US Poker News: Poker Enthusiasts to Play Against WSOP Main Event Champion

On Sunday, players on FreeGoldPoker.com have the chance to win a seat in the first Gold’N Bounty Tournament. Qualifiers will not only compete for a cash prize alongside WSOP Main Event Champion Jamie Gold, they will also vie for a $250 bounty prize awarded to the player who knocks the champ out of the game. The free tournament is open to all registered players on the Zen network. Qualifiers are running now through Sunday with the Championship round on Sunday, April 29th. Jamie donates 10 percent of all profits from ad revenue to various charities.

Mr. Gold is very busy these days, recently filming 100 original hours of poker programming worldwide; Jamie can be seen first this season in two non-poker guest appearances, first as the skeptic on Travel Channel's "Ghost Adventures" season finale this Friday April 27th at 9pm. Hosted by Zak Bagans the widely popular series is in its seventh season and can be seen in 17 countries worldwide. Second, he is featured on an episode of the Food Network series "Chopped".

Jamie Gold won the largest Poker Prize in history. Beating out 8,772 opponents in an $87,000,000 prize pool, he was awarded $12,000,000 for the WIN. Gold transitioned from his work as a Hollywood agent toward professional poker in 2005 after tournament winnings of $100,000 in 6 months as a part time enthusiast. Following his win he may be best known as "The Poker Philanthropist" for hosting and attending over 100 charity events and helping to raise 170 million dollars for worldwide causes.“I am excited to participate in the Gold’N Bounty Tournament series. Playing with and against professional poker players helped elevate my game and I believe that this site can help do that for other players." This tournament series will be fun, pay out 14 finishers, and its free to play as always, why not try to knock me out and cash in” says Gold.

Gold’N Bounty Qualifier tournaments are scheduled multiple times daily. Players interested in winning a chance to play vs. Gold in the April 29th championship can register at www.FreeGoldPoker.com.
FreeGoldPoker® features competitive, U.S. legal tournaments, a robust promotions schedule and a common pool of up to $100,000 in monthly cash and prizes!

...and talking of Poker Tournaments, eGaming Consulting has organized a EUR 100k GTD taking place at the Vegas365 Poker Festival at Portomaso Casino in Malta between 10th and 13th May. Theres nothing else on that weekend so we expect to see you there!

Premier League Clubs on Twitter

Having put together a Social Media Strategy for a modestly sized European Football Club recently I decided to take a quick look at Twitter usage amongst Premier League clubs.

I am taking the top 6, which of course includes the big 4, or at least 3 of the big 4, because one is no longer big (sorry Kenny) and - no wait - there is another one bigger than all the others now, so really it’s the big 1, plus the big 3 and then Newcastle and Spurs. Anyway let’s look at them in no particular order.

Manchester United 

Epic fail and immediate relegation!

Manchester United doesn’t have an official Twitter account. They are huge on Facebook, boasting over 24 million likes, but it's a different story on Twitter. The social mini-blogging site has been a bit of a cause for concern on the player side for Man Utd, a team which traditionally likes the siege mentality and has in the past talked of banning players from using personal Social Network profiles. Twitter policies and strategy are very important but this one is a tad extreme. There is of course a monstrous amount of tweeting regarding the red side of Manchester going on so perhaps they have decided that there is little or nothing they could add to the conversation. I hardly need point out they are wrong and I am sitting by the phone waiting for Messrs Glazer to call to discuss their strategy ☺.

Manchester City 

@MCFC 
20,643 Tweets |  55,971 Following | 300,155 Followers 

You can see they take this seriously, not least because they have their own short URL (manc.it). They are largely self promoting but there are occasional requests for fans to get involved although a recent caption competition was simply offering a RT as a prize. Still it’s more than some! Behind-the-scenes photos make the @MCFC following experience more rewarding for fans, as does a decent number of retweets. I am not sure I understand exactly their following criteria but they seem to follow a very wide net of people including City fans, which is nice.

Arsenal 

@Arsenal
8,962 Tweets | 138,767 Following | 1,448,508 Followers

If it were all about Twitter followers Arsenal would be cruising to the Premier League title but, as we all know, its about a chilly afternoon at Loftus Road and consequently they are third. What I like about their usage is that they introduced the hashtag #ArsenalLive and let fans make the conversation during games, however here they let themselves down by not monitoring and retweeting enough in my humble opinion. Make your fans feel special Arsenal, show some love!

Chelsea 

@chelseafc 

12,857 Tweets | 180 Following | 833,206 Followers

Chelsea stand out from the other top clubs because they are the only ones to have, what Twitter calls an “Enhanced Profile Page”. In other words they have incorporated a new design element, namely an advertising banner under the normal header. These are not available to all and doubtless someone at Chelsea has pretty good connections… ahem. Chelsea offer match updates and are heavy on the #CFC hashtag. Now when I was a lad this was would have been all about bad fridges, but times have changed, and it seems to work. Added to this they are rich in photo content. They follow comparatively selectively; teams, players and a few influencers such as sports journalists. 

