Poker Affiliate Life
Budapest Affiliate Conference Trip Report
Sep 16th
It had been a while since I had been able to make it out to a conference (Barcelona 2008 was the last one), so I decided to book my ticket to Budapest this year for BAC. It was nice that the conference was in a change of venue, which made it much easier to justify the long trip.
I arrived on the Wednesday morning after a long flight with a connection in Frankfurt. I was a little worried about going because I thought that I wasn’t going to know anyone there as many suckers people backed out last minute including the person I was supposed to split a room with (Nick). Regardless I still went and landed in Budapest around 11am. As I went to tell the cab where to go I realized that I was in a different hotel than I had thought. Meh, I went with it and headed to the new hotel (InterContinental). I arrived at the hotel to check in and looked down at my reservation to realize it was for a day later (crap I thought, but figured they would probably have a room). As I explained the situation that I might have gotten the date wrong to the guy at the front desk he replied, “I hope your reservation is for today because our hotel is full”. Fortunately, he managed to find me a room after hammering away at the keyboard and speaking gibberish Hungarian to his co-worker.
After a bit of a nap, I started trying to find out who was in town and managed to get in touch with Mark from PAL. We decided to meet up for a beer and hit a cool little bar a short trip from the hotel. We took one of the oldest subway systems in Europe to get there which was pretty cool. It was nice meeting Mark finally as we had chatted many times online about how we were both former IBM slaves employees. As I was heading out I also ran into Richie formerly with Carbon who I had spent some time hanging out with in Barcelona and we exchanged info to meet up later. Richie (like me) loves to party so I knew he would be a good person to meet up with later.
On the 2nd day I got in contact with Greame (DealerDan) who was out having a few drinks with some people and invited me to join them. I met up with them all at this cool square, grabbed a few beers then took off because he had dinner plans with Bodog. Fortunately he invited me along so I managed to get a free meal from the Bodog guys (Seb and Claire – who had been my affiliate manager in the past but I never actually met). After a nice dinner, which included several Mojitos, we all headed over to the opening party which was hosted by Expekt. As with most gambling conference parties it was a complete sausage party. I wasn’t really in the mood to party so I just took it pretty easy. I also ran into Carly and Jo (from Pokerstars) and Andreas (darko on the forums, but never really posts). I ran into a bunch of old friends too which was nice and we were out of there early (around 2am). We went to hit up the casino, but they wanted to charge us 10 Euros to go in and gamble. We laughed about that and decided to save our money and call it a night.
Day 3 was the 1st day of the conference. I met up with Richie in the lobby around 9am who was with Ven (formerly at Party Poker) and we hit up the buffet at the hotel. We had a great breakfast laughing the whole time and completely lost track of time (not getting out of there till like 11:15). We then hopped on the shuttle and headed over to the conference. We did the whole stroll around the room (me looking for the best swag – probably a bath robe from Chipleader). Richie knows pretty much everyone so he kept introducing me to a lot of people. I decided to hit up the SEO sessions (one on link building and the SEO roundtable) after which were all around pretty decent. Though I didn’t learn a whole lot, there were a couple of tidbits here and there that I learned which should help. After the conference we had a bit of time so Richie and I headed to a little bar close to the hotel. Richie ordered probably the gayest drink in Budapest which consisted of pink lemonade, a pink straw and a cherry, I opted for a beer. Mike from Poker Nordica also came and joined us for a drink then we all split up to our own dinners. I headed to the PAL dinner and met DealerDan in the lobby. There we waited like 20 minutes for Seb (yea, we gave him a hard time about it) then finally headed over to Spoon for an awesome meal. At dinner were several people I hadn’t seen in a while like Giorgio, Jason (GoodKarmaKid), Stephen and Russ from Commission Account as well as several new faces. After dinner Seb, Russ and I wanted to keep drinking so we decided to head over to the conference party sponsored by ChanceRoom. Again, it was a huge sausage fest so after we finished our few free drinks (they had this weird ticket system) and grabbed Alex Pratt and Andreas and headed over to a club that several people had been talking about called Bed Beach. Bed Beach was awesome! It was a huge outdoor club with a massive dance floor, tons of tables and a nice VIP section. We ran into many other people and spent the rest of the night mingling not getting back till like 6am (I think – didn’t wear a watch all trip).
