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PokerStars.com - the number 1 European poker room

I didn’t planned to write about the recent Romanian Poker Championship, although I had some strong opinions against it, or to be more clear, against the fact that the leading European poker room – PokerStars.com – made an alliance with a shady new llc (limited liability company) that called itself “Romanian Poker Federation”, just a few days after the startup.

I was against the propaganda that was made around the arrival of Daniel Negreanu – and telling everyone this is a PR stunt, which came through unfortunately, instead of Daniel came to Bucharest Chris Moneymaker who’s only notable poker event was the winning of WSOP 2003 ME, since than he went dry as the water in Sahara.

Although there is no legal Romanian poker federation registered with the Romanian authorities, although the people that founded the federation are still unknown or undisclosed to the public, although there is no NGO or any association that affiliated with the LLC – PokerStars went backup up 100% the shady deal and started promoting the event – Romanian Poker Championship on their online poker room.

The legal representant of PokerStars Romania acted in many discussions like the legal spokesman of the Romanian Poker Federation (limited liability company, remember), giving the impression that PokerStars founded and controlled the new llc, or just the their legal Romanian manager is acting hectic, representing 2 companies and placing the PokerStars brand under a negative light in Romania, instead of promoting it careful with the image associated. In many occasions, over the leading romanian poker talk forum – holdem.ro – the PokerStars spokesman – DelaPokerStar.

When the news that PokerStar’s Daniel Negreanu won’t be at the RPC – the federation and the legal PokerStar manager for Romania – keept the story hidden from the public for almost a week – that’s less then 3 weeks before the event start. Also, a big setback was that Casino Marriott one of the biggest Romanian casinos, although was announced as the RPC holding place, wasn’t at all, the event ending up in some hallway at Casino Pullman – miles away, but i guess that Negreanu and Casino Marriott where just the baits for people to signup to the tournament.

The event went quietly during last week, Nov 11-15, and another bad point for the PokerStars was the fact that the tournament was delayed with a week – delay was announced less than a month prior to the event, turning competitors schedule upside down – some of the ticket winners from online tournament rennounced at tournament participation because of the delay.

So, here is, imho the negative image that the Poker Stars manager for Romania must deal with:
1. The tournament was organized by a new formed llc, called itself “Romanian Poker Federation”. There is no legal acredited Poker Federation in Romania, they backed up a shadow company!
2. The main guest and no.1 Romanian/World poker player, Daniel Negreanu – a presence  that was announced as 100% there, wasn’t there. After the fact was known, PStars kept it secret for almost a week – lack of transparency and lies are often an impediment when an event is organized in casino/poker industry.
3. After almost a week and less than 3 weeks before the tournament the news or Daniel’s lack from the tournaments events was broke to the participants. No compensation was offered and no redraws where possible for the players although maybe more than 90% of the players signed up because of Daniel’s presence at the event.

4. PokerStars Romanian manager acted like a representant of the newly formed llc – this is a double role, that I don’t think the PokerStars leaders will agree with having their own employee represent someone else instead of them, and bringing damage to PokerStars image by representing/defending the other company.
5. Event was moved from a 5 star location, Casino Marriott – to an almost unknown location – hotel Pullman, just weeks before the event start. No transparency or legal/official notices, just that event was moved.
6. The replacement of Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moneymaker failed tot fill the gap created by Daniel’s lack from event. He was a shadowly presence and didn’t even made it to the last day of the event.

7. Event wasn’t covered by media, there where no creatives for the event what-so-ever. Also, there was no promotion for the event in online medium, just negative rumors and discussions and no transparency online from the PokerStars representants in Romania. There where only a few websites that look like they where created in 2005-2006 from the design, look and feel – and i’m reffering here at federatiaromanadepoker.ro and romanianpokerchampionship.com. Hiring some designers would benefit the future events made by both PStars and the Romanian llc.
8. There is still uncertain who made what. One thing is clear – there’s no Romanian Poker Federation, but there’s a LLC called that way, misleading people. PokerStars Romania backed up the llc 120%, hurting their images just to protect the llc’s image. That sux, from many points of view.
9. There’s no reaction from London’s main office regarding the event or the PokerStars failure.