Enhanced Profile Page with static (non-linked) banner.

Newcastle 

@NUFCOfficial
7,289 Tweets | 50 Following | 60,064 Followers

The #NUFC hashtag features heavily in Toon tweets, which helps to retain a certain brand control. The downside to Newcastle’s Twitter usage is that it really seems to be solely a news stream; team news, quotes from the manager, game photos, video - interaction is minimal. It’s all about driving traffic to their site and the fan shop. What the ROI is like on this I don’t know but they have the fewest number of followers of the current top 6.

Tottenham Hotspur 

@SpursOfficial 
8,663 Tweets | 49 Following | 170,485 Followers

To a certain extent Spurs may have to compete with the San Antonio Spurs in the twittersphere so you’d think they might push hard with another hashtag but not so. They do use #SpursOfficial_LIVE Spurs tweet in game commentary, they have exploited Twitter for competitions but interaction often comes in the form of shout outs rather than retweets of fans, which is a little puzzling given how much fans would love to get a proper Twitter mention. I think its not unfair to say that you take Twitter as seriously as the logo you use and Spurs fall flat here, it is a tiny image and consequently grainy. Sort it out ‘Arry.

I will be appearing at iGaming Super Show in Dublin on the panel discussing The Role of Social Marketing for Gambling Companies and Affiliates on Wednesday 23rd May.

Goal Line Technology

Barcelona are a great team and I sincerely hope they get through to the Champions League Final. I also hope they lose the final because of an unfairly disallowed goal.

Believe it or not I bare them no ill will. But it is perhaps the only remaining way that likes of UEFA will decide to implement some sort of goal line technology or video replay. 

Lampard's disallowed goal against Germany in the World Cup annoyed me no end, but then I realized that we probably would't have won anyway. Yesterday, in the second FA Cup Semi Final between Tottenham and Chelsea another refereeing cock-up happened which probably didn't affect the final result but I have come to see that it isn't about that, it isn't swings and roundabouts, six of one and half a dozen of the other as football people are wont to say. It has to be a matter of principle at some point.

Goooooooooooooooooooal!

Football is sorely lacking in principles in my humble opinion. Cheating is rife. It is now common football parlance to suggest that a player "should have gone down for that challenge". Stopping to analyze such a statement of course reveals that a) cheating is an accepted part of the sport, and b) referees are incapable of adjudicating without the help of a dramatized version of real events.

Yesterday Martin Atkinson, gave a goal when the ball did not cross the line. Per se, it is probably forgivable, he made a mistake, he might even be a crap referee, but the ultimate fault lies with the authorities and their continuing avoidance of this problem. It has been said that there is no satisfactory way of implementing the necessary technology, it is in a "testing stage" or that such incidents are what makes the game of football so entertaining. What would this beautiful game be without moments of contention? Well, it would be a lot fairer. 

Rugby did it, Cricket did it, Tennis did it. And by and large it works. If nothing else it instills a little more faith and trust in the officials. Something which in football is almost totally absent. Players see referees and linesmen as little more than dogs, to be treated with, at best disdain and at worst genuine hatred. Fans mimic their idols on the pitch.

Taking the example of cricket for a moment, the DRS (Decision Review System) is by no means perfect, it is evolving and will continue to do so but it has made the game fairer, there seem to be fewer bad decisions and the level of umpiring has actually improved. As a passionate fan, I am as impressed when an umpire is proved to have made a correct decision, as I am pleased when an incorrect decision is overturned. But because it is overturned, I bare no ill will towards the official. 

Technology is an aid to the official and can only appease angry fans, managers and players alike, highlight the skills of a referee and raise trust in the men in black and in the game they serve. Oh, and it's FAIR FFS!!!

The Vanity of Chairmen and the Ignorance of Fans.

In the zany world of Premier League management the men in charge are villains or heroes. There is no grey area. And it doesn't necessarily matter how they do or what their pedigree is. So how does one become a Premier League Manager? Well, that’s easy; you qualify if:

1) You were a successful player at the club

2) The fans really, really want you

3) You are on good terms with a Russian oligarch who owns a club

4) You have no track record of winning anything but you are from the same nation and you are a loveable rogue

5) You are actually a good manager (rarely helps).

I guess we will never see the likes of Alex Ferguson, and to a lesser extent Arsene Wenger, again. Why would a chairman give a manager a chance to prove himself over a few years when he could employ someone who will keep the fans happy for a few months, swiftly followed by someone else who will keep the fans happy for a few games and so on. The fact that Steve Kean is still in charge at Blackburn is the kind of exception that could be used to prove a rule and, whilst I am of course exaggerating, this cult of the ex-player or fans’ favourite is peculiar in top-flight football. 

Whether the chairmen are listening to influential players within the team or the swaying, baying legions of fans it often comes down to their vanity and the ignorance of the screaming supporters.

Alan Shearer applauds the fans' performance on his way to relegation in 2009.