At Bed Beach
On the 4th day (the last conference day) I slept in and missed Calvin Ayre’s speech which was one of the things I was looking forward to. Fortunately from what I heard from other people it was rather awkward and he didn’t really tell any interesting stories about entrepreneurship. When I finally did get to the conference I had my meeting with Lee Allen from Sticky Eyes (an SEO company). They were doing free SEO analysis sessions for conference attendees. This was really cool and Lee definitely knew his stuff. He definitely made me think differently about a couple of things and wasn’t like most SEO companies that just BS and pretends they know what they are talking about. Thanks Lee!! After that I walked around the conference a bit more and ran into Johan formerly at FTP / Gnuf. We had met a ways back in London at the Cap Awards dinner and he really helped me make the push to doing this full time. I also met his wife Anna who is with an interesting bingo company called Maria (a branch off from Unibet). Unlike most sites it sounds like they are actually building a brand than just a site (so if you promote Bingo check them out and tell her I sent you). I hung around at the conference a bit more and ran into Dee from 888 and chatted with them for a bit and finally left the conference. I ended up getting in touch with Graeme after who was having a dinner with some people close to the hotel so I decided to join them. There I tried Goulash for the first time, which I understand as being the “big dish” of Hungary and pretty tasty. After dinner we headed over to a party hosted by Bodog. We were greeted at the door with a glass of champagne and asked to take our picture with some of the “Bodog Girls”. Bodog REALLY knows how to throw a party. The venue was awesome, they had special tables where you could try the national drinks of Hungary (I liked the Unicum the best which is a bitters), tables with free cigars (good ones), constant Mojitos and Caipirinhas plus Hors D’oeurves and even a hand massage table. The party ended around midnight and I decided to head back to Bed Beach with Johan and Jennifer from Betting Jobs. There we ran into many other people and drank and chatted the night away.
Bodog Girls at the Bodog Party
On the Sunday I slept in again and missed the “tourist session” as I was pretty hung over not rolling out of bed until about 4pm. I ran into Richie again at the patio of the Sofitel (the main hotel – directly beside the InterContinental) and we had some drinks to nurse the hang over. Richie was with Chris from Poker Space and a few other people. Chris came up with a great idea to head to a shisha bar so Richie, Chris, Jen (Fortune Poker), and 2 Swedish affiliates (Mike and Peter) all headed over to this place recommended by the hotel. We ordered some massive platters of food and shared everything. The conversation started pretty tame but after Richie asked what everyone thought about Megan Fox things progressively turned into pure hilarity. We learned some new things like what “musting” is along with several other funny things. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.
On a side note, some of the companies throwing the “Official” parties could really learn a thing or two from Bodog. Having a club filled with guys staring at 1 or 2 girls dancing, then making them pay for drinks (especially affiliates) to be there says a lot about your brand. Bodog goes all out when they do a party and it says a lot about their brand. In the future I think the parties should be turned into more of a “pre-drink” where everyone goes and drinks for free then heads out to various nightclubs around the city. If you were at Bed Beach you will know that industry people pretty much owned their VIP areas.
After that the conference was officially over for the rest. I stuck around in Budapest for a bit the next day then headed to Prague for a couple days to do some sightseeing. I am actually writing this on the train back from Prague to Budapest where I have to catch my flight in the morning.
All in all it was one of the best conferences I have been to and was really nice meeting many new people along with seeing some old friends. Till next one!
Doyle Brunson and I
Summer Is Finally Here
Jul 10th
It is finally starting to get warm here. Yesterday I went golfing with a couple of friends but played like crap. Just trying to enjoy the nice weather.
I have been going to a lot of soccer games lately. A few weeks ago John Goldie and I went over to Montreal to watch Toronto FC take on Montreal in the final game of the Canadian Championship. Toronto needed to win by 4 goals which everyone thought was an impossible task, but I had faith they could do it. We did a little pre-drinking before the game with all of the TFC fans, then headed over to the game on the subway. The subway ride was insane. Everyone was chanting and jumping up and down, at several points it felt like the train may even derail. Once at the game, there were between 200-300 Toronto fans. Toronto quickly went down 1 goal after a penalty kick, but shortly after came back to score 2 before the end of the first half. The second half was insane as they continued to score and within the last 10 minutes put in the goal to give them their 4 goal lead. Just before the end of the game they sealed it and put in a final goal making the score 6-1. It was such a great experience as we stuck it out in the rain screaming our voices out and in the end were rewarded with the Canadian championship. The players all came over to our section after the game and threw their jerseys out to the fans.
