker agreed, after pressure from us via Rich, & in the light of their sudden Notice of Termination of our License, to allow all & any Withdrawals to proceed uninhibited, & without Fines. As far as I'm aware, he withdrew all of his cash the following day, without problem. It was a very large 5 figure sum.

Slightly later, another very large blonde player, who had, I think, a figure on Deposit at or close to 6 figures, was also having his Withdrawals restricted to x dollars per day. That problem was also resolved by the Aqua.i-Poker decision (it was sanctioned by i-Poker). I'm not clear if he withdrew everything, but he was free so to do.

 

Meanwhile, due to unimaginably large Chargerbacks (fraudulent Credit Card transactions) from Aqua in October - $17,000 I think - we owed Aqua that money, the unpaid portion of which we agreed with them would be deducted from our due income (the money blonde earn from the Cardroom) during the remaining two or 3 months of our License.

This was OK, as we could repay that from the forward income, as long as players continued to play on blonde.

All the Loyalty Payments to our players for November - some $5,700 I believe - were paid in full.
 
Our current debt to Aqua is just under £7,000, which arose as a result of the Chargebacks in October & November, after deduction of income due to us. Rich explained it to us like this....

".....We owe them $11,353 or £6,845 at current exchange rates
 
Net revenue to us last month was $7,589 Pre Loyalty bonus of $5,722 and Cytech commission of $2,000. ie a very small shortfall which meant we could not reduce the deficit
 
We have full two months of the card-room to go
 
Clearly two months of $5,722 would solve the problem but in reality both gross rake and loyalty bonus amounts will be smaller once this is announced. However it will clear off some of the deficit. and a £7k problem will be a smaller one...."

On Saturday just gone, (December 12th) we received our November Statement of Account from Aqua.

Once again, we got Chargebacks, this time in excess of $3,500. (Rich - confirm the figure, & $ or £ please).

So we earned no net income at all, & had not still not paid off all of the previous month's chargeback "carryover".

With the Statement, came a letter.......

The incoming letter said......

Hi Rich

Please find attached the November statement

Once again the month resulted in a negative position after all deductions excluding the negative balance carried forward.

Rich, with what has transpired with iPoker and the resulting decision made in relation to the poker offering, I am now in a predicament on this negative balance

I need this balance recovered and cannot be in a position whereby I am funding the business.  I am open to suggestions on how to resolve this however, if the situation does not rectify I will have no choice but to:

1.      Disallow all month end loyalty credits

2.      Hold player cashins to recover the amount of the deficit – this does not mean all cashins only an amount ensuring the shortfall is recovered

Please can we discuss this as I do not wish to implement drastic action however, I do not see a solution based on current operations

So, Rich, James, Kev & myself discussed this, & then Rich reluctantly wrote back to Aqua as follows.....

Rich's note to Aqua on Saturday said......

Trevor
 
I have discussed the situation with my colleagues.
 
In the circumstances we think we should, as you suggest, cancel Month End loyalty credits for December and January, and part February til termination, and put those sums in full towards clearing the negative balance.
 
In November the amount of loyalty credit was over $5,700 and whilst we would expect it to be lower in December, especially as we will now have to announce this to our players, the December and January payments should help markedly, when added to a positive net revenue result due to us with negligible chargebacks from here, in eliminating the deficit. For our part we will speak personally to all the bigger players explaining the situation to them and encouraging them to continue to play.
 
As you will understand we would find it completely unacceptable to Hold in Player withdrawals and apply these sums to the deficit. Not only would it have a catastrophic effect on our business going forward via reputational damage, and by extension to yourselves, but player balances are completely seperate to the issue of chargebacks which has caused this deficit. No matter any other issue, Player deposits, balances and withdrawals have to be ring-fenced and cannot be applied to settle a deficit in our arrangements. To do so would cause uproar, quite rightly.

We intend to announce the cancellation in Monthly loyalty payments to our players on Monday and trust the above is acceptable to you, and we can review progress this time next month.

