Hero Poker

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HeroPoker
HeroPoker logo
Type	Private company
Industry	Online poker
Founder(s)	David Jung
Headquarters	Macau SAR, China
Area served	Worldwide, excluding United States and her territories, South Korea, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Belgium and Holland
Website	Heropoker.net Heropoker.co.uk

HeroPoker is a poker IT gaming lifestyle brand which focuses on transparent communication between the management and its player. Its founder and CEO, David Jung, is widely considered to be one of the most professional and accessible online poker CEO in the industry and on the whole, highly regarded by both poker media and players.^[1] Jung is also known for his detailed community responses and irreverent yet tactful writing style in handling sensitive player and industry issues in the major online poker forums.^[2]^[3]^[4]

History

HeroPoker was established on January 23, 2011 by founder and CEO David Jung, who began in Pokerstars as the “APPT Senior Business Development Manager” in 2007 and was soon promoted to “Regional Marketing Director of Asia” in 2008. He is one of the key people who set up the poker game legislation in Macau in late 2007 along with Danny McDonagh, the APPT Tournament Director.^[5] Jung at the time, set up the largest poker room in Asia that hosted APPT and Macau Poker Cup, which he established in his time with PokerStars at The Grand Lisboa Casino in Macau ^[6](under SJM) Jung left Pokerstars in March 2010 to set up his own on-line gaming company under the “Hero” brand on January 23, 2011.^[7] By December 2012, Hero Poker left the Merge Gaming Network due to difference with Merge and their mismanagement of the network and its existing partners.^[8] Jung has stated that HeroPoker will relaunch on their own standalone brand poker network using Microgaming as their software game provider on December 2013.^[9] At this time of writing, the new heropoker.net site is up, but the download of the client is only available to alpha testers.

Jung has stated that the current relaunch with the Microgaming software is under a new corporate structure and ownership and the previous corporate entities have been dissolved.

Exit from the United States market

At the time of its establishment on January 2011, HeroPoker accepted players from United States.^[10] HeroPoker’s policy of security and transparency attracted players from leading online poker sites such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker that were indicted during “Black Friday” (See:United States v. Scheinberg Case). On May 25, 2011, Jung publicly announced its exit of US market on mainstream poker forums, twoplustwo.com, pocketfives.com, and donkdown.com, citing its focus ”to maintain and establish its boutique level service with the core players in a stable manner”.^[11] This announcement has been reported on major poker news sources such as subjectpoker.com, Poker News, gambling911.com,^[12] World Gaming Magazine, and eGaming review.^[13] Nevertheless, the true reason for Hero Poker’s exit is still questioned and much speculated by various members and players of the poker community.

Departure from Merge Gaming Network

On December 20, 2012, HeroPoker made its exit from the Merge Gaming Network while transferring their entire player base to the Merge Gaming Network.^[14] HeroPoker departed among a wave of departures from the Merge Gaming Network. From a twoplutwo.com posting, CEO David Jung stated:

Simply put, Hero and Merge weren’t going the same direction any longer and it just didn’t make sense on both sides to continue, sometimes in business and most times in life, things work out like this, but again, the priority has been the players and in this respect, Merge has put the players first in this transition process as well, so I’m thankful for that.

“

”

-David Jung, Pokerfuse^[15]

While there was much speculation as to why Jung had left the Merge, Jung had promised to follow up with a more detailed response on the departure from Merge shortly after the exit, but did not comment on the departure until months later. In August 14, 2013, shared his most personal views on the current state of the online poker industry.

Its a different world, markets are being ringfenced or segregated by virtue of increased and informed (or misinformed) regulation. At the end of the day, gaming is a privileged industry, meaning that it solely depends on licensing and no one knows that better than existing casino firms. While they may not know anything else past that - in terms of the online industry- it doesn't really matter, because ultimately, time is on their side because regulation can only progress or maintain the existing status-quo (simplification I know). Now it may take 3 or 5 or even 10 years, but for existing casino firms they can wait, they have assets and they have licenses. But for everyone else outside that framework, it's only a matter of time where the pie becomes to small to share or too hot to eat.

Timing is everything because when it comes to licensing and regulation, the sooner you are part of the system, the more you evolve with the system. In highly regulated industries such as telecom, unless your name is Branson, there ain't no hope in high heaven you're getting in when the players become established, so again, if we are serious about being a long term company in this space, regulation is the only reality. Everyone else is pretty much grabbing what they can before the ship goes under (whether or not they themselves understand that the ship is definitely sinking), and I'm not exaggerating that point.

“

”

-David Jung, twoplustwo.com.^[16]

It is expected that Jung's relaunch of HeroPoker will focus on regulated markets or else move in that direction, but Jung has not provided any further comments on the direction of the relaunch.

Brand and Service Position

When HeroPoker first launched, HeroPoker’s emphasis was providing a boutique tailored poker experience, as stated on its website “THE WORLD'S PREMIER BOTIQUE POKER ROOM. OUR FOCUS IS ON YOU, THE PLAYER, AND WHAT POKER MEANS TO YOU.”^[17] HeroPoker also stresses the importance of efficient customer service. CEO David Jung, is known for his willingness to communicate with poker players via major poker forums such as twoplustwo.com,^[18] donkdown.com^[19] and pocketfives.com.^[20] He regularly used these channels to respond to queries and announce promotions. Since HeroPoker was taken down in December 2012, Jung has only been active on twoplustwo.com to give updates on the relaunch.

HeroAmazon logo.

HeroAmazon

“HeroAmazon” provided exclusive tournaments aimed towards female players, encouraging them to engage in the game of poker. The logo is an updated female version of the main logo, but does not feature prominently in the site.

References

External links

Official website
Official Play money website
Merge Gaming Network poker client for Hero Poker
Blog by Hero Poker CEO David Jung
Main 200 plus page Hero official thread

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