IMPORTANT - Changes at the blonde Cardroom.

[Colchester Kev]

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.

[DaveShoelace]

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!

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.

[Ironside]

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

[tikay]

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.

[Rod]

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.

[Ironside]

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

[tikay]

In reply to Rod...

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

[tikay]

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.

[tikay]

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.

[lazaroonie]

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.

[tikay]

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.

[TightEnd]

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.

[roscopiko]

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.

[lazaroonie]

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.

[h]

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

Hugh