At time of Posting this, we have yet to be favoured with a reply to Rich's latest letter (above).

So there it is - we can't see any way out of this but to accept their proposals to terminate Loyalty Bonus Pyments effective 1st December. We don't exactly feel good about this, we are incredibly sorry, but we hope you can see the spot we are in.

And just to compound everything, if the Players stop playing on blonde, we shall be stuck in the near-term for £7k, & Aqua may try to use all or some of that to offest our liability to them for the Chargebacks. We are confident we can clear the debt in due course, given the variety of interested parties in negotiation with us going forward.

James & Kev will be contacting our bigger Players this afternoon & this evening to prevail upon them, if possible, to play on blonde until Termination of our License.

Jeez, what a nightmare this all is.

All questions will be answered fully, fire away.

PS - But we did receive this today from Aqua.

Hello!
 
I just want to add that as we are having our Company Party on Friday the 18th of December, there will be limited Staffing on that day.

Kev wished them a Merry Christmas.
 

I am staggered, just staggered by this.

An admittance, in writing, that confiscating players' money to recover debt incurred by the cardroom is a suggested possible course of action by them.

You honestly could not make it up.

I'm afraid you could not.

Legally, I'm certain it's wrong - but they operate under Belize Law, & in any event, the notion of "what we have we hold" applies very much in monetary disputes. They have the cash in their Bank, so their position is immensely powerful, no matter how stroppy we get.

Players money is always safe when ring-fenced? Seemingly not.

It has to be said we DO owe them £7k - but that's a matter between them & us. We will settle it somehow. The Players money has nothing to do with that whatoever, & it's an immoral & illegal position to take imo.

I am confused:

1. Did Aqua change the terms of the contract unfairly - to create this new situation.
2. Tikay - you previously said that you wouldnt put the trading company in administration, for reasons of personal integrity - why not? if they are playing a game to suit themselves to the detriment of others?
3. Surely they cant prevent withdrawals? that must be against T&C's  - We have a contract with Blonde, you have a contract with Aqua - these two are separate right?

I appreciate that there are a complex number of siuations which run simultaniously here - but if Blonde ltd (or whatever) - became blonde 2 ltd moving forward (and any potential suitor knew or your intention) then I dont see how your repuation is damaged against rouges like the shower of sh1t you appear to be dealing with?

So where does this leave the players? I haven't got any money in there myself but I do have some invested as a staker.

Do I tell him to keep playing or just take it out and move it across to another card room?

It isn't a great amount at the moment and I could live with losing it but if he binks something it could become considerably more.

I sincerely hope that once all this is over and blonde are away from this farce of a network that you expose all this shit to as many forums and media types as you possibly can.

I can only re-emphasise the current situation

IPoker have agreed that players can withdraw unfettered, with no fine consquences to blonde Poker, up to date of termination.

I have refused Aqua's suggestion, as you can see above, to countenance player balances being used to settle the deficit we have on chargebacks we are liable for.

I'm realistic, I need players to play with us so we can earn some money until we have a new arrangement finalised, but can't blame anyone if they don't given the circumstances

Q1. No Contract Clauses have been changed or amended to the best of our knowledge. The action appears to be unilateral. But we can't force them to pay monies. They have, are & will continuing to process withdrawls normally. They just want to secure £7,000, but our Players have a very much larger sum than that on Deposit, & I don't see it as in any way endangered.

Q2. What would that achieve? - based on their letter, they would refuse to pay the last £7,000 to our Players if we do not settle the £7,000 to them. We have no intentions of not paying.

Q3 - Yes, they are entirely seperate Contracts. There is something called "right of set-off", but I doubt that applies here. Anyway, what do we know about Belize Law?

I am less concerned with my "reputation" than previously to be honest, I just wanna get out of this bloody mess & move on, it's a big black cloud on my & my colleagues lives right now. We must get everyone paid up in full, & move on. "Reputation" will have to take care of itself.

