Misc WizardOfVegas Forum is Dying

1- AXEL top notch AP....2- IBYA/JBS/JBJB makes a living at it,but wreaks of fecal matter....3-PACOMARTIN walking encyclopedia(valuable member)...4-ODIOUSGAMBIT seems like a smart fella,but ploppiesh...the rest not worth commenting on.

 

It is not strictly an AP site, like BJ21 or I'm sure some such sites for machine AP play, that I am not familiar with, but WoV is, or was, in my opinion a site related to AP in that it had a fair amount of AP discussion. That was my initial draw. Secondary, as the name indicates in had a good amount of Las Vegas discussions and I luv VEGAS and Vegas discussions. I bleed neon. So that was my secondary draw. I was actually quite surprised to find that I enjoyed discussion of some of the other topics like sports and politics. That was an unexpected bonus for me.

But I like to think I made some kind of substantial contribution in the area of blackjack and sharing my experiences, by post, blog, and even the little Q & A that you and I did. I sincerely hope my sharing has helped a couple newbies along the way. Not with the 'how to' of card counting. That's easy. Info available almost anywhere. Some say you can teach a monkey to count. I might just be proof of that.

But there is a little more to it than that, especially when talking about playing for a living. There is figuring out what is and isn't tolerated at different casinos, on different shift. There is dealing with the swings and that part surprisingly isn't discussed very often. It's not that easy when you have lost 30-40 thousand over a few months. Plays on your mind. Plays tricks on your mind. You begin to question yourself and things you know to be true. This isn't discussed in books. You have to experience it....and/or participate on sites with others going through it. That's how you learn what is to be expected and what you likely will have to deal with at times.

I think and hope I was able to help a few younger newer guys in that regard. AND it pains me to see some new guys not getting that help today, like Zenking. I've been very disappointed in the advise and answers he has received. I know some of the young guys (certainly including zenking) can be a little cocky. But they are seeking advise and getting back ridicule and grief. That really saddens me.

 

You were definitely the best at blackjack over there, ROMES has now taken your place.

 

You might scoff, but I'm telling you, if AZDuffman committed himself to AP, he'd be unbelievable. He can find an angle on a straight line.

I might have something to say about a few others, too, but other than EB, the remaining composition of the Top Ten escapes me at the moment.

 

I'll admit I don't know much about AZDUFFMAN,but the 5 others that I failed to mention,are either PLOPPIE or FREAK

 

That's fine. ROMES is a good guy. Knowledgeable and although I don't know him personally, I understand somewhat successful. His little tutorial is an excellent resource for newbies.

Thank you for the kind words BTW.

 

I think that it did have AP discussion and still does, though perhaps not as much of it. I'm partially to blame, I don't necessarily post as often as I used to, but that's because I have a lot to do in terms of writing obligations on that site and others.

I agree 100% your contributions were substantial, I still say anyone interested in card counting should read anything you and Romes have ever written. Romes' stuff is great for the math and theory, your stuff is great for if someone wants to go on the journey of what the first few years may be like for them. Your stuff really humanizes what it really means to be a card counter.

I don't know that ZenKing has been as receptive as he could be to some of the good advice, like maybe getting other counters to analyze his abilities.

 

No problem,your blackjack knowledge is very apparent and truthful real life experiences...ROMES comes across as a guy who really knows his stuff...If he puts even half of his written knowledge to use, he should be very successful at AP.

 

Mission It is a forum, not the U S Senate. It's just not worth anybody's time worrying about whether Buzz has enter that most holy of forums. Not like it's hard to figure out who I am. OK , Stadium Blackjack. Vegas gaming rules don't even address whether a player loses only his original bet or splits and double when dealer finally gets his second card for a BJ ? Supposedly there is a 30 second timer on the screen for placing bets. 4 players only playing, all 4 hit rebet button within 2 seconds after prior hand is finished. Is there still 28 more seconds before the computer tells the dealer to start a new game. Now dealer gives all 4 players a 20, all hit stand within 2 seconds . Will the machine wait another 8 seconds. I read you have 10 seconds to act on your hand. Is there a countdown timer for the 10 seconds also ? The answer to those question will open up many more !
I may be employed in April, feel free to send an invoice to [email protected]
Also, I think Stadium BJ will go the way of PokerTek. That is installs where this is no competition, cruise ships, isolated casinos, or more like jurisdictions with special tax rules. PA takes table games at 14%, slots at 54%. If they think low limits players will play this as a last resort, by raising limits on real table games, I think they may be disappointed. Every casino in Colorado opens with BJ as one of the choices on Game King machines . After a few months they remove BJ. Of course, SHFL and others have attached the word millennial to it. You know all those millennial who are terrified to sit at a table with nasty mean old men.

