With over two million in tournament winnings and a set of results longer than Mr Tickle’s arm, Dave Colclough is one of the most successful British players in the game and is broadly considered to be among the top Omaha players in the World.Immaculately behaved at the table, Dave is a silent assassin of sorts, fully focused on the game and task ahead with acute observation being one of his most enviable skills. However, whilst he may possess all the tools known to man, Dave received his fair share of critics last year (2006) as he failed to impress to the extent of previous years. I raised this topic with Dave as I caught up with him just a fortnight ago.
“There seems to be a media bandwagon trying to convince me that I had a bad year just because I didn’t win a ranking event,” explains Dave. “However, I finished 10th in the European Rankings and clocked up around $250,000 in tourney cashes. It wasn’t as good as the previous 3 years but there aren’t many players in Europe who can claim a similar record.”
Of course, Dave soon proved his knockers wrong by seeing a string of strong finishes lead to that highly anticipated ‘big win’, and it was to be his biggest to date. Donning the colours of Dusk Till Dawn, Dave overcame an array of talent and dominated a final table including Barry Neville, Ryan Fronda and Richard Ashby to win Leg 4 of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour in Manchester. I asked him what this result and the circa 100k first prize meant to the Birmingham man.
“Well, it paid off a few debts, almost got me even on the month,” he jokes. “It was quite a surprise to be honest. All the advice in books say don’t play if you have something else on your mind. To be honest, I was in turmoil, a complete life crisis, but still turned up with a certain amount of determination to do my best. I suppose it just goes to show that most of the stuff written in books is complete rubbish. I think that maybe the gods of fate were having a bit of fun with me, or maybe it was just a matter of having all my stars misaligned. I know one thing though, I have been scared to cross the road or walk under ladders for the past few weeks.”The ‘complete life crisis’ Dave refers to involves a number of factors, some of which were recently made public on the blonde forum, his separation from Rhowena even spanning as far as the tabloids. What is his view now the aftermath has passed?
“What I put on the forum was exaggerated with the sex slant by the newspapers and was pretty awful for both us. I guess I gave them the ammunition to shoot us though. To be honest, in the 5 or 6 weeks that we have been separated, I have hardly had a losing session. I have no idea why.”
“What about CinCins?” I asked. “Would you ever get involved in starting a poker club/site again after the recent revelations you published on the forum, or are you determined to keep distractions to a minimum and focus on your game?”
“Well, I will be supporting the DTD club in Nottingham and helping out wherever I can. Apart from that I’ll try to keep business distractions to a minimum. It’s not so easy though, I seem to get approached a couple of times every week with some sort of business proposal around poker.”
For a long period of time, Dave was possibly the biggest star on the circuit still paying his own entry fees, handing over thousands for what was quickly become an expensive profession to pursue. However, after detaching himself from the blonde poker brand, the opportunity arose for full-time sponsorship, and Dusk Till Dawn were the quickest to accrue his services. Seeing that Dave had raised the issue of DTD, I decided to ask how key a factor his new backers had been, to which he replied: “I guess it relieves financial pressures, but it also brings a pressure of responsibility. When I am playing with someone else’s money there is an added expectation and that brings a different kind of pressure.”As mentioned previously, Dave’s record would impress anyone, and his database entries are always bursting with a seemingly endless (and also consistent) trail of results, from a mere £100 comp at his local casino in Walsall right up to his near bracelet win in 2000, his conceding of the golden bangle in a deal, I later found out, being one of his biggest regrets.
However, it wasn’t always the bright lights of Vegas and the European Tour. There was a time when money was sparse and Dave was forced to play the lower stake rebuy tournaments to rebuild the bankroll.
“It was just a matter of needs must. I’d lost a fortune on the stock market, had under-estimated the cost of renovating the apartment by 70k and had managed to find myself involved in another business failure.”
“It was just a matter of gritting my teeth,” he continued. “I was determined not to make any mistakes when I turned up and, to be honest, I think the poker gods, or the gods of fate, just seemed to look after me. I think I made 9 consecutive final tables at Walsall, took the money onto the European circuit and had about 30 cashes in less than 6 months. It was slightly easier then but I think I must have had more than my fair share of luck.”