It's a horrible situation, & I'm not sure how we could have seen it coming when the deal was signed 4 or 5 years back.

and before anyone asks no i didnt write the contract

The whole industry (well, Europe anyway) is monitoring the Thread, news dissemination will take care of itself. We are not trying to damage anyone's name, or painting any pictures. We are telling our Clients "how it is", & doing so honestly & fully.

The truth can walk around naked.

disgraceful letter from aqua to even consider witholding players accounts!


just a thought but surely the shareholders of blonde are liable for the £7k deficit? stopping loyalty payments for players who could quite easily get as good or if not better deal on other sites and expect them to continue to play with no loyalty (rakeback) for 2 months to help clear blonde ltd from debt is not as bad as aqua's behavior but still isnt right.

if my business is in trouble or anyone else for that matter we dont pass on the hardship to our customers and go back on promised incentive schemes in order to clear our debt, we dip into out pocket or go begging to the bank to do so.

asking customers to bail you out is a dangerous game and could be damaging to any future plans. customer loyalty only stretches so far.

blonde is owned by some fairly wealthy guys. £7k is a drop in the ocean to them, its their company, they will reap the rewards if/when they decide to sell there shares so i think its their responsibility to pay whats owed to aqua and move on.

i do hope this mess is sorted soon and that rich and kevs jobs are secured as soon as possible and blonde has a cardroom that all can enjoy playing on again without worry.

As I have stated above, blonde have no intentions of not paying their liabilities.

We are also fully entitled to withdraw Loyalty Bonyus payments going forward, providing we make it clear.

We have no legal right, I don't suppose, certainly no moral right, to withhold Loyalty Bonuses for the first 2 weeks of December, but it is a proposal, & at this very moment, as I stated earlier, Flushy & Kev are discussing this with our larger players, with a view to seeing if they will work with us on this.

The thing is panning out in real time, we've been on it all weekend, since the letter arrived, & we don't know the right way forward yet.

But we do think it should all be out in the open.

Yes - I've acknowledged that several times. And we intend to meet that obligation.

so is it not easier to ask each shareholder to pay £70for each percentage they own of the business is?
continue to pay loyalty payments to the end of your contract and move on taking your happy customers with you to a new network.

i appreciate your honesty and transparency with all this tony and your integrity to honour this debt was never questioned.

Generally when a company is struggling i would imagine the sensible course of action would be to try and increase margins, this would mean cutting back on promotions which at the end of the day is what rakeback is.

If Nandos cancelled their loyalty scheme it wouldn't be great but it wouldn't be wrong.

Probs just depends on what the big players say really, if Dempsey & Compton Kev are contacting them then they will find out who is willing to carry on playing to sort this out.

Wow, off to withdraw...

its a course of action yes but not necessarily a sensible one when your nearest competitors are still offering the same if not better promotions. i cant see it increasing the margins

Will Blonde even have a cardroom after the ipoker deal runs out?

It is all being considered, but the situation is dynamic, & evolving by the minute, The truth is we are not sure what to do right now. But we are sure that we needed to communicate the position, & the options, to our players immediately.

Meanwhile, we will continue to study the options & decide what's best, & what we should do.

There are also underlying contractual positions between ourselves & Aqua which I think we need to handle with some care, to avoid being turned over.

We also have a number of offers going forward with/from other Parties, including "firmed up" written offers, & we wil be sharing this news, & problem, with them. It's all solvable, but we are not sure yet by which route.

It's extraordinarily complex I'm afraid, & we are working it out as we go along. Or trying to.

It also rather depends I guess on how Flushy & Kev get on with the delicate discussions they are having right now with some of our Players.

We will keep everyone informed as it unfolds.

Possibly, possibly not. The range of offers & option open to us have been described in detail earlier in this Thread.

We will still be here in some shape or form, with or without a Cardroom, but very viable Cardroom offers HAVE been made to us.

Yeah obviously its not something we wanted to do but thankfully everyone so far has been very understanding on the matter.

