blonde poker forum

Hello Blonde,

Been toying with this idea for a while, since February this year I was forced to remove my blog from the internet, and since then I have really missed updating it, I've said 100 times before but will say again, I really really enjoyed updating it and the positive feedback I got for it really was amazing and humbling - after all, just a young kid writing down what I did and saw in the world, to have real people enjoy reading it was really cool.

Given that I am still not able to resurrect the blog, I thought it might be fun to run a little mini-blog here on blonde for a while, one of the problems I had with my old blog was as my lifestyle calmed down a bit (!!!) I felt like I wasn't writing about anything exciting enough, so if anyone wants to direct me to anything I should be writing about I'll be as open and as honest as is possible (without incriminating anyone, or even worse myself!!!)

Also if anyone has any funny stories/gambling anecdotes they have been waiting for an "in-context" opening to share then I beg you to post them here - I fucking love gambling anecdotes! If anyone has any questions or if you want me to re-post old blog posts then just shout at me and if I can, i will :)

I don't want to be arrogant and assume everyone in poker has read my blog/knows me so a little background;

I have been a pro gambler (on and off!) for 6 years, focusing for the most of that time on Pot-Limit-Omaha, whereas I've done decently well over this period online (on and off!) my biggest successes, failures and adventures have all come from live poker games, I've played stakes from £1/£2 to $400/$800 and everything in the middle. I think my blog gained most notoriety for the stories surrounding the poker (nights out, debaucherous activity and most regrettably for me gambling on tables and sports) I've never really talked in great detail in my blog about the negative consequences I've suffered from the other side of gambling but that might be a cool topic for this thread...

So where do I start?!

I enjoyed reading your blog, most amusing. As for what to talk about, anything more interesting than trains,planes and concrete should ensure an audience.

Sounds like it's gonna be great, can I start by being very nosey and asking why you were forced to take down your blog?

that was my thought as well,

Shut it.

Did you know they are currently doubling the width of the Suez Canal? Fascinating stuff.

Used to be owned by the Panama Canal Company, but Nassar nationalised it, quite recently I believe, 1955, 1956, or thereabouts.

Doubling the width will allow ships to pass both ways, currently it is one way, & ships have to travel in convoys.

Since the canal does not cater for unregulated two-way traffic, all ships transit in convoys on regular times, scheduled on a 24-hour basis. Each day, a single northbound convoy starts at 06:00 from Suez, getting an unhindered passage. At by-passes, the convoy uses the eastern route. Interwoven in this convoy's passage are two southbound convoys. The first starts at 00:00 from Port Said, and anchors in the Great Bitter Lake to let the northbound pass; the second starts at 07:00 and anchors in the western Ballah by-pass to let the northbound convoy pass. Due to the Ballah canal dimensions, this convoy is restricted to smaller and often unloaded ships.

This intrigued me too, were you aware of this?


Under the Convention of Constantinople, it may be used "in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag

The Convention of Constantinople, how utterly interesting.

Beats degen gambling nonsense all day, I think you'll agree.

yes ofc, I deliberately left this out of the OP just in case the 1000/1 shot landed and no-body asked!!

I'm going to have to be slightly irritating and a little vague but I promise this is the only time I'll do it!!!

Basically I'm working on some stuff this year, both inside and outside of gambling and the image of "lil dave" as I used to portray myself in those blog posts and how they shine up for google searchs (25k hits a month!) would be fairly detrimental to me! I am currently living as Mr. David Nicholson, respectable member of communities with a shining record of perfect behavior... 400 blog posts all saved and archived tell quite a different story :D

It's a real shame because despite the majority of mindless drivel there were some really stellar posts in there, some I used to re-read from time to time just for morale :D

Subbed for sure :)

I think it puts a real line through the crowd when you ask who does, and does not consider 1955 "Recent" :D

Interestingly My Tikay I have just been to Instanbul and have been learning all about Constantinople and the Ottoman Empire, absolutely fascinating stuff, if you have any interesting facts you would like to share on this I would be very grateful :)

Also, I learnt something very interesting the other day (to me) which I'm sure most will already know, that Vlad Țepeș was the real life Dracula! I had lunch recently with my Gf (Romanian) and my friend (Turkish) and it was like a history lesson, fascinating stuff :)

In regards to the Suez Canal, I am thrilled to hear that it's being doubled in width to allow ships to pass in both directions, as unlikely as I am to ever directly benefit from the developments, I get really annoyed when I see two-way roads that can only fit one car down them, so can redily sympathize with the canal users.

I really like the word "Suez" too, a great word... SOOO-IZ

In on page 1!!!

Looking forward to this met.

think i must be like 99.9% to have never met Dave and he's still one of my favorite humans.

As I'm typing this I am currently being hunted by the scariest fucking looking flying insect* ever, I've just risked life and limb to try get a picture but the lil bugger keeps flying off.

*Currently in Cyprus where you get all sorts of scary looking stuff flying and crawling around. Only yesterday I had to chase a stray dog who had stolen my flip-flop.

Is there any trace of your blog online? I never read it but your intro in this diary has made me feel as though I've missed out!

Guess I'll kick it off with this year, as I've been pretty silent on the SM front all year...

2015 started with one fairly big (awesome) change in my life which was getting into a relationship with a girl (just had to clarify!) this may, or may not depending on how well you know me and your perception of me, be surprising but prior to this I had never had a girlfriend. If I was to answer why, then I could give the standard answer, my lifestyle from 20-25 didn't really lend itself well to a potential relationship - which I'm sure no-one could argue with, but reality of it is that my independence and determination always lead me to pursue the same girls forlong periods of time - not in a creepy way (I hope!!) just in a very slow, VERY inefficient way. I'm sure I'd have gotten much further (or done a lot more) if I'd been a bit more brash, "see you what you want a take it like a real man"etc, but such cavalier ballsyness just really isn't my nature, and never will be - so what can you do.

Things with Laura, (aforementioned gf) were totally different, we starting seeing each other - I believe that is what the cool kids call it(?!) you're not in a relationship but you're starting to act like you are... or am I wrong(?) in december, got properly together on New years eve and have spent almost an entire 6 months together since, and i'm loving every minute! I never before experienced what it's like to actually receive any real affection back from someone you really like and it's been awesome, so yes love is in the air etc personal life is for the first time in forever amazing :)

Professional life has been way more tricky, always seems to be the way as one side tips up the other side falls like a set of scales, the first fairly major setback I experienced was a business one, where one huge mistake I made a little bit ago turned to cost myself and a business partner of mine fairly heftily, we live, we learn etc but it doesn't make these things easier to stomach.

Gambling has been really hard this year, firstly there has been no-wheree fun to play, at the start of the year with online poker I was getting really beaten up, then it came along where I got some Omaha coaching from a german pimp (100% true) and started to play good again, then just as I finally started to play like a man who could win, I start to run fairly poorly.

I wanted to play more live poker, there is a local game in Leeds which is actually a really nice game, £2/£2, straddles and ok action if the right guys are in the game, problem is everyone is so bloody moody who plays I just can't stomach playing there more than once a week! The shift nowadays in poker games is towards private/privately organised games, it's a real shame tbh as it's kind of ruined the whole poker scene in the North of England (going to sound pretty ungrateful here as I've done very well from such games over the course of my life.) When I first started to play seriously in leeds I moved from the 50p£1 game at the gala, across the road to "Faz's" game (I will for SURE share some stories about Faz/Faz's game in the following posts!!) and it was such a terrific game, anyone could play, all you had to do was roll up to the casino with some money and off you went. A community of people who always played together grew and grew...nowadays though you're either inundated with messages from X who runs Y game because they rake the life out of it and need people all the time, or the game you like to play is now in a different place and you have to ask permission before you can play. It's just not how it should be imo...

The reason it's gone like this is entirely the fault of the players though, people who cannot behave properly at a poker table, and negatively contribute to the environment basically force/enable those with the social ability to do so to take the games privately. So when I hear people moaning about X or Y game they are not allowed to play I just want to shake them by the ankles and scream "It's all your fault"

*random side-rant over*

I don't really like travelling about to play and liquid bankroll not so good for London and higher stakes anyway I decided I'd try a different angle an go somewhere abroad to try and re-light my fires in gambling...

My friend lives in Cyprus and told me I should come out and play here for a little bit, nice weather, nice games, LOVELY casinos and of course glorious weather so, along with Laura and few other friends, I've spent the last 4 months nearly out here in the sunshine enjoying myself and gambling, man oh man have I been gambling :)

Ha, well on a few occasions perhaps. No currently there is zero trace except if you go to page 5 of google I think some swedish site once cover-posted one blog entry randomly, not exactly sure why.

There is also an article, in spanish oddly, which basically recounts the blog post I made detailing the $100/$100/$100/$200/$400 Sammy Farha/Jerimiah game in LV from 2013, which to this day remains the most insane day of gambling and poker I've ever had.

i liked the old blog, will read this

Need to meet some better people I think :D

I was in Limassol a few weeks ago, didn't come across any bugs despite being told to take plenty of mosquito spray etc!! Guess I was lucky!

I noticed so many bookies on the streets and went in one just to see the difference - it was completely different and like going back 20 years. About 10 screens, 9 of which had teletext prices/listings and the other had a re run of something. I was gutted not to see the next dog race at Romford being beamed over there !

I was also told before I went that there are no casinos in the south of the island - only the north - so I assume that's where you are unless I was mis-informed?

This

Excited about this!

Ahh Limassol is nice, I lived for 7 months in Paphos when I was 18 - one of those guys on the harbour selling you boat trips everyone tells to fuck off :D - and popped over there from time to time. Hope you enjoyed yourself !

Ahh yeah these bookies, they are everywhere, and like you say like a time warp, they are everywhere though and 24/7 packed to the rafters, must be taking seriously big money...

In regards to not seeing the next race at Romford this is both hilarious, entirely true and maybe I shouldn't even write it but they do show UK greyhound racing, but they show re-runs of old races AND take bets on it :D obviously the cards are up for about 15 minutes and you have no idea where and when the race is from, and the dogs are all labelled Dog1, Dog2 etc but just imagine if you could come up with a way of figuring out which race was about to be shown!!!

Typically speaking it all seems to be horses, I guess no surprise.

Yes I've been in the North, where there are casinos as far as the eye can see, I've been quite a few times into the south side, mostly for a good meal as the food here is horrendous. I also just went to Istanbul for 3 days, first time I've ever been and couldn't recommend highly enough.

Wow I cannot believe what you have just said regarding the dog reruns - amazing!

