Poker In Macau

Well, it was a wild six nights in Macau this time, playing poker and chatting up with old friends. I’m not talking about the Macau Poker Cup, but a string of ring games I played, sometimes back to back. In this short span, I ended up winning over 390k Macau money and the “perks” that go along with playing live poker: like being asked out on a date at least seven times and being proposed by a crazy Vietnamese who dropped nearly 50k in my kitty in one crazy hour of heads up. Lustily cheered on by a wonderful crowd, he drops 50k and then gets down on his knee and proposes to me. Wow! That’s a first! 

A crazy night out with Bryan and Mike and a few regulars at Lisboa was the highlight of one evening, and after hours of singing and dancing, we ended up back at the Lisboa and you guessed it: poker! I beat Bryan in an hour’s worth of heads up and took home 100k more off him and Mike that night, and the gracious and chivalrous men that they are, they bought me champagne after that memorable loss. I made about half a million worth in the first three nights and it was like there was no looking back. And then the fourth night when I played blinds worth $500-$1000 and nearly crashed out on my winnings for the previous three nights. Towards the end of the fourth night, I was up about 150k, having lost over 350k on the fourth night.

I decided to take a break on the fifth night and went visiting good food joints. My friends Melanie and Ruth took me to Litoral, near Senado Square on the Macau Peninsula to eat traditional Macau food, and it was a delightful experience. The African Chicken was out of this planet and the shrimp soup in loaf was to die for! To hell with calories night! We hit Cash Box, the karaoke night club after the scrumptious meal followed by a night cruise in a friend’s yacht and that summed up a perfectly memorable night.

I hit the tables again, late afternoon on the sixth night and it was a high ride to more moolah and I made up for the losses on the forgettable fourth night on this trip. Getting a four of a kind and two full houses on the same day is a good thing to happen to you, especially when there is a lot of money in front of you in the pot and I was happy that I came out ahead with 390k and an invitation to a private game in the Caribbean later in the year. Marcelos, my Italian friend and constant poker companion for all the five nights that I played, also came out tops with a couple of hundred K and it was again a night for celebration at the Wynn this time. I needed a quiet time, so we chose Cinnebar at the Wynn and me and my friends said our goodbyes in the early hours of the morning. I am at the HK airport as I write this, ready to fly off to India to participate in the IPRT All-India Poker Classic 2010 on a boat Casino in Goa. Fun time ahead folks, watch this space!

Poker Marketing | Marketing Your Card Room

Poker Marketing is cache. Marketing your card room or online gaming website or business isn’t every man’s cup of tea. Unless you have a pre-existing starving crowd, you can have the best card room or casino and still sell zilch. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is to come up with a real quick fix poker room – preferably the cheapest solution that they can find, and then have problems figuring out exactly who to sell the card room to, because there aren’t really many takers for a substandard product. You cannot sell something that you think people need. No one really needs anything other than a roof over one’s head, some food, water and fresh air. Anything else doesn’t really qualify as a need, so if your product/card room is not in any of those categories, it’ll be prudent to do market research to have a good gauge of how well your card room will sell before you even create it.
  
On the other hand, we are quickly evolving from a digital world where information was THE marketable commodity to a communications market, where new methods of communicating, networking and socializing are being introduced on a rapid fire basis and are the new consumers of online attention and time. It doesn’t matter if you have a killer card room or a fantastically designed game room, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big.

I tell that to all my customers: there are two main barriers to entry here – technology and money. You can solve the tech problem by marrying someone like us, but how are you gonna solve the money issue – the marketing spend? You do need moolah to market your card room. And I mean real moolah, not get a ready-made player base from somewhere or an email database; that simply doesn’t work. The marketing required for assured success in this industry involves hundreds of thousands and even more. This is a necessary requisite as you can see there have been several poker rooms launched so far but a limited few which have achieved success.
  
My mantra for marketing spend is simple: one-third each towards online marketing, affiliate marketing and offline marketing. With this, you have things pretty much covered. Look, I entered this business from the other side of it – the player’s side. I don’t really care for fancy nonsense, my requirements are pretty easy if you look at it from my side: I need a good card room with a decent software and workable promotions. I don’t give a damn to rake back, but I do require a standard 100% or thereabouts sign-up bonus and a pat on the back “refer a friend” bonus when I refer one. I need deposits and payouts to work well, and timely and I need a good game with like-minded people. I care a lot about the social aspects of gaming and I will always endorse a product that I use myself.

Your player, me, is selfish; and rightly so. He or she won't act easily. You have to offer an ethical bribe to encourage action. Give me a good card room to play on and I will play on it. Give me a good card room to market and I will market it. The rules in poker marketing will work in only one way: Keeping it Straight. And Simple!

