an awful lot of 1999 geocities SEO efforts recently...

Whoever wrote those abysmal reviews on tripadvisor failed so badly. Whatever effect you intended is drowned in poor, repetitive language.

They look like they were written by a group of petulant children. I guess one can't expect much more from 2p2ers.

You can use this to determine search volume of any term on google based on geographic area: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/3141229

thanks... that might come in handy someday.
I can't find a website with this keyword-tool installed so that anyone can generate the numbers from a search phrase.. Might it be against the TOS of using the tool?

If i had to guess, i'd say only a few hundred people worldwide are searching arts barcelona on a normal day..


no updates or new contributions of any kind (disregarding speculations).... going on 4.5 days..

any updates? this thread is just unreadable ATM. would be nice to add any (meaningful) updates to the situation in the OP

While this thread is pg 2, the story is page 1.

the original claim was confirmed bogus, which inspires you to discuss some conspiracy?

The best result of this insanely terrifying situation at this point is if poker players start to realize how important laptop security really is and take proactive measures to insure they are safe and secure.

The hotel isn't going to do anything. A laptop was presumed stolen and yet the owner had it in his possession minutes later. Probably, no definitely, not a huge deal to them.

PS isn't going to do anything more than maybe keep more of a watchful eye on the games the victims play. They aren't going to turn their back on an event that has been going on for 10 years with an incredible turnout year after year. Believe it or not that'd probably be a bigger disservice to their players than brushing this incident aside. To have an event in Barcelona, they HAVE to give the ARTS their business. People will still go, too. Everyone can get up in arms now, but the fact is the turnout will still be massive there next year.

The police aren't going to do anything. Even if there is concrete evidence of theft it's likely petty in nature to them and committing a bunch of resources to this case probably isn't a top priority.

So that leaves the community. What can we do? We can protect ourselves better going forward and not leave ourselves vulnerable to these kind of attacks.

That may well be the case right now, but it can be changed. Ept Barcelona is a big ****ing deal in terms of economics - thousands of additional high value tourists. Someone who calls the Barcelona tourist board is likely to get a sympathetic ear, especially if they start talking about petitions to cancel/move Ept Barcelona.

Stars have an interest in minimising the headlines here - EPT is trademark that is being damaged. But they also are potentially negligent - they made the booking for Jeans as an entry to the Super-high-roller. If I was the black-hat-in-charge, I would be targetting the SHR list. If I was a high roller, I would be booking my own hotels.

And if I were stars, I would be hoping this blows over. Plan B would be to hire a "head of EPT Security" and "EPT local law enforcement liaison". There may be a small chance this is the first time that thisnscam has been pulled - there seems a little too many contacts with Jeans' laptop IMO.

There is zero chance this is the last time this will be pulled. The community needs to make sure that Stars makes those hires. The way to do that is to threaten a press campaign from name players explaining that they are boycotting EPT London and future EPT events because of security concerns.

Over the past 10 years, Pokerstars has made billions of USD off us, with a B.

I submit, that a boat should be used to house all participants from now on for all "coastal" tourneys. Whether in Bahamas, or Monaco or Barcalona etc.

As a matter of fact, not a boat. A Yacht. Dinghy rides to and fro only after serious ID confirmation.

For tourneys not near any coast, helicopter rides from the nearest harbor.

Billions they've made......it's about time they spent some of it.

One of the best outcomes from here would be a simple announcement from the Ritz Carlton group that they have appointed a new manager to Hotel Arts. That way, we can tell the manager of the next hotel "take a deep breath and think for a second. The manager of the last hotel was replaced. Here's the announcement".

If anyone is bored with the Trip Advisor site, the Expedia page for the hotel is:
http://www.expedia.co.uk/Barcelona-H...mation#reviews

The wikipedia page is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Arts

Someone should add a section like the following:

<quote>
September 2013 Security Controversy

In September 2013, the hotel was subject to international news stories about multiple security breaches targeting poker players during the European Poker Tour Barcelona event.
</quote>

Short, sweet, destructive.

Make no difference - this was an organised crime group which had access to the room numbers for high rollers, and the ability to break into rooms, probably by re-programming door cards. That also works on a boat.

winner ^^^^^

I respect your opinion, but I couldn't disagree more.

