"Dusk till Dawn" Poker Club In Nottingham Diary (by Rob Yong)

[Trace]

Paul "The Marbaya Kid" Zimbler popped in to my house yesterday as he is in England for a few days. I showed him round the premises as he was one of the first people to set a card room up in Spain, so it was definately worth getting his opinion.

Problem was I forget my torch, basically when you enter the premises you have 30 seconds to de-activate the alarm (until security is called out), its pitch black so you need a torch to find the alarm console located at the other end of the building, I only had a lighter, so I had to wander round in the dark with the alarm going off, I've got a massive blister on my thumb from the burning myself with the lighter.

Its a sureal feeling standing in the middle of a 15,000 sq for building in total darkness with an alarm blaring and a voice announcing "you have been dectected as an intruder, security are on the way, please leave the premises". I seem to have a problem every time I show someone round the premises, last time I dropped the alarm key in total darkness and me, Chubbs and Simon Trumper were on our hands and knees for an hour trying to find the keys.

Next time get everyone who is with you to light up their mobiles!  Much safer and no blisters.

Tip for going to the loo in the middle of the night and not wanting to turn the lights on - use your mobile as a torch!

[Rod Paradise]

Or, buy a nail, a hammer, a bit of string & a torch.

Knock nail into wall beside the door, tie string round torch, put a loop in the string, hang the torch using the loop on the nail... leave it there so there's a torch whenever any of you go into the building.

 

[Gilbern74]

Hi Rob,
I'm a bit new here but I just read through this thread start to finish and I'm fascinated by what you're doing!
I haven't been playing long, but like many who started playing online I'd love to play at a venue such as the one you are building. Good on ya!

It reminded me of a bash I attended last August - it was a launch party for the 'London World Poker Exchange' - and it was a very lush effort at the Old Billingsgate, Lower Thames Street in London. They had some celeb performers (Grace Jones, Dirty Vegas) and 3 tables - Pro, Celeb and Amateur - as part of the launch.

I got invited because I know a guy who knows the guy who organised the event for the company (or something like that). The did everything - guest list, pro's, celebs, marketing for the night, got the press/paparazzi there

So that got me wondering if you were going to host anything like that. I'm sure you'd get a load of Pro/Celebs there for opening night.
Anyway I could find out and PM you the organisers details if you were interested. I guess they'd tailor anything to your needs.

If not, I can't wait to give your club a go when you get going - keep up the good work!

All the best
Jason

[robyong]

We had our first project meeting at my sf group offices on Wednesday. It started at 2pm and we did not finish till 10pm due to the amount of stuff we had to get through. It was the first time that all 6 people that I've recruited have been together and I tried to make sure that everyone felt comfortable. We all had plenty to say and sometimes this made it difficult to remain focused on the key points that need addressing now. However, the enthusiam is high and everyone seems really motivated.  Aces (Mr Trumper) and Nighfly has some really good ideas about how poker should be carried out it the club, and Darren has discovered some great system that uses membership cards for payment instead of cash.

After we finished at the office we went back to my house and played a £20 sit and go which Chubbs ended up winning after beating Nighfly heads-up. I have to say that Nightfly is probably the worst poker player I have ever come accross in my whole life, calling all-in on a AKJ flop with Q2 offsuit to knock Nick out. 

I tried to get accross to everyone the scale of the project that we are undertaking. I have a certain strategy that I feel we should adopt, doing things slowly and in logical stages but making sure we get things right. For example. I am almost certain that when we first open we will not be able to open 7 days a week, because we will not be able to recruit, train and manage the 65 staff that are needed to run a full week operation, nor will we have time between opening times to fix the things that go wrong.

We are not experienced professional in this industry, and consequently, we should not "run before we can walk". We have to know and accept our limitations and set our objectives accrodingly. Of course, in time, I want the club to open every day at 12pm (2pm for poker) till 6am (4am on Satudays), but we can only do this when we have the infrastructure and most importantly, enough competent staff to do so. Clearly this may mean we lose more money that budgeted in the first year of business, but it will mean that we do things right in the long term.

Due to being banned from the Broadway, me, Chubbs and Nick went to Sheffield to play the main event £1000 FO. Me and Nick busted out early, me on an all-in river bluff and Nick with trip K's (Dave Smith said "guess I need 2 clubs" and they came!). The good news is that Chubbs ended up winning the £14,800 first prize so the DTD poker tour is now in profit! When Chubbs got to the final 5 players we had an interesting conversation which went like this:

Chubbs: "They are mentioning a deal, what should I do? What if it make financial sense? We can't really do deals after what you posted about deals on Blondepoker, can we? (I posted that it is likely that DTD will be a "non deal" venue with a flatter payout structure)

Me: "Correct. No deals, whatever happens"

Chubbs: "Cool, we gotta practice what we preach"

No deal was done and Chubbs played fantastic and won it outright - it was great to railbird and all the spectators had a great time. The staff at Sheffield are so friendly and asked me if they would be able to play poker in DTD when it opens,"hopefully, if your boss agrees to it", I replied. Something that I have on my list to do is to contact all of the casinos and invite them to the club when it opens. I will show them that we have no intention to compete with their "core business" and try and persuade with them to allow their employee to come to DTD.

