Just a quick update.

Things are going about a 7/10 I’d say – always seems to be the favoured rating. Don’t want to go for a 9/10 to seem cocky but, don’t want to come accross as a pesimistic twat either. Just right.

Anyways, business wise I’ve been putting in the hours recently and looking forward to the new updated ipokervip (and ads) coming out towards the end of this week. Hopefully, next week the same site will be up in Dutch and German.

I know I’ve already gone on about it but, the site is a total step up from the old one so it will be interesting to see how people respond to all the new stuff.

On top of that we have PokerAvantage.com
This is something I’m going to really have to put the hours in on and am going for a different web designers for just to see how they do. I can only pile so much work on one set of guys. As far as I can tell there is not one comprehensive comparison site for players in France and nowhere needs this kind of service more than France at the moment. All the sites have pretty different rake structures and reward programs and the market is so saturated a lot of the companies are in dire need of affiliates. In my opinion, with 30+ sites all catering to <5% of the online poker population this need for outsourcing recruitment to affiliates is only going to be exacerbated.

StudentPizza.Com / PizzaVoucherCode.Com & PizzaVoucherCodes.Com are all coming out soon. Which are basically voucher code sites specific to Pizza Hut, Dominos and Papa Johns.

Online ordering of pizza is on the rise.
Fast food / takeaways are on the rise.
Popularity of comparison sites and affiliate driven business is at an all time high.

The concept of having special offers for fast food online has been done before but, not specifically for pizza. MyVoucherCodes.Co.Uk is really hard to navigate and isn’t particuarly reliable whereas JustEat.Co.Uk doesn’t focus on value but, rather offerring a an online solution to smaller, local takeaways. So I really believe there is a niche for a value driven, pizza voucher code site. We will just need to wait and see…

Apart from business, its going alrite. My body clock is pretty shit which means I’m only really working, then going out at night and repeating. If I was to get up at 10am fitting the gym into my day and learning some Spanish would be pretty painless.

Always a goal for tommorow I guess…

I hope its just age really, probably.

Anyway, I got tons more crap to write about and lots of work to be getting on with so will try to come back tommorow to share it with you guys.

On a sidenote: all this growth is occuring because of Michael (guy I started employing recently) and I’m really pleased with how its going. I actually barely recruit players anymore. Best £550 a month ever speant so far. Hopefully, it continues.

I’m (like a lot of people) very good at talking anc coming up with ridiculous concepts but, putting them into action is a different game. I love making deals, getting subs on board and generally setting the direction the business is taking. For example at the moment; Offerring new rooms, extending the 2+2 ad campaign and becoming more localised – we will have a seperate version of the site for a number of territories although it may not be under the same brand name. I guess adding more rooms seems kinda obvious and not really a directional decision but, I felt iPokerVIP originally carried more weight as a company specialising in iPoker. Rather than bombing in like every other affiliate trying to hit the mainstream and saying ‘we are just like the big guys, we offer everything and don’t have a fucking clue what we’re talking about’. IPokerVIP’s lack of choice or maybe wealth of choice on the iPoker network (maybe not) was a USP.

Anyway the site getting redesigned is really exciting and I guess looking at the test version and the current site makes me feel that the current site doesn’t cut it at all. Too much info hitting people, too small and its just not quite in the same league as the other guys.
The new site will (like the original) blow the competitors out of the water in terms of the value and I fully expect another uproar somewhere. This time the people trying to damage iPokerVIP will have even less credibility and hopefully I’m more laid back about it.

New ads willl be appearing on 2+2 and for like £200 a month I regret not freshening them up for the last 3 months. 2p2 is expensive but, if I’ve got someone manning the forum who is personable and good at what they do, along with good offers and a reliable brand name I think iPokerVIP could be going mainstream very soon.