The other method you suggest is a good idea but i can't just magic £7k out of thin air, if i had it i would but am on a downswing that is now refereed to in portions of a million rather than thousands.

FYP

lol

not lol  ;) ;scarymoment;

Could this current situation with them threatening to hold player's funds against the chargebacks still have happened when you were using the former cashier, or did the cashier change vastly increase their power ?

As usual Ralph, nail & head.

Everything was tickety boo until that changed, then the storm clouds came rolling in, & the Chargebacks followed.

When THEY were responsible for Chargebacks, it was hard as hell to Deposit, they asked a zillion questions, D-O-B, Blood Group, the lot. Many will remember that.

Suddenly it became easy to Deposit. That'd be about the time responsibility for Chargebacks transferred to us. It's be wronmg to blame any of the incumbent blonde Team for that decision, though of course "blame" & "responsibility" are different things.

I think it's time you stopped being so accomodating to Trevor and co.  I don't care what jurisdiction he is lurking from, if he is a client of iPoker, they should have a contract in place with him that will not allow his company to excrete over his customers.  The suggestion of using players funds to settle a debt is horrendous and I do not believe that iPoker would be accepting of that.  Frankly; although I know it's not helpful, I think I may have decked him by now.  Are you short of a couple of heavy men?

Lol, wanna job?

Frigging nightmare city this.

Want a senior contact at iPoker?

Not half - can we discuss in the moning? I'm spinning almost as many plates as Tighty right now!

So all of this is nothing to do with iPoker? It's just the middle men who hold the money who are the scumbags?

Are iPoker nice people? This is important to know as at the moment my opinion is that I will never use iPoker again on any skin.

Obviously if iPoker are happy to use a scumbag money handler then their integrity has to be questioned anyway.

Surely if iPoker neither gain nor lose from this situation financially they must have concerns about how this looks to their customers?

Do all I-poker skins use the same banking facilities?

Yep, in Feltham tomorrow. 

No. I know of at least one who has their own and I've never had cashout problems with them cashed out from them.

I'm gonna defer to Tighty on this one Matt, as I'm not quite sure where the split on responsibility is, as to how much i-Poker prompted/caused/helped/knew the problem, & how much was down to Cytech/Aqua.

wtf are Nandos really cancelling their loyalty scheme?

This sounds like a nightmare of a situation. Seem's like Tikay, Tighty and Kev are doing a great job of trying to deal with this. I have no doubt it's hard work.

I hope that as many players as possible continue to play on the Blonde Poker cardroom. The removal of the loyalty scheme is a shame but I'm sure it is a sensible decision for the future of Blonde. Let's not forget the level of service that has been offered to us by Blonde Poker. I have had a few problems with my account in the past and a few msn messages to Kev are all it has ever taken to get it sorted - always within the hour. How many card rooms offer that kind of service? By continuing to play on Blonde Poker all players can help give it the best chance of continuing to have a cardroom by moving to another network. Although I am only a "small time" player I will still be playing at Blonde until a decsion is made regarding the cardrooms future.

Good luck in getting this issue resolved guy's.

http://www.ipoker.com/html/page/contact-us


i thought i would ask i poker question below

"simply question hopefully simply straight forward reply
Are players funds in the card rooms associated with you
ring fenced or not
put another way if a card room had debts to you could / would you retain players funds
your swift response would be appreciated"

Thank You!



Your feedback is sent to us. We will contact You shortly.



chance of a response ?

Silly question, is there anything stopping you getting more of these chargebacks in the next two months.

I'm somewhat concerned that after 2 months of well meaning players playing on blonde with no rakeback, in order to help you guys get out of a 7k hole, you'll be in a slightly bigger hole anyway because more of these chargeback things come along.

For the last 2 months anyone opening an account with us has been restricted to depositing via "safe" methods, ie: UKash, neteller etc etc.  Anyone wishing to deposit via credit card has to reply to an email from myself before any credit card transactions can take place (this is on top of the cages usual procedures ...which sure were working !) ... no reply, no credit card deposits.