Not only was the delight on the face of fans when Alan Shearer briefly took charge of Newcastle clear evidence of this but, in his comments to the press, Shearer seemed to make almost no mention of the squad he inherited, but simply the reaction of the fans and his expectation that they would be “behind him”. Don’t get me started on the fawning idiocy surrounding “King” Kenny Dalglish’s reign at Liverpool. Why, why, why?  

Rather than going to a qualified doctor would you put your life in the hands of someone who used to be a good patient? 

No you wouldn’t, because you would die. 

Would you hand over the running of your business to someone on the basis that your customers really like him/her?

No you wouldn’t because it could easily fail.

Football is business. Yes it’s a passionate, quasi-religious experience to many, but so are Apple products to people who want others to think that they are creative. 

The only rational conclusion I can come to is that most fans don’t really care if they win or lose. They just want to believe, albeit briefly, in something perfect, something unreal, something other-wordly – the returning hero, the Saviour. 

And of course 'Arry fits the bill (not the Old Bill, just to be absolutely clear!) cos he's English, 'innit - so he will naturally be a great leader of Englishmen - no need to worry about tactics or a less than stellar squad at this summer's European Championships. So its surely a safe bet, opening the door for a spurned Glen Hoddle to be reborn at White Hart Lane perhaps? And, come to think of it, might it be worth a few quid on Mourinho at Chelsea? There is no rhyme or reason to this game you know.

A belated Happy Easter.

Ireland, cricket and double standards in top level sport.

Ireland has qualified for the World T20 in Sri Lanka, in September. Ireland is on course to be in the World Cup in 2015. Ireland is the team to beat, right now, at least amongst the Associate teams – the second tier nations as judged by the ICC. So why haven’t they yet been granted full membership of the International Cricket Council? The reason can only be because such membership is almost tacit approval that they will then also, in due course, become a test-playing nation.

Kevin O'Brien shows a level of delight after stuffing England.

So, should they be allowed to play test cricket? Are there too many teams already? And why do I sound like Carrie Bradshaw?

There are currently 10 nations with Test status. The impression from my childhood is of each of the premier cricketing nations touring England every four years (and vice versa) on a clear cycle.  But then I remember Sri Lanka being added to the elite group, followed by Zimbabwe and then Bangladesh and so gradually, playing the old fashioned way, where nations tour each other every few years has become increasingly difficult to sustain in any pre-defined roster. Added to this are geo-political issues that have disrupted nations and, by association, international cricket in recent years.

So can we add another team and stop trying to play all teams all the time? And will this perhaps create some form of favouritism, a natural selection if you like, whereby certain cricketing nations rise to the top of the elite group and end up playing each other more often and effectively creating a two tier “first division”? Well, this already happens of course – the number of teams and the hunger for cricket in the Asian sub-continent makes sure of that.  

Cricket will never be a global game unless more teams join the test playing countries – ok you’re right, cricket will never be a global game, full stop – but in order to bring it to a wider audience and achieve more credibility it needs to open up and doing so at Test level can’t harm the game can it?

Well, diluting it with less competitive (test) teams could do just that, but in any case it is a somewhat academic argument because of course no team will ever be allowed into the elite group of test playing nations without a first class structure in place, as the ICC believes it would be an unsustainable model. So, unfortunately Ireland… sorry what’s that? Bangladesh didn’t have one before becoming a test nation? Oh, well in that case bring on Ireland.

In many sports I have been totally in favour of increased elitism, it annoys me when I see an Olympic athlete languishing behind the field simply because there was space for someone from his / her nation, when a thousand other athletes around the world could be infinitely more competitive but did not qualify for their respective nation. Eddie the Eagle, was amusing, makes for good YouTubage, but if you were an 18 year old Finnish Ski Jumper, who narrowly missed out on Olympic qualification what would you think as you watched his antics?

I am not pretending to have anything other than double standards, rather like the ICC, and I am not pretending to have answers either! I was for a long time in favour of chopping out the "lower" footballing nations at World Cups, narrowing the field and making the quality better but I have to be honest and say that I have sort of come around to accepting it, and standards in the World Cup as a whole are generally closer - although this may simply be down to many of the "bigger" footballing nations becoming increasingly shite and international football becoming so utterly dreary.

So, back to cricket. Come on ICC, bring Ireland into the “big time”. Yes I want the Ashes home and away every four years, but then lets see the likes of Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Ireland visiting on a less regular basis. More double standards I know, but who cares? No one would say that the Italian rugby team doesn’t deserve its place in the 6 Nations and yet they generally continue to struggle to beat most of the other 5 nations (Scotland... perhaps you should also focus on cricket).

Social Media Marketing for Business

Social Media offer an amazing opportunity to create that ideal conversation and make your fans drive it forward, building your brand in a way that might take an enormous marketing budget elsewhere. It is a natural forum, an evolving conversation that grows positively and organically with your guidance. It can give confidence to customers that may not normally get involved in talking about your brand and lend a hand to those who need help. It does of course require a strategy, management and guidelines, but that's what eGaming Consulting is here for.

 

 Of course if you really don't see the need for a Social Media presence for your brand then perhaps you prefer an anti-social network.