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*** The WSOP Team Betfair Blog live from Vegas ***
*** The WSOP Team Betfair Blog live from Vegas ***
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Replies: 234
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No sharks there I take ?
Just a few little fish?  Looks great |
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John Tabatabai going on the donut but only agreeing after I shamed him by going on first!
  Note his flying dismount at the end... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTiaaKvgV9Q&feature=youtu.be |
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At home with Peter Eastgate...
A look around the house where the Danish Betfair players were staying, funny video.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=T7AeXXUvghY |
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Sat in Las Vegas airport now and my plane is delayed!!
 Sad to leave but glad to be going home if that makes any sense whatsoever. Very tired due to continual lack of sleep but there's plenty of time to sleep when you're dead! There is so much to do in Vegas and with obviously having to commit a lot of time to work I had to get out and sample as much as possible. Anyway hopefully will sleep all the way back to Heathrow, I have even bought some herbal sleeping tablets to assist in this mission. |
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Good job HF - hope you had fun!
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Thanks GT.....
Here is my pride and joy memento, my WSOP media pass! [ This image is no longer available. ] |
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As a summation I have to say the players and myself all had a fantastic week...
The emphasis all week was on TEAM Betfair and the way the activities were organised really made it feel like we were all one big team. Tueday: Meet and greet, where all the players gathered at the Laguna bar for free drinks till midnight. Wednesday: Team Betfair breakfast, fabulous buffet breakfast at the Cafe Grande. Thursday: The whole team arriving at WSOP in Limousines and strode up the red carpet with John and Hans leading the way. Friday: Team Betfair meal, a lovely meal at the Sports bar with the usual free drinks (I had to miss this due to blogging duties). Saturday: Party at Las Vegas's top nightclub Surrender which was just totally amazing and once again the free drinks flowed. Monday: Lake Mead trip which was just fantastic, that good even GHADAFFI smiled all day! I can honestly say the hospitality was on an immense scale and if I am not asked to blog again next year I will be doing everything in my power to qualify as a player. I know many of you have issues with the poker site at the moment but Betfair do live tourneys better than anyone and I would highly recommend trying to qualify for the Betfair Live series as they are always well organised and great fun! |
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Okay so you think I'm having a pop at you but you are supposed to be sorting this excuse for a poker site out. THIS IS WHY I SAID YOU ARE LOOKING AFTER NUMBER ONE AND THESE PEOPLE ON HERE REALLY COULDN'T SEE IT. YOU HAD AN AGENDA FROM THE WORD GO. Like someone else said 'running with the hare and chasing with the hounds' Absolutely 100% last post from me. Goodbye and whatever. Have a nice life Chip (the forumites champion).
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Excellent work Thrappers, It would however be nice to know how the BF players in the main event are doing
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N1 HF and great write up, I can echo all about Betfair's hospitality and I've played a few site's live tournies.
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Here we have the real irony.
Betfair Live events, which cater for a small minority of their customers, are undoubtedly great. Well organised, well run, customer focussed, and geared towards making the poker experience as enjoyable as possible. Unfortunately, while Team Betfair seemingly pour all their attention into Live Events, the majority of its dwindling poker customer base, is stuck with disconnections, frozen tables,vanishing tables, outages, non updating leaderboards, missing refunds, truly, truly, appalling customer service, and management that just generally dont seem to give a fk. Perhaps if some of these Team Betfair people we see swanning about in Europe and Vegas, actually got off their glitzy backsides and tried playing on this piece of crap that is Ongame, they might see things as they really are. But I got the impression from the Q and A sessions that frankly, while they might talk the talk, thats all they ever do...talk. The fact that they cant even acknowledge the frozen table issue, let alone fix it after over a 6 week period is absolutely gobsmacking. |
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Poker is a sideline for Betfair and why they ditched their own brand. Poker is not where they make money but branding is very important HTH.
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Branding is very important ? What in holy hell does that mean ?
