niKoara.Com

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

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

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

Poker world is something amazing from whatever angle you would look at it. The entry is free for everyone, but the tables and seats most of the time are forbidden to those with little knowledge of the game and human faceread. Maybe because World Series of Poker, the world known poker tournament wanted to be sure that the winner of it’s main event is given by the knowledge of the game, they postponed the final table of the 10k event to November 08; have you ever heard of Jamie Gold after his glorious win in 2006? I have seen him in a couple of poker shows – like Poker after Dark on NBC – but on a high stake table I haven’t. Anyways, here is the list of the top 9 runners up for the main title (Nov 9th – so long till then):

Seat 1: Dennis Phillips – 26,295,000
Seat 2: Craig Marquis – 10,210,000
Seat 3: Ylon Schwartz – 12,525,000
Seat 4: Scott Montgomery – 19,690,000
Seat 5: Darus Suharto – 12,520,000
Seat 6: Chino Rheem – 10,230,000
Seat 7: Ivan Demidov – 24,400,000
Seat 8: Kelly Kim – 2,620,000
Seat 9: Peter Eastgate – 18,375,000

There are 4 runners around 20M chips, for the rest seems to be allin time. Everyone in the first 9 is already a millionaire after they will finish the table, and the winner will bring home around 9,100,000 USD. I can’t even spell right that number 9.1M$.

Poker / Casino las vegas, poker, wsop

In the last days, I had several poker and casino discussions with different people in the poker and casino industry, in Romania. To summarize all of this, I have only one unknown question: why do the Romanians consider poker and casino to be a place where you go only when you have money. This is totally the wrong impression, and I think, as I said to some of the Bucharest’s Casinos shareholders, they HAVE to change this perception; ….. of course, nobody denied that a casino is a place where you go with a full card, but it’s also a place where you CAN go to have fun ever with 25 RON (Romanian New ~ 11 USD is the value).

When you enter into a casino, no one ask you if you got money on your pockets, or how much money you got on your credit card; it asks for your name and ID Card, and check it with their database, same as you check your ID when you enter into a hotel room. Of course, they (casino employee) expects that you have money on you, but the fact is that you can enter and play into a casino with 10 or 20 USD in your pocket, and none of the casino staff will tell you that you’re poor broke or just your place is not there.

I really don’t understand why after more than 18 years of “liberty” since the ’89 Revolution, the Romanian middle class and low class don’t go to the places considered tabu in the communist regim. I know, I mentioned that is the wrong-image of the casinos that still persists, the lack of information and promotional materials, the somewhat dark-stories about some casinos,  but … c’mon, we have internet, we have media that writes almost weekly about Daniel Negreanu, about high-life in Las Vegas and since we’re humans, we have the curiosity. And we have lots of movies, the last one on the silver screen right now is 21, you can see the trailer below.

And, for you, the Romanians who never walked into a casino, please remember: IT’S FREE FOOD AND FREE DRINKS! You don’t have to spend any RON / USD / EUR for getting a free beer or soda, so why don’t you step in ?

Poker / Casino casino, poker, tabu

We have finally finished the marketing planning for the poker tournament we will organize in the fall, Best Poker Romania. We have decided that the best time to have the tournament is between 4th and 7th of September 2008. The location is set for Bucharest, and the tournament entry fee will be 1.000 RON (around 350$). From our statistics, this is be the second tournament that is held in Romania (by tournament I understand that the game is held in MORE than one casino and one city). The first one was Romanian Poker Tour – I can say that I’ve been involved in the first 4 editions of the tournament, and we hope that BPR – our tournament – will gather more than 70 players.

We will have qualifications for the tournament held online on Titan Poker, CD Poker, Best Poker and we hope we will be able to get them on Dracula Holdem, Pokerstars and Party Poker also.

Poker / Casino bpr, casino, poker, romanian tournament