support Congressional Bill HR.2267,

Amendments below in detailed text;

http://financialservices.house.gov/Hearings/hearingDetails.aspx?NewsID=1340

HR.2267 has passed thru the committee, 44-21. it’s going to the house floor now

We strongly urge all to contact their congress people and also urge them to pass this historic bill!.

this drummer is at the wrong gig

Study 25% Play 75% (My new poker game begins now)

About 3 months ago I joined a site called Drag the Bar.com and boy, I think I finally found a teaching site I like...  They offer a free 7 days if anyone here cares to give it a try.  I'm posting as Xfilespoker.com on the DTB forums.

Last night, I finished a 4 part video series by poker coach "Brent Sheirbon – aka “El Rubio” - " and I like his style of play.  It took about 4 hours (1 hour each video) and I found many leaks in my MTT game.  I'm starting another series today, his "Approach to Large Field MTTs (Part 1)" video series.

He has a good outlook on coin flips.. how to look out for the easy money, among other things.. I give him a thumbs up.

Real Deal Poker "Skype Rant" from across the pond.

51 - 1 (52 trips to Vegas, One bad run) Ya think you know a guy.  Me and who I thought was a friend and a good man Gene Gioia.  (I'm the big one)

Well well, turns out at least 24 people (An all time record I might add, lol) read my poker blog... or at least the few extra people are reading it these days because they are following the key words "Real Deal Poker." That's cool.  I'll thank the nice people for responding to my post yesterday and all I want to add at this point is this... My partner and I worked countless hours for free, investing our time and money (Good money relatively speaking) in a company that we believed in.  Time and time again we called for drastic changes in direction.. Time and time again, we were told we knew nothing.

The following is a nice rant from my pal Chris, (My partner in Real Deal News, etc..) "His words in bold black text.."

For the record, Gene Gioia and his daughter told me and my partner many times that we secured the most active players on his Real Deal site, and I quote, were "The only ones making any money..."  (Really Gene, the only ones making money.. I guess RD donated the rake of our players to charity) This statement about us making money was never true of course as Chris and I (My partner in the U.K./Germany) always found new SEO products, etc... to invest our earned money in. (And then some) We not only did not make money.. we lost money.

I'll add that many from Gene's crew were plain rude and I think jealous of our player sign-ups , not all.. of course, but certainly the manager and workers of Genes marketing team. 

Instead of working with Chris and I, (The marketing team) they chose to ignore us for the most part.  (I always found that hard to believe... Anyone using basic logic would see that we wanted to see Real Deal make it happen..)  It was like they wanted RD to FAIL.  Maybe, just maybe some that were hired by Gene had other plans for Real Deal Poker.  Not good plans, plans of making it fail from the get go.  It's the only explanation due to the horrid moves made by some on Genes infallible team.

Look, I can talk, but I'm no writer.. this is known by all..  so I'll hand this rant over to my partner Chris... (He's much better with words)  Enjoy.

(Chris asked me to post this because blogger does not allow such long comments)  For me, this will close this non Real Deal chapter in my life.  If there is anyone who really has integrity out there and wants to build a poker site that cares about it's customers.. contact me here I guess.  (Chris and I will watch what you're doing for a few years and get back to you)  We certainly will NOT be working for free.

Cheers.


You know Tom; I don't think it was Gene’s intention to rip us off. I think there are hidden agendas out there, just like you always said except that the agendas are now to cover asses just in case another online business opportunity arises. Perhaps we are scapegoats?

Here's how it works, you tell somebody that you know what you’re doing to promote and build an online poker room. (You don't but you say that to get the position anyway, perhaps you got lucky in the early days of poker rooms when competition wasn’t so fierce. Now however you have no clue now how to deal with the overwhelming might of Pokerstars or Full Tilt)

You fuck it all up in ways that the average Joe would never know about by using dated promotion methods that no longer work and then blame others for the lack of people visiting the site. WOW! You even get away with it... Unless somebody points it out of course...