Now he’s back at the top of his game playing the biggest tournaments around, but what’s his leak? He must have a leak, surely?…
“I’ve never really had any gambling leaks,” he claims. “I don’t play roulette, blackjack or house games and I don’t bet on the horses or anything. I like to spend money enjoying myself, going out, nice holidays and so on. I’ve had a few nice cars too. I own the big apartment I live in without a mortgage and there’s £10,000p.a. going on my daughter’s private education, so generally I just spend money on what I’d call ‘quality of life’.Leak or no leak, Dave remains a poker legend in Europe. It was probably this reputation that led towards the release of his audio CD which ‘spills the beans’ on the secrets of poker. I’ve listened to the CD, and it’s a cracking purchase (click here to see for yourself), but I couldn’t help but wonder why Dave agreed to this project.
“I basically keep letting people talk me into things. I liked the idea of Audio as it was something different, and I listen to audio CDs all the time when I am driving. As it happens, I am reasonably proud of the CD, I do believe it is a good product. There are 3 hours of me talking and we do actually cover an awful lot of poker aspects… and, of course, it does come with a money back guarantee, so if you think it’s garbage, just send it back for a full refund.”
“Surely a book’s the next step?” I inquired, but Dave's response was a disappointing one: “The audio CD was my version of a ‘How To’ book. The book is much more anecdotal and predominantly made up of poker stories; the general idea was to put a smile on the reader’s face, so not a ‘How to’ at all. However, the intended publishers ‘Carduso’ have gone cool on it, so it's just gathering dust at the moment”
Let’s hope a publisher picks up that book soon, because if ever there were a man that had stories to tell, it would be Dave Colclough, who has been around some of the most enigmatic players in the game. One name that springs to mind is Brian Wilson (right), who Dave famously led to bracelet winning victory in the 2005 World Series. But whilst The Rookie sings his praises as a mentor, would El Blondie ever consider doing more mentoring/bootcamps as a lot of the pro’s in the states seem to be doing? Is there even a market for poker management in the game?“I did explore this avenue with Catman. However, I wasn’t convinced that this sort of project could do much more than break even at best. I am trying to minimise my business projects nowadays and concentrate on quality of life and playing poker.”
At this point, I took my chance to pop out some quick (or quicker) fire questions…
Snoopy: Are there ever times where you wish you weren’t a professional poker player? What would you do instead?
Dave Colclough: Not really. It’s a great life. I’d love to be a professional golfer but I’m basically crap.
Snoopy: If you could steal the skill of one player, what would that skill be and which player would you choose?
DC: Carlos Mortenson - the way he can stack chips is just fantastic. I’d love to have his imagination and patience, I guess he is pretty useful when it comes to making key poker decisions as well.
Snoopy: If there were one thing in poker that you could change, what would it be and why?
DC: Not having to listen to Marc Goodwin’s flop stories… because they aren’t half as ‘cool’ as he thinks.
Snoopy: Apart from Rhowena, who is the sexiest player in poker?
DC: Obviously there is tikay. I’d like to pluck up the nerve to make a move on Evelyn Ng at the WSOP and of course Ryan Fonda’s pretty hot, don’t you think?
Snoopy: You once claimed that yourself and Dave Ulliott were the two most overrated players in Britain. Do you still consider this to be the truth and why? And will we ever see you and Devilfish scrap it out for charity?
DC: Nope, we don’t really have a sense of humour and we try and avoid each other. The quote was taken well out of context and I don’t really have any desire to stir things up.
Snoopy: On Disc 3 of your CD, you identify JP Kelly as someone who has got the better of you on the odd occasion. What other young European players do you believe we should be watching out for?
DC: Jeez there are loads. Praz obviously springs to mind.
Snoopy: Will you always play poker?
DC: I have no plans to leave poker
And with that, I was almost out of questions, many of them already snapped up by members of the blonde poker forum who have been taking advantage of the ‘Ask The Pro’ board over the last few months. However, I had one bullet left in the barrel, and although I tend to finish with “Would you ever consider dyeing your hair blonde”, I thought it would possibly fall on stoney ground. So, I kept it simple, and asked Dave what was next on the horizon, as this answer would perhaps be the one that best captured the current mood of Dave Colclough, a man who had experienced and witnessed more in the game than we could ever imagine.“Taking it easy and making sure I enjoy life. Trying to persuade Rhowena to come back, taking my daughter and sister’s family to a villa in the summer. I haven’t even booked my Vegas flights yet. I’m looking forward to the Dusk Till Dawn club opening in October but I don’t really have anything special on the horizon. In fact, I may have my priorities right for a change.”