The New banners are going to be pretty unique. They’re going to contain the bonus code for exclusive offers. Obviously I will be starting with VC Poker and one of the slides of the banner will say ‘Highest VIP Level at VCPoker Instantly. Enter: IPOKERVIP at VCPoker.com’ I don’t thnk an affiliate has ever done this before and it will be interesting to see how it does as a part of an iPokerVIP banner. Another frame on the banner will contain my; MSN, Email and Skype. Its differet anyway !

Anyways looking forward to all of this and more !

Feel like I’m on a roll with the updates. Firstly, I’d like to say F U iPoker for their software at the moment. Its totally unacceptable for a company worth in excess of $1bn and one that is meant to take poker seriously. You can bet their casino software has far less downtime. Anyway, I’ve been hit like everyone and so far its probably cost me $2k which is really beginning to piss me off.

Anyway, with that off my chest.. let’s get into the post.

I’m 20 and a few of my ‘friends’ from school are now graduating from uni’s in England (3 year courses, Scotland is a 4 year course). A few of them are coming out with 1st class degree’s from Oxford and Cambridge and its pretty sobering for me. One in particualr who I used to be good friends with is set for Harvard Law after getting the best mark for law in his college at Cambridge. There is no doubt he will have worked like mad and certainly deserves the recognition for it.

Its pretty scary though. 3 years ago I had identical grades (arguably better in some ways; Best mark in Scotland for Philosophy and for my history dissertation and a more rounded CV – I used to play a lot of Squash and was in the top 5 in Scotland) but, didn’t get into Oxford. I think I was just too young and in reality didn’t want it as much as these guys. I stayed at a friends before the interview, ended up drinking and making myself pretty ill. I didn’t treat them like I did my Squash or this business.

Now, 3 years have past and there is a huge gulf in the way our lives will pan out. That’s okay because we’re different people but, its just a wake up call.

I’m genuinley happy for him because hard work should be rewarded. My only reservation is that I feel I should have and could have done a lot better academically with my grades.

I kind of think golf is a good analogy for life. Its not like tennis or squash where I’m playing against someone. Sure there are other people on the course; there are tiger woods’ and complete amateurs but, all I can strive for is to be the best I can be, watch these people and learn from the routes they’ve decided to take. I’m not against this guy at all, I just believe (when we were younger at least) I was academically in the same league as him he just had a different mentality.

What is reassuring is that we actually have the same ends. I think people go into further education for 3 reasons;

1. Intrinsic interest for the subject they’re studying. These people are academics.
2. Uni as a continuation of school qualifications – considered obligatory. A box that needs to be ticked with a 2:1 showing they’re suitable for employment. This, I guess makes up the majority of students.
3. Uni as a ‘time to shine’. To set yourself away from the field. Using the connections and impressive qualification as a means to acquire wealth and social status.

This guy is number 3 and he wants the same end that I do. He just believes he can achieve it with less risk or gain x value more times out of 10 via his chosen path than mine. The sad thing is, looking at it logically, its true. Dropping out of uni (what I did orignally when I did Law at Edinburgh) to start a business was retarded in terms of expected value. 1 in 100 times it might become successful… the rest I’ll be stuck.

Anyway, apologies for this post being slightly self indulgent. The nice thing is that when something like this happens we should be happy someone we know has shown us what we are capable of. Its not about people being better than you, its about you seeing someone become the best they can be, the optimal version of themselves and attempting to emulate that.

What Can We Learn From The Recent Developments in France ?

All the major players have been fiercly contesting the new French market.
BWIN, Party, Chili, PokerStars are some of the sites that have successfully secured French licences.  These companes are ofcourse pressuring the authorities to get rid of the black market operators such as FTP to give them the best chance to make money for the French government.

In my honest opinion France is too small to merit so many licencees and the battle will be fought on liquidity. Once player’s realise there is better traffic and a better selection of games at one room in particular its going to be tough for the others to claw their way back. Its very interesting because France is a blank canvas and it will be interesting if Pokerstars can utilise their superior player base to get an early lead.

Personally, I believe the networks have the best chance of acculmulating decent traffic early doors which may propell them into the lead.