Yes on the occasion I went in there it was packed, I had money burning a hole in my pocket but no live action to bet on so I ended up just leaving after 10 minutes of waiting for something to pop up!

I tried to learn a little bit of Greek Cypriot language before going over although as usual that was completely unnecessary as everyone speaks English anyway! Plus most of them were Turkish or middle eastern origin so didn't speak the local lingo themselves.

A couple of friends who were there with me took the drive to Paphos for the day but I bailed on that, they drove ~3 hours in a rented 1 litre Toyota Yaris, walked around for about an hour then drove back. All while I sat by the pool at the hotel feeling very pleased I didn't make the trip!

The food was delicious - i'm not much of a food person as in, I only eat what I like. I love Scampi but not much other seafood, so when the restaurant manager said he had no Scampi I, for some unknown reason, went down the list to swordfish. Much to the shock of our party. I have to say it was amazing, first time i've ever had it and it was massive. Delicious meal and friendly people, really enjoyed it in Limassol and would visit again.

I should probably mention the first night mind you, we asked the taxi driver to take us to the local titty bar. Turns out we ended up being taken to a whorehouse disguised as a titty bar. We (6 of us) wanted to leave within about 20 minutes as one guy jumped into a private dance straight away and come out saying he just dropped €200 and didn't even get to see any tits lol! We all got up to leave and the manager and bouncers were stopping us saying we owed the girls €200 each for drinks and the time they spent sitting with us by the bar!! Needless to say we thought a fight was going to break out but somehow fists weren't thrown and we got out without being stabbed/mugged/punched. Other than that though, the people of Limassol were really nice :D

Excellent stuff so far  :)  ;popcorn;

This is tooo funny!

Yeah I set about learning some greek-cypriot when i was in Paphos but got nowhere, people just tend to prefer to talk English to you because 1) it is helpful to learn English whoever you are, and 2) their englsih is usually 40x anyone else's Greek and it's just miles easier to talk in English!

--> Actually my screen-name on here comes from my time in Cyprus, I worked on the Harbour alongside a guy called Elias who was a fisherman - real nice guy, and he used the term Suplrim (soo-pa-lim) which is an expression from his Village which means literally "Supreme Wealth" but not in money terms, I am supremely weathly because I have my family and people who love me. Not exactly sure why I chose to spell it with 2 "U's."

Hilariously his wife also worked on the Harbour and they seemed to fight absolutely non-stop, he even told me once she pushed him off his fishing boat once in the heat of a big row!!

Yeah the food on the south side is generally very very good. Limasol andPaphos are a bit of a journey from where I am staying, but Nicosia and Larnaca are easily reachable and I like them both. Prefer Larnaca by quite a distance, I was a much different person when I was in Paphos so can't really compare...I will write a bit about my time in Paphos actually, was a nice time for me.


ahhhaaaa, yeah, foreign strip club takes the piss out of drunk tourists, I'm pretty sure this was happening in bible times!

Going straight in for the PD is a big strategy error imo, now you've set your min-spend per-minute too high, and you know how these places work, the only way is up, I think the best line is to set your stall out as a cheap-skate with potential to spew and see how hard you can make them work to get you to go off for the money you were 1000% to spend anyways.

Crass topic to exhibit detailed knowledge about though, so I'll say no more :D

One of my all time favourite blogs!

smart move to go and live outside of the UK for a while and glad you seem to be enjoying it.

I know the Turks love to gamble bigstyle having played with them in Germany.

What is the rake like in the cash games? I heard it was a bit of a killer. Any problems with the financial side of things as Northern Cyprus isn't recognized as an actual legal country by much of the Western world? How long does it take to cross the border north to south? Any hassles with going though, or is it a bit more chilled out nowardays than I've read of in the past...?

Hi mate,

Yes, they are big gamblers - there are now no casinos in Istanbul they moved them all to North Cyprus, so every weekend the turks flood to the Island to punt, it's cool. Something else that's pretty good about the casinos/casino culture over here is the casino's are very much set up for punting,not too many bells and whistles, just tables and chips - people come to gamble and gambling is what they want...if you wanted nice food, nice shops, bars etc then you'd go literally anywhere else in the world but here.

Hospitality in the casino's is pretty good too, food+ drink etc all free, depending where you go you get pretty decent quality drinks + food too, if you're going to gamble for $5-10,000 then in Vegas for e.g. no-one would look at you twice you're just one in a thousand, over here (and there are plenty of big gamblers over here) you get treated like a king. If anyone is considering a gambling holiday then N. Cyprus defo the place I'd pick!

Rake in the cash games is brutal, 3% uncapped, 2% uncapped and 5% capped at 35euro in places I've been playing, I played a one off very high stakes game which was $200 p/hour which was easily the best rake structure I've seen out here. Basically if you're playing with expectation of profit then they games need to be loose, tight games with uncapped rakes are no way to get rich :D.

Never had any money issues, only 3 casino's here I would trust enough to leave $ on deposit though, you cannot cross the border with more than 10k euro equivilent but I have never seen anyone check...
Something else interesting about out here is the currency, Turkish Lira is the official currency, most casino's operate in US$, some in Euro and a few in Lira. Everyone, taxi drivers/shops/restaurants etc will accept Lira/£/$/Euro and I wouldn't be surprised if you took them another currency they would take that too, and the rates are all one-rate, not a buy/sell rate so you actually get a pretty decent deal, I was looking at watches the other day and they were priced up in Swiss Franc's!! Funny place.

Crossing the border as a UK citizen is pretty easy, takes about 10 minutes, if you are not EU then they won't let you leave but you can come in. It's quite intimidating tbh loads of guys with guns, the history of how it became North/South is pretty interesting and REALLY recent, there is still a huge amount of bad blood over it, especially from the Greek side.

One other thing about N Cyprus...you will not see a single MacDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Starbucks or any of these huge global mega chains over here, pretty much the only place in the world I think where you can't find a MacDonalds... I have crossed the border basically just to get a KFC :D

Ha yes was a big schoolboy error by the guy going for the private dance, but he does it everytime we go to one (not often, ahem). He will  never learn and there always has to be one who goes first, and then reports back to the rest of us how much/how long/what for!

Larnaca is where we flew to and drove down to Limassol. Nice easy drive approx 45 mins, Paphos didn't look that far from Larnaca on the map just different direction.

Paphos - The Post School Times!

So basically when I was 16/17 just starting my A-Levels I was entirely focused on my future, and this was to go to Drama school and go into performing arts industry in some capacity (I was passionately involved in both on and off stage work) I was doing performing arts, English Literature, Economics and Business for A-Level and first year went amazingly well, and actually its probably the only year of school I ever enjoyed, being a bit older I no longer had to worry every day because I didn't have hair here, will X girl like me, will Y boy tease me etc so things seemed like they were on a fairly straight forward path for me, I knew what I wanted and was on course to get it.

THEN... I turned 17, I learnt to drive and my life pretty much forever changed when I discovered gambling outside of home games. First thing that happened to me was I got the worlds best fake ID (boy did I need this too, as you think I look young now you should me when I was 17!!!) - it was a proper UK drivers license but the date was wrong, so it made me a year older than I was!!! This naturally lead to me heading to casino's and once I've been in once I'm hooked forever. The first casino I ever went into was Leeds Napoleons (not exactly the most glamorous place) but I went in once and never wanted to leave, this lead to frequent weekday trips to the casino, even lunchtimes off school I used to meet Jamie (Sykes) and go to Merrion Grosvenor to play blackjack sometimes! Next thing is gambling on the internet, poker, horses, online BJ etc completely hooked and now absolute zero interest in school...

Actually this coincided with another kinda difficult time for me, as the end of first year of A-Levels drew in I was becoming really un-enthusiastic about drama school, I'd started to doubt if it was what I wanted, but I felt like I was really letting my teacher/form tutor and nowadays Friend Miss Hodjson down by giving up, and also this had been my dream for 8 years nearly, what the hell else would i do!? This all came to a big head for me when I went for an interview at Hereford Uni and I will NEVER forget this day as long as I live...

The first part of the day actually, and predictably, starts with a travel fuck-up - I got stuck behind a women with a pram when I tried to get off the train at Hereford station and ended up having to go to Kings Cross and back - VERY nearly missed the interview but the guy interviewing me agreed to wait behind 15 minutes to see me. The interview came and I pretty much nailed it, I had all the answers he wanted, said all the right things, was engaging, personal, funny, intelligent, charming was a close to 5* performance and i felt good about it...

Then the guy leans back in his chair, smiles at me and says "So David, how do you think this has gone?" I reeled off another textbook answer "I feel really confident about it, I get a really lovely vibe from place and feel like I could do really well here if given the oppurtunity bla  bla bla" he then replies;

"Oh yeah, as good an interview as I've ever seen 100% I'll offer you a place here...BUT... I really hope you don't take it, this isn't what you want to do, every answer is perfect but somehow - I JUST DON'T BUY IT"

He then shaked my hand wished me all the best. I was absolutely destroyed after this, I knew deep down that this wasn't what I wanted but I didn;t really want to accept it, this interview actually sparked off a fairly lengthy spell where I was really quite down (don't want to use the word depressed) about life. School ended, I nearly got expelled on the final day for some fairly wreckless behavior, I stayed out until 8am with Jamie Rob and Ash the day of my interview to try save my school, only a world class intervention from my Dad saved the day, I was just utterly, utterly over it - my year head told me as I left school that I was going to be a failure and a nobody and have wasted the best opportunity of a good life. The next and only other time I saw that teacher was actually in Vegas, coming out of the toilets in Tao 2 days after my (then) biggest ever winning day, felt so good!

I got a job in sports shop selling equipment to local clubs (tennis/cricket etc) which made me pretty numb inside, I got paid OK but just gambled with it all anyway so never had any money and then one day, one glorious day I won £3,000 in a casino tournament. I quit my job and pursued poker full time! Now my mum is furious with me, sleeping in till 3pm every day etc so one day she rolls into my room throws me a plane ticket to Cyprus and tells me I have to go to do something for her and Dad over there (they owned 2 apartments out there) if I'm going to be no use here I may as well be some USE over there...

Upon arriving in Cyprus, with a net worth of ~£3000 feeling about as rich as you ever could, I decided I liked it, and stayed for the rest of the year, I met up with a girl from school and a friend of mine from the year above out there, got myself a job on the harbour selling boat rides and lived the life! You earned commission depending on what you sold, e.g. Jet Ski/pedalo rides you got 50c per person you got on, waste of fucking time. The adventure boats were ok I think you got about 5 euros per person, usually they go on in families so one family = a night out :D, the money shots though were the cruises, 25% commission and they were from 50-200 euros PER PERSON!!!