Also soccer related, Zinadine Zidane came to Toronto a few weeks back and I watched him play a friendly against “the Canadian All-stars”. Most of the players other than Zidane and Palermo (Boca Jrs) were crap, but it was still cool to see one of the greatest soccer players of all time.
Next week I am going to start part 2 of my bartending training: the advanced course. It sounds fun and will be pretty cool because I get to invent my own drink and present it to the class. Also, I got tickets to see Sarah Silverman next week which should be fun.
On the work front, lately I have been spending a lot of time building a casino site. It seems like everyone is getting into the casino side so I figured, why not. If anyone has any good sites and wants to swap links, let me know.
My other sites are doing all right, just grinding on and not really growing much. Need to start spending more time on those but as usual I have either been too lazy or have been more focussed on getting the casino site off the ground.
Lately I have also been thinking about heading out to Budapest for the conference out there. Anyone else planning to go?
Don’t Go To Venezuela / Welcome to ‘09!
Jan 14th
First off, this is the first post in 2009 so HAPPY NEW YEAR! I had a good new year until the end of the night when my jacket managed to walk its way out of the restaurant that I was at. This is never a good thing to happen especially after a ton of alcohol as when I got home I sent some stupid email to the restaurant. Anyway, turns out someone “mistakingly” left with my coat and it is waiting at the restaurant now to be picked up. So… the point of me telling this story.. don’t use your computer when you are really drunk.
Yesterday I got back from a week in Margarita Island, Venezuela with my good friend Greg. It was a nice relaxing trip, but I would probably never go back there. The people were pretty rude, unfriendly and didn’t seem to welcoming to tourists. For example, I went to the mall and tried to order a pretzel, the girl just looked at me with one of the coldest looks and was like “no”. I couldn’t tell if they didn’t have them or if she just didn’t want to sell one to me. Also, when we were leaving the Country at the airport they had these Chavez dolls that talked. I decided to push the button to hear what it said and some douchebag came over and said, “you aren’t going to buy it so why are you doing that”. I just looked at him and said, “this is why your country sucks and why I’ll never come back”. I am so tempted to register MargaritaIslandSucks.com right now, but I’ll sit on it for now.
I shouldn’t say that all the people were bad ovbiously, as one of the bartenders at our resort was awsome, but I think he was probably the only nice Venezuelan we met down there. I even asked some Venzuelan/Canadian girl about the general attitude we had been receiving at one of the clubs and was told simply: “they don’t like gringos here”. On top of that the island itself had a communist feel to it, and at times didn’t feel very safe. When I asked one girl about going to a club one night she must have told me about 5 times to “cuidado” which means be careful in spanish.
The trip wasn’t all bad though. I spent most of my time there lying on a beach getting a tan, doing little to no work. We left the resort quite a bit and took a jeep tour of the island which was a ton of fun. It was 8 hours long and included a boat tour, open air jeep driving around the island (you could stand in the back which was a ton of fun), off-road driving, lunch, stop at a beach, and much more all for just $50. Here are some pics of that:
The food at the resort was pretty decent, so I can’t really complain about that. One thing that was a little annoying though was Greg and I were probably the only single guys at the resort so the “girls” situation was awful. Long story short.. if you are thinking of going to Margarita Island, I’d pick somewhere else (like Jamaica) instead.
Well, next week I am headed back to Buenos Aires 
I am so excited to get back there as the winter cold is killing me being inside all the time. I need to get out and move around as I feel that winter makes me feel so much unhealthier.
As for ‘09, I think this will be a good year. My main goals are to start expanding on non-gambling projects and investigate other areas of online marketing. I think my strong points are consulting others so if possible I would like to focus on that a little more. Hopefully this year I can come up with a more long term goal for myself as right now I still have no clue what I want to do with my life. Time will tell! If anyone is planning to come to BsAs (Buenos Aires) or wants to, send me a note. Best to everyone with this year!
