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Archive for November, 2010
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
Although the World Poker Tour’s latest tournament stop was a disappointment in terms of the overall attendance, there were plenty of big names who made the trip to the picturesque North African city of Marrakech in Morocco. Day 2 of the tournament saw the field dwindle down to the final table of nine players, with the last remaining big-name poker pro bowing out in 18th place: Nicholas Levi.
82 players began Day 2 of the tournament with a shot at the title, but the bust-outs were fast and furious right from the start, and continued at a frenetic pace until the final table bubble was reached.
With its top-heavy payout structure, on the line for the remaining nine players is the first-place prize-money of €254,745. Leading the way at the final table are two Germans: in 1st place is Sebastian Homann, followed closely by his fellow countryman Dominik Nitsche. Nitsche was able to pull off an amazing turnaround on Day 2, battling back from a three big-blind stack at one point but finishing up the day just shy of the chip-lead.
Here is a look at the chip counts heading into the final table:
1. Sebastian Homann 1,539,000
2. Dominik Nitsche 1,479,000
3. Guillaume Cescut 956,000
4. Johan Williamsson 693,000
5. Sebastian Compte 529,000
6. Guillaume de la Gorce 516,000
7. Felix Oberauer 499,000
8. Patrick Muleta 244,000
9. Julien Labuissiere 210,000
Tags: Bust, De La Gorce, Disappointment, Fellow Countryman, Frenetic Pace, Germans, Guillaume, Homann, Johan, Julien, Leading The Way, Levi, Marrakech, Marrekech, Payout Structure, Picturesque North, Prize Money, Sebastian, Turnaround, World Poker Tour
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
A lot of poker affiliates don’t cross promote poker games let alone know what cross promoting poker games are. While super poker affiliates are doing this across their poker websites and enjoying the benefits of higher conversion rates from poker strategy websites that are hard to convert and some small/mid level poker affiliates started using the cross promotion for converting rush poker traffic. This method can be applied to all poker games.
What Is Cross Promotion?
Cross promotion is when you have an article about one format of a poker game and in the call to action you promote another format of that poker game or another poker game altogether.
I.e. you have an article about sit and go’s and you add a call to action saying “poker players that enjoy playing sit and go’s also like to play double or nothing sitngos.”
With a link in double or nothing sitngos for internal linking, it not only helps with introducing a new game to a poker player you also have another internal link for SEO benefits.
How To Convert With Cross Promotion?
Now if you want to convert some of the players right from that article and not have them visit another article about a poker game. You have to apply a call to action to sign up to a poker room with the recommendation of the other poker game.
I.e. in the same article about sit and go’s you want to change that call to action to say something like this “poker players that enjoy playing sit and go’s also like to play double or nothing sitngos. The best place to play double or nothing sitngos is at Doyle’s room sign up for 110% match up to $550 deposit bonus and 33% rakeback.”
Now you can link to the other article about double or nothing sitngos giving the visitor another page to visit on your website and stay longer and link to the Doyle’s room sign up page to convert the visitor into a poker player.
Benefits of Cross Promoting Poker Games
Great SEO strategy internal linking the poker game articles and the poker room rakeback offers. The search engines will count more backlinks for your internal pages. This should and will result in moving up in Google and other search engines.
You will convert poker players that want to try a new poker game than the games they normally play and convert the poker players that already knew about the game just didn’t know what poker room to play the game as well as introducing poker players to rakeback that didn’t know about rakeback before visiting your website.
Also, you’re keeping the visitor on your website longer having them visit more pages on your website and give you a better chance of converting your visitors into repeat visitors and poker players. Which in the long term help build your brand trust as more and more poker players see your website, your logo, and become known among other poker players.
Tags: Conversion Rates, Cross Promotion, Deposit Bonus, Game Articles, Game Poker, Games A Lot, Games Strategy, Match, Mid Level, New Game, Poker Affiliates, Poker Game, Poker Games, Poker Player, Poker Players, Poker Room, Poker Strategy, Rakeback, Rush, T Cross
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Monday, November 29th, 2010
It’s anyone’s guess how the final table of the PokerStars.net EPT Barcelona Main Event will go down in history, but in the here-and-now this could be considered one of the least experienced final tables in major poker tournament history.
The eight players who reached the final table were able to outlast a huge field of 758 players, including some of the poker world’s top talent who made the trek to the Spanish Capital. Each player was the sole representative from their country, making the final table of the EPT Barcelona a very cosmopolitan affair.