10. After the event passed we can’t say was a success – most of the people that had an argument about the event where unhappy – either by accusing the lack of transparency and hidding the sensitive informations like Daniel’s lack from the event or the tax on prize that was applied.

So, the questions that must be asked now are:
1. Is PokerStars casting aside Romania’s poker players and their contribution to the European poker community ? (remember, we made no.2 last year on country poker championship)
2. Is this a singular event failure, or will be more failures in the near future for PokerStars in Romanian market, maybe due to inexperience of working with Romanian casino market?
3. What is the gain of the Romanian poker over this? Was PokerStars aware of their misrepresentation ? Or of the misleading of the Romanian poker players ? Will PokerStars support illegal companies/llc’s in the future ?

I know, the last one is a bit harsh, but, c’mon – a federation that is a limited liability company. That’s just lmao in PokerStars and Romanian poker players faces. And the fact that the whole event is a  big PR & marketing  failure -  from outside looks like amateur jobs – the marketing  of the event, the side taking public talks, the back up of the llc, the secret of Daniel’s lack from the tournament, replacement with a player that can’t even …. no point in going on anymore, i think you can get the point.

Good luck in the future PokerStars, maybe you should hire new people to represent you better here, in Romania ? Just a thought !

Entertainment, Poker / Casino daniel negreanu, fail, failure, misrepresentation, pokerstars romania, romanian poker championship

Monica Iacob-Ridzi - a proven corrupted minister in the Romanian Government. No resignation thou

There’s a common fear in Romania. It’s name is CHANGE.

What is normal in other countries, in here is OUTRAGEOUS. To change a minister because they took bribe?! Or because they are corrupt? Or because papers are full of their corruption, bribe and unfair businesses made with the state money ? No way, not gonna happen! Ever! Not in Romania, at least.

A few years ago I heard that some minister in Sweden or some Northen country has been removed because he took his kid from school with the a car that belong to the ministry he was in charge of. In Belgium, after they found the bodies of 2 young girls buried for more than 17 years in a courtyard of some fanatic, the Justice minister resigned. In Hungary, not later than one year ago, the Transportation minister has forwarded his resignation because one of the trains arrived with a 2 hour delay in Budapest train station.

In Romania we got corruption at it’s full level. The Youth and Sport Minister, Monica Iacob-Ridzi, has give without public licitation, based on party favors more than a half million euros to organize the celebration of 2nd of May, the Youth day in here. Making the calculation of the spend money on real-value, we got for one event only a pickpoket of 280.000 euros from the Ministry money. Arrogance, concorded with the corruption and lack of  a 120 IQ level (140 is high expectation that is never met in Romanian politicians) of the Romanian Minister, brought to the question “where were our money spend?” the answer “we could’ve spend more!”. And no sign or future or current resignation for the current minister.

But, as Monica Iacob-Ridzi there are other people in minister functions. More corrupt, and the money they give to the political party members and sponsors are much more heavier than those 600.000 euros found for the Iacob-Ridzi. More than this, in a European country, to have a travel minister that doesn’t speak english it’s not a crime, it’s a suicidal mission. Or lack of respect for the people that put your ass in charge.

Viva Romania! Viva la corruption!

Politics, Sport / Football boc govern corrupt, monica iacob-ridzi, romanian government corruption

The highway of ... tomorrow in Romania. Neverending story

or lack of. Because the term highway is a SciFi term in Romania’s authorities dictionary or fact books.

Most of the Western Civilisations prefer to build up highways for speeding up the expedition of goods from one place to another, but also to cut the traveling time by personal car between cities. In Romania, 20 years after the fall of the pro-soviet regim we have around 200km of highway, all starting from Bucharest  and ending up on the leisure points for the capital of Romania citizens: Constanta – at the black sea, or Brasov (mostly still underconstruction after 7 years) and the rest of the winter ski resorts in Carpathians Mountains.

While most of the border countries – like Bulgaria, Serbia or Hungary – prefer to build up between 70-200km of highway / year we still struggle with our 22 million people to get the country highway kilometers to 200. In total. As road infrastructure of Romania, it’s a known fact that the EU countries started building the better roads towards West; Austria did the best job on getting closer to Swizerland, Hungary to Germany, Czech Republic and Austria and even Bulgary did a great job in building highways and national roads towards West – Serbia.