Aced.com Presents: Balling Weekend in Vegas
Dec 15th
I am still recovering from the past few days of debauchery as I write this post, but let me try and recap what was probably one of the funnest weekends of my life thanks to Aced.com.
As an active affiliate with Aced, I was given the opportunity to join them for an affiliate retreat in Vegas thanks to their amazing affiliate manager affiliate director poker room manager (I think that’s the title he is using now): Brandon Berndt. Brandon is one of the most liked people in this industry and definitely knows how to throw a party (anyone remember the Stinkyfish Party at the 2006 CAC?) so I knew this was going to be a weekend to remember and there was no way I was going to miss this. In fact, I had contemplated extending my time in Buenos Aires, but decided that it was probably in my best interests to make it back for this weekend in Vegas.
Day 1
My friend (and business partner) Greg and I arrive in Las Vegas and manage to track down Brandon, Kendall and Jeremy “$100 Slot and Candy College Fund” Enke in the airport and jump in a stretch limo to the Hard Rock Hotel. (If you know Vegas, you will know that the Hard Rock is one of the best party hotels to stay at in the whole city). We walk into the hotel and notice a rather large line forming around the check-in counter. Fortunately, this is completely irrelevant because we are going straight to the VIP Room where our room keys are waiting for us. Here we pick up the itinerary for the trip which includes things like: partying in the penthouse suite for the HRH hottie model search, dinner at Nobu, private poker tournament, bikini contest in the penthouse, and the best booth in Body English on the last night. OMFG this is gonna be fun!
After a quick shower and stop in the room we all head to Center Bar (the bar right in the middle of the casino). Here we meet up with John Halloway, Jeremy Miller, and Mike Murphy (plus his girlfriend Alicia). We have a few beers, shoot the shit then head over to Ago (Robert Deniro’s restaurant) for an amazing dinner. I am really picky with food, but this was probably one of the best pasta dishes I have ever had in my life!
After dinner we hit the casino floor for a little gambling. Jeremy M. helps teach me how to play craps again as I had only played once before. I quickly lose $150 or so and find out that we are going to be going up to the Penthouse Suite now to help judge a “Hottie Model Search”.
We all pile into an elevator and these two girls follow in behind. Because we had been taking so long the elevator started to make a buzzing noise, so I said, “Sorry girls, you are too heavy”. Fortunately they did not hear this, but half of the other people in the elevator did 
Up we go to the top floor and walk into one of the most incredible hotel rooms in the world! The room comes complete with huge bar, bowling alley, stripper pole, massive LCD TV’s everywhere and much more! There are smoking hot girls walking around everywhere and are all dying to get to know you to try and swing your vote: AMAZING!
We’ll get to the girls pics in a bit, but for now here are a couple from walking around the room:
Me, Kendall, Jeremy, Greg, and Brandon
Jacuzzi with stripper pole in the background
John Halloway
Bowling Alley on Left, Bar area straight ahead
Guitar on the dining room table
After chilling here for a bit and many free vodka red bulls, some of the group decides they are going to hit the strip club. Greg, Mike and I decide that we would rather hang out at the party for a bit more and hang back, but from what I heard the next day they had quite a night and one stripper in particular by the name of Candy was able to retire that night thanks to Jeremy “Breaking All the Stripclub Etiquette Rules” Enke.
We hang out in the Penthouse for a little while longer and decide to break out for one of the clubs downstairs. Greg and I head over to Wasted Space, which is a club owned by Freestyle Motocross Rider, Carey Hart (also known for Hart and Huntington Tattoo’s). Wasted Space is a rock bar/club with attitude and mixes in a bunch of other types of music. There is gorgeous girls everywhere, amazing music and we have a blast here for several hours.
Wasted Space
Day 2
After only a few hours sleep, I wake up around 8am for some unknown reason. Possibly the red bull is still flowing in my blood, it could have something to do with all the oxygen they pump in the rooms or I am just really excited about the day ahead. Since everyone else is still sleeping I decide to hit the casino for some gambling. I go on a serious run at the craps table (at one point rolling for about 30 minutes straight) and make a few hundred dollars. Funny Moment: At one point I went to throw the dice and missed the table completely and hit some girl. The dealer said in all his time there, he had never seen this happen. By this time I manage to get a hold of Brandon and we hit the bar for a bloody mary to reminisce about the debauchery that went down at the strip club. Apparently one of the Aced Consultants, John, is quite the legend at the Spearmint Rhino and knows many of the strippers personally so he managed to hook the guys up with quite an incredible night.