Online Slots Software

Does online slots software ensure Vegas odds and fairness? Do online slots mimic the quality and fun of, say Las Vegas? Well, the answer would be yes, especially coming from me, as I work with a team that builds online slots software. The online slot industry is pretty big – one of the biggest ecommerce entertainment industries. The graphics are great and the game play is wonderful too, and with a good casino you are safe too; the only thing that an online slot software lacks is the physical feel of a real slot machine and the thrill of being inside a real casino.

We have both varieties of online slot software – the downloadable version and the non-downloadable version. With not so good internet speeds a non-downloadable flash casino software version is recommended, and for better speeds I recommend the downloadable casino software. An interesting bit of information is that in live casinos the slots make up the lion’s share in revenues than table games, in spite of table games having that glamorous aura surrounding them. This trend also in a way manifests in online casinos. Most of the popular casino slot themes are now available online and online slots software showcases them all.

One of the biggest draw cards with online slots and online casinos in general, is the facility that the player has to instantly change games or even pause the play and run to get a fresh beer and always get to play their favorite games and NOT wait in line. The graphics of the online slots software, and I need to mention this again, are truly impressive and a regular online slots buff doesn’t really miss playing live to get his slots fix. Adding new games every month to the existing online slots software is a fairly easy thing to do, and newest variations keep on being added time and again to the existing slot portfolio, thus increasing play options and player’s interest.

A quick summary to cap the types of slot games in an online slot software:

Single Line Slots: Single line slots are made up of three to five reels and one single pay-line, which is why they are called single line slots. Most popular of the lot, a standard 3 reel also offers you the choice to play up to three coins and depending on which game you play can include a progressive jackpot.

Multi-Line Slots: Slots with more than one play line. With larger payouts on a single spin, multi-line slots are highly popular, easy to play, with the basic object to get certain symbols in a winning combination lined up on one or more pay-lines that have been wagered upon.

Progressive Slots: With the best and highest jackpots in the slot world, these are the ones that everyone wants to win on. Each game has an accumulating jackpot, it is the ultimate slot in terms of prize payouts. When a player plays a progressive game on online slot software on any online casino, a percentage of their bet goes into the jackpot. Since the system across all casinos are all connected, this allows the jackpots to grow to phenomenal amounts and at times you hear someone having won their millions with an online casino progressive slot jackpot.

Bonus Slots: This type of slot game doesn’t have any specific number of reels or lines. Its popularity lies in the Bonus Round that is added for completing a certain winning combination. Attractive game themes and prizes and bonuses are the mainstay for this type of slot games in the online slots software suite.

All in all, slot games are fun and true value for money and time. Ever reached that high when you hit that jackpot in an online casino? Well, you can now reach for it on some dependable, bankable casino websites that offer good online slot software where you can enjoy casino slots and more.

Life Before Gaming Software

Before entering the world of gaming and poker and casino software, I was a model and I guess one of the better ones. I still am in touch with that part of my life. A few times a week, I receive requests on how to become a model; like, how does one get started, how to find a modelling agency and getting that preliminary photo shoot done.

(My first portfolio shot at age 16!)

Here are answers to these questions: How to get started: Before you get started doing anything, you should ask yourself these questions as they will help guide you thru the rest of the process:

What do I want to get out of modelling?

What am I willing to put into becoming a model

What kind of model do I want to be? Fashion, Runway, swimsuit, sport, etc.

How flexible am I for travelling and for time.

Once you evaluate these questions, there are two ways you can go. One is to contact a modelling agency which I will explain below. The other method is to act as your own manager and create your own portfolio. This is easily done over the internet, now with several places in which you can post pictures, and information on yourself to attract talent scouts. If you choose to go the conventional route and to work with a modelling agency, it can be hard at times to know first of all how to find a good one, and what to look for in a modelling agency. You can easily look up and find agencies in phone books or online. Before you do any of that, I would recommend contacting anyone you know that is a model, and finding out about some of the experiences that they have had with modelling in general, and also specifically with different agencies in your area. Once you have a general idea of what the scene looks like, contact some of the agencies and set up an appointment to meet with them. Meeting with the agency can be the hardest and most nerve wrecking part of the whole experience. Be firm, and don’t allow the agency to take advantage of you!
Things to ask and look for are:

What have they done for other models?

What can they do for you?

Can they meet your needs as an individual and as a model?

Does the agency have similar goals for you as the ones you have for yourself? 

The final question “How to get a first photo shoot” depends on which route you take. If you go with an agency you will have to arrange with them to have a photo shoot taken, and to start building your portfolio. If you decide to go on your own, you will have to build your own portfolio, either by using photos that you already have, or by contacting a photographer to have a photo shoot done. I would recommend that hiring a photographer is the route to go, as it looks more professional, and the quality is much greater than simple pics you could get taken by friends or family.

Good luck with your search. If you have it in you – that balance of attitude and poise – you are sure to make it!