Let’s see, your business is online right? Where would you choose to promote if money is tight?

a) Online perhaps where your business actually is and is very cheap. Or...

b) In a high street park in London which will cost thousands, especially if you fly a celebrity (That you also have to pay) and an entourage around the world to get there?

If you chose ‘a)’ you got the right answer! Give yourself a point. Perhaps you were thinking of a PPC (pay per click campaign) that would bring visitors almost immediately or some off page SEO to bring in visitors long term? If you were then you would have probably done a better job of promoting Realdealpoker than certain others.

Question 2 is a little tougher; I'll give you a little education before I ask it...

You have an online poker site, what is the first thing you need?  (That is not the question although I might well have asked whoever was in charge of building and promoting the RDP site that!)Personally I would choose visitors to my site who are interested in actually playing poker, anyone agree?
So, if you are experienced in promoting an online poker site you would try to get to number one in the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN for things that people may type (DO type in if you know what you’re doing) into search engines when they are looking for a poker site to play on right?
Of course, you know this! You’re an expert at promoting poker sites online. They can’t fail with your backing can they?

Hmm… Perhaps nobody at Realdealpoker knew this most basic of online concepts however or if they did, they didn’t have a fucking clue how to do it. Then again, perhaps you were right Tom. Sabotage from the inside is always a possibility but I prefer to think these people are just stupid.

(Sorry I digress but people reading this should not forget that online poker is worth millions and millions every year, you think the knife gets put in now and again?)

So, for example if you were to type ‘play poker’ into Google (without the ‘’) you probably will find that www.pokerstars.com is in first position followed by http://www.playwinningpoker.com/articles/how-to-play-poker/ (This may vary depending on which of Google’s data center’s feeds you, results will vary in each region)
The biggest online poker site on the planet gets first place, no surprise there! But hey… look who gets second, that site looks like a pile of shit but it’s in second place. WOW!!!! How did he get there? 2nd place in Google! The biggest search engine online, for ‘play poker’? That motherfucker must have shares in Google!

No, he just knows what he is doing is all. He knows how to get to the top of the search engines and onto page 1 where you get most clicks from people looking to ‘play poker’. The man probably spent months if not years getting there and you can bet he is reaping the benefits right now. Good work! Whoever owns this site is/was a workaholic or paid out a lot to get the work done to get him where he is. Good on him!

Like I said, you don’t get to page one for a search phrase like ‘play poker’ without a shitload of work but if your site is new you can target less competitive phrases like ‘where is the best place to play poker online’ (I’m not saying that is a good word or that is has any traffic, I just pulled it out of the air for an example) not many people are competing for this keyword I would imagine in comparison to ‘play poker’ so if you know what you are doing and you have resources behind you could probably make it to page 1 of Google at least for this phrase, The benefit being if 15 people per day type this phrase into Google you get an extra 15 potential sign ups to your site every day. Not something your average Joe would know but I imagine somebody in charge of promoting an online poker site would know this huh?
Now, imagine you are doing this for a whole bunch of phrases related to people who want to play poker, things like:

Where to play poker online

Best poker site online

Fishiest poker site online

Where can I play poker on the internet?

Play online poker for money

Play online poker for real money

Poker online for low stakes

Play online poker for small money

(I have not checked these keywords for traffic by the way, just examples. Don’t go building sites around these keywords! lol)
See where I’m going? All these visitors, maybe 10 people per phrase all add up to people signing up and playing at your site. Again, an online poker promoter would know this… Wouldn’t they?
Making the big-time and hitting No1 for phrases like ‘best poker site’ will take time and work but targeting niches that are easier to dominate will keep you alive and keep visitors coming to your site day in day out. Start small to get people visiting; word of mouth from these new visitors will help also.

