DTD & blonde going places. Together.

[tikay]

I am delighted to announce that DTD and blonde have come to an agreement whereby DTD "sponsor" blondepoker.

Why the inverted commas?

Because it's not really a sponsorship in the usual sense - in this case, DTD will be working hard, & investing a great deal of cash, & resource, both into blonde, & it's Members.

[tikay]

The deal is for two years, and at a time when some segments of the poker industry are struggling, this is a stunning committment by DTD.

In all the time blonde has been around, we have never had a 2 year deal previously.

Cost, to DTD? Hard to say, but the actual, up-front cost comes to over £50,000, & with the added value, extra resource, added value for blonde Membership, and other stuff, it's unlikely to come in at under £100,000. 

[tikay]

Included in the deal, which starts immediately, is......

The existing staff costs  - for Rich, who runs the place, & will continue so to do - will be fully paid for the next 2 years.

26 Live Updates from DTD per year, for 2 years, one every 2 weeks on average, all fully funded by DTD. These Updates will include the Grand Prix, the Deepstacks, the Monte Carlo, the 6 Max, & some other yet to be announced plans which DTD are formulating. I'll address the matter of the existing "blonde Live Update Fund" shortly.

DTD have developed new Live Update Software which will greatly enhance the Live Updates, & Live Streams, & blonde will use this.

The server Hosting Costs will be included in the deal.

There will be a huge blondebash at DTD in April, & again in the future, with a Guaranteed Value Tournament, the bash costs fully funded by DTD.

DTD's superb IT resources will revamp the blonde website, including the "Home Page", to make it fresher & better. That page, & the Forum, are already very SEO-friendly, but will be more so, especially with the addition of more & fresher content. Content is key in these things, & DTD will be assisting with this, including regular input from Rob Yong & Simon Trumper.

blondes can also expect preferential treatment in the Caribbean Poker Party promotions, & some other upcoming stuff.

 

[tikay]

The key to the whole deal is working together. DTD will not spam as such, but this will be the home of the DTD Poker Club, & there will be "Ask DTD" threads or similar for each of their Live Brands.

Rob Yong will, we hope, be a lot more prominent on here, too, with his Blogs uploaded here, & hopefully, Forum Posts.

I have consulted Flushy as to the deal, (he is the largest Shareholder, so has the right of veto), & he has assured us of his continued & enthusiastic support, & thanks DTD for this partnership.

Tighty is delighted too, & well he should be, because he has worked hard with DTD, way beyond the call of duty, to keep the channels open. He will comment further shortly.

Me? I think it's Christmas, Easter & Shrove Tuesday, all rolled into one, I'm thrilled to bits, & blonde's future is now more assured than ever before. It was not always so, & we've had some worrying times, but now, everything is cool. We could not wish for better than to partner for 2 years with, many would say, Europe's best Live Poker Club.

We'll need to work at it, so will DTD, & so will the Membership need to buy-in to the deal. I'm sure all parties, minus, quite reasonably, a few, will, it's the best deal in town, & blonde are lucky to have it. We have always fitted each other like gloves, & I see no reason for that not to get even better.

All things come at a cost, even this beauty, so there will be some changes with immediate effect.

More.....

[tikay]

The thrust of the partnership is to work with DTD Live Poker, & they are paying an absolute fortune for that right.

Not unreasonably, then, other Poker Venues will no longer be permitted to spam or promote their Tours or Events on blondepoker. They have, hitherto, been allowed to do this free of charge, so it's not that they have lost anything, except the right to promote on our Forum, to which they paid no cost. Rich will be contacting all the venue Reps who Post on here in the next few days to communicate this.

The same applies to Representatives of other Venues or Pros for Online Sites (with exemptions, as below), they will no longer be able to promote their wares here. Given the cash DTD are investing in blonde, its an entirely reasonable stance, in my opinion. 

Common-sense will apply on this, people can Post & discuss any Poker Tour, Room, or subject, they wish, but not as commercial stakeholders of other Tours, Rooms, or Sites. If anyone wants to abuse that informal arrangement, we will ask them to desist.

Many Cardroom managers & Online Pros are also "regular" Members here. They are encouraged & welcome to continue as regular Members. A great example would be Gorgousuouuos George, from Luton, who holds dual citizenship as a Cardroom Promoter, & regular Member. He also plays at DTD, but would not be welcome up there if he left flyers on the Table advertising G-Luton. Same thing.

Another example would be Cos - remember him? - & Poker Encore, etc. Same as before, just common-sense, exactly as he does already, & it will be just fine.

The main exemptions are Tours or Rooms with which DTD already have a commercial affiliation by way of hosting Events, such as UKIPT, APAT, Sky Poker, etc. For those, it is "as you were", but the truth is, they all sell out every event, so it's information more than spam, & DTD are absolutely fine with it.

Coverage & Promotion of non-UK Events such as EPT, WPT Europe, WSOP, etc, will all continue as they always have done here.

Sky Poker? The bad news is that DTD are entirely content with my position & stance, & it will continue as is, again, with common-sense applying. DTD & Sky Poker already have some plans in place together, in addition to SPT, (Sky Poker already have the right to offer Satellites to all DTD Events), more on this soon. Sorry guys.....     

[tikay]

Some re-organisation of the existing Boards will take place immediately, & Tighty will fill you in on that.

In short, the existing Live & Online Poker Boards will disappear, non-promotional content on them will be moved to The Rail, or Lounge, as deemed appropriate.

The Staking Boards will be promoted to Main Boards in their own right, but remain otherwise unchanged.

Simon Trumper's "DTD News & Views" Thread will move to The Rail, though it may not remain in its present form.

Rob, Nick Whiten (currently on holiday), Tighty & myself will be meeting up in the next week or so to help draw up a formal Action Plan for the deal, & we'll keep you informed.

Questions? Fire away, & they'll be fielded by Tighty, myself, or where appropriate, Rob Yong.

[tikay]

Finally, the mood on blonde has improved out of all recognition of late, & this in no small part encouraged DTD to become involved again. Nobody is going to sponsor a Forum where the debate is not adult, & civilised.

blonde has improved in other ways recently, too. The betting Board is a right lively resource now, & the PHA is unrecognizable from it's low of 2 or 3 years ago. Dem kids are well good.

The Mods Board is almost dead, too. Glory be, long may it last, but these things really helped to secure this Deal.

I'm done.

[George2Loose]

First

Sounds awesome

[tikay]

Thread now open for comment, & I'm off to bed.

 

[cambridgealex]

Second

Thrilled

[Paullie_D]

Ditto.

[amcgrath1uk]

Excellent excellent news

[tikay]

First

Sounds awesome

Loi, did you have your finger poised to Post? In like a shot. I thought Herbie would be first in line. He's a shadow of his former self.

[scotty77]

Amazing stuff.  Will be very interested to hear about the DTD/Sky partnership too.

Spent the last couple of days at DTD after playing the first ever Genting tour.  DTD was run 10x better than the Genting one and partnerships like this are the reasons why DTD will continue to be so far ahead of the competition in the live poker arena

[mondatoo]

I only have one question...

Will we be allowed to play £2 showdown at the bash ?  

Great news for blonde, wp all involved in making it happen.