A sad day for blonde

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I guess that about covers everything.

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

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

Questions? Fire away!