Been very interesting to see the new sign ups (which average out at about 3 per day) ... in 3 consecutive days recently we had accounts opened by 4 different people from Iraq, 4 a day ! .... since we have introduced the new security measures, we will have no chargebacks, however chargebacks have hit hard recently from up to 3 0r 4 months ago, this will no longer be the case, and I am confident that we have seen the last major month of chargebacks ... FINGERS CROSSED !

So which blonde shareholder has got cosy with the americans and found a new revenue stream in Iraq then.

I'm still waiting to be contacted about this.

Will get you on msn Rob ... I have contacted people who dont use the forum.

Not just blonde - copied from another forum.


Dear <First Name>

If you are not already aware iPoker will be implementing a new policy in the New Year which will categorise players depending upon certain criteria. The new policy will also impose penalties upon card rooms that in essence, have a high proportion of winning players in relation to losing players.

Regrettably therefore, we are being forced to restrict a number of accounts in order to comply with the new policy and to avoid penalisation by iPoker and it grieves me to inform you that we have no option for the time being other than to restrict the cash game stakes at which you can play on Victor Chandler Poker.

We sincerely regret having to take this action and hope that the policy will change in the future so that you may once again enjoy playing cash games at Victor Chandler Poker. In the meantime, please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this action will cause but know that you can still play in our tournaments and on any other of the Victor Chandler suite of products.

Yours sincerely

LOL ipoker ... they couldn't run a bath never mind a business !!  ... I have been pretty restrained thus far on this subject ... but FFS, which idiot is making the decisions there ?  ... are they really that thick that they can not grasp the simple fact that if they get rid of all the players that are winning, someone else will win and so on, then they ban them too and all of a sudden you have a network with ZERO cash game liquidity ... My nephew wants a Cowboy outfit for Xmas, I might just buy him ipoker !!

Kev calls it bang on.

Although I think what you'll see as well is the occasional shark sneaking in until they get restricted, after all they've just made it a real fishtank haven't they?

Wait till next year to buy your nephew ipoker Kev

You'll be able to pick it up for a fiver

Not necessarily.

The sharks now have to play somewhere that can cover their winnings amongst it's fish. ie Billy Hills and Titan. You'd think they had a share in ipoker. Oh wait....

ive just seen this.,.,and i am pissing myself wtf ipoker.,.,.,anyways ive banne myself from every poker site as i cant win f-all.,.,

stick to reg plate

I was going along the assumption that they'll hit every skin the same. You may be right though.

Yeah you'd think (hope) so eh?

These fines came into play almost immediately after William Hill bought into the network. Strange coincidence that. At the time of the "merger" there were all sorts of news reports that Will Hill bought a piece of ipoker as part of the deal or vice versa. I think it's pretty common knowledge that Titan are ipoker's skin.

Secondly, there are skins out there (like blonde) who have never nabbed someone else's player in their existence. Why not create a system where this type of skin is not hurt with the fines designed to stop poachers? (Someone posted a great idea of how to do this earlier in the thread and it's a system that other networks use)

It comes down to large skins spending vast sums of money on advertising to bring in new players only for those players to eventually leave for a better deal elsewhere on the same network - even if they weren't poached. But this has always been something the larger skins have moaned about. Why change policy now? Maybe becuase it's now the network's money that's being spent on the recruiting via way of well known branded skins? (ie do ipoker pay for any skin's advertising - or maybe a portion of it?) I'm guessing here but my guesses are usually pretty good when it comes to ipoker.

The long term play with these fines has been what is happening right now - creating an oligopoly where the huge rakers belong to the huge skins. New skins, of which there are many (strangely), have little hope without a large budget. Unless of course they are also backed by the network... curiouser and curiouser.

Cake Network will pwn ipoker within 3 years anywho imo.