I remember one day I turned up at 8am to the harbor, at 8:45 I sold 4x 200 euro cruise tickets (200 euros in my pocket) and then was back home for 9.30am, Ed hadn't even woken up to hear the great news that I am rich and life, for the next 10 days will be that of a king! I lived entirely day-to-day, either I had money to go eat well, drink, party etc, or I went to harbor to sell some boat rides, I had precisely ZERO concerns, a nice sun-tan and really was having a good time. Unfortunately my previous beliefs that £3,000 was enough to set a man up for a life of leisure soon came to be deemed false, by the end of the summer my £3,000 war chest was at zero, my £1,000 credit card limit was at -£1,000, my £500 overdraft was at - I can't remember the figure but I remember it started with a -£5... - and i had on my possession roughly 15 euros, a bit of a jam you might call it...

First option was to call round the boys back home and see if anyone was in a bail-out position, I rang Jamie and he started off by asking if he himself could borrow £100 so there was a non-starter, I tried Ash but claimed he was busy trying to get £25 together for the Sunday deepstack and no-one else I know could ever up with the £250 I needed. I was pretty close to asking my mum and dad to help, they almost certainly would, my family not rich in any stretch but £250 to bail there only son out would be a certainty... Kinda got this feeling of pride though, don't really wanna be the guy phoning for help, so I went to harbor and asked the guys if there was ANY work for me, remembering now its like a ghost town in Paphos, I explained I needed £250 to get my plane ticket home and I'll do ANYTHING...

Elias got a few guys together and they agreed if I would clean the boats in the harbor PROPERLY between now and 3 days then they will together pay for my flight, I snap accept.

The next three days are the most horrible in my whole life, swimming around in the murky oily waters of the harbor polishing the bottom of the boats, scrubbing the insides, wiping fish guts out of the sides - as the saying goes, LESSONS NOT LEARNT IN BLOOD ARE SELDOM REMEMBERED...take a lil more care with your cash young David...

Needless to say that lesson needed re-learning a few more times over the next 7 years :D

When I got home the first thing I did was go to the Manhatten Snooker Club, where I grew into playing poker, and asked Ray, the owner if he would like to buy my table-tennis table for £150, he accepted, gave me the money in cash I got in my car and drove STRAIGHT to Leeds Alea casino and jumped straight into a £1/£2 cash game with the whole lot...

How do you think it went?

Love the honesty in this blog keep going Dave

More detail IYP Uncle Dave. you don't have to be specific, just tell us exactly what happened.

Hi lil Dave I have been following ur blog for a while and am interested to continue reading about ur experiences about poker. Am a  greek cypriot and currently recite in uk so in a way we change countries!!  Excuse me if my English are not so great but a allow me to say that for such a smart guy like yourself you are a bit unfamiliar with European history. Turkey have invaded and  separated Cyprus in 1974 with the blessing of the UK and USA because as a warrant country with Greece and uk had the power to do so as an excuse to protect the turkishcypriots from the coup that was on going in the country at the time. Therefore greekcypriots have a good reason to be hotblooded as u called it don't u believe so!! The north occupied section of the island has been transformed to an illegal state that houses criminals and crooks as well as big time gamblers at the expense of families that been kicked from their houses and torn apart from Turkey thanks.

Ok Ok :)

I involved a new person in my businesses, against strong advice from everyone and even did a sales job convincing a long term partner to trust in this guy. Turned out he blew the whole thing up and the damage took a fair bit of rectifying, caused a bit of a strain on a long term business relationship too, it's all well and goo now though.

Like we say, mistakes happen just need to make good on them, move on and need to be better.

Hi mate, you're abso right I don't do too much on history but always keen to learn.

However I think you kinda mis-read my post


I wasn't taking any sort of sides on the subject here, as I don't know enough about it to start writing on the internet about it. From my limited experience out here I would say fairly categorically that the ill-feeling the greek-side has to the north is entirely justified - I've played in casinos where greeks refuse to play on tables with turks etc. I have spoken with greek-cypriot guys who own land in the north and essentially just had a turkish guy move in and take it whilst he was shipped off to the south entirely un-compensated. I really do not understand fully the politics of the reasons of the occupation so I don't know how to comment further. I find it an interesting topic though.

Do you know why the UK decided to back a turkish occupation here?

I'm fairly sure they backed it so they could have a good position to spy on the Middle East. Or something like that. Worked with Greek guys who were very passionate about it. I ate in a few kebab shops too that were owned by Greeks.

Anyway, hi dave. A diary isn't a diary without some mention of nandos. What is your preferred order at nandos?

On a scale of 10-10, with 10 being the greatest, and 10 being the greatest, how great is middy?

Looking forward to the diary x

Cyprus was under UK ruling till 1955, then fights broke out between locals and UK colony to support the union off the island and Greece mainland. Cyprus became independent in 1960 with new constitution and with mix government  with a Cypriot president and Turkish vice, something that did not work according to plan. Greece England and Turkey were guaranty countries and were responsible for the safety of the peopl of the island. When in 1974 we had a coup to overturn the government turkey as one of the above countries found the excuse to send troops with the UK USA and NATO blessing and now occupy about 40% off the island. Now as to why UK back the above action, I believe that was the UK policy off divide and rule that prevailed !! Now the UK has two military bases on the island that serve there purpose off controlling Middle East . Anyway did not want these to turn into a political debate but sometimes is good to know some facts. Looking forward to your posts😉😉😉

Hi Dave,

as a fellow Dave I'd be interested to hear how you feel about Bergeroo's Dave classification.

Also, have you noticed how there's almost always one ther Dave on every table you play on?

Don't leave the gambling and debauchery stories to answer these btw.

New diary = Tal Quick-fire Questions

1. Go to your generic mp3 player. Press shuffle five times. What comes up? (Be honest, please. Only cheating yourself)



2. You can make one change the standard deck of cards (be this appearance, adding a suit, adding a card value, getting rid of a card, changing the shape, etc). What is it?



3. Jacket potato filling of choice?



4. I have 10 grand to blow in vegas and leave tomorrow. What does LDT (Lil Dave Tours) suggest?



5. Shakespeare, Jonson or Marlowe?

The bit about the UK backing the invasion just isn't correct.  The UN and the UK opposed the occupation and still do.  There are UN resolutions from the time that were passed unanimously.  Northern Cyprus is not recognised by and other Country other than Turkey AFAIK. 

and lol at the UK controlling the Middle East.  Not sure anybody is controlling big chunks of the Middle East, let alone us.

I thought it was for the purpose of easily spying on the Middle East, rather than controlling.

Turkey, from their perspective, invaded to protect the Turkish Cypriots after a long period of tension and in the relatively immediate aftermath of a Greek Military coup.

It wasn't much to do with support or backing from the US or the UK who happily trade arms and other things with both Greece & Turkey. We, somewhat standardly, in the post war period helped with resolutions denouncing the invasion but didn't actually involve ourselves militarily in ejecting the Turkish forces.

Cyprus is certainly a strategic base for us but it never really mattered whether Turks or Greeks were in the ascendency as long as we had bases there and things were relatively stable

Promising diary from a young writer

Zzzzzzz

Back to punting

Subbed, one of my fave bloggers x

Good to see you back and blogging David.

You have a lovely easy-to-read style of writing and lead such an interesting life.

Tell this story?

Blog already feels like you're a grandad telling stories of the good old days, thoroughly enjoying the amount of popcorn this diary will cause me to consume  ;popcorn;

Excellent start, Mr N.

I've just remembered I owe you a PM reply. Will attend to it sharpish.

Ha, sure, it doesn't end so well but It's a fun tale...

PLEASE NOTE,I've just got in from a very long, very stressful poker session so the typing might be a bit all over the place, but I can't sleep so here goes!!

Towards the end of the summer 2013 and I've been playing in Bellagio mostly at $50/$100 and $25/50, after going behind nearly $80k I have managed to pull somewhere near level for the trip as I'm pretty close to going home. This day starts at 11am I stroll down to the card room in the B to see a $100/$200 game which has been running all night and everyone looks exhausted, and a $25/$50 game, which looks pretty tough. I get on the list for 1/2 and play some 25/50 in the meanwhile...

I only play about 45 minutes in the 25/50 and hit the deck like a train, manage to win about 18k, then a seat comes up in the 1/2 and I take it, my seat is fairly awful as I have Haralabous Voulgaris and JC Tran to my direct 2 left seats the rest of table is made up of pretty meh guys who have all been awake for about 24 hours straight so I decide it's worth while to play and gamble it up a bit try leave LV with some money :)

THE very first hand I get AAxx (good aces i remember) and get in 3 ways for 20k each vs some other awful AA and some really terrible hand, KJJ8 or something, the other aces manage to ship it all, so im pretty much level for the day, but kinda tilted. I go on to loose another 30k in this game and when it breaks at 5pm I'm stuck about 33k.

**I was playing a props game with JC and Haralabous, you got $500 for a rainbow hand, $1,000 for trips and $5,000 for quads, if you win one you get double stakes next hand, I was actually crushing the props (which I play 100% on my own money, having sold 40%of myself in the poker games) the rules are though that you have to be dealt in the hand to be involved. Then JC goes to take a phonecall so is me and Haralabous, he gets trips, then a rainbow so I lose $2,000 to him, he breaks off to go somewhere and its just me, first hand I get dealt trips myself - but with neither at the table I miss out on $1,000 each, very next hand I get dealt 7777 miss out on $10,000 from each of them, so $22,000 I would have won any other moment in the game ($11k at the very least) not overly relevant to the day but a apt story for the way it was going to pan out.**

Next thing I did after the $50k downswing was to go for dinner with Kev and Richie Allen, I remember VERY clearly eating steak but can't for the life of me remember where it was... Morale was easily restored after 90 mins with the Allen boys and I headed back to the card room to try and get my monies back. I was expecting, at 7.30pm to have a real lengthy wait to get back into a game but as luck (or so I thought) would have it they had just opened a new table and there was 3 seats - John Depa, a friend of mine was on the table (he's outstanding poker player) and one other good regular but the rest of the table was ok so it appeared a really great spot for me, THEN who takes the last seat two to my right but Sammy Farha!

I've played a fair bit with Sammy now and whereas he is amazing for a poker game, he brings with him a very dangerous aura, there is one thing you have to do with Sammy, and that is call him...quite often...for quite a bit of money...

