The Poker Affiliate Blog

The last few months have been kind of shit for everyone. Player’s, affiliates, employees at skins and all of that. As each day went by it seemed iPoker fell further and further behind. Well for me anyway.

Anyway, some great changes are happening. April 1st see’s most the skins rolling out the new unbugged resizeable tables which have been talked about forever. April the 12th then see’s a timebank update, 30bb min tables and starting stacks in tournements to change.

You can see the new software on Betfred already but, its not the unbugged version and its obviously a significant improvement.

As for network traffic Titan now written T!tan has completley rebranded. The smaller skins have gone or are on their way out and the promos are getting bigger and better.

Along with the Poker Olympics on VC, iPoker running their own network wide promo in mid-april.

This is really a time of change considering how little was being done a few months back. Hopefully we can see iPoker reach the dizzying heights of 50k players online at some point. That would be awesome.

Obviously iPokerVIP would be the biggest affiliate on the network Can only dream.

The wait has been worthwhile. VC is running the first Poker Olympics which kicks off on April 4th. For an itinary click here.

This full promotion is exclusive to VCPoker and is honestly amazing value. If you keep in mind grinders from huge skins like Will Hill, Expekt, Titan, Mansion and PaddyPower will not be able to take part the value begins to look a lot better than your average race or chase.

Either click here or contact me to take full advantage of the promotion, enjoy an amazing VIP deal and a first deposit bonus !

Tags: iPoker VCPoker, Poker Olympics, victor chandler

I decided to go down to London since the GUKPT was on and thought they might have some side events (obv. got the dates wrong) and the cash action is usually always decent at the Vic. I drove down to Newcastle to get a train with a friend which we obv missed with everyone on the train watching and opted to drive the full way. Driving isn’t that bad in principle but, I hate putting miles on my car when its pretty similar to the train.

The full way there and back there were average speed check zones of 50mph that went on for miles and miles and miles. Its pretty fresh on my mind since I’ve just come off the drive back now. Its not like there are roadworks or anything wrong with the roads. Just one lane is coned off (which looks fine) and everyone is forced to drive at 50. I’m pretty convinced its just a way to milk more money in fines out of people or make other forms of transport more appealing. Ofcourse there were sometimes when it was justified but, for the majority I’m pretty sure there was 0 wrong with the road. Signs said stuff like ‘close for safety reasons’. Just sounds like an ambigous excuse to close off a lane. The thing that is unsafe is all those cones in high winds one went under my car. So this was all tilting enough..

On Friday arrived in the Vic at 2am and jumped on the 1/3. The table had 2 big fish and the rest were different varities of nit. I was stuck £500 at a stage but, when it went downt o 3 handed I managed to get up to £500 profit with 2 calls on reflection that were pretty high variance. The last hand of the night the fish although I guess he wasn’t a classic fish just an aggro fish :p shoved his last £400 into a pot of £1k and I opted to call him with 2nd pair. I was good and won’t bore you with the HH but, it was defo a high variance call even although the price was good. If he wasn’t stuck a lot or if it wasn’t the last hand of the night and just tons of little factors like that I probably would’ve folded. I tanked for a few mins and live I’d say 3/4 of the time you see someone tank like that they call and they’re crushed. So I guess you should always be cautious and if its such a toss up in your head as to whether you’re good just wait another day.

This calling light trend continued into the next day when I played 2/5. When I first sat down I didn’t even know why I was there. Maybe 2 fish at anytime at the table and the rest were rocks or a few people waiting for higher games. I had to ask where my edge was and even with 3 or 4 players at the table who I was confident against I didn’t feel like the better players were going to keep the pots smaller against me.

There was one pot where I triple barrelled with air in a 3bet pot and one of the good player’s called down for a split or worse effectivley. The board (there was a flush there too) was AQTTx and he called with A6 or something. A £150 bet into £200 or so on the river. He did the obligatory call and it kinda sucked. Live people don’t think about it I think – I mean how often is he actually good there ? He’s pretty much never winning the pot against a triple barrell. Well I dont think. But, it was one of these kind of calls I guess people feel they’re obliged to make even although the villian’s range crushes them.

As the night went on the game got better and better and I was up £1.5k at one stage , well for 4 hours or so. My friend who I had lent money came over and played 4 handed and its something I really regret in terms of what good can come from it ? We never got in a pot vs one another but, it seems to effect me if I’m playing against my own money. Its just a silly idea from my point of view and probably from his considering it was lent money and a fairly big game.

Anyway I basically was in a rush to build pots to take down against the table mega fish whereas I had all the time in the world just to wait. I couldn’t assign a range to him which came to bite me in this hand.

