The Best In The Business

[tikay]

Marc's poker skills has never been in doubt. If he had managed his off the table demons as well as Moorman it might've been his book out last week

Yup.

Very interesting situation, too, in so many ways.

He's a very successful poker coach these days, too, I believe.

Best go now, I've got a fence to sit on.

[arbboy]

I think you would be surprised Tikay how badly some gaming firms are run and how little knowledge some very senior people in the industry actually have about the real numbers of the game.  There are a lot of people in a lot of senior positions in major gaming companies who are, quite frankly, clueless about the industry but have rode the wave of 'easy money' in the boom of online gaming for 10/12 years and have very impressive looking cv's as a result of it.  When, in reality, you could have let a monkey do a lot of their roles, and their companies success wouldn't have changed a great deal.  I doubt this would be your experience at Sky but, believe me, in numerous other major firms there is substantial, talentless very highly paid dead wood floating around making bad decisions everywhere of the back of these 'impressive' cvs they hold.  

You only have to look at how badly Ladbrokes are performing,  Blue sq sold for pocket change to betfair after being a huge market changer 15 years earlier.  Stan james up for sale currently and going the same route as Blue sq. Victor Chandler being sold because they can't adapt to modern day conditions.  Canbet gone busto owing customers fortunes.  The vast majority of these are down to out of date/out of touch senior members of staff operating at positions way above their talent level.

Add to this that some of these guys set bad KPI targets for their junior staff to follow which creates bad macro policy being used to meet these targets by staff for short term individual gain/bonuses/share options etc etc rather than the better good of the long term business as a whole.  Some of the senior decisions i have seen made first hand in several gaming firms would beggar belief to anyone who has a rational business brain.  

What do you think I do, empty bins all day?

I would not be surprised at all, I make it my business to read all the trade media & info about all of the Gaming Sites.

Remember, the Management & Shareholders of these companies have a different agenda to that which we, we, as punters & pokerers, have. Their obligation - OBLIGATION - is to maximise their earnings.

As poker players & punters, we have a different aganda - we want the lowest rake, best prices, da de da. Not unreasonably, either.

Those two agendas do not always align though. They want to maximise revenue, we want to play poker as cheaply as possible. Neither are necessarily wrong, or bad.  

blonde is, mainly, a poker & punting Forum, so we don't really get good balance here, do we? There are exceptions, people in the Industry, like Alun B & Barry Carter who sort of sit in a neutral corner, of course, but generally, the noise you will see here will be biased towards the players wishes. I'd prefer to see a more balanced view, personally, thats all.  

I don't think poker or Sports Betting Sites are, or should be, our enemy, for starters, or their staff, (Little Danny, say). That's illogical. DN is being mullered for defending his Employers actions. What do people EXPECT him to do?! He's paid a Milly per annum or whatever, what should he do, resign? Would YOU resign in his spot?

It's all really interesting, imo. But it has 2 sides, & I think it behoves us to try & see both sides, only be doing that can we understand each other better.

Charlie Munger - Warren Buffet's partner - famously does the obverse thing to better get the right answer - he looks at questions backwards.

And I say again - I don't think 'Stars are perfect. I do think they are still very good though.

A few years ago, Full Tilt introduced Multi Entry Tourneys, which was, generally, VERY well-received. A few days back Amaya mentioned that 'Stars might do them soon, too. A chorus of boos followed.

Incidentally, we are not FORCED to play on 'Stars. Most people want to though, & will continue to do so. They will.  

I was putting my lol trader/trading director cap back on circa 2001-8 and talking like i was still a senior employee of one of these firms in my post above not as a professional gambler in the post above.  I am one of the few on blonde that can see it from both sides as i have made my living both sides of the fence for equal amounts of time in the past 14 years.  Alongside Redarmi, i have been privy to some truely shocking senior members of management in numerous gaming firms who really don't make decisions for the long term benefit of the firm all the time for numerous reasons.