The $200 straddle comes on and the game goes decently mental and I am right in the thick of nearly every pot for  6 hours, Farha himself even told me I was "so very dangerous..." (I wasn't so dangerous as I was just "getting stuck in" with a favorable run of cards) I must have played in this 6 hours 10+ pots $40k+, including one pot I'll never forget losing getting $28k in preflop with AAJ9ds vs KK63r (might have been single suited, I forget, but for the purposes of my story we'll say it was rainbow!), and despite flopping very well (I can't remember exact texture) he manged to runner a straight with 63 (452) . Remember at this point I have not seen his hand, so when he announces "straight" on the end, I'm pretty stunned to see which straight he actually has...I thought AA3 was the only possible straight I be facing... He told me after the hand he "put me on Queens" was just one of these hilarious days :)

I also, in this session played the biggest pot I've ever actually won, (I think I've played maybe 8 or 9 bigger that I've lost boo-hoo poor me :(  ;reallyamsorry; ) where I called Sammy down with 2 pair on a pretty iffy board for ~$30k on the river. When all was said and done I was winning on the day nearly $80k (a $120k win at this table nearly) and obviously feeling fucking ecstatic given that the trip is nearly over and I've turned a 80k deficit into and 80k profit. Sammy gets the hump with the dealer at Bellagio (you will never see a worse man to dealers in your life than SF) and decides he is moving to Aria to play, losing a lot of money in the game himself he tells whoever he fancies playing with to meet him in Aria in 30 mins to reconvene...part of me pretty tempted now to just quit and go home,but then 20 minutes later I get a call from John saying the Jerimiah is going to play the game also, and that he and sammy are currently loosing about 1/2 mil at baccarat between them...

For those of you who don't know Jerimiah, he runs some of the California home games which is effectively like owning a money press, you hear people say things like "yeah he doesn't give a fuck about the money" usually it's BS, everyone, even hugely wealthy people care about money irrespective of it's relevance to their overall net worth...Jerimiah however is the exception, he does not give a donkeys he's just a hyped up addict, I've seen him call $17k preflop at 25/50 with J663...The prospect of a game with both him and Sammy tilted up is too much to refuse, so off to Aria I go...

What actually happened at Aria is still a bit of a blur, I played another 9 hours in this game - I've now been playing poker (minus my dinner break) for 25 hours, at one point I had nearly a 1/4 of a million dollars in front of me. It's an insane feeling playing such high stakes (the game was 7 handed, $100/$100/$100/$200/$400 and frequent $800, standard opening raise over the $400 was to $1,500) it doesn't matter how tired you are you are so focused and so aware, the Adrenalin of a game like this and the buzz you get off every pot is a feeling words just can't describe, I'd have played another 30 hours if I could have done...

Unfortunately this wasn't an option I got, things took a drastic turn for the worst, I lost the biggest pot I've ever played ($145k) and on my last hand, as I was all-in for $20k  (which felt like pocket change at this point), I had the NFD and second pair vs Sammy top 2 and he says to me "Let's play like gentleman nits, take $5,000 back each" I accepted, got beat in the hand and walked out of the Aria at midday with the blistering sun stuck for the day $189,000... (was 189 because as I got to my hotel door I realised I had a $1k chip Id forgotten to put in play lol)

Strangely enough...I think that night is the best nights sleep Ive ever had in Vegas, I felt completely at peace with it all - was utterly surreal, I even chatted on FB to Stu before I slept and when he asked me how the game went I simply replied "bad session, what can you do!" I think back to that game and it's despite the crushing disappointment I'm actually pretty proud of how I played, the money didn't intimidate me in the slightest and I really went for it, I played the kinda of session where I could easy have won $500k, if the cards had of fallen.

That is currently the last hand of poker I've played in LV.

Great read, thanks for sharing and I'm glad you have decided to start a diary .
Subscribed

some details might be wrong, my head kinda spins thinking about that day.

Just to explain my mindset a little heading into that summer...

I was coming into the summer on a really big upswing, one of those glorious periods where everything you touch turns to gold. I sold 40% of myself to a regular partner in such games and went with the intention to really have a go. I lost more that summer than I wanted too, but it was a pre-meditated attack, not a blatent head-loss, although 60% of myself at 25/50 and 50/100 was still a decent sized shot for my bankroll at the time, and goes without saying 40% of myself in that Aria game was a monster monster shot. (I upped the % in that game IIRC)

It was (so I thought) a pretty good time in my life to take such a risk, which is prolly why i took the heavy loss so well.

"What's the point in living if you can't feel alive" :) :) :)

Brilliant thread already

Why SuuPRlim?

--> Actually my screen-name on here comes from my time in Cyprus, I worked on the Harbour alongside a guy called Elias who was a fisherman - real nice guy, and he used the term Suplrim (soo-pa-lim) which is an expression from his Village which means literally "Supreme Wealth" but not in money terms, I am supremely weathly because I have my family and people who love me. Not exactly sure why I chose to spell it with 2 "U's."

.

Oh dear, somebody hasn't read every post..........  ;hide;

Cracking start to the diary, got the potential to be the best ever, maybe not the longest but quite possibly the best.

Dave, do you still consider yourself a full time poker player or have you become more of a business man? (read that you had a restaurant somewhere I think). Do you/ will you ever play at the sort of levels you were playing before?

Bugger! Did I miss it somewhere?

couple of post up Tom, IKNOWIT re quoted the section.

Sigh.

I'm old.

Have to say I got pretty excited reading about that day of poker in Vegas even though I think I remembered how it ended!

Can you share some fun/memorable experiences of playing with the legend that is Laurence Gosney?

Ha, yes it was an exciting day, its funny how I remember the feelings of that day like it was 15 minutes ago, but cant remember details to save my life... Kinda like one of those out of body experiences where you live and breathe entirely on instincts!

Yes, yes oh yes I can share Lawrence Gosney stories and will be very glad to do so...However I've still not been to bed, and if im posting Lawrence stories then I simply must do them justice. I've known him since I first started playing poker in Leeds and he remains one of my favorite people till this day, a complete hero of mine.

So just hold that thought!!

can you ask a greek/turkish person about the name because I can't fathom the meaning you give from the word and sounds that you gave it!?

Hi Vinny!

I go for Chicken thighs MED, peri chips (mash and rice if im being healthy) and ofc obligatory humous to start.

Used to be a butterfly man but switched up on Pabs recommendation, a very wise man that Pab.

Seriously there isn't a scale out there for Middy, I know he's my one of my bestest friends so I approach the subject with a lot of bias, but he's 1000x the scales. Getting increasingly rare in gambling nowadays for people who genuinely do right by people but Middy walks through life always remembers the people who helped him out and despite all his success he remains totally humble.

Also, as a poker player he's one of the best out there, online tournaments in particular, I watched him win the Scoop $2k and honestly from 30 out no-one else could have won it, and absolute clinic and he thrives the higher the stakes/more pressure too. Sounds so bizarre to say but I actually think he is somewhat universally under-rated.

Hmmm, I actually don't know, I only really listen to music when i play online and I tend to govern my music selection based around what mood i need to generate for the current state of my session...

I had by biggest ever online win listening to Britney Spears, the "my perogative" greatest hits mix, so I call on her from time to time in desperate spots, although she has actually failed me pretty hard some recently. I also like Iron Maidon when i winning, house music when im losing and I like stuff like Bryan Adams/Meatloaf when i try to get stuff going.

Sounds donk, but I am pretty donk.

Jacket potato filling, I get jacket potatoes from the shop near me and I always go for the same one, called "Firecracker Chicken" its chicken,onions, peppers, cheese, and a "jalapeno" mayo. Very nice.

$10k to blow in vegas and you want LDT advice?? Get another 10 or try another tour guide :D
*Joking* (ish!) I would advise you go for an awesome meal, get a Wynn Tower suite and then play craps with the rest of it... Not sure what you'd do with the rest of the day though!

I would also advise you stay as far away from a nightclub as possible!

Interesting Q. Many believe that it was Christpher Marlowe who was responsible for a large amount of shakespeare works, as iv absolutely no doubt you already knew, had he lived long enough alongside WS there is every chance his works could have eclipsed the latter imo, or perhaps not, whoever wrote the WS work it's undoubtedly pure genius, although I firmly believe Shakespeare is not to be read, it is to be watched. How you expect a teenager to engage with written shakespeare is beyond me, if you've ever heard of a theatre company called "odd-socks" they are simply wonderful and it is that way that people should be introduced to his works. The hear the way the language is used really is a joy.

I think Johnson's contribution to English language as a whole probably exceeds both CM and WS, but in a far less exciting way.

I'll say Shakespeare, and give him the benefit of the doubt for not stealing CM work and killing him in a bar fight.

As for the deck of cards, I need to think on that!!!

Have i missed the Dave classification?!

Dave is a very common name,my name in fact David Nicholson is very common, I am a member of a FB group with over 200 members (although some are not called David Nicholson, and remain members despite my strongly worded protests to the administrator)

Myself and another Dave, (Dave Gent/Geeforce - one of the worlds finest Dave's) were saying only recently that nameDavehas been ruined for the next generation/2 by the channel "Dave"

I introduce myself ALWAYS as David mind you.

$10k to blow in vegas and you want LDT advice?? Get another 10 or try another tour guide :D


Best answer ever

I remember a few yrs back we talked on this and you said you had never heard of the word and disputed it's legitimacy :D

You are obviously far, far better placed than me to comment so I really cant go against your word on it! I'm sure this is the way Elias the fisherman said it to me...perhaps I get it wrong, or maybe I just made it up in a drunken haze!

Its a very interesting question, let me think on it, the answer would have been different at several points in the last 12 months. This kind of leads into the changes that have come about in me as a person over the last 1-2 years, when you take a less than linear path through life you're process of development is different, it's no faster or slower than anyone elses, just different. You develop very fast in certain area's and remain under-developed in other parts of your personality.

Gonna sleep on it, if i can ever get to bloody sleep that is!!

I make up my own poker terms for when I talk about hands and categorise players.

- A 'Dave' is what I call a player who is probably between 35-55, they are regulars in the UK live tours, especially GUKPT and the old Gala tour, now Genting. They might well have a piece of branded merchandise, like a card protector or a cap. They are generally friendly. Some 'Daves' are pretty good and play a winning TAG game, make good reads and decisions and can go deep in these tournaments and win them.