The one certain thing is that France is definitley worth watching becausethe fight that is being fought now will be happening in territories all over the world in the coming few years. Other governments will not be able to resist the opportunity of another income stream but, need to be careful not to take too much out of the poker ecosystem and bring the game in their country to a premature end.

Cash is King however, especially in the Land of the free where everything has a price. PPA representatives kid themselves Stars is constantly months away from a licence and that the US government can’t turn away the oppurtunity to instantly monetize Star’s volume of traffic.

Although the tax implemented by the Government on Stars would likely be more costly than their current expenditure on payment processors its tough to see Stars turning the opportunity down.

It is well documented their would be an uproar from the land based operators who have been paying hundreds of millions every year and no doubt have a good relationship with the right people.

We’ve established why licensing Stars maybe controverisal but, why are we not seeing Harrah’s Poker or Party Poker USA yet ? Surely they’re turning away millions in tax every month that goes on ?

The name of the game for the US is to monetize poker as effectivley as possible.

Licenced rooms entering the American market now would definitley have their traffic canibilized by Stars. Once players became remotley educated and realised there was another site with; Far higher liquidity, better games, better software and most importantly lower rake it would become a no brainer.

Liquidity is #1 in online poker. You can have the best software, bonuses and customer service but, without a good selection of games its going to be near on impossible to attract a good amount of players. Companies such as Victory Poker just didn’t appreciate this and thought generic branding and shitloads of money would be enough to get them through – it wasn’t.

Case Study France: France now has several licenced rooms such as; Pokerstars, Party and Chilli. FTP haven’t applied for a licence and can offer far greater traffic than the exclusively French facing licencees. They can’t advertise in France however, the majority of semi-serious French players on Stars have jumped to FTP, not PokerStars.Fr .Realistically there is little the French govt can do apart from block FTP (which will take several months and will still be accessible via VPN). Ofcourse FTP don’t stand much of a chance of getting a licence now but, I doubt they ever wanted one.

So, to conclude: The USA are going to slowly hurt Stars and FTP’s liquidity to make their licences worth more to the buyer and to them in terms of tax revenue.

England game is about to start. Got my strip today which I’m quite happy with, opted for the red one but, England should really be sponsored by Adidas or Nike. I know Umbro are an English company but they don’t make the strips like the big 2 imo.

I had a policy not to bet on this world cup and that went down the shitter on the 1st day. Was at a friends and had some commission left online. About £500 and I noticed France were 2.3 before the match to win. It seemed pretty good so it all went on and as we know Govou made a horrific miss and France can’t finish their dinner.

I’m not gna lie it felt bad. Real low.

Its not like I was going to feel on top the world after winning but, I feel like a real degenerate losing so much money especially in context.

Other news: iPoker software still hasn’t changed although things keep getting better for iPokerVIP.

I’m looking into affiliating in other industries and setting up a site like: comparethepizza.com and allowing customers to compare the best pizza deals at the big 3 (accross the UK) ; Pizza Hut, Dominos and Papa Johns.

That’;s something I’ll be looking into next week although I’ve got the affiliate agreement worked out with most of them – then its just the site and marketing.

Go On England !

On my last night I went over into Spain into a town/city ? called La Linea. Got a taxi to the border, get out and flash your passport and your in Spain (if its British they’re only interested in the cover – even when you go to airports it seems British passports are pretty much golden and don’t get scrutinized at all. I’m not complaining ofcourse – just saying.)

I went up the rock a few days before I left with a good friend who lives in one of the nicest apartments I’ve ever seen ! Anyway apart from taking a stupid route and not taking any water I really enjoyed the views. From the top you could see Morocco, all of Gib and Spain. It was pretty amazing when thinking of how geographically close these 3 places are but, how culturally different they are. I mean Gib is just sunny Britain (nothing wrong with that!).