After some time the rest of the crew starts to file down to the casino floor and we all head for lunch at the Pink Taco. We have a nice lunch then all head up to the Lucky 7 Suite to do a little presentation about the future of Aced. We talk about some of the current issues, cool custom features like their Outs program and learn the future plans for the company. All I can say is that they are definitely headed in the right direction and I expect some big things from these guys in the years to come.
Stripper Pole in the Lucky 7 Suite
Lucky 7 Suite
Bar in the Lucky 7 Suite
Jacuzzi In Front of the Stripper Pole
We break up for a bit and Greg, Mike +GF and I decide to hit the mall for a little shopping. We pick up some new clothes for the evening and head back to the Hard Rock for a poker tournament that the Aced guys have set up for us. We have the sickest table in the room which is usually reserved for high roller games. The poker game is tons of fun and we are pretty much laughing having an amazing time from start to finish. John Halloway gets nice and lucky against me after calling a bet pre-flop with KJ for a 3rd of his chips. I have AQ and since over half of my chips are in there I have to push no matter what comes on the flop. With K Q X on board I make the shove and so goes my chance at the $1500 prize pool generously put up by Aced.com.
The crew playing poker in the new poker room at the Hard Rock.
After the poker ends we head to Nobu for dinner thanks again to the Aced guys. They organize an Amazing dinner with huge platters constantly being rolled out to our table, sake, something called purple haze and a massive desert platter. We feast like kings and have a great time over dinner. For the food pictures you will have to talk to Kendall, as he was doing his John Chow thing after every course came out.
Our table at Nobu
Amazing Red Snapper Dish
The night is young and we are already getting buzzed so we head to the Lucky 7 Suite again for a couple of drinks. After hanging out for a bit its time once again to go up to the Penthouse Suite for a Bikini Contest with the girls that we met the night before. I won’t get too much into detail here, but rather just post some pics to show the amazingness that was organized by the Aced guys:
Me and one of the Contestants
The Bikini Contest
Me and Sanja… one of the coolest girls there.
John from Aced.com on the couch and Carey Hart on the right
The crew in the Lucky 7 Suite
After the contest ended we all headed back to the Lucky 7 Suite again to have some more drinks. After about 30 minutes it was time to head down to Body English to finish the night off in style. We had a VIP Host escort us to the club where we were sat at the best table right in the middle of the club. Our security guy Joe quickly introduced himself and said if we needed anything at all he was there for us and he wasn’t kidding. Right after that he went to scour the club for hot girls to bring to the booth. While he was off doing this, our bottles started to arrive in true Vegas style. 3 girls carrying bottles of Dom and Grey Goose show up with huge flares and all:
We were definitely the center of attention for the whole club at that point. The night got pretty sloppy and people started to head back upstairs to the casino or their rooms. Brandon, Jeremy M. and I stuck it out the longest then decided to hit the casino after for one last craps session. The rest of the night is kind of a blur but included things like me playing craps alone at the table for like 45 minutes, Brandon cashing over $100 on a penny slot after one spin that lasted about 15 minutes, and much more. What a day that was!!!
Day 3
We were all up around noon as many of us had to check-out to catch flights home. After a quick lunch in the Hard Rock I thought, what Vegas trip would be complete without a trip to the Gun Range. So, Brandon, John H, Kendall, Mike, Greg and I all got into cabs and made our way over to The Gun Store Las Vegas. Since many of the people had never fired a gun before, we decided that the Coalition Package was probably our best bet. This included:
M249 SAW w/40 Rds
M16 Riffle w/25 Rds
M9 Pistal w/ 20 Rds
Three Targets
Package T-Shirt
Here are some pics from this:
John “#6″ Halloway – John knew instantly when he saw this target that it was his choice… others were a little more tactful in their approach. When asked why he chose that one, John replied “I’m from the ATL”
The happiest man holding ammo
Me and the M-16
I think Kendall is even happier than me to be holding that gun!