With regards to people saying 'give it 6 months and everyone will still be sitting here still playing on stars' don't believe it necessarily.  Will Barry Carter, for example, still be working in the poker media and writing articles for a year if he doesn't get paid during that period.  I doubt it.  He will move onto something which does reward him and his skills in the same way as thousands of people who provide huge liquidity to the stars product so the recs can snap sit down at their leisure and get a game will probably do the sums and work out there is no juice in the game for them any more and move on after these rake increases/additional charges.  That's all well and good i hear you cry.  Stars doesnt owe them a living etc etc.  I appreciate that.  However, please don't say stars will move on and nothing will change because it will.  Liquidity in the site will change just like it has in betfair since they made the simlar changes.  Whether that's better for Stars bottom line in the long term only they will know but one thing is for sure things will change.  Turing a low margin/high volume business on it's head into a high margin/lower volume business has massive impacts to the product short and medium term.  One of my senior roles in the industry 10 years ago was doing just this for a firm.

[Doobs]

Agree Tony. I think that poker players have been somewhat naive and over the top. Primarily stars is there and has always been there to make money.

I think the previous owners picked your pocket nicely though with a please and a thank you whereas Amaya are taking a "your money or your life" approach and people don't like it.

In 6 months time no one will care and they'll still be grinding away on stars. Let's face it- poker players love to moan anyway so they're giving the players what they wanted in a roundabout way.

Grest post, especially that.

As someone said on blonde - might have been Crater? - looks like they are getting all the bad news out quickly, clearing the decks for smoother sailing ahead. 

Yeah that was me. It's worked too. As pissed off as everyone is, I haven't seen anyone complain about Battle of the Planets getting ditched. Why? Because all the other bad news is worse. To a smaller extent I'm seeing less people complain about the currency fees, because the rake is pissing everyone off.

To paraphrase a PR expert who got in hot water for saying it, "it's a good day to bury bad news". IMO now is a great time for rival poker rooms to sneakily announce all the shitty changes they have coming up, because nobody will care.

This isn't true.  I read complaints when they changed battle of the planets and have read them when they have stopped it.

Maybe the complaints are just getting swamped by other stuff, and skim readers may miss them, but they are definitely there. 

FWIW battle of the planets is a small part of the profit for SNG grinders, and as such isn't going to ever attract as much criticism as trebling entry fees would.

[George2Loose]

Comparing betfair a business model to stars is flawed. Stars has no real competition

[Doobs]

Comparing betfair a business model to stars is flawed. Stars has no real competition

The Betfair exchange is/was in a fairly similar position to Stars, surely? 

Betfair was a near monopoly in betting exchanges, stars is a near monopoly in internet poker, neither is a near monopoly in betting or gaming. 

[tikay]

Poor Patrick is gonna wonder what happened to his Diary.

Still, makes a change from "not a bad night, won 83 MTT's & 16 zillion dollars, had steak for dinner". 

[DaveShoelace]

Agree Tony. I think that poker players have been somewhat naive and over the top. Primarily stars is there and has always been there to make money.

I think the previous owners picked your pocket nicely though with a please and a thank you whereas Amaya are taking a "your money or your life" approach and people don't like it.

In 6 months time no one will care and they'll still be grinding away on stars. Let's face it- poker players love to moan anyway so they're giving the players what they wanted in a roundabout way.

Grest post, especially that.

As someone said on blonde - might have been Crater? - looks like they are getting all the bad news out quickly, clearing the decks for smoother sailing ahead. 

Yeah that was me. It's worked too. As pissed off as everyone is, I haven't seen anyone complain about Battle of the Planets getting ditched. Why? Because all the other bad news is worse. To a smaller extent I'm seeing less people complain about the currency fees, because the rake is pissing everyone off.

To paraphrase a PR expert who got in hot water for saying it, "it's a good day to bury bad news". IMO now is a great time for rival poker rooms to sneakily announce all the shitty changes they have coming up, because nobody will care.

This isn't true.  I read complaints when they changed battle of the planets and have read them when they have stopped it.

Maybe the complaints are just getting swamped by other stuff, and skim readers may miss them, but they are definitely there. 

FWIW battle of the planets is a small part of the profit for SNG grinders, and as such isn't going to ever attract as much criticism as trebling entry fees would.