Ive been putting in some sick sessions 1 tabling no more than 6 .25/.50 unlimited holdem to help out

[X] Ive made some money
[  ] The rake generated will dint the debt
[  ]  ;D

are you old boys getting anywhere with this?  ;tk; ;tk; ;tk;

Yes!

Lots of toing & froing with various Parties.

We've taken a 2 day sabbatical over Xmas, but get back to trying to sort the wheat from the chaff tomorrow.

Cake presumably still in the mix then?

Groan......;)

Days off over xmas WFT!, some people got it easy

2 day holiday from sorting that - not  2 day holiday! I worked a bit yesterday, & did a 15 hour stint today. Need to do something to avoid this damn "festive season".

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/ipoker-penalizing-winning-cash-game-players-661606/

Glad to hear it Tikay, only way to get through the period IMO.

Why don't they want winning players on there?  It's not like you win off the company, you win off other players and you pay more rake, surely winning = good for the company?

(prob been answered but I've not read the whole thread, cliff notes as to why it's bad would be appreciated)

prefer big winning cash players to be playing on the bigger skins

thats as short as i can get

Its because winning players don't deposit (or at least they withdraw far more than they deposit) so even though they are paying rake, they are paying it with money taken off the fish that do deposit.

A poker room can never make more income than whats deposited, so the ideal situation would be for a few big fish making large deposits and then passing the money round each other until its all gone in rake. A winning player making regular withdrawals means that the poker room has to get a higher level of deposits to make the same amount of money.

In economics it works the same as Money Supply Theory with Rake being the equivalent of Tax and Withdrawals being the same as Savings.

This is certainly true, but those new winning players perhaps wouldn't be winning money off the weaker anywhere near as quickly due to not being as good and playing less volume/tables.

any news ?

Working towards an announcement at the end of the month at the latest.

In the meantime the current blonde card-room is open for business as normal and we'd be very grateful if people played on it as normal until we can make our intentions clear. Thanks!

I will be announcing January's league as soon as I get confirmation from ipoker that they have set up the comps.

This
 ;popcorn;

still working to an end of January deadline.

what is it with the banner changes, not just the top one but the side one as well which was stauch blonde for as long as i can rember, is that it then for now then?

The one on the side was DTD porn for a while.

pics or didnt happen!!

I can see(vicky cohren maybe in this one) but she's looking over to check if she is in fact drawing dead as usual and theyve darkend the good bit, wtf!

It was just some random whoor in a catsuit. Flange properly in your face when so when you're browsing and the missus is behind, she'll be like, oh aye, on that "poker" site again. hmmm

i dont Even lie to her anymore but she does check to see that I'm not watching the one with the midgets shagging the rolly polly girls, i like to quantify their exploits and come out with advanced mathematical theorem's based on weight differential x stamina to try and prove that if they had sex long enough at least one of the midgets would disappear

Well the current card-room closes next month. Not a lot of point bannering for it, rather wait for a new offer of ours and in the meantime sell the space.

sensible idea

Hi Richard I would like to know whether there are any plans to pay out Loyalty Bonuses for play during the first two weeks of December?

Cheers

Rob, Rich is offline for a bit, I have phoned him and he has informed me that he will get back to you as soon as he gets home.

I asked the same question mate and was told by Tighty that unfortunately rb for the whole of december won't be paid.

So is there any Blonde affliate links to other ipoker skins,i never downloaded the Bolyes one when it was offered before.Would it still be valid if i looked through the history?

No current affiliate arrangments with other IPoker skins. The Boyle forum sponsorship link might still be active, but there's no financial benefit to blonde from using it anymore

 ;bump;



;shame;

The shareholders are currently deciding on which of the options presented to them last week they are going to run with. News asap. Hopefully very asap

The current card-room closes mid month. News asap on what that involves, questions are with Aqua.

Thanks Rich, by shareholders are we simply taking of Tikay/Flushy/yourself (?), or was their minor stakes given to snoops/jen etc?

The major shareholders, Flushy and tikay. I'm not a shareholder, but work for them.

Slave.  :D

Just to clarify the reply to Chip Prince.