Thank you Brandon, John and Xander for everything this weekend as this was probably one of the best weekends of my life!
Finally, to wrap this up…. If you aren’t promoting Aced right now, I suggest you do ASAP. They treat their affiliates like kings, and did so much for us this weekend which I am so thankful! Or, I could say, if you don’t promote Aced, Brandon will shoot you:
Note… don’t forget to check out John Halloway’s recap also.
Buenos Aires Recap
Dec 15th
Ooops… been back for about a week now and forgot to post about the rest of the Buenos Aires trip.
Well, I survived the paragliding. What an experience that was! For the rest of my time in Mendoza I went rafting and biking around the vineyards. It was probably one of the best parts of my trip and I had a ton of fun there. Here are a couple pics:
Gettin Ready to Jump
On top of the mountain
Biking to the wineries
Dinner with the Dutch Girls on their last night. Amazing Tapas and Wine!
After Mendoza I headed back to Buenos Aires where the trip came to an end after a few more nights of partying.
All in all it was an amazing experience and I am so glad I went. I met a ton of great people from all over the world and made some new friends.
Here are some more highlights from the trip and things that I’ll miss about Buenos Aires…
- Finding out they have Stoli Elite for less than Absolut at Godoy (obvious mistake)
- Celebrating Colombian Christmas at Claudia’s Appt
- Daily beer tips to Plaza Serrano
- Seeing a new “hottest girl in the world” every single day
- My friend Lucio trying to pick up the same girl about 50 times in a row while she is standing at the bar with her boyfriend
- Cheap amazing dinners at sick restaurants every day
- Random blaring of “Feliz Cumple Anos” in nice restaurants
Plus many more!
I might be heading back there again in the new year. If anyone is interested in coming down, let me know.
Bye for now!
What Happened to PAP?
Nov 1st
Ever since Jeremy left it seems like PAP (Poker Affiliate Programs) has turned into a business than being the home for affiliates. Sure, I understand they are running a business, but trying to cover up things by editing posts and pushing companies that have a shady track record like Chipleader just for the money is a really bad idea in the long run. Without people posting, they don’t really have a community.
Last week I was removed from the moderator group over a small disagreement with Jeremy’s replacement, Randy. Randy decided it was better to remove a link to xxhttp://www.pokerstarsmarketingcode.com (which happens to be owned by a real douchebag) in a thread that had to do with PokerStars and the favoritism they were showing to a few affiliates with using domains with pokerstars or marketing code in them. Apparently its ok for one affiliate to do it, but not others. Anyway, since linking to the site is really the only evedince to question Pokerstars about I felt it was important to post this. This is an issue that has really bothered me for a long time, and from talking to other affiliates at conferences I know it is a big one for them too. Anyway, within 5 minutes of this being posted my reply had been edited by Randy. Funny enough at the same time I noticed an IP address from the Cayman Islands watching that thread so I can only assume that he was either protecting a friend/affiliate that does nothing for the PAP community (who is clearly doing something that he shouldn’t) or who knows… maybe he has a boss telling him what to do. Regardless, editing other people’s posts is never a good idea as I have learned from running my own forums.
Anyway, the thing that really got to me was that I wasn’t even notified that I was no longer a moderator, nor even thanked for all the things I did do over the past few years. I have spent a lot of time either deleting/editing threads for people, and resolving issues (UNPAID OF COURSE), but I guess the people at PAP look at this as some kind of priveledge. Oh well, if thats the case then I would rather not have it.
I strongly disagree with the way it was handled and decided it was probably best to just stop posting there all together. I can be very stubborn at times, but I also don’t really like the way the site is going. If I can’t post REAL AFFILIATE ISSUES without being censored, then what is the point of me going there? Not to sound cocky, but it is a great site for new affiliates, but the amount of knowledge I am able to extract from the site has gone down to next to none.
I find that the only thing the site really does for me is wastes a lot of time (surfing forums when I should be working) and creates a lot of stress dealing with certain situations.
Anyway, I am a little hungover in Buenos Aires right now, so this probably doesn’t make much sense, but oh well… I’ll post it up anyway.
Affiliate Tip: Stop wasting your time on forums!