In the end it was Sweden’s Kent Lundmark –one of the more experienced players at the final table—who was able to raise his hands in victory, after defeating the Spaniard Jesus Cortes Lizano in heads-up play. Lundmark picked up his first tournament victory –he finished runner-up in the Nordic Masters of Poker Championship earlier this year– and by far his largest cash to date.
Here is a look at how the final table fared at the EPT Barcelona:
1. Kent Lundmark — €825,000
2. Jesus Cortes Lizano — €525,000
3. Konstantin Puchkov — €300,000
4. Shander de Vries — €222,000
5. Giuseppe Pantaleo — €170,000
6. Thor Stang — €130,000
7. Georgios Skotadis — €90,000
8. Francesco Notaro — €70,000
Tags: Cortes, Georgios, Giuseppe Pantaleo, Konstantin, Lizano, Lundmark, Main Event, Masters Of Poker, Notaro, Poker Championship, Poker Tournament, Poker World, Pokerstars Net, Sole Representative, Spaniard, Spanish Capital, Stang, Thor, Tournament History, Tournament Victory
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Monday, November 29th, 2010
With a record-setting field entering the Main Event of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour Barcelona, tournament officials were concerned about their ability to stay on schedule as the tournament wore on, and with 112 players entering play on Day 3 of the tournament –and the schedule calling for the field to play down to 24– Day 3 was definitely going to be the biggest challenge.
In the end tournament officials were able to stay on course, and when the final hand was dealt late in the evening just 24 players remained in the hunt for the EPT Barcelona title.
Virtually all of the big name poker pros were eliminated along the way, and the remaining field contains only a handful of players with major tournament experience. One of the players near the top of the leader-board is Day 1 chip-leader Luis Rufas, who has managed to stay in the top 10 virtually throughout the tournament. Here is a look at the Top 10 chip-counts heading into Day 4 of the tournament:
1. Giuseppe Pantaleo – 2,309,000
2. Alessandro Longobardi – 1,863,000
3. Thor Stang – 1,447,000
4. Luis Rufas – 1,429,000
5. Jose Luis Navarro Giner – 1,362,000
6. Ognjen Sekularac – 1,333,000
7. Francesco Notaro – 1,167,000
8. Jorge Lores – 1,131,000
9. Marco Bognanni – 1,131,000
10. Jesus Cortes Lizano – 915,000
The plan for Day 4 of the EPT Barcelona Championship is to play down to the final table.
Tags: Alessandro, Barcelona, Cortes, EPT, Giuseppe Pantaleo, Handful, Jesus, Jose Luis Navarro, Leader Board, Lores, Main Event, Notaro, Poker Pros, Poker Tournament, PokerStars, Stang, Thor, Tournament Experience, Tournament Officials
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Monday, November 29th, 2010
With so much competition out there these days as a poker affiliate you can’t just have a rakeback website and think the money will come to you. Poker affiliates need to really think of a poker niche to focus on. It could be a mini-niche niche like focusing on teaching one format of a poker game (i.e. Omaha hi heads up). If you know nothing about poker, losing poker player, or a breakeven poker player than teaching poker to others may not be the way to go. You should pick a niche you can buy content and become the authority for that niche.
Poker Niches
General Rakeback Website – This is your basic fresh out the box rakeback site. You have a homepage laying out the rakeback offers and deposit bonuses. Then you have the review/sign up pages for each poker room listed on the homepage.
This is all it took back when rakeback first started but now this will only work if you focus on ranking number 1 in the search engines for the deposit bonus and rakeback keywords or translating it into a language that hasn’t been done.
How To Website – This type of website is completely focus on the beginner poker player. You add “how to” articles to your poker rakeback website. Once you have written the how to poker articles you focus ranking those pages in the search engines. This will get you a flow of beginner poker players signing up through your website.
The greatest thing about signing up a lot of beginner poker players is some of them will go on to become pro poker players. This is why building a relationship with your players is so important.
Strategy Website – This type of website you can focus on writing strategies for a lot of poker games or one poker game. The type of traffic you will get to this website is poker players trying to improve their poker game. Which means they’re already signed up to an online poker room and it’s your job to get them to sign up somewhere else.
Although at times it can be hard to convert a poker player from one poker room to the next. You should have a clear call to action that points out why they should sign up to a given poker room over just playing at the one they are at. This can be a simple line or two. (i.e. Sign up to UB.com for 111% match up to $1,100 and 30% rakeback because the competition is soft for Omaha hi 6 max cash games.)