4 Handed
I’m the BTN with AhKd. CO (MegaFish) raises to £25. I 3bet to £75 , SB & BB fold , Megafish obv flats.
Board comes 5cAc2h with a flush draw. Megafish bets out £25 (I’m getting freaked out, I’ve been playing with him on one table or another for 7 hours + now. Honestly cannot remember him betting out or raising ever before. I doubt he hit a set he’s not raising pf with 55′s or 22′s that’s limping territory for him, AA unlikely ? And I’d just taken a big pot off him and he was a bit tilted. So I make it £200 and he flats.
Turn is a 6d and he makes it £25 again. I obv saw 34 got there but, what are the odds there is still so much stuff to get value from. So I make it £250. River comes a non-club 9 and he makes it £25 again. I decided to make it £300 and then he shoves for £500 more. I was completley perplexed. I figure if he’s making it £25 on all streets its not like his hand has improved and it looked like up until then he was desperatley trying to pot control or somehting. He could have a monsted I guess but, what monster on the flop beats me ? AA ? Well I figured that’s just a cooler. The fact I’d just burnt him for a £2k pot too and he’s never effectivley check raising without pretty much the nuts (well it doesn’t make sense to do it with a random 2 pair or something) or air made me call.

He flips 65 for 2 pair. Basically no part of that hand made sense to me.

So I mean I don’t know how horrificly I played that and I guess if a fish does that alarm bells should go off.

I don’t really know why I went down – I got a good thing going on and there is no need to change a winning team . I met a few players to sign up and stuff so there’s a positive spin.

Including hotel which was pretty nice, petrol , food and losses it was best part of a £1.5k 48 hours but, that’s just variance. What hurt was a £3k + swing not the money lost per se. That’s poker I guess. Wish they had RB for live games.

It feels pretty shit but, I’m just going to end up working all the hours this week to make up for it !

iPokerVIP.Net is finally live and kicking. After countless updates and redrafts its now in a state I’m happy with although I’ll always find a little something wrong with it. Probably because in a perverse way I don’t want it to go live and fail – I’d much rather keep building and perfecting.

Anyway – its just a question of putting the ads on 2+2 (should be next week) and keeping my fingers crossed. I’m completley convinced the gap in the market is there and I’m equally certain nobody has filled it. The size of the niche and whether I’m the one to fill it remains to be seen. Besides I’m sure there are lots of failed businesses that were in the right niche but, just couldn’t capitlize. Although being in a growth area makes failing a shitload harder I’m sure.

As for my current player base things should turn around from Febuary (and it looks like March’s) horrible low. I’ve been busy with iPokerVIP and a ton of other things and its just harder to get players on these deals nowadays.
VC is running a $375k promotion called Poker Olympics which is going to kill. Its by far the best place to go on iPoker now and the dormant player’s under me (who all have a legitimate chance of doing very well with the promo) would be stupid to not come flooding back.
So I hope they’re not stupid !

April is going to be really busy – which is a good thing. No uni and I’m not really intending to revise for exams then either. 1st one is May 7th so 7 days (if I put my head down is defo all that is needed to pass which is 40%).

April is going to be interesting. I’ve kinda written off March though.

If iPokerVIP goes well I’ve got another affiliate concept ready to go which I’ll write more about later. Hopefully, it doesn’t take me as long to get my head around.

Tags: iPoker News, iPokerVIP.net, poker promotion, race, rake, vcpoker, victor chandler, vip

Aside from ipokervip I’ve got some lower variance investments on the go and just thought I’d type my thinking out loud on some of them and see if it makes any sense. I’m not qualified at all btw so don’t act on any of this pls !

Gold – I try to order gold every month and get it from a site called UK Bullion. Basically I wire them the money and get some in the post which struck me as pretty sketchy at first. I didn’t understand why they couldn’t process a credit card but, I get it the next day and it seems to be okay. Well, I mean its gold.
On a random note don’t be fooled by the pictures – 1oz of gold is tiny, like absolutely tiny.
Anyway, buying physical gold attracted to me as opposed to buying it and keeping it in a vault somewhere because its purpose is really to consolidate wealth. The time when an investor would realise a huge return on gold would be during a time of complete financial meltdown, war or some kind of anarchy. In this, admittedly far fetched situation what good is your gold being in some bank vault or held in shares ?
For me the main point of investing / saving is survival. Profit is nice, but survival is key and gold is perfect for this. Cynics would say in this kind of scenario I’d probably be better with a gun than gold though.
Anytime when there is financial instability associated with fiat currencies gold will rise because it becomes a more attractive way to store wealth.
I guess it doesn’t yield a dividend and its value can dwindle but, at the end of the day we’re talking about a finite resource that is publicly recognised as having its price controlled by the central banks and imf in order to slow down inflation – how can we not be talking about a commodity that will ultimately rise ? and I actually can’t think of a finite resource that decreases in value over time.

http://www.garynorth.com/public/4857.cfm

This guy is pretty crazy but, I’ve got a lot of time for it – probably the sort of thing you’ll love if your into conspiracy theories.
Anyway, I think you can do a lot worse than buying a few oz’s of gold. You can’t gamble them away anyway !