The word I would most use to characterise a 'Dave' is solid. They don't three bet light very often, you are going to see flops and play through the streets more. Many of them play too loose passive early on and too tight passive late on. They often underplay AK and miss a street of value with their made hands. Some of them cold call three bets too much, capping their range when they do so. Some of them will make light call downs when they think you are 'at it'. I have not worked out the formula for determining if someone is 'at it'.

Obviously you are part of the new breed of young Dave who don't play like old Daves.

My name is Phill - although with two l's instead of one as most people spell it and there seemed to be several Phils who were at the top of the game for a while. A book was even published about killing us. But Dave is a far more common name. In fact I reckon if you go to any cardroom in the UK with 50+ people in it in the UK, someone will be called Dave or David.

Bergeroo is obviously confusing a Dave with what the rest of us call a 'Wigglesworth'

Biggest ever sports bet which won and lost.  Don't have to disclose figures but the events you bet on.

pretty sure i remember reading about a big win on ronnie the rocket.

I remember reading about your epic Omaha hands when you first posted them on your blog, good to see you are back writing again. Always rated your blog highly.

Can't wait for this, played with him a good few times in my younger days & he always amazed me.  He was always talking, seemed to be barely paying attention & must have called my exact hand on no less than 5 occasions.

I seem to recall you referencing having played against Latif the Teesside legend who has been known to play blind, especially when he has a big starting hand.

Any tales to tell? Did you ever play when he was dealing?

Anyone got a link to the original Farha piece?
Outstanding blog so far Dave, thanks for sharing.

I assume the last part is a reference to Ben Jonson's famous trouble with the law and bravo for slipping that in!

As to Marlowe writing Shakespeare's plays, it's a fun conspiracy theory but you'll believe the moon landing was filmed in Hollywood and Elvis is alive and well next. The styles are substantially different and where Marlowe uses classical references in precise ways to add to the grandeur of his plays, Shakespeare's are much more sporadic, even clumsier. Certainly less subtle and refined. It's what you would expect of someone with a grammar school education,  rather than someone who had been brought up on a diet of Cicero, Homer and Virgil.

Marlowe must have been livid that his own plays, with their meticulous  brilliance and Greek style were celebrated but the plays he pretended were written by a less schooled son of a gent were lauded. He told no one, kept it going, received no recorded dowry from his stooge and even managed to write plays relating to Shakespeare's life (like his turn to tragedies after the death of his son), while his own masterpieces got only some of the same recognition. It would be like Graham Coxon from Blur turning out to be the guy Slash mimes to.

Shakespeare was the ultimate all-rounder. Jonson was the most gifted satirist and comic, perhaps ever to grace the English tongue (I agree on his influence in comedy for sure). Marlowe the master of classical, graceful, form and function.

As for performance, I absolutely agree. There's nothing worse than not understanding a word of what's going on, though. I took two people to AMND once and they stayed in the bar in the second half, as they had no idea what all these people were on about. Something to do with fairies and everyone falling in love. To be honest, it's one of my least favourite Shakespeare plays, too! Give me King Lear anytime.

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.

http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/flies-wanton-boys-we-gods

Chortle :-)

Can someone remove Tal from the thread please.

If it wasn't for me, this thread would be just a series of stories of good times he had. Basically just a giant aftertiming thread. Have to add some balance with a spot of culture, given he opened the door with his Lord Lucian Grassy Knoll Shergar Titanic drivel ;)

I aspired to be lil Dave when I was a bit younger the more he talks about Shakespeare the more I regret my aspirations!

Very very true. Then all of a sudden you look back to what seems like something two years ago, find out it was ten, and can't believe you thought so differently about things.

In for the read  Ahrt

I have played with you once before although not sure if you would remember it, DTD you was opening up table and it must of been a sky weekend and i was like dont play with lil dave because i know he plays high stakes omaha. so with half an hour before my tourney was open so i decided to donate, didnt play too bad but was quite drunk and ended up missing a few levels of the tourney(only small).  Was great fun sharing a table and a i remember Cambridge Al come sit down too, you got me to fold 2 pair when you had one pair :(

How often do you come back?

Superb intrusion into the degenerate tone of the place Tal.

Nice, ok - the only place to start here is with my greatest ever sportsbetting moment, as bagel has correctly identified it was on Ronnie O'Sullivan to win the '13 snooker WC. I'll tell (breifly) how it came about...

Ronnie was about ~11.5 or something on BF which Id noticed and  thought was long, I'd asked some shrewd people I know and they said the price was based on the fact that Ronnie (not played a competitive game of snooker since the previous WC) was strongly fancied not to play, fair enough.

Next thing I run into a friend who is a very good pals with John Virgo and had just been to the races with him, he said he'd asked JV about Ronnie and his reply was Ronnie was back practicing, playing amazing (he himself had just played a practice session with him) and straight from the horses mouth, he was going to play the WC. I like a punt on the snooker as it is, so this was all i needed to get the balls well and truly in.

I kicked off by taking the betfair price down from 11.5 to 8 then I decided fuck it after a lil bf win and took it down to 6 this is all in jan/feb where still not much money i the market. Then i had a look online and noticed hes 5's everywhere and 13/2 on paddys, so I maxed 3 account on PP (never very much) then still not quite happy I went to 3 paddy power shops and got money on there, then went for my final betfair assault and took everything above 5. After all this I had about £4500~ on and after laying a bit off on BF before and during the Trump semi (I know, I know grow some balls) I ended up winning about £30k. Better still I actually went with trigg (who also weighed in on Ronnie) to watch the last two sessions (a long term ambition of mine) so really the day couldn't have been much better!!!

The worst sports bet ever was the 2013 Open Golf, I got persuaded by my friend who needed some quick business and couldnt get on BF to lay a big chunk on mickleson and he came from no-where to ship it and cost me nrly £16k.

Another cool sports betting story where I ended up making a huge bet kind of by accident was on the WC of darts in ('12 or '13 I cant remember, '12 i think) It was ENG vs (I'm pretty sure it was these guys) BELGIUM/the huybrechts, I was playing a private game and the darts was on and I decided for a bit of interest I was going to back Phil Taylor in every game, and lay adrian lewis in every game (this was when he just didn't give a fuck and could barely hit the board) I forget what i did in the doubles match but that doesn't matter. My strategy was working perfect,I was betting £500 a match which was the top end of my recreational gambling limit back then, I've won on every game and im playing a private game at the time and crushing in that too so for the last match i decide to press on home and bet £1,000 laying Adrian Lewis at somewhere around even money, then the price comes in to ~1.9 so i think lets go another monkey...

Next thing I see is the price comes in to 1.8, so I go in for another £250, now it comes into 1.75 so im thinking jeses these BF guys know something I don't, maybe Ronnie broke his arm or something...I watched the TV for a few mins and nothing mentioned about anything drastic so I went in for another £500. Im happy to leave it at that then I notice the price comes in again, hugely to something like 1.6~ I turn to Julian Gardner who I would follow into a fire with any gambling advice and said Jules whats happening here why does the price keep coming in!? Which side you take at these prices? He said "well it's gotta be a lay, must be all the smashed punters getting patriotic on AL"

After this I just decided, ok fuck it lets go and got my whole BF balance (just over £9k) in play laying Adrian Lewis! He lost comfortably and I won :D

In the market for a nice Ford Focus, you got anything for me?

Yeah I played a bit with Latif, he tried VERY hard to hustle me the slippery old fox but I got him :)

I came into Gala leeds one night hammmmmmmered and played in the PLO game, I was all over the place doing all sorts of silly things and then the next day I get a call from Latif (I have no idea giving him my number lol) apparently last night we'd arranged to play heads up?! It's not really my style to go round offering people HU games so I rang Gosney who was in the game and asked him how on earth I've ended up arranging a heads up match with Latif!!

He said that basically Latif asked me several times if I "play in the day" because obviously he "gets tired at nights" and if I do "play in the day" we could play vs each other... I obviously accept because 1) I'm free in the day and 2) I'm hammered. I get over the next 4 days at least 10 phonecalls from Latif trying to set it up, finally we go down, 3pm on some weekday and I have to sit in the restaurant and wait for 90 minutes whilst he finishes his Kalooki match.

We start to play, £2/£5 heads up Omaha with £2500 stacks, within 3 hands he starts to complain about the rake - £1 p  hand and that we should just grab a deck of cards and play ourselves on a table over there... NO THANK YOU LATIF :) So I say nps I'll pay all the rake, every hand I throw the dealer £1 win or lose, ok off we go...3 hands later more complaints about the rake, it's just "the principle" not the money and he doesn't want to give the caasino money. About 30 mins later I'm up about £200 and he wants to change the game...over the course of the next 45mins we play super-stud, 5 card stud (I have played 1ce before in my life), padooki, and finally NLHE. Iv gotten so tilted at the whole thing I've taken to just making it £50 pre-flop blind every hand at NLHE and on our last hand Latif folds QJs to my blind open and claims he doesn't want to win money off me because he likes me and stops playing :)

As it happens, I actually really like Latif, he's noisy as fuck and a slippery devil but relatively good company and I do genuinely really quite like it when he's on my table now, characters like him don't seem to come about i gambling any more and I for one feel kind of sad about that ...

ha yes ofc I remember (young_gun eh?) that was fun, and you didn't play badly at all, you probably shouldn't have folded that 2p (even though it wasn't a bad fold) but I remember it was your last hand and the whole experience had been relatively tame so far so I figured i'd just try and cause a lil pain before you left :D we're allowed to have a little fun at the end of the day right !

I really enjoy games like that where the main principle of the game is for every to have fun.

I will be coming back to the UK pretty soon, my villa here runs out on the 14th August and things are slowing down for me over here, actually really looking forward to being back in leeds, being in a real country again!!

Hopefully I'll see you in DTD sometime, assume there is some sort of nice tournament happening soon?!

I heard on the grapevine there is a 6-Max festival at DTD from 19th to 23rd August.

At the last one, Mr J Duthie sat in the PLO cash games. That man has quite an opening range.

OK - by popular demand...

Lawrence Gosney

You can throw bricks at densely populated area's of the UK for hours and hours before you hit a more interesting character than LG, proper old school gambling breed with the kind of dry wit you can slice melons with and a word class sense of humour...

One night me and a friend are playing BJ at gala, just having a lil £100 each spin up or something when Los comes along, absolutely smashed and sits on the end box, we play for a short while here and there and he is obviously thoroughly entertaining before this hand pops along...

everyone on the table (4 of us I think, most playing £2-£10, me and Olly have £200 on and Los has £200) I remember having 20 and los also had 20 (Q-Q) the dealer has a 7. The dealer skips past everyone, stand stand stand stand bang rolls a picture card off Dealer 17 everyone wins and he starts paying out...