Poker Training Website – This website focuses on training poker players to become better and it should have both strategy articles and training videos to help the players see what they need to change in their own game. This can easily take a player from low stakes to mid stakes just by fixing a few problems in his or her playing style.
The greatest thing about these websites it can be easy to convert poker player that seriously want to improve their poker skills. You can require them to sign up for rakeback and rake an x amount to get one on one poker coaching from you. As you coach them they will be playing at the poker room they signed up to, to get the one on one poker training from you. This will not only build trust and a relationship with the player but also make you money.
How To Pick A Poker Niche
As you can see there are many poker niches you can choose from given that only a few were name in this article. Before thinking about putting a plan together for your website, take a moment to think about which niche will suit you best and can you see yourself working on it for months or years on end. If you don’t enjoy it you will not make it as a poker affiliate.
Also, don’t be put off that some of the poker niches that were listed in this article require some poker knowledge to do. You can always pick a niche that suits you best or create a niche. If you want to do a niche that requires poker knowledge and you know nothing about poker, team up with a poker coach or a winning poker player that would like to have a second income stream.
Tags: Deposit Bonus, Deposit Bonuses, Fresh Out The Box, Games Poker, Niche, Niches, Number 1, online poker, Poker Affiliates, Poker Articles, Poker Game, Poker Games, Poker Player, Poker Players, Poker Rakeback, Poker Room, Rakeback Offers, Search Engines, Strategy Website, Writing Strategies
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Saturday, November 27th, 2010
New poker affiliates always wonder which poker domain name is better direct match (keyword focused) or brand-able. The truth is both have pros and cons and each poker affiliate must ask themselves what type of poker affiliate you want to be. Do you want to focus on building tons of mini sites or build one large website people will type-in over using Google and other search engines?
Direct Match Poker Domain Name
Direct match poker domain name is a keyword focused domain name. You buy the poker domain name that is the keyword you are targeting. For example, if you are trying to rank for “rakeback deals” you would buy rakebackdeals.com, .net if the .com isn’t available, or even the .org will do.
This gives you SEO leverage to easily rank for your keyword in the search engines. Having such SEO leverage means you can build less backlinks than other websites and still outrank them for your keyword. However, if you don’t maintain building backlinks once and awhile when you rank number one you will fall from the number 1 position.
Most poker affiliates get direct match domain names for stuff like “poker room name review” (i.e. cakepokerreview.com), “poker room name rakeback” (i.e. doylesroomrakeback.com), and etc. These mini sites are great for quick money but you have to rely on search engines to keep bringing you that traffic. If your website ever disappeared from the search engines you will not get any new signups.
Brand-able Poker Domain Name
Brand-able poker domain name is a catchy domain that will get stuck into visitors minds. You want this website to become an authority in your niche so visitors wouldn’t use google or other search engines they would just type in your url and go straight to your website.
While this does put you at a SEO disadvantage depending on the domain name you bought. Your website will still get traffic from search engines. However, if your website ever disappeared from the search engines your website will still have tons of traffic and get new signups.
The goal is to become a brand name in your niche. This is the hard part, you have to work hard adding tons of content unlike the mini sites which only have up to 50 pages of content. Becoming a authority in your niche can take months or years to achieve. However, once you are an authority the benefits far out weight the cons.
When deciding what poker domain you want for your website. Take the time to think about where you want your website to be in 6 months, 1 year, and even 5 years from now. This will give you an idea as to what type of domain name you should buy either it be keyword focused like a direct match or a brand-able name you can build on.
The bottomline is both type of domain names are useful and can be very profitable but it all comes down to you, what you like to work on, and the goals you set for yourself.
Tags: Backlinks, Buy Domain, Catchy Domain, Domain Direct, Domain Name, Domain Names, Google, Keyword Name, Leverage, Name Domain, Name Match, New Domain, Niche, Number 1, Other Search Engines, Poker Affiliates, Poker Room, Pros And Cons, Quick Money, Search Domain
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Friday, November 26th, 2010
The PokerStars.net European Poker Tour Barcelona Championship has been a fast and furious affair up to this point. 400 players sat down on Day 2 of the tournament at the Casino de Barcelona and when the smoke cleared a mere 112 players remained. Heading into Day 3 the frenetic pace should continue, considering the schedule calls for the field to play down to 24 players.