Many casino staff, especially dealers, love playing poker but are not allowed to fo to rival casinos to play. There is no legal reason why any employee of a casino cannot play poker at DTD as long as their employer agrees to it. At the moment this seems a pretty remote possibility, but I will work to make it happen even if we get knocked back at first. If I can just persuade 1 of the casino groups, even a smaller one such as Napoleans, I think eventually we could get over this hurdle.

I'm off to Sweden in 1 hr with Chubbs to meet with one of the online software providers. Its a right nightmare journey but we have got to make the effort to meet these people face to face and more importantly, see their infrastructure and support with our own eyes. It may seem a bit old fashioned in this new world of cyberspace, but I just prefer face to face meetings.

Hopefully see some of you at Walsall at the weekend,

Cheers Rob

 

[Royal Flush]

Well done Chunky!!

And have fun in Sweden.

[julian]

good skills cuddles!
cu guys at walsall

[robyong]

What a last few days. Reminds me of the film "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" with Steve Martin and John Candy.

We had a meeting arranged in Sweden at 12pm on Monday. Now, I know that Sweden has a population of 8.5m so I figured just get into Stockholm, the capital, and drive to to where the meeting was - bit like flying into London and driving to Brighton. I mean, how big can Sweden be with only 8.5m population?

We had been advised to fly into Copenhagen and get the train, but for some stupid reason I booked the 8.30pm flight to Stockholm on Sunday for me and Chubbs. Anyway, to cut a long story short:

1. We missed the flight from Luton on Sunday night due to setting off late and hitting traffic on the M1.

2. We ended up playing the £20 re-buy in Luton on Sunday night and catching the 5am plane to Stockholm.

3. When we landed we had not caught the plane to Stockholm City, but landed in a remote airport called Vasetas, 600km away from our meeting destination. there was 4ft of snow everywhere and -10 degrees.

4. We had to drive the whole way and we were 4 hours late for the meeting.

5. When I got changed for the meeting in the petrol station I had forgot to pack my tie, cufflinks and shoes, so had to wear trainers with my suit at the meeting. I couldn't take my jacket off either due to no cufflinks.

6. We then decided to get train to Copenhagen and flight back to Stanstead, but missed the last train and had to get 3 different trains to Copenhagen.

7. True to form we got on the wrong train at one of the changes and missed the Stanstead flight and had to stay another night in Copenhagen.

8. The escalators were broke at the last train station and I slipped and bust my leg.

9. To cap it all I got disconnected in the "Sporting Odds" Monte Carlo satelite when we were 3 way and I had 50% of the chips in play.

10.Lawrence Gosney called me on the way home from Stanstead so we dropped off at Walsall last night to play the £200 re-buy, I had 32,000 chips after 3 hours play and then someone told me it was a 2 day event, I  couldn't play the final the next day even if I got there, as I had a meeting at 3pm with some people who were travelling down to see me (this meeting had been planned for 8 weeks ago) - so I stuck all my chips in blind (after a raise and a re-raise I actually had KJ, luckily my opponent had AK and I was out).

11. Finally I got home and my boiler was broken with no hot water and central heating - its as cold as Sweden.

I just feel sorry for Chubbs, who had to accompany me through this! Nothing is ever simple but I guess it will be funny to look back on sometime.

Cheers Rob

[charmaine]

After reading that i'm glad i lead the simple life 

[patman]

nightmare stuff  - the only possible consolation after all that is that you must be due a huge slice of smoothness and things going right for you in the karma stakes.

[RED-DOG]

What a last few days. Reminds me of the film "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" with Steve Martin and John Candy.

We had a meeting arranged in Sweden at 12pm on Monday. Now, I know that Sweden has a population of £8.5m so I figured just get into Stockholm, the capital, and drive to to where the meeting was - bit like flying into London and driving to Brighton. I mean, how big can Sweden be with only £8.5m population?

I think it's interesting that Rob puts a £ sign before figures over a million, even when he's not talking about money

Great story Rob, what a balls up

[Karabiner]

Rob, I think that you definitely need to employ a PA to organise things.

PS. I'm not looking for the job, and hope that the leg is on the mend.   

[Dewi_cool]

Good to see you can see the funny side, these things have a way of evening themselves out Rob, look out for a large slice of good fortune coming your way - unless youv'e allready had it that is.

Always good to read your posts

[Splash]

What a last few days. Reminds me of the film "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" with Steve Martin and John Candy.

If it was really cold in sweden, did u warm ur hand between two pillows?

[Nem]

What a last few days. Reminds me of the film "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" with Steve Martin and John Candy.

If it was really cold in sweden, did u warm ur hand between two pillows?

"Those are'nt PILLOWS!!!" LOL

Classic

[Rod Paradise]

What a last few days. Reminds me of the film "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" with Steve Martin and John Candy.

If it was really cold in sweden, did u warm ur hand between two pillows?

"Those are'nt PILLOWS!!!" LOL

Classic

<gruff voice> "So, did you see the game on Saturday?