The government of Romania doesn’t give a penny on others did right or wrong. They have their own way: the corruption way! This is why the most important city in the civilized Romania, Timisoara is not having right now an road to get the traffic that comes from Arad to Lugoj (North-West) out of the city and this is why it takes about 10-11 hours to get from Timisoara to Bucharest, which is 550km away; Budapest (200 km ~ 2.2 hrs drive), Belgrade (120 km ~ 1.5 hrs drive) and Wien (900km ~ 6 hrs drive) are cities that you can get easier and faster from Timisoara if you travel by car.

Basically, the structure of the roads in Romania is on ground zero, with only 200 km (most of them still underconstruction, on repair or with speed limitation) for a country that has 300.000 square km and 22.000.000 people living in it. And it’s a member of EU since 01.07.

If you think you can come to Romania and use the car (perhaps your car?) to move from one place to another, think again. Or get an helicopter rented. Or just skip coming, you’ll get your nerves drained on the road.

If you want to build up a highway here, this is the place to do it: the price that you can ask for the roads are 300-1.500% higher than you would ask in Croatia (think about the mountains, tunnels, bridges that you will have to build in Croatia) or EU. We have a range between 5 and 60 milion euros / km of build highway in the plain, while in a mountain country (Croatia, Slovenia) you would have to build each km with only 3.5 millions euro.

Btw, the introduction sequence of Borat movie is filmed in Romania. Do you remember that wonderful blue car? that’s the national Dacia vehicle – still in use on the country roads, build and used in Romania by people who doesn’t have the money to upgrade to Renault’s Logan version.

… but, the flipside of the story is that in Romania you’ll find the newest Mercedes, Lamborghini or Ferrari cars before they hit the autostores in rest of the world. And that’s another story

social bucharest, highway, roads, Romania, status of romania transportation, timisoara

What will we see new in the technology next year. What will make the stand-out from the crowd of the gadgets announced, and what will make it’s way into our life ? Well, here’s my list of what to expect for 2009 in the IT&C business:

1. New Intel Core i7 processor from Intel; although the quadcore and core 2 processors are still ruling the market, Intel has prepared probably for the Q3 09 the new generation of processors Core i7. They will probably have 4 times the processing power from the current top processors, incorporating 8 to 16 processors in the new microprocessor; also, with the new processors, Intel has rethinked the whole internal structure of the microprocessor, and the way it reacts to the impulses inside.

2. OLED technology will become a certitude on the market; and what does it mean to the user? New Star Trek gadgets, from the folding and thinner TV screens to new computer devices (remember the folding piano keyboard from the Star Trek? well, it’s here with the new tech). Cars, TV’s, Ad Media Panels most will switch to the new technology

3. Windows 7 - although Microsoft said will be delivered on 2010, i don’t think they afford to wait untill than for the new operating system launch, and here are the reasons why: Google will probably launch at the Q3-Q4 the new operating system for the PC’s, they already have Android for mobiles, Apple’s Mac is getting a bigger slice of the pie each day, Linux is stabilizing on a 12-14% market share, and Vista is still far more unpopular than XP. So, the new Vista 2 or Windows 7 will be forced our in second semester of 2009. The much promised WinFS will still be a promise for future, but the touchscreen technology and wireless integrations to the new OS will gain some points for the Redmont giant.

4. Apple’s rise - iPhone3G is a revolutionary phone, but still it has 2MP camera, still has no MMS, no way to change it’s battery and much more things to improve. And probably with the new WiMax, will have a new iPhone on the market, probably not in the summer, but the bets are for Q3 09.

5. New broadband connection: WiMax rules in predictions, but maybe only US will get to step to the new nationwide broadband network. In Europe, the 50Mbps internet access will gain more popularity, and in Eastern Europe, the standard will stabilized around 15-20Mbps speed,

What we will still miss in 2009:
- the US government will still keep Tesla’s inventions filled under top secret, so we will probably not have in 2009 wireless electric power everywhere
- the planet still have oil reserves, so there’s no point in letting electric cars rule the world / market
- the new inventions in airplanes will still be under top secret, so we will still make over 7 hours from Paris to NYC and 15 from Europe to Brasil; no point in speeding things up to more MACH speed, while you can have a video call with friends instead of dinner or youtube for the Rio festival, instead of being there
- no jump to hyper-processing era of 50-100 GHz processors, 10TB of storage on a CD, USB 500MBps transfers
- no alternative energy burst (solar batteries, eolian energy) we still have the nuclear, hydrothermal and oil energy to waste, so the owners of the resources will still force the non-disclosure of the new energy saving technology
- no Venus Project application (or adaptation to 2009 realities)

