Badges, Branding and The Quality of DTD.

[Tommy Bingham]

Rob, Cheers for a reply. Is nice for the owner to personally write a reply and not a represetative. Shows you do listen to ideas customers have. Thx.
I honestly know there are many pokerplayers/gamblers/rich drunks who dont know of DTD. If they do, it's that club at Nottingham, nothing more. DTD and its concept of a card room only is so unique. Personaly and being honest, when I was 18 I was intimentated by going to a casino to play poker. Honestly, really felt uncomfortablr of the 'idea' of playing in that enviroment. Silly as it sounds, that was my view. A friend let me know they were going to a poker room in Nottingham. Explained it is all DEALER DEALT (no players fixing decks) and a controlled room. £30 for a proper torney! In a proper card room! With other poker players! £800 for first! Sounded too good and because of it all I was comfortable in going.

Since my time of playing live, I now play 95% of tornaments at your club, playing 95% of deepstacks and festival events. I live in the middle of Nottingham, Luton and Northampton. Aspers, Gala, G..But I choose your club.

By word of mouth, I have introduced over 30 new players to the club. 10ish consistant players, the rest recreational.
Again, alot of players are in a bubble. Nothing wrong at all with that! It just means like already mentioned, they may not go to 5p/10p home games. Go to a £10 freezeout at a pub or their local British Legion! 40 dont sound alot. But if just ONE passes on the message to their other friends, you have a circle of word of mouth.

These players are your market. They have disposable incomes.. Every month. So gaining new recreational customers is key!
The badge? Alot of people say they dont pay attention.. The fact is the people iin pubs and clubs do! They ask, interested in it. Its an ice breaker to.

[Tommy Bingham]

I'm pretty sure all the "reggy/grinderish" players that I know that play in DTD everyday would wear a DTD patch for nothing, in fact - they'd be happy that you'd asked them to represent your club. I PMed you asking about wanting to rep ISPT and promote them abroad/nationwide, didn't even consider asking for anything in return - I'm very happy to represent the club that I love and that gives me so much.

Forgive me if I'm being paranoid but you did miss me off the list of players that would do something for nothing and I'm in the group of "reggy/grinderish players that make a living from the game" which is less than 5 players who play at DTD more or less every day it's open - all of which wouldn't think twice about wearing a DTD patch for free, so I really don't know who you mean by this. Yeh Mitch would probably try and wangle some free food out of it, but that's the case with anything with him

Totally agree. I am sure aload would gladly wear them.
The more people in the club playing cash, the better it is for the better players and RAKE. The mote sataliters online, generally the softer the fields.

[Tommy Bingham]

Anyway, as you can tell when I have a view I am very pasionate and annoyin about defending it!
I will leave it with DTD and Rob to see and review.

But again, there are sometimes negative points about structure, free water, dirty chips and more.. I just believe trying to give something back to a 'second home' is beneficial to all parties. Owners, staff, regs, recreational players and new customers.

[T8MML]

On a diet at the mo to get into this and wear some small XXL gear!

[EvilPie]

Anyone else think poker branded clothing is a bit shite? Other than sponsored players obv.

I used to have a DTD hoodie that I wore pretty much every day for walking the dog.

I ended up lending it to a young lady who needed something warm to wear on her walk to the bus stop one morning.

I haven't seen it or the girl since. Clearly she thought poker branded clothing was a bit shite.

[bookiebasher]

Anyone else think poker branded clothing is a bit shite? Other than sponsored players obv.

I used to have a DTD hoodie that I wore pretty much every day for walking the dog.

I ended up lending it to a young lady who needed something warm to wear on her walk to the bus stop one morning.

I haven't seen it or the girl since. Clearly she thought poker branded clothing was a bit shite.

Thin

[MANTIS01]

Forget the hoody, what she prob thought was a bit shite was being told to gtfo to the freezin cold bus stop when she woke up. What a casanova!

[THISnTHAT]

The problem with DTD patching is that I feel like pretty much everyone that plays poker in any kind of UK event where a patched player would be playing, already knows about DTD the live venue in Nottingham therefore I dont think the impact on the live club from patching players would be minimal.

It might be more useful to advertise their online skin but I know that I personally see players patched and can be sitting with them all day and never actually read their patch, remember what it is or take any interest in what the site is and what deals they offer.  I might be in the minority with this approach but I dont think I am.

DTD might be in a more unique position than most to get people to willingly wear patches for free but Im pretty sure the general attitude with patches is that people wont wear them unless there is something in it for them.