Alternatively do no off site SEO at all and wonder why the fuck nobody turned up to play poker. *Sigh

One of the things you can do to tell the search engines that you want to rank for a particular phrase is to use ‘meta data’, this is a shit way to do it that is very ineffective for real SEO (Search engine Optimization)  benefits but would compliment real SEO efforts. Unfortunately there were no real SEO efforts on the part of the person in charge of SEO at RDP. They decided that spending thousands on going to a park in London for a jaunt was more important to promotion when cash was tight by the look of things.
Probably Tom’s fault they failed however because he decided to be truthful (Remember honesty, integrity and all that?)  and publish an honest post that less than 100 people out of the MILLIONS (yes MILLIONS) of poker players online read it. WOW! Fuck me Tom! How did you manage to push away over 9 million online poker players? You dumb fuck!
You should never have argued with people in the forum either Tom, that’s bound to push away another couple of million players, what the fuck is wrong with you? ;-)

Perspective, it’s a crazy thing.

Tom’s fault RDP went down? Fuck off! Less than 100 people see his post and its negative publicity maybe that fucked RDP?
NOBODY REALLY KNEW ABOUT RDP!!!! What did any of you at RDP do to bring it to the masses? Not a fucking lot!
The RDP team knew fuck all about how to promote online, THAT IS WHY THEY FAILED!

I remember when things were looking bad for RDP and I spoke to Gene Gioia, here’s what I told him…

“Whoever sorted out the onsite SEO for your Realdealpoker.com was useless; they stuffed the Meta data that the search engines read with dozens and dozens of keywords. (Used to work a long time ago but now it is considered spam) Most of the keywords were not even for poker for some bizarre reason! If you want poker players, target poker players by using poker related words not casino related words.
If their strategy of keyword stuffing the site with casino keywords to bring visitors had worked, (which it wouldn’t have) it would be the wrong type of visitor turning up anyway. Hmm… I’m looking for an online casino, I end up at Realdealkpoker: “Oh look, this is a poker site not a casino. I think I’ll just hit the back button on my browser”

Poof! Gone.

So here is question 2:

If you have an online poker site and you want to get targeted traffic do you stuff your meta data with…

a) Dozens of poker and casino(?) search phrases.

b) Dozens of poker search phrases only that will bring visitors who are actually interested in the product you are promoting You would have to research which keywords poker player are looking for but somebody in charge of promoting an online poker site would know this. (Keyword stuffing is still bad and ineffective even if it is relevant however)

c) Just target relevant poker searches without doing the keyword stuffing for searches that bring no traffic or traffic that is interested in a different subject completely?

What a fucking no brainer! Unless you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing of course.

But I guess you’re not talking to me and tom because less than a hundred people read his honest post!

I offered to help you, you didn’t take that option. If you are planning on re opening I suggest you find new staff to promote your site properly.

The money is no biggie for me, I had nothing in the way of money to buy my girlfriend's daughter a birthday present with as I was relying on the paycheck for all the players we sent to your site but I still said to Tom:

“Tell him to keep our money if it helps keep RDP afloat”

You did anyway Gene!

Or perhaps it's out of your hands but you just didn't care to take the time to let me know.

Whatever...

So much for relying on another’s honesty and integrity. Hope it wasn’t you’re choice not to pay us Gene or I would think of you from now on as ‘ A cu*t above the rest’.

When you ignored my “hello, how is it going?” for the third time on Skype I decided to ask via all resources I had available for outstanding money, Paul Gambrill informed me that it was over 1.8k. Not much to you but a lot to me.

There is no excuse for ignorance in that respect, I can understand your ignorance to how promoting an online poker site happened but your ignorance toward friends is inexcusable and leads me to believe there was no integrity there in the first place, just words… Just words.

Tom, he swears by the marines, since when did cutting out those who tried to help become part of the marine creed? Look to those who really fucked you! My experience with British military infantry is way different, dangerous men but look after those who look after them. Honor is a rare thing these days, having no honor publicly must hurt for an ex marine.
In my opinion RDP was doomed from day 1, (although I didn’t know it when I began to promote) I knew very little about SEO before I started working to promote RDP but today, I know for a fact that I know more that the entire team that tried to promote RDP. They were a fucking joke, this goes for the online aspect. The offline promotion was a great idea but with money shortages…?
If anybody doubts that then they do not know SEO in the slightest.