 

I see no "enhanced value" in the posts of APs vs. non-APs, but then again I could give two shits about AP, other than in the abstract.

My focus is on Las Vegas as the underbelly of the American Dream, as epitomizing absurdity come to life.

APs are only bit players in that little diorama.

 

I'll partially agree with that statement, non AP such as yourself, are very valuable members,not very common though.

 

I will give my rational for members being customers.

members by posting help provide some(but not all) of the sugar needed to attract the flys that eventually click the banner and some sign up...thereby generating cash.

Articles also provide the sugar to attract the flys etc....so its not all the message board.

The message board costs something to maintain behind the scenes. Manboy is paid no matter what. The mods are free. But there has to be some programmer or web master of something like that who gets some money here or there.

the fact that the board remains 2 years after the purchase, means that it is positive in cashflow....generating more money than its costs to maintain....or else zuga merely closes it down as purely a business decision.

So zuga et al, is making money off the message board. And the message board is only effective if people populate it and post and read it.
Without them it doesnt exist...and it gets closed down.....and zuga loses the money generated from it.

So the members that post are customers of the site......they dont pay zuga in currency like brick and morter customers do. The pay zuga with their time, and expertise in exchange for the platform of the boards free use.
Its a yes /yes customer /business relationship. The customer gets the enjoyment of posting and patronizing the board.....and they give their time and effort and sometimes expertise. Like a barter system. In doing so they generate some honey to attract the flys that eventually click on the banners(some of which sign up and play)

So yes they are customers...if you treat them like shit....they do what customers generally do...they go away and find another playground to offer their free time and effort in. They can be customers of another site and help generate the sugar for someone elses flys.

If you dont treat them as valued customers, you are not seeing the big picture. If you treat them as leeches who just take take take and give nothing in return...you are missing the boat. If you have the attitude,....dont let the door hit you in the ass.....tell me a successful business that allows that culture.

So yes they are customers.....as a recently retired person who dealt with customers for my entire life......I recognize poor customer service ...and I can identify a customer 1000 miles away.

However it seems some on wov have the attitude that the posters are not customers, that they should kiss the feet of manboy and thank god that they are allowed to devote their time and effort for free. The idea that "its mikes place" is toxic. Its not like you are guests in mikes living room. Unless his real living room has billboards in it, that promotes products for his home guests to buy.
More realistically.....its mikes business(now zugas)...and we are mikes customers. In the past and now....we are not bowing our heads and entering mikes home. We are walking head up into a real business.....its just that the customer service reps(mods) dont see it that way. They see it as mikes place....very toxic view.

(keep in mind I know when I say "we"///it no longer includes me as a poster///its just less messy....just pretend i am not banned for a minute)

 

Damn Larry That makes perfect sense. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I have never liked Larry's customer/customer service analogy. Maybe it's because I don't have a lifetime of customer service experience and don't see everything in those terms. I just don't see it or think it's a good analogy. BUT, he does make some points that I strongly agree with.

Basically I think the membership does not get the credit it deserves for any success of the site. I am not referring to anything financial. Mike Shackleford, put up the money, and put the effort in, and I guess there were some hard times (as far as the sites financial being...not Mike's personally). And Mike deserves the rewards of the success. There has been discussions about the mods and I don't know any arrangements, so that is none of my business.

But the membership and good quality discussions along with the articles and such drew people to the site and enabled the site to grow and be such a value to a group like that LCB that Mike got his payday. And again, I genuinely am happy for him. But none of it happens without the membership. People, and I mean all of us that participated did so because we chose to. Everyone has there own reasons. Some genuinely wanted to contribute hoping to benefit others. I count myself in that group. Some for the entertainment value. I also count myself in that group. Some hoping to benefit from others or from earning of info about an AP play/opportunity. Some just like the occasion drama that flairs up. That's not my thing, but that's ok too. I honestly think our friend Axel has a little desire for the drama at times. That's ok.

We all have/had our own reasons. No one was promised or is owed anything....other than a little respect, for our time and effort. Telling people that helped build value in the site "to not let the door hit you in the ass", is not the respect any of us deserve. And at the risk of being accused of going down the me, me, me path. Allowing a non-member to show up after a 5 year absence and demand/request or use his influence and favor to banish a 4+ year, 3200 post contributing member is NOT showing much respect for the person who chose to contribute and tried to add value to the site.