Sticking a logo on a bunch of no hopers ? Running a live event attended by 100 people while your online site is a laughing stock ? What kind of branding is that ? Even 888 have a poker pro people have heard of. No disrespect to John and Hans, who are probably very nice fellas, but its not that long ago a betfair sponsored pro went busto. Kind of sums the site/brand up dont you think ? |
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Maybe you misunderstand me but Betfair spend MILLIONS each year sponsoring horse racing, football teams and getting the brand name across just like Coca Cola.
Poker is an offshoot and probably a loss leader but it still gets that name across. BF are very good at what they do apart from picking poker software that actually works. |
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Betfair Live events, which cater for a small minority of their customers, are undoubtedly great. Well organised, well run, customer focussed, and geared towards making the poker experience as enjoyable as possible.
Unfortunately, while Team Betfair seemingly pour all their attention into Live Events I went to the WSOP main event 2 years ago with betfair, and they couldn't have paid less attention if they had deliberately set out to do so. It was clearly much better organised this time, and the Estonia event I went to was very good too. Do people thank them for this massive improvement, nope they start griping about it. I don't visit here so much anymore but top blogging Thrappers. |
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Think we will have to agree to disagree there. They have a virtual monopoly on the exchange, and their position of strength is due to the weakness of the competition more than their ongoing brilliance.
They have a licence to print money due to the initial brilliant idea, and generous legislation. However like most companies who have no real competition, they seem to have a lot of people in senior positions who are happy with the status quo and do very little to move the company forward. This is clearly the case with the poker product which could, and probably should, have been massive by now. It hasnt because the people running it think, like the betting exchange, all they have to do is put the product out there, and people will use it. Lets face it if the Arabs or some other rich folk ever put their mind to setting up a rival betting exchange, people would desert Betfair in their tens of thousands. People stick with the exchange because they have no other genuine option. |
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Who has griped about their live events Doobs ? Nobody that I have seen. I went to one last year and like I said, had a great time. It was well run and I really enjoyed it.
However at the moment I would happily forego my Betfair Masters Invitation next month in return for them ploughing some money into sorting out the online side of things. Have you played any MTT's on here lately ? Its absolutely fking dreadful with these tables freezing all the time whenever you have a table move. |
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i won same package as doobs 2 years ago,and the betfair staff were almost non existant. theonly thing they put on for us was a welcome party on the 2nd night, an invite i recieved for it on the 3rd morning!!!!!!!
this year, it looks like the yput a real effort,and it looked wellworth winning. |
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I thought that this Thrappers guy was representing the players at meetings with Betfair over the problems with the site-but now he is employed by them?
I had a valid query/complaint last Friday with the poker dept. and today I am still waiting for a response.I was told last week that due to their workload and staffing levels(I assume they were in Vegas) it would take some time.Since then the VIP manager has got involved but still no action. If Betfair have to employ the 'forum representative' then perhaps an alternative post in the poker dept. would prove more fruitful rather than sending him to Vegas to get p1ssed for free and take a few photos. I may sound slightly bitter and twisted,or even jealous,but with all the problems on this site at the moment I do begrudge the fact that someone who was democratically elected to represent the people who play here has now manipulated that position for his own benefit. |
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Still don't get the moaning. It isn't like there were no software problems when they did not for us two years ago. They spend less on Vegas, then the software won't change at all. That is pretty much how every company works budget a gets cut. Budget b stays the same. Directors get bigger bonuses.
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There hasn't been a players rep meeting since the back end of last year and I doubt there will ever be another one, so cant see how Thrappers can be said to have a foot in both camps.
He likes drinking, poker, and travelling so you can hardly blame him for taking the blogging gig. As for the moaning, its been a horrendous few weeks for the site, and its perfectly reasonable for players to stick the boot in. At the same time none of us are forced to play here at gunpoint. I'm clearing the May cash bonus thing on here which runs out on Tuesday, and after that I doubt I will be playing much more poker on here for the forseeable future. |
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I think you are all being a bit harsh on HF and Betfair Poker.