Update past due…
Aug 29th
Sorry for the lack of updates to the people that actually come here. Anyway, been trying to enjoy summer and have been slacking a little.
Anyway, summer is almost over so I am gonna have to get back on the grind ASAP. The PAP Niagara Falls meet-up is coming up soon, which should be great. Its nice to catch up with some of the people that you spend all-day long talking to online.
Barcelona is also coming up and I am in desparate need of that vacation. I find going to these conferences is really motivating and makes me work much better. If you are going, you should definitely try and make it out to the dinner that I am organizing.
Well, I don’t have really much else to say, so let me end this post with what I consider to be a very motivating video. I think it never got the love it deserved:
Wow! I Have Been Lazy…
Apr 3rd
Its been a long time since I updated this thing, as I have been going a little stir crazy trying to get all the things done that I have been putting off both prior to quitting my job and things that have come up since doing it. But I figure the time has come and this site needs an update bad.
So, as I mentioned I left IBM roughly 2 weeks ago and have been doing the full time thing ever since. The biggest pain since doing this has been trying to organize all my stuff for taxes. I have spent so many days thinking about taxes, organizing paperwork, etc. that my head is starting to spin. Fortunately, I met with an accountant and he is gonna get me more organized so hopefully this won’t be an issue next year.
Beyond that, I also bought a fairly large poker forum a few months back which I have been busting my ass to try and build it back up. It was almost at the point where it was starting to die off, but I think it has come back to life a little and it is starting to get very busy again. I have been wasting far too much time with this site though, and it is really cutting into my productivity. I’ve basically had to teach myself all sorts of stuff with vBulletin (such as how to upgrade it, install plugins and much more). It has been an interesting experience, but very -ev dollar wise so far. Thankfully most of the crap is now out of the way so I can start focussing on other things once again.
Ok… enough of the boring stuff… since I have been doing the affiliate stuff full-time I have been doing a lot of my work out Starbucks, so let me end this on a positive note with…..
Top 5 Reasons I Love Doing Work at Starbucks
5) Relatively cheap internet. At $35 for a whole month, I can’t really complain.
4) It gets me out of the house so I don’t become a hermit.
3) After a few of their coffees you feel like you are on crack as you get super-wired. Their coffee is really good too.
2) I get to watch everyone else who is working real jobs run in for a minute and run back out, while I chill there in the nice comfy chairs.
1) The scenery. There are so many pretty girls / yummy mummies that come in there all the time that it sure beats staring at my wall.
So far the full-time thing is going pretty good, but I am finding it hard to keep myself motivated all the time. Anyone got any tips?
February… What a Month!
Mar 4th
February was probably the busiest month I have had… well, ever!
I bought a very established forum which has been keeping me busy almost every day.
I set up a new business with a friend and have spent a ton of time investigating accountants, banking options, and lawyers…. what a pain!
I have been working on all my sites, plus added a few new ones.
I have had 4 dentist appointments trying to get all the work done before I set-up to go full-time as an Internet Marketer.
I got my wisdom teeth out, which hurts like hell by the way.
I have been trying to plan at least 1 trip to Monaco for the EPT finals with my bro, along with several other potential trips.
I have been looking for a new car, as mine is coming off lease this month.
Plus a bunch of other fun stuff…. get the point? It has been a crazy month!
Sorry for the lack of updates on this blog. Eventually I will start updating it more every day!
Graham
CAP Euro Trip Report – Part 2
Feb 5th
When I last left off day 1 had come to a finish. Let me continue now with the rest of the report:
Friday, January 25th, 2008
After waking up with a bit of a headache from the previous nights’ celebrations and an extreme bout of dehydration (the temperature in our room must have been around 25 degrees celcius even with the window open), Kyle and I made our way over to the conference. We missed the first super affiliates panel as we could not find the main sessions room, but decided to walk around and check out some of the booths.
Our first mission was to find the Affiliate Speedpay booth to check out the lambo and the girls that we voted for. We ended up finding a sweet Ferrari done up with Affiliate Speedpay decals, and later found the ASP girls wandering around. Our first thoughts were “those aren’t the girls we voted for”. I have to say that the girls kinda looked like escorts that decided getting paid to wander around a convention was better than having to put out for cash, but after all, who cared… they filled those ASP shorts nicely. I think some other people must have thought similar things because on the next day there were 2 different and much hotter models walking around. We went to a couple more booths, then I had to go to one of my scheduled meetings.
