PokerStars has always been so far ahead of the competition because basically they get their marketing right and provide a better solution for online poker players. No matter what guarantee they put on for their tournaments, they are always smashed because they know what works and have so many players.

As an internet marketer myself I always try to look at what the big boys do and try to emulate some of the things they do in some of my own projects. One thing that has particularly sparked my attention is their WBCOOP which is basically a championship just for poker bloggers and there are a lot of them out there i’m so surprised no other site has caught onto this and atleast tried to copy it. What they do is make you add a link and banner for the event and then you get a free ticket to the tournaments. This gets PokerStars thousands of basically free links and also plenty of branding because of the banners.

I received an e-mail the other day (which is what has brought this article on) where they are now asking for bloggers to write an article containing the text which is why playing poker is clearly a game of skill with the poker being a link to their site. In exchange for this, bloggers get some goodies.

Now my question to the PokerStars marketing team is this. Why are you making bloggers write the same phrase for the text you are targeting? Does this not scream a paid text link to the search engines because all of a sudden you have hundreds of bloggers writing articles with the exact same link and surrounding text all being published at the same time. This means you will be penalised in the search engines if they detect this. Why don’t you just let the bloggers place the link themselves, then you have different surrounding text for every article? This will seem so much more natural.

When I checked the rankings for PokerStars.com in google.com I noticed you were on the first page but now you are on the 2nd page. It concerns me that you have already been penalised for this and your rankings have dropped with your top competitor Full Tilt Poker now ranking much higher than you. You are also on the 3rd page in google.co.uk which is worth practically nothing for such a competitive term.

This is my first post in 2010 and i’ve had this post written in my head  2 weeks ago but just getting it written down now.  Since coming back from holiday I have noticed a problem with my reading where I constantly have to re read lines because I did not take it in the first time.  This is really pissing me off because it’s taking me ages just to read stuff and is actually putting me off from reading. My typing has also got a lot worse where I just missed complete words out my sentences or just don’t finish a word before hitting space. That is the reason for my post title because I don’t if it’s just my mind full of other shit that I can’t concentrate or i’m suffering from some sort of slowness.  I sort of noticed it before my holiday but as I had been reading a lot on holiday it became more noticeable.

I had a good relaxing holiday where I basically did fuck all as usual so had some good time to do some thinking and read the books i’ve been wanting to read. It turned out I ended up taking my laptop because there was going to be a 10 hour delay so thought it would help pass the time away in the airport eventhough I did not end up using it.  It was really good just to turn off and not have to worry about what was going on at home.

There was plenty of sun to be had which really makes a different to your mood to get away from the shitty constant greyness in England. I’m not much of a sun worshipper so i’m usually content in just staying in bed to miss the heat and then have a lounge later on. Eventhough it was an all inclusive resort I managed to lose about 5lbs as I just never feel like eating on holiday plus I had the shits for 5 days which didn’t help like.  I tried to get in the gym but they didn’t even have any sort of squat rack and not even a barbell with more than 20kg so it was a complete waste of time. So now i’ve lost about 6 weeks of training and it’s really hard to get back into it when your gym is like 0 degrees.

For those that know me will know that I really have lost all interest in playing poker and the last game I played was the NPF Championships at end of October and even then I only lasted 5 hands and had not played for 2 months before that so i’m pretty serious about it. (About an hour before writing this I donked out the WBCOOP because it reminded me how much I just didn’t want to play). So it’s unlikely you will see me write about myself playing poker and will probably turn this blog into more personal stuff and posts will probably be random as the poker articles I planned to write will be written for the coming soon new NPF site.

That brings me to another point and expanding from my mental overload/slowness is that I have developed an uncanny ability to scan posts for where it talks about playing a particular hand, I can just see where it begins and ends and just skip it completely because I just can’t bear to read it. It usually contains something like ‘I picked up KK and there’s a raise so I re raise to 1500 and he flats…He turns over fucking AJ for the straight…what did he think I had like on the king high flop and the big re raise pre flop?’.

I really think 2010 is going to be the year for me as i’ve got a much clear goal of what I want to do and looking at the goals in my 2009 wrap up post I can really see myself having done all of those things and more by the time i’m 23. But it in order for that to happen I can’t just sit around and wait for things to happen which is what i’ve done all my life. I’m getting there slowly but surely.

As 2009 is drawing to a close and i’m off on a sunny holiday in a few days I thought i’d write a wrap up post of 2009 as no doubt i’ll just not end up doing writing it.