Blonde had some patches that people wore at events, would be interested to know how many people signed up and contributed to the forum after seeing a player patched and taking the time to find out what blonde was.

Started playing poker a few years ago in the nuts poker league then moved onto APAT ( which I still play regulary )
While at a tourney seen a guy wearing a blonde patch and had a chat
looked up blonde site when got home and been visiting though not comentting since then
hadn't heard of blonde until then
really enjoy all the talk and info on site and the friendly banter LOl

[bookiebasher]

Anyone else think poker branded clothing is a bit shite? Other than sponsored players obv.

I used to have a DTD hoodie that I wore pretty much every day for walking the dog.

I ended up lending it to a young lady who needed something warm to wear on her walk to the bus stop one morning.

I haven't seen it or the girl since. Clearly she thought the evening was a bit shite.

fyp

Thin

[wazz]

I think it's a good idea and that it would certainly drive numbers up live and online.

I wouldn't wear a hoodie but I'd wear a patch for free (for DTD) as long as it wasn't one of those patches that leaves a permanent mark on the clothing after you take it off. It's no skin off my back and adds a certain presence at the table.

[tikay]

Also, like said previous, Iveys marketing budget must be massive. He is staking players and in retun they wear the brand.
DTD have many happy customers who I am sure would wear a little badge. For DTD, the cost is jst a badge, not paying for a £300 deepstack for someone to wear it.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I don't believe he IS staking them in return for wearing an Ivey Poker patch.

They wear that patch, I believe, in readiness for (if) when Ivey Poker goes live, & then they'll get a deal, I guess.

 

[AndrewT]

Anyone else think poker branded clothing is a bit shite? Other than sponsored players obv.

I used to have a DTD hoodie that I wore pretty much every day for walking the dog.

I ended up lending it to a young lady who needed something warm to wear on her walk to the bus stop one morning.

I haven't seen it or the girl since. Clearly she thought poker branded clothing was a bit shite.

No 'here's £20 for a cab love'?

Matt Russell - Ice Cold Playa.

[EvilPie]

Standard bus fare and a 'thank you'.

[Deadman]

Yo

Thanks Tommy. Interesting thread, here is the cold hard facts;

Of course we would love travelling players to wear DTD patches they cost £1.25 each, no fkn brainer! We already have a promotion in place for the Scalie Tour, I think we had 25 players in patches at the last GPS. In 6 years only a very very very few DTD players have offered to wear DTD merchandise/or do something for DTD for nothing in return, I can only name a few off the top of my head, the likes of Rastafish, Lil Dave, Ian Gascoigne, Martin Frey, Wadey, Chinese Frankie, Bookie Jim (sorry if I missed you, sure there is a couple more)

However, I have loads and loads and loads of requests from players that go like this "I am going to x, If I wear a DTD patch/merchandise will you a) pay my buy-in b) pay my hotel and travel c) stick me in events at DTD d) give me x). That's just the truth guys, however I do know and have many personal friends in poker that would do this for me, I asked players to wear patches at EPT's when we were promoting the CPP, Roberto, Sam, JP, Ben, Sly, all the guys did this, I find the top pros are pretty cool about it unless they are sponsored.

As a rule of thumb, the more "reggy/grinderish" players - the less the player will do favours for "nowt", I understand this thou - because these players are working hard to make a living from the game - so why do "owt for nowt". There are exceptions of course, but I would say 90% of reg's/grinders would not wear a DTD patch for free and - why should they? I am happy with the Scalie Tour promo, players wear our patch and get rewarded if they make the final or win it, seems a fair deal, win win for us both and targeted at recreational players.


Cheers Rob

Never been asked before but would happily wear a DTD badge on my travels playing poker and I play more live tourneys than most.

I think most regs would happily wear a badge for you Rob and ask for nothing in return. Obviously there will always be one or two or try to squeeze every penny out of a situation like this but for me DTD is where I learned my trade and without it I would not be where I am today and enjoying my life like I am today, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like this.

Ofcourse if I made the FT of the main event and got offered $10billion to wear a stars patch I wouldn't be able to refuse. I would make sure I sneaked the DTD patch on there too though and if they wouldn't allow that I would just get a felt tip pen and write DTD in bold print on my forehead. :-)

[DTD-ACES]

Thanks to all for offering to do this.

I will order 1000 badges and make them available for players behind the DTD cash desk, hopefully the stock will be all gone in 30 days!

It would be nice if players could post the odd picture of them wearing the DTD patch around the world somewhere, we could make a collection of photos and put them on our web site.

Cheers Aces