I stayed a little longer in Gib hoping to meet Korn from PokerStrategy. I met a community manager in a bar one night and Korn seemed to have a big problem with me talking to him. I was accused of  soliciting him on 2+2 which is so LOL and I’d welcome any legal action. Its just complete unsubstantiated shit. I thought he was a great guy when talking to him and will admit to being on the hustle and trying to get him a VIP deal through iPokerVIP even although he was wearing a PS hoody but, unfortnatley the main thing that came accross in the conversation was how keen I was to meet Korn and learn in depth about him as a person and their business model.

Ofcourse it never happend and anyone wanting to discuss Korn’s warped view of the industry has to get their hands dirty in the threads which ultimatley resolves very little. People end up getting flamed and more entrenched in their original views. A face to face meeting would have been far more constructive.

Anyway it was the fact I was accused on 2+2 of doing a ton of illegal things and being dodgy which is just rubbish. I wire thousands to players every week and I’ve never heard anyone complain concerning the service I offer them.

Overall Gib was awesome and I was really pleased to meet people from Victor Chandler who are top guys. An affiliate or a player couldn’t ask for anymore.  I urge everyone to try and qualify for the beat victor challenge – you’ll have a great time.

As for iPoker – the network is still recovering and the software is being fixed. I really hope things turn around – I’d hate for the market to become even more top heavy. Although if it did and Stars and FTP got a slap on the wrist things would change so fast I could maybe establish myself as one of the big dogs. Playtech are a big company and I doubt they’ll let a market like this slip away.

Anyway that’s me for now

Finished my exams a week ago and the last one didn’t go so well. I had been up all night and was sat at the top floor which had some sort of sun magnifying dome right above my seat. It was just beaming down on me so strongly and to those who haven’t had the pleasure of staying up all night I’ll tell you a bright sun is the most disgusting thing ever.  Throughout the exams I guess I’ve been hedging my bets with the questions and it backfired in my last exam when the only question I could answer I just didn’t understand: “stratified reproduction curtails reproductive agency”. Pretty gay.

Since then I’ve been to London – donked off money which completley sucked. I ran fairly bad and actually felt I played pretty well. The sickest pot was a KcTs2c board where I got it in with KJ which is defo pretty light for 200bb + stacks at a 8 handed table but, I gave some chat which made myself look ridiculously weak (not deliberatley) so got myself in a spot where I could shove or fold. Anyways the guy, who I thought was fairly solid – tank called with 88 and obv the turn was an 8. Pot was just shy of £1k . So that kinda sucked.
I’m probably going to roll on down to London in the summer and give grinding the 2/5 game a shot for a month or something just to prove to myself I can beat it + I love the city it makes Edinburgh feel pretty small and mundane.

Next week I’m heading over to Gibraltar which should be decent. VC are putting me up in a really nice looking apartment which I’m obviously really grateful for. It should be good to get some nice weather, although the last week has been pretty awesome here.

After Gib I’m going to hang out in London for a bit and meet some people to discuss future affiliate related business ventures. Hopefully, I can make something really big happen this summer !

I’m also going to ‘hire’ my 1st employee this weekend. Sounds a bit more formal than it is but, I’m going to pay a friend a weekly wage to do some stuff. He’s easily capable of this stuff just the potential hazard with mates is they try and freeroll off you a bit but, its just going to be a rolling thing so if that happens  it won’t be a big deal. He will be liasing with new rooms, paying sub-affiliates and PMing on 2+2 mainly. Maybe doing other things like content for newsletters but, we’ll see how it goes. I’ll still be in contact with all the players as usual so he’s just really going to allow me to cast a wider net and hopefully, can help get iPokerVIP established on some other networks.

Anyway I guess that’s everything

The election has been pretty interesting. I felt really bad for the Lib Dem candidate in my constituency who really worked 10* harder than any other. Anywhere in Scotland is going to be tough to crack for anyone on Labour’s right I guess. It turned out the Lib Dem candidate lost by under 1k votes and you’ve got to think if he can’t upset Labour now there won’t be many other opportunities. The Labour MP was caught up in the expenses scandal and generally just seemed to be coasting on the fact he was a Labour MP. It was enough anyways.

