Happenings at the Deauville EPT - and More

Back in 2004, the choice of Deauville as an EPT venue was a controversial one. The preferred location for a major French tournament was Paris, because that is where poker is based in France, and no major tournament had ever been held outside of the Aviation Club on the Champs Elysées in the heart of the French capital. Deauville, up on the Channel coast, was considered too provincial, too unfamiliar for foreign (OK, American) visitors, and, worst of all, a tricky train/car journey to the elegant seaside resort on the Normandy coast.



Despite these concerns, EPT boss John Duthie stuck with Deauville as a venue in season one, seduced by the magnificent ballroom that serves as the poker room, and the opportunity to take poker to a brand-new environment. He was also reluctant to simply follow in the shoes of the World Poker Tour, which holds its only European event at the Aviation Club.



In season one, Duthie was rewarded with a record 242 players in the €2,000 event, and his choice was further vindicated in EPT2 when 434 players showed up in Normandy in February 2006 for the €4,000 tournament, making the Deauville EPT the biggest poker tournament ever held in Europe.



The volume of players in Deauville meant there was no room at the inn for Barny Boatman, one of England's most popular poker players. A late drop out from the PokerStars list, however, meant there was one last room available if Barny wanted it. The problem was that the only practical way to pay for the room (five nights at $895 all in – these luxury French hotels don't come cheap) would be through his PokerStars account. So, Barny made the maximum weekly deposit of $600, which was still not enough to cover the hotel room.



"Don't worry," he said. "I'll just spin it up to $895 at the tables." I told him that really wouldn't be necessary, since we could wait for him to deposit the following week, but no sooner had I sent the e-mail, I received a one-line message back from Barny: "Done. Go ahead and fill your boots." After checking his playing record (I couldn't resist), I congratulated him on spinning up his investment more than $300 in just 22 hands. "Did it take me that long?" he asked. "I must be slipping."



It is surprising that even experienced tournament professionals can completely misjudge their rivals. When the Deauville EPT tournament reached the hand-for-hand stage, as players locked up in hope of making the money (€4,800 minimum), I was watching a young PokerStars qualifier from Holland with a medium-small stack. He was in the big blind when a player in late position raised. This looked to our Dutch friend like a bit of blind stealing, so he moved all in. The initial raiser thought awhile and then mucked, speculating openly that the kid must have had quite a hand, given the circumstances, and there followed a debate around the table about what he could have been holding: A-A? K-K? A-K? Q-Q? Those were the only hands they could put him on, given how close the youngster was to cashing in the main event.



During the next break, after the Dutchman had safely made the money, he told me how irritated he was by the patronising attitude of his opponents. "I had 9-5 off," he said. "What are they thinking, that I'm going to burst into tears over a lousy 5K?"



He should bottle his frustration, because if rivals routinely underestimate him, I can't see what the problem is.



A book I wrote a while ago about the history of Adidas is finally out later this month (All Day I Dream About Sport, Cyan Books). I hope you'll forgive what seems to be a plug, but the book has relevance here.



Without overdoing the comparisons between the sports marketing business and the online poker industry, I would point out some of the features of the Adidas story that should ward against complacency at the big poker sites.



In the '70s and '80s, Adidas held a mortal lock on the sportswear industry with as much as 80 percent of the global market. The industry used to be referred to collectively as "Adidas and the seven dwarves". They had the top basketball shoe in the NBA, shirt deals with all of the major European football clubs, best-selling tennis products, and a ubiquitous presence at the Summer and Winter Olympics. In those days, you simply weren't serious about sport if you didn't have the three stripes on your feet. Yet, in less than three years, Adidas went from top dog to also-ran, being totally outmanoeuvred by smarter and better-equipped rivals like Nike and Reebok. By 1987, Adidas was in a free fall, relegated to 10th in the crucial U.S. shoe market as the company came perilously close to bankruptcy.



During this precipitous fall from grace, brand surveys continued to show that Adidas retained extraordinarily high recognition levels, and that customers just loved the three stripes and all they stood for. They just didn't want to actually buy its products anymore. That is a scary concept for any marketing-driven organisation, online poker included. The relationship between brand and customer is so delicate that even the smallest misjudgment of the market can leave you chasing the pack. When I started playing poker online, it was pretty much ParadisePoker or nobody, but while it continues in good health today, its market dominance is now a distant memory. The successful poker sites will be the ones that keep their ears and eyes open to every innovation, because one thing is certain: This market is going to look very different in three years.

Conrad Brunner is the European marketing manager for PokerStars.com.