At the start of 2009 I made some resolutions for the upcoming year. Just looking back at those now realise how quickly a year can fly by and how things can change along the way.

One of my big goals was to get some strength and I can proudly say that I achieved this as if you read my previous post you will know that I have gained loads of weight and i’m getting comments that i’m looking a lot more healthy. I can currently squat 85KG which is a canny bit of weight on your back for a lightweight like me.

I did eventually get my room sort of tidied but this has since gotten bad again and have piles and piles of shit on my desk which makes being productive more difficult.  I’ve still been wasting a lot of time by getting up late on weekends, too much TV and a lot of idle internet browsing.  However, although I have not been doing a lot, I have probably learned more this year than I ever have and I plan on taking this knowledge into 2010 to actually do stuff.

I really wanted to get some big things planned for Newcastle Poker Forum this year but they just didn’t happen so are now planned for next year. The organic growth of the community has just been phenomenal and i’m really proud of what I created.  It is great that I have allowed people to make new friends, some who would probably have never even talked to each other if it wasn’t for the forum. I’ve been reading some articles on what makes a successful community and I can say that it ticks all those boxes.

With my earlier reference to how things can change I was specifically referring to my poker. I had goals of building a bankroll and keeping proper records but instead this has turned on its head and now I have so little interest in actually playing poker.  I don’t know the cause but the growth of Newcastle Poker Forum this year has probably had a big influence on my passion.

In 2009 I played a few big events including Liverpool Winter Festival, Virgin festival and the Sky Poker Tour Main Event which I got half staked for.  I gained a lot of experience playing in these and in the Sky Poker game I had just regained a bit of love for the game after being staked to then go out with a bad beat after making a great call.

Then for my 21st birthday I was fortunate to have been able to go to Las Vegas and got to stay in The Palazzo which is now the most luxurious hotel in Las Vegas. I had a great time as I recently posted and now plan on going back at least once a year.

The Future

Instead of doing goals for 2010, i’m looking at things I want to achieve in the future which are in no particular order.

• To build a blog style homepage for Newcastle Poker Forum so will be additional content to the user driven content of the forum. This should attract a new base of visitors into the Newcastle Poker community that are overwhelmed with the forum.
• Speak fluent Spanish.
• Live in another country for atleast 6 months.
• Learn to swim. I’m one of the millions that can’t do this essential life skill and has stopped me from doing the things that I really want to do and has brought fear in my life.
• Make friends with people that are more successful than I am.
• Build a sustainable income from the internet.
• Build my personal brand.
• Travel across America (planned for May/June 2010)
• Visit Australia and New Zealand.
• Find something i’m really passionate about to turn into a business.
• Be more confident and social.

This is all I can think of right now and I may add to it at another time. This may or may not be the last post of 2009 so i’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Do the things you love and if you are doing something you hate then stop doing it now!

If you also have some goals for the future, let me know in the comments.

Before I went to Vegas in September I had reached a point where I had lost all interest in poker and had only played 1 game in about 3 months before. With the trip to Vegas booked and being the mecca of poker I would have thought that i’d get some sort of buzz back. It turns out that that I run exactly the same in Vegas as I do at home and that I that I think I could be somewhere else doing something else more productive instead of just folding 80% of hands.

So since i’ve been back i’ve only played a handful of games including the Circus £75 Freezeout, the NPF championships and an NPF online deepstack tournament. So the Circus game, you sit there putting up with shit hands and then when you decide that you need to make a move you do it at a terrible time or run a good hand into a slightly better hand. The online game where eventhough I played brilliantly and came 2nd there is just no buzz.  Then when you enter the NPF Championships without the desire to play because your mind is on other things.  To make it worse the first 2 hands I get I fold AJ and AQ because i’m early position and then the next hand I lose with JJ after someone hitting trips then the next hand I go bust with aces after I put a big re raise in pre from the sb only for the same person to turn a straight that I couldn’t possibly put him on.  I was never in the right from of mind to fold so I busted and was the first person to exit after 5 hands despite being one of the tightest players in the tournament so it made me wonder why I play.

So after those games I just decided that I simply don’t have what it takes to play poker very often as the desire to win is just completely gone so wasting time basically doing nothing is not very productive. I don’t know how people keep so passionate about playing the game. I’m still massively passionate about poker tough and I still love reading about it and also I enjoy seeing the success of other people which has been happening a lot recently on NPF. It is a pleasure to know that I have a small contribution to those successes because of the forum I created.