Gene, if you have been misled into thinking that the actions of either myself or Tom resulted in your downfall then you are very much mistaken. Grow up and get a grip on what I have just told you. Verify it with experts if you think I’m full of shit, just beware that most ‘experts’ don’t know it all as you are now finding out. Ask to see page 1 Google results before you deal with anyone. (Page 1 results for competitive search phrases!)
You’re audience was millions; you want to fuck Tom over by not speaking to him for reporting honestly? After standing behind you for years? Go ahead, his honesty maybe put off thousand players. (Yeah, right. More like 20!) Your team however failed to target hundreds of thousands of poker players.
Where does the blame lie?

When you refused to listen to Tom’s input I guess he saw it as a last resort to try and drill into you that your people knew little about getting players to tables.
The party that is behind online promo for RDP in my opinion should be ashamed of the job they have done and distance their name from RDP, bad for business. Why not push the blame onto Tom Dwyer? Might work! lol
Realdealpoker.com is a great looking websites but the SEO behind the pretty look is a pile of dogs shit, I don’t know if the site designers were responsible for this aspect, I hope not for their client’s sake. All I do know is that somebody is responsible and should answer for it.

Gene if you’re reading this then do the right thing, man up and make your apologies to Tom. You’re in the wrong and in your heart you must know this! I don't think you're a bad person, I do think you are looking at all of this from a warped perspective however.

Next time anybody wants to say we were clowns in the promotion of RDP, take a look at the big picture.

Last piece of information and a peace offering:

There is no meta data on RDP at this moment, Why? OK, all the shit has been removed, well done!!! That’s a good start. If you are planning on reopening however you should really think about doing some work to rank for relevant search phrases that will bring traffic now, it takes time so waiting until you are open before you do it is a sure fire way to end up bankrupt again because nobody is visiting… Still.
Meta data isn’t worth a great deal anyway but it does help a little if used correctly, if anyone who designed the site would like a little help or information in the SEO department feel free to contact me via Tom.

In fact, scrap that, if you need help Gene you know where I am. No apology needed, let’s get on with it; I’m a man of integrity, honesty and generosity. You can find me by clicking on my name (The one you ignore) in Skype and saying ‘Hi’.

Just ask or carry on with the Muppets.

Bitches Pleaseeeee...

A Real Lesson learned from Real Deal Poker.

Well.. Real Deal Poker is just another site to rip us affiliates off.. and it's still all good.  I'm done with going deep with new start up online poker companies until they show me months or years of being honest.

Couple months ago, Gene Gioia of Real Deal left me and my partner high and dry after playing us like a fiddle for over 3 years.  No sense in going into all the details at this time, Real Deal & Gene Gioia's just not worth the time it would take..  Let's just say what goes around comes around.

The only way I'd forgive Gene Gioia is if I heard he was in a coma.  He surrounded himself with garbage and garbage well... stinks.

The RD site posted long ago that it would be back up and running, that it was coming back stronger.  Take some advice from Big Daddy and stay clear if they ever open again.  Sad.

All is not lost, I learned tons of SEO stuff while working for RD (I worked for FREE 99% of the time) over the past 3+ years.  While I lost some good cash investing in our RD dedicated sites.. I picked up life knowledge that is worth millions.

I gave Gene Gioia many months to get back to Chris and I about our payments owed and the status of RD... and let's just be clear here.. He went from talking to us every other day for years to... GONE.   He's all of a sudden a GHOST. Investors with this man are the biggest losers in all this..  I lost a few thousand.. no biggie.

As good an idea it was.. Real Deal in the end was just another scam it appears...  A total waste of time and a real shame.