Communication, social, software 2009 gadgets, core i7, iphone, wimax

Although they planned in opening offices in Eastern European countries (including Romania) around September – October, looks like PokerStars is still stuggleing to find out a head office manager for the countries. Maybe it’s hard to find out a man to handle the whole PS concept, have the relations and implement the program for development in those countries, but at least for Romania – it’s enough to take Daniel Negreanu on a trip to Bucharest and let him choose the manager for the branch.

I mean you have such a great poker name on your side, and you let the market that SHOULD be yours to be taken by competition like PartyPoker, UltimateBet and even LuckyAce or some second hand brands …. c’mon PokerStars? What the hell are you doing, you should know to read and react to poker markets all around the world; instead your taking the way to short your chip stack asap, and you probabily will be forced soon to go all-in with BiG Blind.

My opinion: you should need to reevaluate your managers from the London office. Not owning the Romanian online poker and not involving into the Romanian poker / casino events, while having maybe the most famous Romanian poker player on exclusive contract – and much more – skiping Bucharest and making the EPT (European Poker Tour) in Budapesta, while on Bucharest you got access not only to Romanian players but also it’s an intersection of Bulgarian, Israelian, Italian and Russian poker players with some Turks, Greeks and Germans along the casino halls … it means one strong thing to me, as a person who watch and was involved in the casino / poker business for the last year: Major market misreading, wrong development plans.

Poker Stars, after all, is poker stars, but in the Romanian market, there’s Party Poker, without Negreanu. I should feel ashamed for this misfortune.

Communication, Internet General, Poker / Casino, Web sites, software daniel negreanu, poker online, poker stars, wrong poker strategy

Vodafone Romania – how can u have the same brand, but don’t give a shit about your customers?

Probably many of you have been a customer of Vodafone Europe; probably not many have been using the Vodafone Romania’s services and customer support; if not, then let me tell you that IT’S A BIG DIFFERENCE between how the Romanian customer is treated by the Vodafone customer support and how the European (France, UK, Italy you name it) is taken care of.

For starters, my general impression after being almost 10 years a Vodafone subscriber is that Vodafone now doesn’t give a shit about me, my options, the services they offer to me or anything else except for me having the phone bill payed on time. It’s becoming harder and harder to get to Vodafone support people, and when you have an request that might seem normal in European market and services, you get the answer days away, if they will even bother to give it to you.

It doesn’t matter that you have stayed with Vodafone in crisis times, through changes time and against all odds, you kept on haging on that red and white logo like a beacon in the communication market. You don’t even get a bonus for being in their network after all that time and if you pay monthly bills around 150 euros, you get after 3 years a bonus of … hang on … 100 euro. 150 euro x 12 x 10 = 100 euro. That’s the bonus you should expect when you buy a new phone from Vodafone.

But since the post is about Vodafone, lets talk about the services: if you have a roaming and you want to call in Germany for example, you pay over 80 eurocents, this while the EU legislation is reglemmenting the fees for roaming within EU around 45 cents and lower. If you want to call other mobile networks from your country you get call fees around 16 cents / minute; while in Frances, for same situations you get 3-4 cents / minute call fees.

Now the best of the best: Vodafone mobile. You stay online 7 days, and Vodafone charges you for 2 weeks in spend online times. This while the 3G connection speed is a little bit higher than dial-up connection.