"Hold on one second" says lawrence..."Did you ask me if I wanted to split my QQ?"

"No..but...I thought..." the dealer said

"Did YOU, ask ME if I wanted to split my QQ?"

Over comes the pitboss, "I never got asked if I want to split my QQ"says Lawrence, "DO you want to split Mr. Gosney?"

"Well ofc I do...(now we know the next card is a picture)"

"Ok, you can split"

"Dave, give me £200"

he gets 20 as we knew, and then 17 and true to form the dealer runs off to 21 and scoops the whole table.

Los then stands up, downs the last of his wine, turns to the whole table and says "Let that be a lesson to you" and leaves

:D :D :D :D :D  rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao

Saw him the very next day at Naps and he says "David...I owe you £200, correct?" Yes Lawrence you do..."Ok, (gets £200 together in chips) why do I owe you £200?"

So I say to him, he nods his head and says "sounds about right" and hands me the money...

Oooh, just as I get back. Nice.

made me chuckle on a Friday morning.

The post-paphos spin up!

So,home from paphos with literally every available line of credit at the max, my parents still under the impression that my poker winnings were more or less in tact, hence why there was no rush to "get a job" I really needed to generate some cash from somewhere, with a sheepish return to the sports shop looming behind me...

Word had reached me the manhatten club, the snooker club we all started playing poker, was in the market for a table tennis table...I owned a table tennis table, bought during secondary school with my illicit "tuck-shop" profits, and quickly reached a deal of £150 with Ray. You might be forgiven for thinking that given i had zero money in reserve and hadn't even delivered the table yet, going to the casino and gambling with all of it was un-wise, but as the old saying goes... "HE WHO DARES" :)

Not wanting to be completely foolish I put £10 petrol in my car and then sat £1/£2 with the whole £140...I can''t remember anything about this game at all, except that Marcin was in the game. I finished that night with £620, took the loose £20 to roulette which promptly turned into £200, so the roll now stands at £800.

Next day i went into town to the William Hill and put £100 onto the online site - remember at this point my bank account is off-limits as im over my overdraft - this quickly become £500 and after treating myself to fish and chips I headed back to Alea, where I kicked the night off y playing blackjack, and winning some before playing poker and winning some more...next day I played online again, won some more, then back to the casino, where I came 2nd in the tournament, then straight into the cash game and won more still.

Wasn't even done that night either, Kieth the taxi driver (everyone round leeds will know who i mean) wanted to go to gala and play shoot the pot, which ofc I did...again I don't remember anything about any sessions this weekend...except that for virtually the whole weekend, Marcin was there, lol.

Pretty sure between Friday and Monday i'd managed to spin up to somewhere around £2000, I paid into my bank £600 ish to get me use of my bank back and stop getting charged on my overdraft (we will leave the credit card for now) now, with £1500 I decided it was time to move up to "the big boys game" a legendary game in Leeds known as "Faz's game" all the big hitters were in Faz's game, and in the £1/£2 and 50p/£1 games I was playing whispers about who was winning or losing in the big game were always rife... But now I have £1,500 I thought, it's time for me to be a big hitter :)

The first time i walked in I was greeted by Faz, a cheery(very short) Iranian guy dressed immaculately with a bow tie and offered a seat immeadiately, I looked around and saw Lawrence Gosney, who I'd had a few previous meetings with (more LG stories to come I promise) Matt Haycox (later to become one of my best friends) Tony "Music" Milan who plenty of you will know, "fat" Paul - a really lovely older fellow who unfortunately died a few years later, and a collection of others, including "Moose" who anyone from leeds will have encountered (basically he looked a little like a moose, lol)

Again I don't remember any hands from this game, except calling a big buff from Moose and winning, and being heartily congratulated by Tony afterwards. I won around £1000 I think, and played Faz's every night it run for the next 3 weeks, and at the end of this lil period I had paid off the credit card and had almost exactly £11,000 in the kitty - GO ME :)

One quick hand I do remember from the spin-up... (I blogged this one before 100%)
£5/£5 at Faz's and the roll is ~£3500 and im in for the whole lot (it's not going well) then with some amount in front over £1k (really cant remember exactly,but significant at the time,think maybe over £1500...) I play a pot with Gosney with Q9 vs JT on Q98, and turn a Q, to end up winning decent money that session.
The world just didn't wanna see my go broke!!

You prolly think that follow up from this story is that I spin the £11k into £400k in some elaborate way...well, actually no...and what happened next will likely surprise EVERYONE reading...

Well, no lol the VERY first thing I did was spend £1,000 on a watch (which I still have a LOVE to this day) but the next thing after that...

Any guesses?

I do still consider myself a proffesional gambler to a certain degree yes, over here in Cyprus I've felt more "pro" than I have in a long time, and actually I've found my passion for gambling kind of restored out here. Because it had been going badly, and I was always distracted by this and/or that outside of poker I'd really kind of lost all enthusiasm for it... I went Moorman's stag do and Stu, his non-poker friend said "Am I the only one here who isn't a professional poker player?" and I said "I'm not!" and actually kind of meant it too.

I really want to branch out further though and the businesses I am involved in help me there but don't really generate money enough for me to leave pro gambling, not that I really want to, I just don't want to get into my thirties and still be sweating the turn of a card as to whether I can take my family on holiday. Getting into a pretty serious relationship for the first time swayed my perspective a bit too, my primal instincts are to protect and provide and I don't ever want to have to say "cant provide today, it was a club on the river...we really didn't want it to be a club" so I am looking hard to expand my interests. I had a huge financial commitment to my Mum and Dads house which has JUST now been resolved so now I no longer have that burden I can start to think about this side of things more... Who knows where I go?!

Will I play the same levels as before...it's unlikely i'll ever play such high stakes as I did, I played out here $100/$200 PLO which is as big as I've played in a long time, and with a smaller % of myself too, my appetite for risks along with my ego has subsided quite considerably over the past 2 years, and the climate of games now is different too. Before it was quite ok to shoot it at $25/$50 and $50/$100 online as the games lower were very beatable and always action, you could think "I shoot with $X and once I lose it, go back to lower" and  then you would recover the money you lost in OK time and then in a few months later maybe have another pop, the upside to it going well was huge, as you would then have the BR to shoot at soft nosebleed games, and if that goes well then its GAME OVER :)

Now though, losing $30k at high stakes is close to a disaster, if it's a shot, you could spend months and months trying to get that back at mid stakes and if you DS then you might have to drop even lower and with the rake and standard of the games going up this is a monumental mistake, this is turn makes mid/hig stakes 5.10 for e.g so tough, as guys who are plenty good enough to be going for it at 25/50 just don't bother, because the risk is too big, and with the fact the guys at nosebleeds now are so fucking good (and you're gtd 4-5 of the best at every table that runs thanks to seating scripts) the upside of getting a shot at the big time isn'teven really there unless you genuinely have the BR/risk compulsion to gamble big.

So my days of high stakes on the internet are long gone, 5/10 max i guess. Live, who knows, I can always be tempted back :)...

Would you ever consider living abroad permanently? If so, where. If not, why not?

Thanks for the response, suprised you would remember that??it has probably happened on several occasions, Either that or nice bluff ;) Although i am quite memorable and look a bit older than people would think as Young_Gun (27 years going on 40 look wise defo not act)

 

I prob would have called if i wasn't going back to the tourney, i remember popping back from the break and losing about a 1er overall so wasn’t too painful. Defo was a fun atmosphere and i was very drunk most weekend(standard) so its a bit vague but you come across good fun and a good lad...

 

Hopefully see you around some other time as not around for UKPC and recreational player so would have to commit to qualify! I do try to get to DTD at least a couple times a year so you never know or London/Kent area

 

Fave PLO/NLH Hands?

 

Biggest bar tab you have ever picked up?

 

I used to follow old blogs but dont really remember much so well start fresh looking forward to this GL

You seem to be a lover of the game but if someone offered you 1m a year as long as you never gamble. Do you take it?

I find myself in a somewhat weird position where I like grinding because it's fun to me, and the positive financial aspects are largely a bonus. Would you pursue a similar lifestyle if the rewards were halved? Quartered? How much does money really mean to you? I'm fairly sure it doesn't have a direct relationship to my own happiness but it seems like a cash game grinder is working a more traditional job.

If Plo was banned what would your game of choice be?

How much has the most winning poker player won? Purely through poker play or staking not including opening sites etc

Can you remember our poker billionaire conversation? Still think it's true?

The gambling world is much richer for you being dragged out of retirement.

great diary, thanks for posting.

Busto?

Dave,

Were you on the DTD bus back from the airport to DTD after the St Kitts trip ?

Thanks

That ship has sailed. It was the best cut & shut I've ever owned...

probably not no, I like it in Leeds, I have friends there I know people there, it's great value and nice and calm which is pretty much how i like things.

I'd live in the States for sure, I'd also live in Cape Town (I spent some time there as a teenager doing drama/charity work) and I guess plenty of European places (Paris, Barca etc)

TBH I'm pretty happy how I am.

I don't think living perm abroad is something you can choose. It just kinda happens!

Typically expats leave either after 1 year, 3years, or never!

I was on the St.Kitts DTD trip...I have no recollection of the transport too and from - so the answer is very very likely yes, but I just can't remember- funny how often I say that lol

What a fantastic trip that was.

ahhh no I wrote a decently long reply to this but i got called out for afternoon volleyball and deleted by mistake!

I do remember the game yes, I remember genuinely how you actually had the better of me in the pots we played - after you'dsaid you can't play with me!! The bluff at the end was a freeroll for me because you're not really owning me much more than you had already by calling and I get to show and have the last laugh if you fold :D

Fave hands, I did a blog on this with ones for different reasons so I'll try thing some new ones...

I remember a hand from bobbys room NL we were playing the 2-7 rule and I 3bet pf bet flop, bet turn and bet $16.5k OTR with the 7-2 vs a guy who hadn't folded a hand in seven hours...this hand always sticks out because he tanked for what felt like 45 minutes on the river and kept saying "he has 2-7 how can i fold" and eventually folds 3rd pair or something really weak...when i tried to turn my cards over to collect $100 each person (what a fkn moron i am!) I almost couldnt pick my cards up i was shaking so much - never been so fkn nervous in my whole life!!!