 

Not really "customer service," unless you're using "service" as a verb.

We munchkins are more like addicted crack whores giving away the goods for free in exchange for some internet nose candy provided by our clever pimp.

 

I wouldn't say they've won....yet. There certainly is a concerted effort by the people that manboy has sent here to disrupt this forum and this thread in particular. Is it working? Depends who you ask but there have been changes that not everyone is happy with. Just look at all the posts. What do they call it? The made up term is "flooding".

I said several pages ago that they had a foot in the door. When Mission/Pav/BJ/Fierce/PavlovianModel's efforts to become a mod here didn't work they changed tactics. First a toe in the door, then a foot, then a leg, an arm....

The ineffective BOZ has been recalled....told to never post here again. That leaves M/P/BJ/F/PM to wrap things up. Don't discount the hysterical Beached whale to make an appearance. She may be on call to come here at a moment's notice...per manboy's command. I hear she's a middle aged female.

Who knows what they can accomplish? Maybe they can get this whole thread deleted. Maybe they can get the Trump Administration to ban the term "beached whale". Maybe they will become mods here. This thread has exposed manboy and his followers for what they truly are and it's ugly. Whatever the future holds, they can't erase the minds of the thousands of people who have read this thread.

Yes! Long live Gamblers Glen!!!!

 

In order to not derail this thread, I quoted your post and answered to it in the Stadium Blackjack thread.

 

Please excuse me, that is not what I wanted to convey. My point is that Members are not the ONLY customers, and arguably, they are not the bulk of the customers. To wit, I seriously doubt if the majority of direct revenues come from Members.

I do agree that the Members post content and said content is optimized with Search Engine Optimization and traffic is driven to the site, but at the same time, that's a two-way street. While the Members are providing content, the Forum is also providing a free medium of exchange, communication and networking. In other words, it's not like the beneficialness of the relationship is completely one-sided, but I doubt if you were trying to imply that it is.

I was with you on everything until about the last few sentences. I agree 100% that Members make the Message Board better, and in fact make the Message Board a Message Board, but WoV could still exist as a going concern in a different format, (theoretically) the content would just have to come from elsewhere. Certainly there have been profitable sites that do not have a message board or any meaningful medium of communication.

Furthermore, and I don't know if this has changed, but WoV (I believe he said) never made money while Wizard was the owner. Maybe this has changed, but my guess is that it is still largely complimentary to WoO. To wit, the owners bought WoO and got WoV with it, if that makes sense.

Agreed, but some of the members have time, but no expertise. Expertise is not a prerequisite to posting there, but when we talk about, 'Value,' to the Forum, which is, 'Value,' as a customer, if you're bringing some knowledge you're bringing more value.

It's possible for an individual to post and the board be net worse for that person being there, and then they find themselves either temporarily Banned or Nuked. This is much the same case as physical businesses occasionally toss customers who are arguably making them money. Those physical businesses can toss customers who result in direct revenues and often do.

Here's an example, dare I say I managed a hotel, (because some people here seem to think Economy Chain hotels cannot have managers) now, if I rent a room to someone and I get a call that he is smoking crack in the hallway, then I go up to find, sure enough, he's smoking something that smells a lot like crack in the hallway, (this happened exactly once in about 8.5 combined years, btw) then I'm going to give the guy his money back and tell him to get the fuck out of the hotel.

It's not my job or area of expertise to offer him any kind of support or help. I hope he gets it. If he asked me for it directly, then I would at least look up and get some phone numbers for him to call. But, I cannot personally help him. My job is to run the hotel smoothly and to take care of all of the guests, and in order to do that, I can't have my hall smelling like crack or people smoking crack in the hall.

(Or, in the rooms, really, if you've ever smelled crack, you know what I mean!)

Now, you could argue that I did not test the substance to determine that it was, in fact, crack, and you would be right. If I tossed out the individual and it turned out his only thing he did was smoke a non-crack substance in the hall, then my best response would have just been to tell him to stop smoking it. I would be in the wrong. But, obviously, I don't have access to a drug testing lab, so I have to go with my best guess.

I definitely occasionally had that attitude at the hotel, it depended on the guest. Some of them were potentially trouble, some of them (often regulars) were just below the threshold at which I would not rent to them anymore. In fact, there were some that we only selectively rented to because of common factors like noise and wanting to sneak people in. So, there were several individual customers with whom we were familiar that, if I only had three or four rooms left, they weren't getting one of them because I had no way to isolate them from the other customers.