Yeah I meant relatively speaking. Had Stars waited three months and announced the changes to BOP, it would have caused a much bigger fuss than burying it under the other bad news is what I meant.

[david3103]

Poor Patrick is gonna wonder what happened to his Diary.

Still, makes a change from "not a bad night, won 83 MTT's & 16 zillion dollars, had steak for dinner". 

I think it's a sign that your diary has arrived when it develops a life of it's own. Although shouldn't you have been telling us your views on Otis today??

 I hope this thread never loses those "not a bad night" posts though.

[buzzharvey22]

Poor Patrick is gonna wonder what happened to his Diary.

Still, makes a change from "not a bad night, won 83 MTT's & 16 zillion dollars, had steak for dinner". 

Spelt far too well.

[rfgqqabc]

Can't say your oi budapest wise when you don't leave your bedroom! Missed a great meal Wednesday night, went to Boutique bar afterwards which was really nice, good spot to take Ingrid imo. Coming over for WPT?

[pleno1]

Hmmmm not sure yet. I don't think we can play online there without .uk and God knows how many emails it would take to migrate and then go back, they'd probably think I was taking the piss lol

Does feel pretty sick though, buy ins are really big etc, if you could buy in using stars money would be a lot more convenient in general, doesn't feel real innit.

Yeh been to boutique(sure it's spelt weirdly) and it's good I can't remember what I drank inthink it was some egg cocktail? I kinda envious with you guys being here mostly in the summer, gives a chance to have a break from it, lived here quite long now and the winter months really are pretty tough. Football season takes a break too which is like 3-4 nights of doing something different and helps keep fit etc

[dreenie]

clearing the decks for smoother sailing ahead

Time I did some work, when I come out with a mixed analogy as bad as that, lol.

I saw a GREAT one last week.

Something like "going downhill faster than a rat up a drainpipe".

Spent all night trying to imagine that one.

Yes yes, I'm easily amused. 

Sighhhhh, yes that was me.... faster than a rat up a drainpipe means quickly ofc and stars going downhill quickly with the changes/their reputation more than anything so therefore I used the term...

Had this with Tim Blake the other day. Very pedantic :/

[Steve Swift]

Quicker than shit through a Goose!  Not really sure if Geese do produce waste quickly but one me and my Army mates used a lot.  Another little one that comes to mind, instead of simplify just saying yes to a question we would answer with, " is a 40lb rat fat". Strange

[tikay]

Quicker than shit through a Goose!  Not really sure if Geese do produce waste quickly but one me and my Army mates used a lot.  Another little one that comes to mind, instead of simplify just saying yes to a question we would answer with, " is a 40lb rat fat". Strange

Ha, not heard that one before, love it.

For reference, they do produce copious amounts of poo, & seem to like dumping it on golf course greens.

[pleno1]

Been missing in action last few days, had a few deepish runs on Sunday but no cigar eventually. Decided to go to UK tomorrow for 10 days to play a bunch of live tournaments, looking forward to it.

Put up a package last night but only got pieces of hr left, if interested http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/184/staking-selling-shares-live/pads1161-england-package-1488166/

Horses have been doing really, really well recently, so nice to see and they all work ridiculously hard.

New stable with elmerixx and European and Dimi will be starting on December 1st. The bar I bought in Budapest gets finalised in the next few days which is exciting and looking to potentially invest in a few companies that friends have made too. Together with staking as well will be looking at spending less time playing online moving forward, probably spending 3 days a week playing then 3 days a week coaching horses and working on real life stuff. Will spend every Wednesday on "new activities" which will be just trying to start new businesses, think of new ideas, look into potential start ups, study business etc.

Thinking depending how things go to go back into a 1-2 year study program at a University which will help with the eventual transition from poker.

Think with all the recent news its important to not just be laid back and expect poker to be here in 5 years, don't get me wrong I will still grind 2-4 times a week and play as much as other regs, I just want to be proactive with persuing other things too so I don't get to 30 and have to make a life plan. Good for the mind to be not just focused on poker too, I feel like thats when you have the best results sometimes.

Will be doing reports every day from London, hopefully they are long and talking in depth about making day 3's and 4's.