Whilst Vegas is a great gig and there are many good nights out it is thoroughly exhausting and they are 14-16 hour days 8 days in a row. For those of you that don't understand marketing - it's not about sticking patches on people its about customer relationships, listening to feedback and building a rapport with the customer base in order to retain and increase their business. Just because it is done in Vegas over cocktails or in a nightclub does not mean it is less important. I am pretty sure HF was exhausted when he came home. He only tells you the good bits because you aren't interested in the dull things he had to do or the boring people he had to spend time with to make them feel part of the group. I can only see the positive in having HF in both camps. In my time working with HF he never once compromised his integrity in bringing player problems to light just because he was working for Betfair as a blogger - if anything he now knows exactly who to speak to in the company to get things sorted. I am sure they (BF staff) had a week of him and the qualifiers bending their ear about the issues on the site and him urging them to get it fixed |
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Harsh on BF Poker ?
I accept a few dozen people in Vegas have a had a bloody good time. Fair play to them, I have no issues with that. However the other 99.90 % of the customer base have had this to contend with in the last week : MTT Players Unable to multitable, or play properly, due to an ongoing issue with tables freezing. This has gone on for over 6 bloody weeks !! Betfairs official stance - it's not a problem at our end. Cash Players Tables vanishing, along with your cash. A long delay for refunds which in some instances were less than the player had at the table. STT Players Unable to play 30 man games because of the table freezing issue. Leaderboards that they claim are updated daily not updating. And for everyone, yet another unplanned outage today. The deliverables that we were promised in August last year, have not been delivered. The things we were promised were on the " road map " are presumably still on it. The only thing that has been delivered - a wretched casino advert dumped on the table that nobody asked for and nobody likes. It's no good promoting a site if it doesn't work. Look at the recent posting history on here and see how many times you see the comment " Ive just returned to Betfair Poker after a break and I wish I hadn't bothered." Anyhow rant over. As of this week I'm back on 888/stars, so it's a bit daft me getting worked up about stuff on here. |
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Chippy
However at the moment I would happily forego my Betfair Masters Invitation next month What betfair masters? |
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Lizzy out 11th. Shame she didn't make the November 9, but still an excellent performance by any standards.
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Invitations get sent out end of August for games in October/November time was what I heard Keith. I've stayed around 16,000 points all year to keep me above the 14k cutoff. Will be a tad disappointed if I dont get an invite.
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what sort of volume do you have to put in to get to 14000 pts chipfire?
no where near it myself, just interested. |
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I paid $4293 in rake in the last 12 months, and the year before paid $3991. Obviously you get fewer points per dollar rake now than you used to, so you have to play more games to maintain your status as they erode from the previous year.
I was playing on other networks last summer so I havent had any points coming off my total for the last 3 months. If you enter about 40 grands worth of STT's/MTT's I reckon that should get you to around Master Status. I only play in my spare time around work and the kids so it's deffo doable for lower stakes recreational regs. Works out about $11 rake per day. |
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"its about customer relationships, listening to feedback and building a rapport with the customer base in order to retain and increase their business."
This made me LOL hard. Dont make me laugh m8!! |
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For six weeks they had an issue with table moves freezing all of your games, and calls to their Helpdesk were being met with the standard Betfair response- its a problem at your end, we genuinely dont give a sh1t, now fk off and leave us in peace.
" No notice on the noticeboard, I was completely in the dark" to quote Graham Lister. But hey, what would I know, I dont have a degree in marketing. |
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 i didn't know i have my own casino in Vegas  |
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LOL Deny
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To be fair JC if you worked for Betfair and your job was to "listen to feedback and build a rapport with the customer base in order to retain and increase their business"
Would you : a) Fly out to Vegas for a week and get opinions from two dozen people who have just won an all expenses paid trip of a lifetime while plying them with free booze in a swanky hotel. or b) Fly out to Malta and spend a whole week sat in their call centre with a headset on, listening to customers ringing up to complain to get a feel for why they are unhappy ? |
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Can I phone a friend?
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50/50 would be better here
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