High Yield Deposit Bond – This is basically one of those deals where I’ve said I’ll put £x away for 1 year and take the interest. An absolutely shit investment yielding 2.8% at HSBC. I didn’t actually mean to open the account I thought I was filling out an information form online early one morning. I like this though because the money is safe and it is a better interest rate than their flexi saver which I only use as a mechanism to make sure there is never too much on my card. I’ve heard some good things about some banks abroad and will be opening an account in Gibraltar when I go over in the near future.

Shares via ISA – I’d be dumb not to have an ISA and build it up + they’re putting the limit up to £10k a year in April. So there is an opportunity to save some serious tax free money. I do it via the motley fool share dealing service although don’t have much in there at the moment because of limits. I’ve split it over 6 or 7 shares including; BP, Scottish&Southern, Severn Trent, Texaco and some other similarly boring companies my dad suggested to me that I forget. They’re all pretty solid with 6% + in dividends and they’re all involved in providing essential resources. Severn Trent are water, Scottish & Southern are electric and so on..

That’s really about it – The saving bug only hit me recently but, I don’t want this to end and have nothing to show for it. The least I can do is give myself a springboard for any other ideas I may have outwith the industry.

I’m often worried that my investments are contradictory. An easy example is my payment. Each month I’m paid in $ (so obviously enjoying the exchange rate at the moment). Now, based on some very basic economics and probably shit reasoning I would say;
1. State of USD is representative of the world’s economical climate. If the $ is strong the economy in a global sense can’t really be doing too bad ?
2. Gold needs financial uncertainty to realise healthy gains. If fiat currency is doing well, and people have faith in the market where is the need for gold ? Even as a safety net ?

So I want $ to get stronger.. but gold to go up too. I mean there is tons of stuff like this and although my reasoning isn’t perfect I want to get a sense of direction in my investments.

Buying gold and buying £ for USD is maybe like burning money in commission. Like putting £100 on Red and £100 on black and just slowly bleeding value.

As I said the most important thing is preservation of wealth and one thing I want is to always have diversity in my savings. In UK banks money is guarenteed by the government up to £50k so an example would obviously be having seperate accounts if your savings were in excess of this – pretty obvious lol.

I guess the ultimate investment is property but, nobody is giving me a mortgage anytime soon considering I’m techincally just a student but, in the next few months when I go to Gibraltar that might all change.

Wealth is always becoming more polarised – the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer so tax havens are going to become more popular ? Its got the added benefit of establishing a legit business there too if I own property so that’s something for the future.

My favourite investments are ones I can guide and see through however. So I’m looking really forward to iPokerVIP its getting close.

Tags: Gold, Investments, iPoker News, iPokerVIP.net, Playtech, Savings, Silver

Great news. VC is running $375k of races starting on April 5th. Hopefully, this rejuviantes the player base and shows them VC is the place to be.

The races are broken down over a few months, with different stakes and games having their own individual races.

It seems like a killer idea and will hopefully help all the affiliates involved so long as its advertised properly.

The value for the players too will be awesome.

Test page for ipokervip is up although the text for the offers is going to change that is pretty much what your going to see when it goes live: www.ipokervip.co.uk/test

It will most likely go live under the domain name: ipokervip.net although I own most of the major domains aside from .com which I just couldn’t get.

I’ve pretty much not been updating the blog because when ipokervip comes out I want to be updating it daily because of the increased traffic. Also if I decide to feed my latest posts into the site I’d like them to be updating as much as possible and keyword rich for SEO.

The site should go live this coming Wed which is the 24th of March with the ads on 2+2 and support thread following soon after. Really just hope I’ve not made a bad call lol.

The blog is going to get a complete revamp to skin it up as part of ipokervip or make it look similar. Allowing randoms to get at the offers from the blog.

So its all very exciting !

Tags: iPoker News, iPokerVIP.net, poker promotion, race, rake, vcpoker, victor chandler, vip

Time away from the PC didn’t really go as planned. I’ve been really ill lately caught a bug which serves me right for ripping a friend for catching it himself off a Subway. There’s karma for you.