I also remember another hand from yrs back £1/£2 NL with Faz (Faz's game faz) and when Faz used to play these games the lower stakes guys would swarm to play. This one really horrible miserable guy waiting moody to get faz in a pot...the flop was 963 (something 9xx) and faz ships £900 into £30 and this guy snaps him off...runs off Q T this guy slams 99 down triumphantly before Faz flips KJo over!!! NEver saw that guy again, such justice!!

PLO it's harder as they are either huge brags or moans lol - I remember an $80k pot 3ways in Vegas once at 50/100 that got scooped by a pair of 4's, that was pretty hilarious.

Biggest bar tab I ever picked up :D one that is infinity huger than any other was on my best mate from non-poker's stag do, I flicked in a 20 hour degen stripcub session in Dusseldorf that ended up costing about £11k. I remember also me and Rutter (who was backing me at the time) chopped up a $14k XS bill once after some big wins but that was one of the best nights Ive had.

Hope to see you at this Sky thingy, and sure at some point after that it not !

Is Bobby's Room just a matter of having the relevant buy in? Or do you have to get invited?
Were you nervous first time?

Yes, was amazing to play there, I was nervous tbh yeah


No you just have to have reddies, the minimum minimum buy in for a game is $20k. There was some ballin mixed game going on next to me when I played in there, Abe mosseri, Danny Aliae, Eli Elezra amongst others. I tried to count how much money Abe Mosseri had on the table but couldn't, comfortably $5m, mostly cash. So cool!!

I played twice in there, both NL games and both quite tough, think maybe I paid the tourist prices these games...  :-D

sorry gone a little cold been up to my eyeballs in action lately :)

I'll be here tomorrow :)

Really enjoying this diary.  Can you tell Loz Gosney that Craig Wildman said hello and can you pm his phone number as I've lost it ( obviously ask him first ) and tell him he needs to get his ass over to China to see me, a few guys from Leeds come into my bar .
 Also ask him about his rail when he won his bracelet and who was most vocal lol. That was possibly the first infamous British rail at the WSOP.
Keep posting

Also need to get to sleep as I'm taking all my staff white water rafting in 3 hours.
#gettingtoooldforthisstuff

You run a bar in China,eh and like a bit of rafting?

Good start to your diary that...best pop it in a different thread to Dave's though! ;)

Haha, I've led an eventful life in many ways but I will leave the diary to the guys who know how to write them .....and tikay of cause   ;)

Hey mate <3 £1m never to gamble again, defo not - no even close, it's nothing to do with the money either, I would say from this point in my life im unlikely to make £1m at gambling so I'm sure it's +EV to accept but Ilove to gamble, even just recreationally I really enjoy gambling, betting football on saturdays, betting on the darts when it's on, the snooker etc, even just playing blackjack/craps/roulette etc I really enjoy. I do what I want cos I like doing it and there is no point in having money if you cant do the things you like doing :)


You find yourself in such a lovely position because you're doing something for a job that you really enjoy. I remember my brief spell in that sports shop and I used to wake up in the mornings and think "oh my god it's the day fucking hell I cant wait till it's over" this is noway to live your life every day, annoyed that you're awake and wishing the next ten hours away, life's too short. I've met guys before with all the money and things they ever wanted, and other guys with 5% of what those guys have and one is miserable as fuck and the other couldn't be happier, if you find away to survive and you enjoy it then you have won at life, once it's all about money and things before YOU (and what you want) then you've lost.

So in answer to your question yes I would still, just like if something I'd have wanted to do more came along I would almost certainly have done that. I more fell into pro gambling rather than deciding I wanted to do that, your path in was determined,mine was more casual lol.

In answer to the question what does money mean to me, nowadays it means an awful lot to me, when I first started out it didn't mean a great deal because actually I had no real need for any large amount of money, my basic living costs p/ month between 20-24 about £1k so as long as I had that I had no worries, I had a great network of friends in poker and if hard times came (which they did) then I could always borrow a bit or get staked and would soon be back on my feet and flying again. This meant shooting at big games, buying things or going on silly trips was all justified in my mind, I don't REALLY need the money so let's spend on having fun/trying to make fortunes. I guess on reflection I could have put some amounts away into house fund or something and set up some security for myself that way, but that wasn't really my personality and my view was always if I have cash monies then they should be in play and working for me, not tossing around in some 5% bank account or ISA. Actually though I was pretty sensible with my money in that I always looked to invest it in stuff rather than buy silly things, andI still earn today from money I made in gambling 4 years ago so a pat on the back for me !

As I gotten a little older things have changed, now I have financial commitments and have seen so many downswings and upswings that my attitude is completely different, now I don't embrace going broke anymore, as I once did, I'm actually pretty scared of it and it's certainly true that each time you go down and come up your resilience is damaged a little. The money is so much more real now too than it used to be, and I guess I'll never be the same gambler as I once was (utterly fearless) which is kinda sad but this is life.

This is why it really breaks my heart when I see guys 18/19 come onto blonde and say "ima gonna be pro" and start off with an X buyin bankroll at 5c/10c and then look straight away at being staked for 25c/50c when they have practically zero life expenses and commitments, this is the best times of you life financially you can take risk after risk after risk and it's absolutely fine because the price you get is so good, if you hit it then now you're off and running, if you miss and fall then it really doesn't matter one fkn bit... I was constantly busto at 18-19 (I was swimming round a marina cleaning boats ffs) virtually everyone I know was broke when they were 19 too - you're not supposed to have any money at 19! You gotta make the most of it and enjoy it because it's a luxury that even me at 26 is quite jealous of now, and once it goes it goes forever. So when you come into £2k or something at 19 dont "invest into a poker bankroll" ffs go on a holiday somewhere see something most 19 yr olds cant afford to do, using it to play 25c/50c instead or 10c/20c just crushes your soul.

I feel good though that i took advantage of it when I was that age.

Very fun question btw.


WHAT! NO PLO! Ha, well I guess NLHE still technically my second best game (actually been playing a fair bit of NLHE out here and blown the cobwebs off) although I suppose I would stick then to the UK mixed games, super-stud/padooki etc as i'm almost certainly comparatively better at those games to the field than I am at NLHE. I'd play more tournaments this is for sure :) luckily no-one is banning PLO!

I've played a lot of No Limit Omaha lately, as you are well aware Adam :)


hmmm. I would say $150m - $200m lifetime and also I would bet HEAVY money that this person is not in the top 500 poker players in the world in terms of ability. Actually I would bet LARGE money he isn't in the top 2,500

That's utter guess work on my part mind.

I know some very, very good pro's making like $6-$10m p/ y - it's all about where you play not how you play for the big monies! You don't have to run faster than the bear ...


Hmmm, not sure I do, we used to have a lot of conversations at 7am when I was hammered and coming in from blackjack session :D - the younger, more wreckless me ofc...


Thank-you <3

Lawrence has shared some stories about his WSOP rail lol, not too many I would be thanked for posting on here :D

Bar in china!? Awesome, where abouts and how long have you been there?

I'll side-step the white water rafting topic for now :D unless you have some pictures?

Ofc I will do that.

NOPE :)

ffs, just my luck.

Don't really do any real "diary style" updates but i'll give you a quick account of what happened last night...

I was driving to a poker game when I run into this police stop thing where they are stopping everyone and checking their documents. I wasn't worried about this at all until they ask for my DL and I remember I don't know where it is... 4 hours later after not being able to get hold of it the police man tells me he "knew the minute he saw me I did not have a DL" and I am fined quite hevily for not having a license. Now also, my friend, who's car I was driving gets the same fine, for allowing me who is unlicensed, to drive - along with a 3 month ban from driving... 2 days after he bought himself a new sports car.

Whoops/FUCK.

Eh? So you don't actually have a driving licence?

I do but was given only 2 hours at 9.30pm on a sunday night to get it to the police station...I explained I couldn't get it until the next morning but that apparently = I DONT HAVE A DL.


The guy basically said to me, "Look I know and knew from the first minute I saw you that you did not have a license, so pay fine" I explained that I did and he said ok if you can produce it tomorrow then we cut your fine.

Today I took it to the station and they agreed to reduce my fine, then after loads of arguing they decided they would not refund any money and instead confiscated my license for 3 months (only in N Cyprus, not in the UK or anywhere else) even though they did this by just taking my physical card, no paperwork or anything. This is the problem with fake countries lol - they just decide what rules are as they go along, I'm 95% sure the big police guy who caused all the fuss initially set out to do so because he doesn't like me, and then decided he was going to steal the refund money.

A little rakeback to the Occupied Republic of North Cyprus ;)

Ah ok, misread the hand. Thought you were in the UK and was going to recommend you get any lawyer that isn't Lionel Hutz.

Crazy how reliant you are on police not being corrupt in most parts of the world. Should be a given, and it absolutely isn't. I realise the UK is not immune to this either.

So happy you are blogging again.

Just reminded me of this. Still one of the best things I ever published at PokerPlayer http://www.pokerplayer365.com/news/features-news/dave-lildave-nicholson-thinks-that-poker-is-the-best-way-to-solve-this-countrys-economic-issues/

Post-Post-Paphos Spin up

So up to the last point I was fresh off the back of a nice little upswing, I'd managed to turn a +'d overdraft, maxed out credit card and a second hand table tennis table into 10,000 pounds cash and a nice new watch, life is good.

As I think about it, I only start to really appreciate how lucky I got during that month :D I don't know exactly how my life changes if I dust the 150 off as I'm supposed to on night one...actually it might change drastically as it was that spin up which got me "on the scene" as it were with the Leeds poker life, and the money came in useful later on, in fact that one month might have been the luckiest I ever have/ever will get...these things seem so small and entitled at the time don't they...

So what next? I've got momentum, confidence and better than all that, money...what do I do? Very simply, I banked the money, and got a job.

BET YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT ONE COMING!

This wasn't any old kind of job though, and had been in the pipelines for a while. When I was at school I worked in a Seafood/Fish and Chip Restaurant in harrogate, and the Owner - Graham, was one of if not THE best front of house restaurant operators I've ever seen, from the first minute I met with him I was in absolute owe of him, the way he swanned around and spoke to everyone, and everyone he spoke to felt like they were the most important customer he ever had in the building. People complained, 30 seconds with Graham and they'd be laughing, shaking hands and leaving tips.  Whatever he did, he could charm his way out it in no time at all, a really impressive guy. I left working for him in the start of 6th form but we kept in touch, and he rang me out of the blue one day to say that he's sold his restaurant and will be using the money to buy and sell takeaway's and restaurants, and he would like me to come on board as his "right-hand man" (nice way of saying run-around boy) hours would long, days off would be rare and I was to be on call 24/7 almost. Goes without saying I jumped at the offer, and couldn't wait to start.