Yes, Flushy & I spoke at length again yesterday as to the decision we need to make, & some other complex blonde stuff. We never made a decision, but I hope we are able to today. The decision is not as easy as it may look, but at least we have a decision to make, & a choice of offers, so yay for that. I have to say, I'm findiing it all very stressful, it needs putting to bed before my head explodes. A dozen or so e-Mails go back & forth between us every day, & it's very wearing tbh.

And then we can tell you the story of these last 4 or 5 weeks. It's beyond belief, quite beyond rational thinking. The standard perceptions of how Online Networks work, & their lack of integrity, has been totally shattered in my mind. Buit that's a story for another day, & it would be wrong to tell it now.

Other Shareholders? Yes, snoops, Jen & Harry Demetrio all have small stakes in blonde. Together with my stake, however, they don't equate to 50%, so for the moment, the discussions have been confined to Flushy & myself, as we control about 85% of the Companies Shares, with Rich feeding us the Data & setting up the deals from which we make our decision.

Anyway, we hope to finalise our decision today.

Is this because of the quality of the options available?  Or because of the personal preferences or differing risk acceptance/aversion profiles of those making the decision?


;)

Only partially - there are other, very unseemly matters, that also need to be resolved. I've also had enough - more than enough - of the aggro that goes with it all, & I want the thing to settle down.

Motives for not telling the story now? As our old Mums used to say, when they denied us something. "it's for yer own good".......

 

did you ever notice when your mum was tired, you had to go to bed?  When she used to tell me it was for my own good, I similarly used to suspect that it wasn't :)

Not stirring the pot, (alright I am a little bit) and I'm genuinely interested and grateful that you have chosen to share the minutes of meetings, as I am sure others will be too.  From the 'shareholder's meeting' which was implied was 2 of you, I'm guessing therefore that either you and flushy have diametrically opposed stances and are on a fast track to stalemate, or the "unseemly stuff" is more complicated than imagined and is adding complexity to an otherwise straight forward business decision that the majority of sharp people (you and flushy included ldo) would be able to arrive at.

If the blonde site is producing too many winning players why not remove the other links to major poker sites from the site. So when people (hopefully losing) join up they will not get the options to join the other major sites through blondepoker.com


Surely this will create more traffic to blonde.

Also have you considering targeting students? Maybe do some student freerolls. Students have alot of disposable income so its probs a good market to go down.

The simple answer is that advertising or sponsorships earn us money to cover our costs. Or did, most of the time.
In an ideal world the card-room would have earned us enough to be self sufficient and not promote third parties but it never has. So, needs must. Fortunately our traffic is heavy and attractive so we've usually had interest from others in our traffic.

Of our various solutions, some would be "exclusive" ie no other advertisers, some wouldn't be with different financial arrangements around that issue.

Students have a lot of disposable income? Oh!

Yeah.  They use the student loan money to go on the tear and play poker.  At least over here they do. 

True but's that's usually done and dusted by Xmas.

the idea of freerolls is to get winning players a few dollars so they can win more and while winning give you a share of the rake
blonde were getting fined because the players were too good we dont need more

now if we could GTD that the students were losers then what the point of giving them free money for them to lose before they pay it back in rake
unless we can GTD they will deposit afterwards which is more than likely not going to happen as the ipoker software sucks

iPoker at it again...sigh

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/my-160-000-win-ipoker-still-owe-why-ill-never-play-there-again-tl-dr-700172/

Not all students are winning players.
In business nothing is GTD. I think you are thinking abit negativly.
Pretty sure that alot of students will redeposit when they get there other loan installments.

in the old vc days there free rolls was getting about 180 players doubt all of them are winning

compared to stars and tilt yes. it's better than a ton of other sites tho

FYP.

Oh, sorry, wrong website  ;D

would be interesting to see what happens here.

This comment takes the biscuit so far though:

Students and indeed University poker societies were targeted by blonde/myself at one point in time ... however when we got to costing the project it quickly became clear that it was not financially viable to proceed.