Leading the field is US poker pro Bryn Kenney, who dominated play on Day 2 basically wire-to-wire. Day 1 chip-leader Luis Rufas also finished the day well, and finds himself near the top of the leader-board. Here is a look at the unofficial chip-counts heading into Day 3 courtesy of PokerNews.com’s live reporting team:
1. Bryn Kenney — 693,500
2. Roman Makhlin — 643,000
3. Giuseppe Pantaleo — 622,500
4. Dominik Nitsche — 585,000
5. Haykel Vidal — 534,500
6. Luis Rufas — 502,000
7. Pascal Lefrancois — 458,500
8. Kristoffer Thorsson — 454,000
9. Juan Enrique Company Iborra — 446,000
10. Andrei Bucica — 446,000
Only a smattering of big name poker pros were able to survive the wild Day 2 pace, including Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Tomer Berda and the Spaniard Carlos Mortensen who has a chance to win poker’s Triple Crown should he capture the EPT Barcelona title. Play is set to begin at Noon local time and should run well into the night as the field shrinks to just 24 players.
Tags: Berda, Bertrand, Carlos Mortensen, Casino De Barcelona, Elky, EPT, Frenetic Pace, Giuseppe Pantaleo, Juan Enrique, Leader Board, Lefrancois, Nitsche, Poker Pros, Pokernews, PokerStars, Reporting Team, Smattering, Spaniard, Tomer, Triple Crown
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Friday, November 26th, 2010
When the final few entrants were counted on Day 1b of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour Barcelona Championship a whopping 495 players had registered for the tournament, which was three more than last year’s tournament. But this doesn’t take into account the 263 players that played on Day 1a! Overall the EPT Barcelona attracted 758 poker players, smashing the old attendance mark set back in 2008.
As the two starting fields are combined, 399 players will be returning for Day 2 of the tournament, with Luis Rufa of Spain leading the way with 232,100 chips. Here is a look at the top 10 chip counts heading into Day 2:
1. Luis Rufas — 232,100
2. Loic Sa — 217,700
3. Zachary Korik — 183,200
4. Leo Fernandez — 164,400
5. Yann Dion — 162,500
6. Jairo Pascual Borras — 159,800
7. Haykel Vidal– 159,500
8. Roberto Romanello — 159,200
9. Shander De Vries — 151,300
10. Max Greenwood — 150,500
Also still alive and kicking are top pros Bertrand “ElkY Grospellier, Carlos Mortensen, Michael Binger, Johnny Lodden, Kevin MacPhee, Noah Boeken and Liv Boeree.
With a nearly €3.8 million prize-pool all eyes will be on the first-place prize-money of €825,000, not to mention the prestige that goes along with winning a PokerStars EPT Championship.. Here is a look at the payout structure for the tournament:
1 €825,000
2 €525,000
3 €300,000
4 €222,000
5 €170,000
6 €130,000
7 €90,000
8 €70,000
Tags: Attendance Mark, Bertrand, Boeree, Borras, Carlos Mortensen, Elky, EPT, Johnny Lodden, Leading The Way, Macphee, Michael Binger, Noah Boeken, Payout Structure, Poker Players, PokerStars, Prize Money, Prize Pool, Romanello, Rufa, Tour Barcelona
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Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
The 2010 version of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour Barcelona Championship looks to be on its way to crushing last year’s turnout. 263 players took the Casino de Barcelona on Monday for Day 1a of the tournament; in all 479 players turned out for last year’s tournament. Last year’s attendance was the worst turnout since Season 2 of the EPT, despite the EPT reducing the buy-in from €8,000 down to €5,000 between Season 5 and 6.
The 2010 EPT Barcelona Championship will once again feature a €5,000 buy-in, but tournament officials were extremely hopeful that they would easily surpass last year’s lackluster turnout –an attendance drop is a rarity for EPT events. So far it would appear that they are well on their way, and will likely break the 600 entrant mark if Day 1b follows the typical registration trends for major poker tournaments.
One possibility for the decrease in attendance could be that the EPT Barcelona no longer is the first stop on the tour, which it was for Season’s 1-5. In Season 6 the EPT Barcelona was scheduled as the second stop of the EPT tour, and this year’s tournament is even further down the schedule, now slated as the fifth stop on the EPT tour.
Barcelona is one of four destinations that have hosted an EPT event since the tour’s inception in 2004 –Copenhagen, San Remo and London are the others.
Tags: 1a, Attendance, Break, Casino De Barcelona, Copenhagen, EPT, Inception, London, Poker Tournaments, PokerStars, Rarity, San Remo, Tournament Officials
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