They paid the rates they paid (I charged them a fuck ton more than I charged other guests, and they knew it, but I had the advantage as most other hotels wouldn't rent to them at all and certainly not without plastic) and they got the rooms they got. Those particular customers were valuable in the sense of direct revenue, but they made up for it in other ways, I assure you. If any of them were to gripe about anything, and the gripe was less than 100% legitimate, I'd have given them their money and told them not to fucking come back.

(Trust me, we're talking about people who would already be using that kind of language with me. I actually had someone threaten to shoot me once because I demanded an early check-in fee extra because he was checking in at 8:00a.m. Well, sorry, you're not getting seven hours before check-in for free when I know it's going to take me until four hours after check-out to shoo you out AND you're a pain in my ass besides!)

From me, the level of, 'Service,' the customer gets depends on the level of value the customer has to the business. Fortunately, the fact that WoV has written rules makes it easier as I do not have to be arbitrary or, 'Think on my toes,' as often. Generally, people either follow the Rules or they don't, from my perspective.

Might I make a polite request of you that you not use derogatory names to refer to Wizard when speaking to me directly? It makes it vewry difficult to address you without defending against the derogatory term and that would get redundant in a serious hurry.

Well, again, if you visit the site you are a customer, whether or not you are banned.

And, that's kind of the point of all of this, are we doing what is best for the average customer?

Now, you mentioned the thing about, 'Bad Mood,' but the average customer is not going to see that because the average customer is not logged in because the average customer is not a Member. I could understand where you might say that something like, "Don't let the door hit you..." looks bad to Members, but most non-Member customers are not going to see that post and it has little effect overall. Some Member customers have agreed with the subject matter of, "Don't let the door hit you..." on several occasions and some have disagreed. It's usually, but perhaps not always, something to come up when a Member is objecting to the Rules or site Administration.

If you go to a convenience store there may be a sign that says, "No shirt, no shoes, no service." If you come in without a shirt, they'll ask you to leave and not come back until you are wearing a shirt, give them guff about that, they'll tell you never to come back again and they're calling the cops if you do.

 

The Beached whale moniker goes back to 2014 and Gambler's Glen. No one complained about it then, in fact no on complained until recently. It's just another nickname...the same as manboy and all the rest. It's not meant to be flattering. It's also quite mild compared to what others have said about her in this thread...things that I would never say. Thing that we all have read. But I still use Beached whale. At some point, if I'm the only one using it, if the novelty has worn off, if Mission/Pav stops begging, I'll probably stop using it.

It's not meant to be nice and I don't see her as a nice person. Anyone who constantly bashes the President of the United States is not a nice person. Anyone who allows others to do the same is not a nice person and she has been relentless. This is not an endorsement of Trump, it's a common sense call to support the country no matter how much you hate it's leader. To behave as she has is selfish and unpatriotic. To engage with foreigners on WOW and allow them to do so is even worse.

It cuts both ways and I'm not using that one example to call her Beached whale. There are many examples. She likes to call people names but doesn't like it when it happens to her. I like the name. I like saying it. I like how it ruffles feathers. I like to see the hypocrisy. Freedom of speech? She's free to call the President anything she wants and I'm free (so far) to call her anything I want. Freedom of speech...unless you are on the eggshells at WOV.

 

Personally, I give the membership all the credit in the world and I can only answer for myself as to that.

Unlike WoO, where Wizard is responsible for well over 90% of the content, (I don't know what percentage to give to JB or Bluejay, and I am probably responsible for 0.0001%, or so, of actual WoO content) the content of WoV is well over 90% Member generated and the Members generate the content for no compensation other than use of the site. Without the Members, there could be a WoV (in theory) but nothing like its current form.

It is that content that can then be optimized to generate traffic and that traffic, eventually, generates direct revenues.

But, there has to be content to optimize, and that's where the Members come in, absolutely.

That's both a yes and a no, perhaps LCB saw potential in WoV that it could be independently profitable, but my understanding is that WoV essentially always lost a small amount of money prior to LCB (Don't know about now) and WoO basically carried it. I agree that the content, such as it is, does not exist without the membership.

The last part of what you say speaks to the mutuality of the relationship. Members may provide something without providing direct revenues whereas the site provides a medium of exchange that is of value to the Members. If Members do not feel as though what they are getting for their efforts is fair, then they leave. If the site believes that the presence of that Member is a net negative (i.e. the rules) then the Member is temporarily banned or permanently nuked.

It all ends up being reflected in whether people stay or leave, in the end. I think you can definitely tell people not to let the door hit them, it just depends on who you are telling it to.