***The Official 2012 Merge Regulars Thread***

[DoubleFly]

So I go away for a few days and come back to this. :-)

A few nuggets from the old man...

* it's great if you enjoy something someone else did, but the majority of your life's greatest moments shouldn't be what other people did.

* Cake had much worse affiliate deals than Merge. As part of the transition, it's not clear if Lock would have eventually downgraded future sign-ups anyway so that they can create a level playing field with the existing member sites. So it may not necessarily be Disco's fault... it probably would have happened eventually.

* Don't brag about making money at something that can easily be taken away. Similar common-sense lessons include: don't give away ALL your poker secrets in a coaching video, don't agitate the fish to leave the table, etc.

* if you can't compete on price, there are other ways to be competitive.

* it costs nothing to be an affiliate (on most sites) - just a few minutes of your time filling out a form. If you play a lot, you could be better off just signing yourself up - so see if being an affiliate makes sense to you (it may not, since higher volume affiliates get higher kickbacks). A few small volume grinders working together can be > 1 high volume grinder (aka Teamwork). Know what your options are - your best option may still be one of the higher volume affiliates.

* You can order Portillo's thru the interwebs. Someone sent us a shipment from Lou Malnati's last month, but I didn't think it was a good as Portillo's. Don't get grossed out by the fat - it's the fat that makes it taste good.

I'm probably missing a few things I was thinking while reading the posts from the past few days, but I've had a nasty cold for over two weeks, and I'm kind of dizzy.

[juan valdez]

dear disco,

i, like everyone else am going to post the equivalent of steaming a coiler on your face but if you take the time to think about it, it should help you moving forward. everyone makes mistakes but you should take the opportunity to learn from them. you failed in this dept from the vizer situation

tough love

you're a manchild. your perspective is totally self centered, you turn any sort of conflict or disagreement in to a child like mud slinging contest, and you have some sort of delusional sense of entitlement. you're living in the discoverse

Originally Posted by **********

do you support DJO's actions? Stealing players, offering deals that only HE seems to be able to offer, running a monopoly on all poker sites/skins, going behind peoples backs trying to find out what they're offering players so he can top it (have written proof of this), stealing other players sub-affiliates, being able to still give out a sick deal on merge even after every other affiliate was forced to give up their deal?

players are leaving for a reason. if djo wasn't offering a better deal then they wouldn't leave. do players support people competing to offer them a better RB deal? thats a stupid question

Originally Posted by **********

DJO actively messages people trying to offer them better deals. He contacts affiliates and asks them what types of deals they give out, then he contacts their players and tries to offer them a slightly better deal. I don't do any of this stuff.

maybe he got this idea from cable companies, phone services, internet providers etc etc etc

djo could be a scumbag but competing for business and offering better deals is something the players want and should advocate. a bunch of us got locked in to ****ty RB deals with FT and it was very annoying and frustrating to deal with

Originally Posted by **********

He's the reason that all the other affiliates are sending emails by the dozens to websites saying things like "I am losing players because someone is giving them 60% and I can't compete with that". He's the main reason why scumminess is now associated with affiliating.

from being on the outside looking in, the only one giving any of the affiliate game any sort of black eye is you at this point

Originally Posted by **********

As I have said earlier, all guys like djo really accomplish is making the sites margins so thin on players that they truly do risk going broje by offering these deals. Its not sustainable for the poker room. If you support this stuff and support players making as much as possible and the poker site making as little as possibly then you are essentially supporting the destruction of the poker site. Poker sites going broke and not having enough money to pay out player balances if they get doj'd is not good for anyone. There has to be some sort of middle ground here so that players still get acceptable rakeback and the poker room makes enough money off its players to sustain itself.

poker sites are the ones who offer these deals and have control. if you're trying to tell people that you care about them by having them pay more rake youre just flat out lying. you fought to get the 60% yourself and if you could offer 85% you'd be shouting it from the mountain tops and telling everyone its the best thing to ever happen to online poker

those are all examples of you being totally blinded by your personal bias. everyones biased but you're on a child like level

being impulsive, "real", and not giving a fvck are probably near the top of the list of things your friends like about you but you need to filter yourself and grow up when it comes to things of a more serious nature. starting a feud with the industry leader is short sighted and childish. being a douche to the guy repping the company you're "affiliated" with is flat out dumb and the "he started it" attitude is ridiculous. posting (on an account that can easily be traced to your real identity) about racist views in 2012 is borderline retarded.

everyones stubborn to some degree. i highly recommend you hit the reset button, take a step back, and honestly assess things. i was going to say "sticking to your guns" would be childish but unfortunately being stubborn is a life long

For my sake don't change a thing, you post a lot of entertaining stuff and this is like watching the situation and ronnie fight over sammie the sweetheart. but for your cause, think about it.