What a lot of people seem to not understand is that we were a very small fish in a massive massive pond, our marketing budget had to be funded from income generated, we did not ever have a ot of money that we were able to dip into for marketing spend.

A hefty chunk of blonde money was spent on a venture in Ireland

[ ] That was money well spent and a massive success.

The problem is net wins vs net losses. 1000 losing players who lose less than what one single full time pro wins means you are still a winning cardroom and therefore subject to fines.

Obv a mega long thread now but below is another reason to be glad to be shut of iPoker

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/my-160-000-win-ipoker-still-owe-why-ill-never-play-there-again-tl-dr-700172/

Cliff notes - someone from UK (a badbeat trader) wins 6 fort nox jackpot sngs in a row and iPoker don't pay out the $160k jackpot, accuse him of collussion because there are more UK players than usual, another badbeat trader is at one of the tables and someone stacks off with ace hi to him (I know, that never happens in sngs). He puts together a pretty solid case against them, shows his HH in the thread etc.

Posted it yesterday, but kind of got lost in the other debates.

There's another reason to move from iPoker:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/my-160-000-win-ipoker-still-owe-why-ill-never-play-there-again-tl-dr-700172/

there's a thread on 2+2 about some dude being screwed out of 160k by ipokey, I'll try and find the link

also some guy got screwed out of 160...................................bollox, cant be arsed ::)

Yer not gonna believe this, I was reading some other forum (cant remember what it is called, rubbish compared to here) but they were talkin about some bloke who won loads of money on some iPoker crap skin and they said he was cheating, how bad is that..!!

ermmm how do we know the guy didn't cheat?

cos he posted about in on a forum, do you need a link?

seems a bit fishy too that they reset the jackpot but didn't pay out

Where did you read about this?

It is a bit weird that in coincided with ipoker renovating their bathrooms at H.Q

(http://explit25.googlepages.com/money_toilet_roll.jpg)

It was in the first few pages of the thread that I read yesterday - will find the page

Edit - that was easy - it's on page 1 - 3rd post by OP

link please claire

:D

A number of significant obstacles & hurdles have been overcome today. Almost there now......

cheers tony thats all good then.
Good luck from both of us

P+L

Thanks Pete. And XX to Lynne. ;)

2 kisses now thats just taking liberties

We're sorted.

We'll announce it tomorrow.

;karabiner;

Great news. Hopefully you, Flushy and Tikay can have a very well-deserved break now.

LOL then the work starts!

Guess i have been up my own arse again and missed what has been going on. Hope whatever it is/was is now sorted for the best. xx

Tell us now instead of making us wait

Tighty never makes an announcement without first announcing that there will be an announcement. Tikay's just as bad. Such teases.

Errmm its pretty much Tighty all the way, me and Tikay just have to respond to the emails as they come in Tighty is the one sorting it all out, he's the one who needs a rest!

He will be fine, its not like he has any other jobs

other than APAT

and Sky Poker

and probably lots of shit we dont even know about.

are blonde moving to cake? now that lee jones has admitted shipping a pot to the losing player we could have another FACT thread. would be awesome

If blonde do move to Cake, they really need to do this idea suggested by the legend Kevin Stevens.......CakeBack

http://www.ukpokerinfo.co.uk/piece-of-cake-2084/

Is that a case of having your cake and eating it?

;marks;

No you daft chuff, instead of getting money, you get cake, as a form of rakeback.

I like cake.

comment 33

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/cake-poker-ships-pot-wrong-player-702204/

so more like having your rake and eating it

You actually used to be able to buy a chocolate cake from their shop with FPPs, but sadly it's not there any more.

I considered Cake, but last June when I was speaking to them I ate my contact there

Unsurprisingly they turned us down thereafter

It's not Cake.

 ;popcorn;

No its not popcorn either.

slowroll

+1

Tikay Anouncing Blonde Changes on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WHUcmPtw2A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WHUcmPtw2A)