Things seem to have come to a bit of a stalemate at the moment. There are a lot of balls up in the air, new planning application, gaming licence application, online room, dtd web site, refurb final costing etc and i'm just waiting for them ALL to come down in my favour. There was bound be be snags with this venture, but many hurdles have already been jumped to get this far, and although i'm a but frustrated with the bureaucracy, i'm still very confident of everything coming off. For example, next week, the Gaming Commission are interviewing my 2 charactor referees, Dean Westmoreland (non-exec chairman of sfgroup) and Richard Altoft (my bank manager), so things are moving slighly quicker that "tortoise pace"............
[76] 4th June 2006 22:02
[75] 29th May 2006 22:17
On the negative side:
1. We have had to re-apply for "change of use" for our premises due to a new law that has just come in for casinos. Before April 2006 casinos premises were covered under D2 planning consent (which my building already has), but the Government has now decided as of May 2006, casinos must apply for a separate catorgory of planning use (this has nothing to do with the "Gaming Licence", just planning regulation). None of my legal advisors picked this up, it was the landlord's lawyer who spotted it. I'm "told" its just a formality, but it still delays commencing works for another 6-8 weeks.
[74] 23rd May 2006 18:04
Just got back from Barcelona today with my tail between my legs. The guy I lost to was a really nice bloke although I sort of went off him when he declared that "this was his first heads-up game he had ever played". I'm pretty cheesed off with the way things went, we were dead level in chips after 4 levels and he raised with Kh Ks, he'd been raising virtually every hand irrelevant of position so I called him with Kc Jh (how stupid - if I thought he was weak I shoud re-raise), the flop came Jd 5c 7s, I check raised him and then moved-all in when he re-raised me back. Pretty poor play by me, but I did it out of pure frustration that I hadn't managed to get the chip lead by now. I was still on tilt after he had hit a 3 straights against my 2 pair in the previous levels, it seemed like no matter how much I bet, or raised, he called and hit his hand, this happens sometimes in heads-up so I should not have tilted, how I was level chips after these hands was a small miracle in itself - I'm very unhappy and depressed, nevermind.
[73] 22nd May 2006 13:32
Nick normally adds 1 hour onto the scheduled plane departure time for our trips abroad, this means that if I am late for some unavoidable reason, we don't miss the plane. This trip was booked at the last minute with us both there, so Nick couldn't lie about the plane time..............I was late and we missed the Barcelona flight from East Midlands Airport...we were only 4 minutes late and those tight xxxxxxxxxxx as Ryan Air wouldn't let us on.
[72] 19th May 2006 02:06
I'm very well prepared for Barcelona - we leave tomorrow, have no transport to the airport, I'm yet to pack, have no euros and still have a shxx load of paperwork on my desk. However, my heads-up game is rocking after some practice on the Blondpoker site and I reeled off 6 heads-up wins on the trot tonight. I've also found out that Chubbs gave me some mis-information about the draw and schedule to get me to go. Nick's coming aswell with for a few days, he changed his mind at the last minute when he saw that there were other comps on as well as the heads-up, which I don't think he's playing.
[71] 17th May 2006 16:41
Had 2 meetings yesterday with lawyers and accountants in Birmingham. Being banned from driving is becoming a real pain, I had to get taxis to and from Birmingham, the train service is really crap on this route, taking 1.75 hours.
[70] 14th May 2006 14:03
Me and Nick nipped over the Walsall £300 Freezout on Saturday night. On the downside it started late and did not reach 100 runners, I think this was due to the £300 freezeout that was being held at the Luton Grovesner the same day. The UK poker calender is getting so congested, there was also a £50 freezout at the Broadway that apparently only got 12 runners. On the upside I thought the structure at Walsall was excellent and staff were as usual, very efficient and frirendly. So much poker available in the UK now, even Grovesner are clashing events and fighting for players internally.
[69] 10th May 2006 11:41
I had a legal meeting yesterday afternoon at Frankie and Benny's, oppoisite the Club. Present was Andy, my licencing lawyer, 2 policeman and Nick. Andy is highly experienced in casino licencing, thats why I went to him, and thats why he's so god damn expensive. I asked Andy the direct question;
The Poker Dome Experience
Rhowena Colclough reports on her amazing Poker Dome experience in the city of sin.