[juan valdez]

oh and honeybadger you gotta post more often bro

[lajoe]

Originally Posted by H0NEY BADGER

wasnt the reason you initially contacted the guy who hurt your feelings because you wanted to be able to offer this same % as djo?

lololol see how the shill responds to that.

and why do you keep saying deals djo has can bankrupt the site and it would be his fault disco? that makes no ****ing sense. djo cant force a site to agree to a bad deal. i assume he makes a deal with the site, then he makes a deal with his players. if the sites make a bad deal for themselves that causes them to go bankrupt, how the **** do you blame djo for that?

also, as said, you are implying that these sites could potentially ftp all of their players if they go bankrupt. im sure merge likes one of their affiliates hinting at things like this in public.

[SA16]

Let's talk about hockey

[gadolparah]

New discussion:

I went out for sushi today in Boston. Was excited to check this place out, had been recommended to me three different times by three different people. Yelp reviews fantastic as well, averaging between 4 and 5 stars.

I ordered the lunch special, came with soup, salad, tuna and salmon sashimi, and three pieces of chef's choice sushi. One of the pieces of chef's choice i had never had before (forget what it was already) and was excited to try it. I bit into half of it, put the other half down on my plate and the rice did that thing where it exploded and went everywhere. Sitting in the middle of the exploded rice was a LIVE WORM riggling around on my plate. Have never been so disgusted over a meal.

[conquistador28]

Grossss. Would sue for djo money

[Jonathan Wu]

Originally Posted by gadolparah

New discussion:

I went out for sushi today in Boston. Was excited to check this place out, had been recommended to me three different times by three different people. Yelp reviews fantastic as well, averaging between 4 and 5 stars.

I ordered the lunch special, came with soup, salad, tuna and salmon sashimi, and three pieces of chef's choice sushi. One of the pieces of chef's choice i had never had before (forget what it was already) and was excited to try it. I bit into half of it, put the other half down on my plate and the rice did that thing where it exploded and went everywhere. Sitting in the middle of the exploded rice was a LIVE WORM riggling around on my plate. Have never been so disgusted over a meal.

That's digusting. But probably something more digusting is how disco claims he is in the best interest for the players, yet everything he says contradicts that. Just stop lying/making excuses when everything you did was solely to benefit yourself and make yourself more money.

When did you actually "care" about the poker sites profit margin? Weren't you the one trying to offer the same deal?

[ChipRick]

Originally Posted by pattay

just living life one day at a time

word

[DiscoBisco]

Originally Posted by thejuggernaut

Fair doesn't matter.

Pretty easy statement to make when you're the one on the other side giving out the deal with DJO when nobody else can and you have a complete lock (no pun intended) on the market.

[conquistador28]

But your the only one hurt by this 3 days ago. Now it's half the community.

[Tumaterminator]

Originally Posted by **********

As far as I understand capitalism, everyone is supposed to have an equal chance from the get-go at getting customers. Capitalism would also suggest that I'm allowed to do whatever I can in my best interest to try and level the playing field and take down the big boy. Perhaps you need the lesson on capitalism bro.

You're really not doing yourself any favors right now.

[luvinurmoney]

So Disco has it ever crossed your mind to maybe think about what is it that djo does that makes him more successful than you?
If I had to guess it's because DJO is a better businessman than you and is capable of negotiating good deals without being childish.
Next thing is how can you say you don't have any room to offer more when you claimed you were making 10k a month.
There have been several instances now where you acted childish and idiotic.

[DiscoBisco]

Originally Posted by conquistador28

But your the only one hurt by this 3 days ago. Now it's half the community.

Half the community? You mean the 1 or 2 regs that were too dumb to sign up for an account in the past 14 months and fish that don't even care and wouldn't of found their way to djo to begin with? I beg of you to take a sample of 10+ players from "the community" and find out if half or more of them were hurt by this or not.

[pontylad]

Originally Posted by **********

can you explain to me how i cost you money? if you already had an account with DJO you're rakeback deal should not have changed. it only was supposed to change for future signups and I have written proof of this from DJO himself, so if he told you that he can't give you 60% anymore then he is lying to you. Now, if you didn't already have an account and you are saying that i cost you money then ok, apologies. I guess you'll just have to survive on up to 55% rakeback and up to 4k in deposit bonuses. tough life. still about 2-3x as much rb as you were getting in FTP days.

Disco, I defended you a lot vs Oldschool because i thought you were right and he was way out of line. However, you are now doing the exact same **** as him, the bolded part above is absolutely disgusting. How you can actually say this with a straight face is beyond me and you deserved to be chastised for your handling of this issue. To say "Oh well, your fault" as you do later on or "Oh well, you're still doing better than at FTP", Is ****ing disgraceful.