The story behind the blonde Live Updates.

[Graham C]

I quite like the blonde cardroom now, it has some great tourneys on there and I'm about to venture more into the cash games too.  More than happy to play on there.

Keep up the good work guys

[ifm]

What are people's thoughts on this?

As far as I know Blonde is owned and run by a bunch of highly successful businessmen and er Kev , the most success I've ever had businesswise was flogging penny sweets at school so WTF do I know about it. Clearly nothing whatsoever, but IMO what started off as a cool idea - do some updates, have a friendly forum with a lot of excellent content and hope that people will hang around and play at you poker site, is somehow turning into do some updates and have a forum which puts people (intentionally or not) on a guilt trip if they don't play on the poker site.

It's like if there was a street with tons of pubs on it and the Blonde owners decided that even with all this competition already there they were gonna try to set up a sucessful pub, obviously it's not all about the money, the pub gives them somewhere to hang out and have a laugh and they already being sucessful businessmen have plenty of other income streams, but it would be nice to have a fun business which makes them some more cash.

So they open their pub and the marketing idea is to have a friendly pub where everyone gets treated nicely, all the yobbo's and troublemakers are barred and everyone gets a free drink when they come in. Now our Blonde Pub owners are not stupid they know that some people will come in have a free drink and walk straight back out again, but that's not terrible as long as enough people stay and buy a few drinks the figures should work and everyone's happy.

And it works fine to start with, slowly but surely more people come in to have a free drink, find out what a friendly interesting pub it is and hang around and use it as their local. But those freeloaders keep coming in as well, grabbing their free vodka and red, reading the free newspapers that are lying around and then running out to drink somewhere else. So the owners quite reasonably decide to try to convert some of these freeloaders into paying customers by reminding them gently that they are free drinks and it would be nice if they actually bought one occasionally. Which works on a few of them but there are still people who come in every night and don't support the pub so they decide to put some posters up in the pub reminding people that they get a FREE drink everytime they come in, and everytime someone gets a free drink they are told by the usually friendly old barman "here's your FREE drink" and the regulars who happily spend their time and money in the pub start reminding everyone that the drinks are FREE and eventually they start standing outside like pickets with banners shouting at everyone who goes inside making them feel guilty about getting a free drink and then leaving straight after.

Which doesn't stop the hardcore freeloaders, they get their free drink every night and couldn't give a monkey's about the regulars shouting and moaning at them but the atmospher in the pub is slowly changing, it's still a fun and friendly place to be but ther is a strong pressure on everyone to buy more stuff and make the Blonde owners money. Which of course is pefectly fine and legal and it is entirely up to the owners to do whatever they wish in their own pub but some people I fear don't like being put on a guilt trip and decide either not to go into the Blonde pub anymore or it radicalises them even more into becoming proud freeloaders who will never pay for anything just because they get shouted at so much.

in my uninformed opinion

Excellent post, sums it up perfectly.
Ironically the followups were all talking about it being free LOL!!

BTW it isn't "free" if you play in the cardroom or buy a book thru an affiliate or buy a blonde hat, you are subsidising the "free" updates etc.

I have no problem with it as such it just can become VERY tiresome to be constantly bombarded with spam, moderation boys............

Also i just don't get all the sky spam, why constantly push their cardroom?

[TightEnd]

Sky: We don't, formally

tikay posts (spams I suppose) about shows he is appearing on (his personal decision not a "blonde Ltd decision ) and, as its an open forum, any member can post about any comp or show they like, on any card-room

As it happens, you will have seen last year that Sky did give us advertising business ( and there is a joint venture being developed currently ) helping of course to make blonde financially more successful

[GlasgowBandit]

Do Blonde sell vouchers? 

I have never had a complaint about the llive updates and I play on the cardroom whenever possible.  I even try and play in the leagues that Kev runs when I can personally I'd be in favour of more Blonde only tourneys if we could get them arranged say once a week somewhere between $20 - $100 freezeouts.

[Claw75]

Do Blonde sell vouchers? 

no more than £50 to you bandit

[ripple11]

[/quote]



BTW it isn't "free" if you play in the cardroom or buy a book thru an affiliate or buy a blonde hat, you are subsidising the "free" updates etc.


[/quote]


I'm going to play online somewhere,......its all the same price to me!....so I'm pretty sure my updates are free.

[NoflopsHomer]

BTW it isn't "free" if you play in the cardroom or buy a book thru an affiliate or buy a blonde hat, you are subsidising the "free" updates etc.

So if you don't, then it's free?

[boldie]

Quick question for Kev.. I'd love to playon Blonde...honest I would but I dunno I have some questions;


1; Does Blonde also do sattelites to events in...erm..say Ireland?

2; Does Blonde do sats to events like say the GSNPC?

3; Would a Blonde playing those sats get preferential treatment from whomever is pulling the lever?

Just a few questions obviously....eagerly awaiting your response.

[ifm]

BTW it isn't "free" if you play in the cardroom or buy a book thru an affiliate or buy a blonde hat, you are subsidising the "free" updates etc.

So if you don't, then it's free?

Nope, they'll get you in the end!!

[TightEnd]

Is that a promise? 

[Colchester Kev]

Quick question for Kev.. I'd love to playon Blonde...honest I would but I dunno I have some questions;


1; Does Blonde also do sattelites to events in...erm..say Ireland?   YES

2; Does Blonde do sats to events like say the GSNPC?                YES

3; Would a Blonde playing those sats get preferential treatment from whomever is pulling the lever?   ONLY WHEN I AM NOT USING IT !!

Just a few questions obviously....eagerly awaiting your response.

[ifm]

The updates i used to enjoy a lot but some of these EPT's just hold no interest for me, i look at the entrants and see all those consonants and give up.
Obviously i'm not the target market and that's fine, blonde want to be seen as a global entity and rightly so.
Those early updates were fantastic, so full of humour and fun to read, Tikay has the persona for it and giving up was the worst decision he ever made (well i can think of a few worse).
I had my first row on blonde on the walsall thread actually when Tikay regaled elblondie for his no deal stance and i said he had dealt, hehehe.
One question regarding updates, why was flush never invited for a return stint?
I think most folks would agree the best update ever was Monte Carlo with Flushy, Jon Raab and Snoppie, funny as hell and packed with norkage, a classic!
On the subject of norkage why stop all that? It was fun while it lasted but obviously a conscious decision was made to end it, nobody ever said why.
Anyway bedtime, i'm dying of man flu so need my 18 hours........

[Longy]

One question regarding updates, why was flush never invited for a return stint?
I think most folks would agree the best update ever was Monte Carlo with Flushy, Jon Raab and Snoppie, funny as hell and packed with norkage, a classic!

Probably because he will end up calling half of Europe donks, which I personally would find quite amusing, but probably would cause a bit of friction.

[snoopy1239]

On the subject of norkage why stop all that? It was fun while it lasted but obviously a conscious decision was made to end it, nobody ever said why.
Anyway bedtime, i'm dying of man flu so need my 18 hours........

This has been the one that's really been bugging you, hasn't it? 

I went on a norkage run at the 2006 WSOP Main Event, with a whole host of piccies of various hotties. However, you didn't say a dickie bird, and I've yet to recover from that lack of praise. 

[thetank]

One question regarding updates, why was flush never invited for a return stint?
I think most folks would agree the best update ever was Monte Carlo with Flushy, Jon Raab and Snoppie, funny as hell and packed with norkage, a classic!

Probably because he will end up calling half of Europe donks, which I personally would find quite amusing, but probably would cause a bit of friction.

That and it's too much like hard work.