I’ve had loads of ideas for some more websites I want to make, some gambling related, some not. One idea is a site about poker tournament structures because i’m somehow really passionate about them and have developed a great understanding of them when organising tournaments for NPF. I was originally going to do posts on this blog but decided that it would work out better on a dedicated website. I also still have plans for a load of unique articles and hope to post once a week once I get them written.

Outside of poker I’ve had plenty of stuff going on but still being really limited by how lazy I am and struggling to make the changes I want. Anyone that knows me will know how skinny I am so since June i’ve been eating more and doing a strength training program in the gym I set up in my garage.  Since then i’ve gained 25lbs and now have to walk around without the button fastened because I can’t be bothered to buy some new pants that fit. Although, I see this as a bit of a mini achievement I’m still disappointed because i’ve started slacking off a lot since the weights have got heavy and can’t be bothered to eat when i’m supposed to.

I’m going away to Punta Cana in Domincan Republic again for Christmas and New year again with my parents so very much looking forward to that to relax. At first I wasn’t really bothered about going away as I was satisfied with the Vegas trip and was going to use the time off to maybe get some work done that i’ve put off for ages.  But now i’m glad we’re going away as I think I just need some and to relax.  I don’t think i’m going to take the laptop so will probably get the chance to read some books that I haven’t got round to reading yet.

I’m also planning on doing a 3 week trek across America in May/June next year and then do Vegas again for a week where a lot of the NPF crew are going out for the WSOP. I fancied doing something different, something to take me out of my comfort zone where i’ve always had things done for me and sometimes handed on a plate. I should be making most of the time I have while i’m still young because you never know what is round the corner. Hopefully, it will be a massive learning curve/personal development for me so something i’m really looking forward to.

Bellagio Fountains

Well it’s been like 2 months since I got back from Vegas and this post is rediculously overdue and has caused my blog to die.  Dunno why it’s taken so long to really get up but I made some notes on it whilst I was out there and was going to full write it on my last day or in the airport but just got distracted.  And ever since then, just never really been in the frame of mind which i’ve mentioned before but I think i’ve got a bit of inspiration back.  So sorry if this is going to be a bit shit and not as detailed as I wanted and will probably leave out some shit that I forgot about. This part 2 is just gonna be a bit of a summary of my experience and what I thought about my first Vegas trip.

As a shy 21 year old I knew that it wasn’t going to be a streotypical trip where you hear stories of getting pissed up, seeing strippers, hooking up with birds or just partying till the early hours.  That’s just not me.  I preferred to just spend the time taking things in just learning from such a vast place and the people it attracts.  The sheer amount of different type of people it attracts is just amazing which is what is so great about the place.  Anyone will really fit in and there really is something there for anyone outside of the gambling and partying you see on the TV.  You’ll see some of the hottest girls with their high heels and oversized glasses to the hoochie mamas with their trail of 5 overgrown kids.

The biggest surprise for me was how little I got IDd.  I came with expectation of pulling out my ID and then having them not believe it was really me but yeah that was pretty wrong.  I think I only got IDd 4 times not including the times where it was compulsory.  Although to be honest, that was probably because I didn’t gamble outside of poker and I don’t really drink plus I was with family.

I must say that the food was the most dissappointing part of the trip. Probably because we were eating in the wrong places but I just couldn’t see anywhere that is value for money, you just seem to get a lot of fries with everything.  But it is very easy to see why Americans are such fatties. Coke refills were pretty good and somehow it tastes a lot nicer? Probably down to the large quantities of ice and the hot weather. Since i’m such a skinny I never even finished a meal and my mouth simply couldn’t process the food about a 1/4 through because it just wasn’t nice. Best place was Grand Lux cafe reet on our doorstep in the Palazzo which I sussed out on the last day.  The place is massive, just not what you expect when you look at it from the front and has a massive menu and very very reasonable prices.

Some of the entertainment was brilliant and amazing some of the stuff that you can see for free.  Everyone says this but The Bellagio fountains are definitely the best and would see them a few more times.  Quite impressed by the lions at the MGM, they were so beautiful as they explained how much they were cared for.  Sirens of TI was a bit cheesy but never really saw much from my view but you can’t go wrong with hot girls. Mirage volcano was good but not something worth seeing more than once. I thought Freemont Street was a bit naff but still good to see none the less. I was fortunately there when David Copperfield was in Vegas so my Dad got us tickets and a show definitely worth the money.  Won’t go into detail on the show but his crack was class was a great addition to the magic and really show how much of an entertainer he is.  Also went to see Holly Madison’s Peepshow which was quite good.  Shows how useless is where she pretty much did nothing except prance about to the build up a brief titty revealing which were quite shit tbh.  The rest of the dancers were average looking at best and could have benefitted from a couple of larger breasted ladies.