Now, if you are a Romanian, there are chances that you are used to be cheated by almost everyone. The state and government steals from you, makes you pay for everything – like from radio fee, raindrops fee, chairs fee – so Vodafone acts like a Romanian company, although it’s a world-wide corporation. Don’t you love this ? ” I do”

Communication, Internet General, Personal, social fees, romania communication, telephony, vodafone, wireless

More often in the last years, I’ve put myself this question: do I feel it’s Christmas time ? Does it feel the same way as it felt 4-5 years ago? Do I even have the energy to celebrate it or the whole thing is just a relax and enjoy period? Well, I got some confusing answers, but here is goes:

Do I feel it’s Christmas? Definitely NO. Why? Because, first of all, I don’t feel the energy the Xmas supposed to give it to people; all around me I see tired faces, people that work and forgot about the magical times of the winter holidays. I see people too tired for having a little bit of fun. Christmas has become more of a gift giving and TV watching/look-a-like holiday than it’s initial spirit: be with your close ones, celebrate not as much the news of the Jesus child (although from some latest discoveries seems that he was born in June or July) but the joy of being with the people you love, appreciate and care for. It’s not a contest of drinking as much as you can, but as drinking with the people who represent something for you.

Does it feel like 4-5 years ago? Again, definitely NO. Part of the reason explained above, part of the situation in Romania; shitty crisis makes the holiday spirit go away.

Do I have the energy to celebrate it? Yes. Definitely. I got almost the same energy to hump and party as 10 years ago, but as it goes, I don’t have my friends to back me up as 10 years ago; maybe I get old a little bit less than them, maybe because I still don’t have a child on the way, or maybe … maybe I’m more relaxed then them. Who knows, maybe it’s time to get a new group of friends, 8-10 years younger. Maybe.

Or maybe this will be a magical Christmas, against all signs that it’s gonna be worst than the one last year. Maybe.

Internet General Celebration, Christmas, Work

Over the ocean, it’s an intense battle between Obama and McCain. They say Romanians have 2 strong points when it comes to life: politics and sports. On political side, we have a Parliament who doesn’t care for it’s supporters, voters and population unless it’s election’s month; untill then it doesn’t matter that we’re poor, miseducated, close minded and so on, they just care about making a business from being a political figure – close high profit deals with the state, scamming the official founds and so on. when it comes to voting time, they place the “friendly face” on and start making promises. lots of …. but, wtf ? do we get tricked each time, don’t we learned something in the past 20 years. US citizens at least know what they vote ,and know how to cast their vote and for what they cast it. We also know, but …

Don’t vote! a social vote awareness clip promoted by the US government on social media, tv and print.

Politics, social elections, Romania, USA, voting

Some days ago on Wired, appeard a controversial article about the blogging importance for the internet of late 2008, well written by Paul Boutin. Some say blogging is the news of 2004, and the tool to use for the past 3-4 years, but not anymore, since microblogging services like twitter, pownce and others has taking the face of the blogging programs.

To quote Paul’s original  “Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.“(read entire article here).

My question is what about the country differences? what works for US or Western Europe doesn’t go well in Asia or Africa, or even Eastern Europe, including Russia here. What do you think, it’s better to stop blogging and start texting/ sms ?

Update: opposite view, why blogs will rock in 2009 here

Banking, Communication, Entertainment, Internet General, Personal, Poker / Casino, Web sites blog, blogging, twitter, wired news

The American Crysis is affecting online activity, much more than offline; according to the lastest news, the Q3 2008 will have an downfall of 3-5% on ecomerce sales in the US, according with the previous one. The big companies will get reorriented strategies, and it seems that we can see some layoffs from most of the Top 500 web companies.

Yahoo looks in an optimistic view at 20% workforce reduction, and AOL one of the biggest market players for US is looking at almost 40% cutbacks. Google, who recently has become a teenager with 10 years of existence is taking a stand back and analyze position, while online financing / credit market is looking also at 30-40% cutbacks. Steve Jobs rumor of heart attack is taking an byte in Apple shares also. Top 3 US banks are getting about 700 billions $, so we’re looking at 40-50% stock raise for Citibank and JP Morgan shares.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street faced last week the biggest downfall in the stock history, with almost 10% down and a stop of short-term transactions until 2nd October. Realestate market is on the way down around the world, and Europe / Asia are looking with fear at the next months and feedbacks from the American financial crysis.

Planet oil reserves are planned for the next 20 years, while US government is rushing the production of the electrocars with 5-7 years, according a 25 billion loan for the biggest 3 car manufacturers, Ford and GM are on the way to top Toyota Primus with a car model early next year.

welcome to the new world! would be this way, all the way now or do we get back to the happiness of 90′s ?

Banking, Internet General Crysis, Election, US cutback, Wall Street