If Pokerstars paid $5-10 million for a used cruise ship.......parked it 1,000 meters offshore.......they would ABSOLUTELY have the ability to discern who should be on that ship and who shouldn't. Especially if they paid for top-notch security, as they should.

You can talk sophisticated crime-rings all you want, and yes, it seems there were villians at the arts. But make no mistake, these azz-clowns wouldn't even be able to get on a dinghy to the cruise ship without a tournament entry-fee/receipt. Therefore, no entry to the ship. No entry to laptops. It means everyone's happy.

If Pokerstars had the balls to spend yours, and my hard paid rake all these years, they would buy an old Carnival cruise ship for a few million of the few billion $ they've made, and have the most secure LIVE tournaments in the world.

last time i checked for cruise ship prices $5-10M were not sufficient. the steel alone would be worth a lot more.

I stand corrected!

Well then............... make it $50M!

Considering they've pulled in multiple billions, $50M is like a bar tab.

This idea is both unworkable and insane. Sure, for one stop a year they could hire a cruise ship or whatever, but the point is to get more people coming to your EPTs, not less. You also want to have more accessible and central events to appeal to the rich recreational players, not some location you have to jump through hopes to get to and then play at sea. If they wanted to kill their poker tour though then they should hire you as their consultant.

Firstly, I've got news for you, it's a hella lot more than one stop. With all the different tours, it's in the dozens, look it up.

Second, their rep is worth billions. So spending millions to protect it is more than reasonable/feasible and doable.

Third, rich/successful patrons/clients/representatives need to feel secure.

4th, I don't need a job, I'm more than "comfortable".

Cheers, though.

Plus, most replies have the words "arts Barcelona" built-in because it appears in the subject line.

Edit: better yet, it has the words "arts barcelona broken into" on there.

snowbird, the way you throw around numbers seems uninspired by reality. what is your estimate of yearly costs for gas, staff, technical maintenance? another 20 bucks?

get real, man. pokerstars hosts tournaments at public places, and while they clearly should do what they can (and probably are blamed rightfully for some of their handling of the situation), public places involve some risks everyone knows beforehand. you cannot blame pokerstars for hotel security if they chose a top notch hotel where this shouldn't be a concern.

what's next? pokerstars airlines for safe transportation from event to event? a safe pokerstars computer operating system with auto-encryption? 24/7 nannys?

watched bbc news for 3 hours last night and sky news for a bit. must have missed the part about this. hopefully they dedicate at least an hour in prime time today as the world needs to hear this incredible story about a laptop going missing and being returned.

Originally posted by Franxic

"snowbird, the way you throw around numbers seems uninspired by reality. what is your estimate of yearly costs for gas, staff, technical maintenance? another 20 bucks?

get real, man. pokerstars hosts tournaments at public places, and while they clearly should do what they can (and probably are blamed rightfully for some of their handling of the situation), public places involve some risks everyone knows beforehand. you cannot blame pokerstars for hotel security if they chose a top notch hotel where this shouldn't be a concern.

what's next? pokerstars airlines for safe transportation from event to event? a safe pokerstars computer operating system with auto-encryption? 24/7 nannys?"


Pokerstars is worth billions.

Hence their reputation is worth billions.

Player safety on a Pokerstars tour is worth millions towards their rep.

Otherwise, bad press because of possible theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients/players, Pokerstars' reputation is no longer worth billions.

Millions spent to protect billions is a smart business decision.

If you're worth hundreds, you'd spend pennies to protect yours.

I have a feeling you fall into one of the last two categories.

But thanks for the input.

that's a yes to 24/7 nannys i suppose. your common sense is worth quadrillions.

yeah, but on day of the incident jeans didn't know, what he knows now ... so it seemed pretty obvious to go to the hotel management first ... there's also the factor, that jeans probably don't speak spanish, which makes it way more difficult to call the police

and besides that. the police have a lot of things to do ... if you call them and tell 'hey my laptop maybe infected with a virus, it seems that this is a big scam' what can you accept, what the do?

- write down the details and investigate in "near future"?

maybe they confess the laptop ...



anyway ... at least google found that arts barcelona review problem. i mean, it seems that hotel security is involved in organized crime

This passage must set some kind of record for most assumptions made in 5 sentences.