Really going to try and push to update this daily as it allows me to monitor progress.

As for progress: Got deals down with all the sites for ipokervip now; Circus, VC, Will Hill & Betmost.
Just waiting on the site to go live. The whole thing has taken a lot longer than I hoped but, I guess that’s to be expected. I’m getting kinda frustrated now becuase Ihate the idea that someone could swoop by and do the same thing and probably in half time time – its seriously tilting thinking about it. I’m going to make a huge push to get it out on Wed next week with the banners and support thread going live on 2+2 the week after.

This whole project has got me thinking how powerless I am over my destiny. I mean in reality ipoker is the only network I make serious money from and I can’t influence iPoker’s fate at all – I mean the network could come crashing to an end and that would really be that. Sure I’d have a mailing list but, it would never be the same.

In an ideal world ipokervip would get a few thousand signups and actually boost the network – That would be a dream come true.

Anyway, all that is for a post of its own I’m going to have a nap !

Feeling really burnt out and shit. Spending 10 hours a day on affiliate stuff is beginning to take its toll along with ‘uni’.

After I’ve paid out my subs I’m going to try and stay off a computer for 48 hours or something. Not sure how that will go…

On another note I feel quite good I’ve found a good contact who will hopefully help me further ipokervip and any other business in the future. He seems to get the drive and passion I have for this business as he has it himself and can relate to how I’ve got some ideas and despratley want to revolutionize the way things work. I always feel kind of stupid when sites I deal with are pretty content with gliding along and I’ve got all these ideas (some of which will be pretty poor I admit) and they’re just not really that interested.

The problem probably is that the staff aren’t given the monetary incentive to grow and expand. It wouldn’t matter what profit the room was making, as long as it wasn’t going broke – at the end of the day the manager’s and affiliate manager’s are still going to get paid the same amount. Its pretty messed up imo as the sites appreciate a significant % of their turnover comes from affiliates who are paid purely on commission but, they don’t think they should reward their staff on the same basis.

Anyway time for a break !

Around 2 weeks ago Full Tilt Poker decreased affiliate commission to 3% whereas before affiliates could enjoy up to 8% (I believe). This doesn’t effect me at all but, its definatley worth writing about so here goes…

I never really recruited players for FTP because even post 3% commission their effective commission was the worst out there along with pokerstars – if you were lucky enough to get revenue share.

What I mean by effective commission is that the FTP new player market was highly competitive and saturated with races, coaching and software being offerred left, right and centre – See the recent CardRunners promotion. After the player rakes their intitial $500 CardRunners will be lucky to have profited whatsoever.

However, ipoker and ongame are arguably as equally competitive with the difference being they’re networks. As far as I know there are no players who upon signing up to FTP are raking a decent amount – which pretty much means its an investment into the players raking a decent amount in the future. Whereas on iPoker or OnGame I know when someone says to me they rake $5k there is a fair chance they’ll rake something and if I establish a good relationship with them and things are good there’s no reason I can’t make a few K from them in a lifetime.

Its not only the investment in the player’s learning curve, future disposable income and everything else that gives them the ability to generate rake but, an investment in FTP still being around as a site and online poker as an industry. For a small unestablished affiliate running races and promotions resulting in a very fine edge combined with the delay in time before real returns are realised always made FTP an unappealing option for me.

I’ve read around that this drop to 3% was long overdue for affiliates and is going to be mirrored elsewhere. I completley disagree with this statement – as long as poker networks exist so will affilaites on decent commissions. The unarguably easiest way for skins to access fast, reliable rake is to steal players from fellow skins on the network. This cannot be done by anyone other than affiliates.

Moreover, FTP and Stars enjoy great brand recognition and affiliates definatley piggy backed off this. I guess the test would be to see how many of these players would be playing at FTP if they had the same deal without an affiliate. I’m guessing close to 100%. Whereas on iPoker or OnGame the players could be at one of 30 places.

I guess the problem for affiliates on stand alone sites is if a player wants to play that site its not becuase of the affiliate its becuase of the site. But, that’s why I’m thankful about not being involved in FTP. I can’t imagine being RakeTheRake and previously earning $80k a month of the $1million rake being generated by its players and having that docked to $30k. Its a lesson in how vulnerable affilaites can be and probably offsets the great short term earnings.

Anyway, I don’t see anything changing on the networks becuase the minute it does a ton of affiliates and consequently players will move and that will be that.

Tags: affiliate, commission, ftp, ipokerm full tilt, poker, poker affiliate