After waiting about 5 minutes for someone that I had no clue what they looked like, I decided to give up. In future, I am never going to arrange to meet anyone that doesn’t have a booth at the show, it just doesn’t work out. Next meeting went well and I accomplished everything I wanted to do. Only problem was it ran longer than expected and I missed the first bit of Neil Patel’s session on Social Media and Web 2.0. Fortunately I did not miss too much, and got there in time for him to share a couple of cool tips near the end.
The next session was the panel of CEO’s. Speaking at this session were: Mark Blandford (former CEO of Sportingbet), Peter Nylander (CEO UniBet), and Malcolm Graeme (CEO of PKR). It was neat to get the perspective from the top people in several of the key players in this industry and to hear their thoughts on all sorts of subjects from mobile gaming to gaming legislation. Peter even mentioned the time he was arrested by Dutch Authorities, which was a very entertaining story. Mid way through the session I had to step out and meet with Henrik from Gnuf poker. Before I left for London I had entered my name for a free dinner to the CAP Awards paid for by the guys at Gnuf. I ended up getting selected so we planned to meet on the Friday at the show. We exchanged contact info, and planned to meet just before the awards at my hotel.
After spending most of the day at the conference Kyle, John, Greg, Jeremy, BRANDON and I decided to head over to he local pub for some drinks and food before getting ready for the awards. This worked out quite well because I had arranged for another meeting at this pub (pubs are probably the best place for meetings as its much more casual and you can have a drink to calm the nerves). Thinking the guy wasn’t going to show, I decided to call him from my phone at the $5/min rate that I am sure I will be faced with when I get the bill. Looking around the bar for someone with a ringing phone, I see the guy directly beside me answer his phone… sure enough it was him.
I met in the lobby bar with the Gnuf crew before heading on over to the awards. They seemed like a cool group of guys, so my initial worries that this would be a very akward night were quickly turned positive. We arrive at the awards to be greeted by a bunch of almost naked girls painted gold and lots of free booze. I was seated next to Johan (the head of marketing from Gnuf) for the dinner which was an awsome experience. He had so much industry experience and gave me a lot of REALLY good advice about online marketing in general which was awsome because lately I have been very seriously deciding if this is the kind of job I want to persue full-time. The dinner was great and the comedian was really funny. The only thing that I found really weird about the awards was that Rake the Rake won poker affiliate of the year, but who am I to judge.
Warren from CAP
After dinner the partying began. I met Beanie from PAP and heard some great stories about his times as a poker affiliate. I started a little debate with one of the guys from Bluff magazine about the effectiveness of print advertising. Frankly I am not sure how I could get any ROI from advertising in Bluff, but I am sure that the right product could. It was a good convo though, and nice to hear another point of view on the subject.
We left the awards only to find that there were probably 100 other people all looking for a taxi at the same time. After a little waiting we got a cab and were on our way to Paper Nightclub. Fortunately we were with Warren from CAP and Neil Patel (both black amex cardholders) so we did not have to wait in line and went straight in. The club was pretty cool… if you wanted you could get a massage, and it had this Hawaiian style theme to it.
Me and Neil Patel
Nick, Andreas (Darko) and Jeremy
After quickly polishing off a bottle of Grey Goose and bottle of Champagne we decided to head out and find a strip club. A bunch of Nigerian cab drivers were clearly trying to roll us, but since it was late and night and we wanted to get to the strip club, we paid their ridculous prices. After about $100 in cabs and 2 strip clubs that were at capacity we decided to head back to the hotel. Another Nigerian scammer was about to take us back to the hotel at another ridiculous price (about $60) but as he approached the car he went to pick up some clothes off the street and did a little drunken stumble. This set off a huge flag, so we broke out of the car at record speed as we weren’t willing to play chicken that night. He even tried to hold my door shut, but I just pushed it even harder and got the hell out of his car. The guys in the other cab also did the same thing as their driver was trying to get them to pay around $140 to take them back to the hotel.
Nigerian Cabbie Scammers
We decided enough was enough and headed back to the hotel to call it a night. Stay tuned for the rest of the trip in Part 3.