In the last few days of the trip when i’d pretty much seen all the things I wanted to see I had a wander up the north end past the wynn and as far as Circus Circus.  Urgh it’s not very nice and didn’t feel comfortable even in the day.

OK so Vegas is a great place.  It’s hard to say if it’s what I expected since I really didn’t know what to expect before I went.  I don’t have any funny stories to tell. I know to fully apreciate what there is to offer then you need to go with the right people or having a willingness to meet people since it is so easy to do so except it is something I am unable to do.

I had a brilliant time and really looking forward to go back.  You really can’t explain to anyone truly what it is like because everyones experience is completely different and there are so mant different opinions you can make on the place. So to anyone that hasn’t been, basically you just have to tell them to get out there and see for yourself. I will definitely make provisions to go at least once a year and I know there’s gonna be a big crew from NPF going out in June for the WSOP so that for sure will be an amazing time.

I’d just like to thank my family for giving me the opportunity to go to Vegas for my 21st and i’m very lucky to get that privilege at my age which very few do.

I arrived in Vegas 5 days ago with really not a clue about what to expect with hearing people’s different opinions but overall I would say it is quite an amazing place that you can’t really describe to anyone because it is so vast and you just have to experience it for yourself.

Flew direct with Virgin Atlantic, had some hour bursts of kip to pass the long flight. Got some seats in the middle at the back next to the toilets on the left side so had a view of the strip on the way in. Virgin are OK but not great, I think the new BA flight will be better and hopefully bring the costs down.

I didn’t really have a plan of action for when I got here with it being my first time I just wanted to take the place in and see some of the sights.  I’m not very outgoing and don’t drink much so no plans for hitting any clubs or anything.

Checked in to the Palazzo and with my own suite which is quite impressive, massive bed, lounge area 3 HD TVs, massive bathroom etc but with a completely naff shower. View over the Wynn golf course is nice too although it looks in quite poor condition.  Had a wander around caesars and stuff to get a feel for where things are and headed back for an early night.

I wandered a bit further on day 2 down to planet hollywood via some of other hotels only to be disappointed that there wasn’t even a full show at the fountains at that time of day. Came back just to see my dad get knocked out of the Venetian noon.  Decided i’d play some 1/2 at the Venetian but don’t really like palying cash and quite inexperienced. Sat with $200 and took ages to get comfy, most of the table seemed solid with a few short stackers and a few were straddling.  Lost $40 early on with 89 which I sort of didn’t really want to be in after the $10 raise. Hit top pair 8 and checked to me so I bet and called by the blind.  Then I was insta shoved on the turn so passed.  Got mostly shit late on then picked up aces, just me and the guy on my left in the pot + the blind called. Flop is quite raggy but a low straight draw and the pot ends up 3 betted by me which is flatted.  Turn brings a scary card which make 4 cards to the straight and decide to tank before shipping the rest of my tank.  I felt he was weak and had been playing weird so took a lot of balls, he tanked and eventually called, didn’t see what he had but had a million outs and missed so thank fuck for that.  Cashed out about $70 up and went to play the 7pm $120 with 90 runners.  Grinded that out with no cards and a very standard tournament.  Very quickly noticed that the standard was so much better than home, every player was solid and no donkeys but no tough opponents.  Like over half the table was drinking water.  Busted in 17th after button shoving J10 with 5bbs, insta called by the blind with K9 that held.  I’d been short stacked so much in the tourney and no one was calling without a hand.

After browsing most of the casinos and seeing their cardrooms I would say that the Venetian is the best here.  The smaller cardrooms are ok but lack the technology of the bigger ones like waiting lists on the screen for cash games.  Generally, things are ran so much better here than back in England and would like to see some things adopted.  Dealers are such an absolute requirement that improves the game and I really think things can be done for the casinos at home to be able to afford them.  Yeah most of the tourneys are higher buy in but even the smaller games have them albeit with a sick rake.

Structures aren’t as good but shows how spoilt we are at home for standard tournaments.  The venetian is perfect for their daily tournaments and gets the game finished within 7 hours for 80 runners.  The rest are just plain rediculous but actually work because they don’t get many runners and doesn’t need to be deep.  The wynn is the most expensive buy in regular tournament and although you get lots of chips and 30 min blinds, their blind structure is just terrible with crazy jumps late on.

Overall, Vegas shows how retarted some British casinos are and if the management just seen how things were ran here they’d increase profits and benefit everyone.