Shark Forum on a Roll!

Good posting, great success stories, new posters, nice upgrade. We rollin, ladies.

One of our longtime aging (lol) vets "CPGoldaddict" posted an excellent question this week. I had just finished reading Cardplayer CEO Barry Schulmans interview on his newest business, "SpadeClub", when CP wrote this:

Whadya all think of the way SpadeClub intends to handle their poker in the US? https://www.spadeclub.com/ Pay by the month to enter into "sweepstakes" that happen to be poker. No ring games for $, but tourneys where you can win cash.

My reply:

I think its a great marketing plan to gather millions of poker players info (emails mostly) so Cardplayer CEO Barry Schulman can make billions.I don't like freerolls with 12,847 entries, but thats just me.I have read an interview with him and thats basically what they are doing. Once they have this HUGE list of emails they can bombard you 24/7 with offers and links (kinda like I do but on a lil bigger scale, lol).

Tina dba hippiechick added this strong post:

UB has already set up a sweepstakes site, i thinks it's club ubt or something like that.... I tried the free trial period.. they were giving away big screen tvs and the like... you collect points by playin freerolls and then they have "points buyins" to win the bigger prizes. I suppose it's ok if you don't mind playin poker like bingo. Most of the ppl I got on tables were not even up to par to the usual freerollers you see on other sites and "points" were easy to collect. However, having said that... I decided not continue my subscription... When I final table, I'd like to see a bit o cash in my account, not more points that I can't really use for anything but another tourney where a great bingo player will hit....LOLTina

shark added:

I agree with everything you said Tina. One thing that is great about that BINGO, Playchip, Play for points, player:If they switch to cash games after playing the above games for a while they are pretty much donks for life. They have created horrible habits that are really tough to change. I'm not saying a few select indivuals couldnt do it, but most just end up dead money for players that have honed their game with real money play, practice, and study.

Winners need this constant flow of fresh meat (sorry, best term I could muster) to keep our games good. These FREE sites/events are building the fish that we will gobble up in a few months, years, whatever. So i'm not "anti-spade club" or anti play chip player. I just wouldnt recommend it for my members/players/friends.

I want players that strive to be winners so they can play more and have more fun. Anyone can deposit $20, study a little, watch a video, start at .05/.10 and probably go up 1 level a month for 6 months. I know I could teach a complete rook to do this in 1-3 hours. I would be surprised if they needed to deposit more than once or twice on their way up. I think this challenge would be way more fun than playing 12,000 man freerolls for UB PTS or spadeclub tee-shirts.

There are more good posts on this subject here:
http://sharkpokertour.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=5054

Add your take to this interesting subject or find another topic that catches your eye.

Lots of nice people in my Shark crew that will help guide you if ya need help posting. Just ask!

See you tonight at Poker.com 8pm est, another Shark Pool Par-tay. $5.50 to swim, bring yer arm floaties and speedos or play nekkid. It's a personal choice. $20 transfer if you launch me tonight (steamrayz at poker.com i think?). I'm about 80% that I will be able to play (workin real job today) so buyer beware.

I'm working on poker video #2 which I must say is pretty good. I got in several sticky situations you might enjoy. 73 min long so i'm working on condensing the file for all to watch this week. I ended up a little but got red hot after I turned off the video (rats). Had a +550 day in about 1400 hands.

Runnin good, and sending shorties back to spadeclub or UB points.

Off to Vegas with the warden "raisin" and "theStamper" (Dad) on 3/3. I have not had a 3 day weekend (and no vacations) in 7 months, bring it.
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