I actually didn’t vote. Firstly, because I couldn’t make up my mind. I disagree with traditional Labour values, don’t think Gordon Brown is a good face for the UK however, I do believe is probably a fairly moral guy and despite what economist’s claim he is best qualified for the financial situation. Conservative or independent’s are completley wasted up here, SNP just seem to be further left than Labour and play on Scottish people’s patriotism and Lib Dems want to introduce a mansion tax which is unfair, wind down trident and a vote for them just encourages a hung parliament which means even less will get done than usual !

Aside from the decision itself being impossible I don’t really believe in politics. Government itself is incredibly inefficient. Civil servants retain their jobs regardless of the government and are the fuel that the political car needs to move. They’re notoriously bureaucratic and obviously have their own vested interests.

Secondly and most importantly in my opinion, is the amount of money in politics. Who do the government care more about appeasing: The voter or the company who pumped millions into their campaign who were actually responsible for the success ?

This is probably why manifesto’s are ridiculously vague. The intention isn’t to give the people what they want (or not in full anyway). Its to consolidate wealth and maintain power. There is no other way to explain the lack of change throughout the West. Anything that happens in reality seems to be politician’s playing with numbers or superficial. With the big decisions not being put to a referendum and quietly sprung into action. I guess people would tell me this is the concept of efficient democracy. Instead of having a vote on individual issues the MP’s will take your decision for you. An MP that’s part of a mainstream party will rarely vote in the commons based on their own opinion. They will vote where the whip tells them to and in return they’re part of the party, more likely to get a seat and enjoy a kushty salary + benefits. This is exactly what the majority of backbenchers are doing. What is the point in having an MP ?

Labour MP’s were filmed recently offerring to ‘fix’ things for people i.e. Laws, white paper’s passing etc for a daily fee. Usually £5k a day. I doubt they were thinking of their constituency then.

I could go on for a while with various examples but, I’ve got to confess it kinda frustrates me how people become so socially invested in politics. Labour, Conservative or Hung Parliament things will be extremely similar regardless. Big Brother, Iraq and ridiculous taxes. People tell me the Lib Dems were against Iraq – it just seems to me it was the only viable move for them at the time. They know they will never be in the posistion to act on it and even if they were its not like Obama is doing much regarding his pledge concerning the war. The conservative’s couldn’t slate it too much because they would have done the same and it was because of money. Not necessarilly oil but, a certain opportunity to consolidate wealth.

I’m not knowledgeable enough to have a decent discussion with someone who is heavily involved in politics about this stuff but, based on these facts and so many more its hard to see how voting is doing that much.

Maybe I should have exercised my right to vote regardless and feel kinda bad telling people I didn’t vote because in many ways its a rare opportunity even to influence the face on the country a little.

The ads are up, along with the thread and its good to see things going fairly smoothly. I’m going to put Winner Poker & maybe a few other more competitive offers up tommorow and change the text on the home page a little (my bounce rate is alarmingly high) and hopefully that should kick things up a bit.

iPokerVIP was based on 2 premises;
1. Under the table deals are harder to come by – the market is moving.
2. iPokerVIP showcases the best legal deals.

I’d say I’ve got 2 bang on but, for all the time people have speant scrutinising my site 90% of the under the table affiliates could have been cleared out. Its pretty ridiculous and demonstrates that the iPoker network probably don’t care much for the rules themselves – just that people aren’t seen breaking them and the status quo remains intact, at least superficially.

The irony is that there are people in Birmingham who work for playtech whose job it is to catch these affiliates. If 90% of players can find these deals how can’t these spies who work on it everyday ?

I think the main problem is that iPoker doesn’t have a clear vision of what kind of network it wants to be. Its like one week they want uber-aggro deals so they can compete for Euro players on Stars and Tilt and the next week they’re banishing these deals wanting a fishy network and claiming that’s the way forward.

Tough spot. For a company worth over $1bn you’d think they might at least come close to getting it right.