So poker took a back burner, actually I barely played in the next year, it was this year actually though, during a rare trip to the Alea casino to play a small comp that I met, for the first time, Middy and Jones :) as far as the job goes, I absolutely loved it, if I could click my fingers and go back I'm pretty sure I would, working closely with Graham I learnt tons about life (a little less about business than I might!) but I learnt how life actually works, and what you need to do to get along in life. Money was actually good too, I was working 70 hours a week and never really had any time off but got pretty well paid for a 19-20yr old and as I got more experience I was taking on more and more responsibility and got some nice bonuses. Moved out of my parents almost straight away after getting the job at 19 and life was pretty good.

I was just turned 20 and the plan was for me to invest 8,000 (the remains of my "savings" into the next shop we were buying, a nice shop in Greengates near bradford, also we were about to open a new restaurant in whitby in which I got a tiny % in exchange for not taking a pay-rise I was due. Unfortunately the shop deal fell through at the last minute which was a huge shame, but it turned out to be a big coup for me, as by the end of the yr I ended up buying it off the people who bought it in our place for 20% less than they paid for it, with the help of a school friend of mine who loaned me half the money, and selling it for an OK profit by the springtime. After the first year the restaurant was the third best performing in Whitby behind Magpie and Trenchers (taking big big money) and this persuaded Graham decided to split his businesses up, selling the vast majority of his units, now it was only focus on a few places (mostly the restaurant) and stop the plans of expansion, this wasn't really for me, so I committed to another summer in Whitby the following year and then we part company and I look for a new path in life. I was very sad to leave Graham as working for him every day was a real joy, it was stressful and VERY tiring, but every day was just so exciting. We've remained good friends to this day and we have lunch or dinner once a month, which is real nice.

The next summer in whitby was a real disaster, in the winter time I'd been doing free-lance "consultancy" work mostly with Grahams friends and getting paid absurd money for it - 200 pounds a day - I'd flipped the shop in greegates quickly and was playing a little here and there in Faz's game and absolutely carving it up, I had by the time the next summer rolled around, about 35/36,000 in cash, i was still 20 and not yet to turn 21 until July so whilst all my friends went to Vegas I could only stay home, I didn't really mind this so much as actually I really really enjoyed working in the restaurant, was a chance to work with Graham again (me and him really are a dream team working restaurants together) and i had said I would, and I like to be a man of my word...

Unfortunately, my dark side came to the surface this summer and I started betting on the World Cup...this was my first real blow-up in life, and what a fucking blow-up it was :(

Spoken like a true poker player.

 ;applause;

I run a Sports Bar in Shenzhen , China.
 Which is 40 minutes ferry ride from Hong Kong and 1 hour from Macau.
I've been here just over 2 years now .
I was previously a card room manager in a casino in Goa , India for 4 years .
If you are ever in this neck of the woods come and visit . 1st drink on me 😄

oh yeah! that was good,man sometimes im clever :D

Hi Alun, <3

How did it happen though Craig? How did you come to be running a card room in Goa?

Really good read! I've never experienced this side of poker or gambling really but reading about it I can feel your ups and downs. I'm not sure I could handle them though!

Come back and tell us about the blow up ffs.

The Big Blow-Up

Life was, in the lead up to summer 2010 pretty bloody good, I was living in a pretty nice place with my friend from school - the same who had leant me the money for the shop, which made us both a few quid - used to go out drinking, eating lunches, enjoying myself every day, did very little work and managed to have plenty of money all the time, I really did think I had life absolutely solved at this point.

Come the summer, all my friends when to Vegas, which I was ofc pretty jealous off, having been an avid follower of the "Shrewdies on Tour" blonde thread, the protagonists of which had since become friends of mine, and an intrinsically degenerate personality a full summer in Vegas was ofc a dream of mine. I was however as I said looking forward to working in the restaurant, and we had the world cup to look forward to also so overall I wasn't too downhearted, or so I thought.

Having heard from the offset that all my friends were crushing it out in LV (this was flushy's bracelet yr if you remember) I really got an urge to win big too, I wanted to share some stories of how I had X win and Y success above and beyond "sold some great fish" or "had some really happy customers" I'd never really had this urge to compete with everyone before, naturally I'm fairly noncompetitive in general but for some reason I had developed this ego where because my life had been so great last 6 months, I really didn't want people to be saying "won $xxx,xxx and then had this sick night out cost $xx,xxx whilst lil dave was at the seaside serving calimari to tourists" utterly ridiculous and embarrassing mindset to adopt but this is what happened to me, a small amount of success by the age of NEARLY 21 and now I think I'm sort of massive deal... What a clown.

So I took to gambling on the world cup, which I without a doubt would have done anyways, but I decided I wanted to win kinda notable money on this world cup, to compete with the kind of monies people are winning in LV. SO kicked off big, kicked off losing, to kicked in bigger and bigger and by the semi finals I had 2,000 of a net worth of about 2,000 in play on a Holland/Germany double... I remember working the restaurant whilst the Ger/Spain game was on and must have been the worst days work anyone has ever done, was a header from Puyol I think in like 70~ minutes which gg'd me. I do remember the feeling quite well, was that churning gulping feeling in your stomach that only gambling can ever give you, never really had it before, a few times on roulette but nothing like this, I'd had it plenty this summer too, you cant help but dwell on the moment before you gambled the money and wish you didn't - but then I guess you'd only gamble it on something else!

The feeling this time, just a little different as this was the end of my money, since coming home from Cyprus I'd managed to salvage a desperate situation and turn it into a fantastic one, and then in one needless summer of ego driven degeneracy I had blown it all, pretty gutting, and obviously I can't tell anyone either, just have to soak it up and suffer the consequences of my stupidity myself - I really wish more people did this btw! Now though, I have some bigger problems, firstly I have zero money, and been paid in advance for the summers work so I now need to work that off, when I get home I will have no where to live and my mum and dad (who have no idea at this point about me and gambling) remain under the impression that I am doing very well, there is no plausible way I can tell them that I now have zero money so going to them is not an option. I could stay on and work for Graham but he had no use for me really now, and no money to spin up meant that really getting a job was the only real option for me...

However, as seems to always happen to me...I got bailed out, just as things seemed to bad to contemplate, I got a lifeline! Matt Frankland (Franky) who has long been one of my best friends offered to stake me online for HU-PLO on FTP, and even offered me to come and stay - rent free - in his house, I didn't get a room (although I got a bed quite a few nights) and slept on the floor of his office/attic on the mattress from a futon, it wasn't living the life of luxury, but I don't think I've ever appriciated a mattress on a floor as much in my life. I'd love to say that the staking went well, and I crushed, got back on my feet and repaid Frankie's faith and friendship with lots of money...but unfortunately my head just wasn't right, I ended up losing about $14k for Franky, and after three months of rent free attic living Franky went on a bad DS himself and had to cut me off - which given I was likely not playing winning pokers right then was defo the right call. Real shame I never got to actually repay him for any of this, although he is still one of my best mates and I'd crawl over crushed glass for him, could never qiute put into words how grateful I was for what he did for me.

Now approaching Xmas and with the conditions really looking pretty grim (no money still, no where to live still and net worth spiralling into negative) I really needed to try and sort myself out. This was a fucking miserable time, I'd had a big falling out with my mum and dad and the prospect of a busto Xmas on Frankies attic floor seemed very realistic, I remember a great day I had this December though, Salfi (who is not so popular on blonde I believe?) was talking to me on FB and, unusally for me I opened up a bit about just how miserable I was, 2 hours later knock on the door, Salfi there and he whisks me off to the German market for the evening, pays for the whole evening, dinner/drinks etc and by the time I get home morale is 50x increased, genuinely one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.*

So time has come for (yet another) bailout, and this time it comes in the form of Jamie Sykes, fresh off the bat from a Sunday Million win he suggests we move in together, he offers to front the security deposit, put up 50% of the rent in advance and loan me a bit of money, we pick a pretty ridiculous penthouse apartment RIGHT next to the casino and now somehow the broke lonely figure on Frankie's attic floor is living in a penthouse apartment in Leeds, not exactly sure how I manage to pull these things off lol, Graham-esque life survival skills on top display :)

I put onto ipoker 600 pounds (of money that wasn't mine ofc) and of the next 10 weeks I played nearly 160,000 hands of 25c/50c ($) PLO, I remember very clearly (I can't find the graphs) that after 75,000 hands I was losing $400, I was so depressed at this point - which is not ideal when you're on the 18th story! - as I just felt like poker was not going to work, and I couldn;t think of anything else to do...once again just as life seems destitute I went on a huge upswing, and the next 85k hands I absolutely crushed - don't remember figures, and was playing 50c/$1 and $1/$2 by the spring time and never looked back with online poker (well I never looked back for a few years!) I'd gotten back into the scene in Leeds, with the help of Stu Rutter (another nicely timed bailout!) who had agreed to back me in live cash games and by the time the summer of 2011 rolled round I was relatively out of the hole (paid back Jamie/Franky/Rob) and guess where I was heading??

Las FREAKING Vegas baby!

Things just always seem to work out for me. I'm a very lucky guy.

Love reading this stuff David. Thank you.

What a run you had, of friends not poker ability may i add ;)

Only the exceptionally talented, and the incredibly lucky, can make it through life with no-one's help! No shame in taking the help, but if you don't make good on the help you get, and appreciate it then there is shame in that...

Like I say, i'm a lucky guy :) I managed to show everyone who put faith in me though that they were right to do so, this makes me pretty proud :)

You have incredible friends.

As you are going to be talking about Vegas 2011, if you were not planning on mentioning the middy rail and the night out after, then please change your mind and see what, if anything you can remember.

Ahhh yes, the night out after the middy final ... Was a cracking night, we had a bloody good time

#brummieboy

I used to play with Salfi occasionally, he had a frank and honest diary like yourself that was an interesting read. Never knew him well but he seemed like a nice guy (probably because he was taking money off me).

Loving reading this Dave, keep it up

Dave,

Mr Salfi got himself banned off blonde about 8 years ago. can't remember why now.

never say never though, if he still reads and would like to contribute then i am sure we can look at it for him

if he doesn't, no worries!

Really?  I have been here far too long, I would have guessed 3 at the most.

me too, i can't remember what happened either!

Yeah...not surprised tbh he can be very controversial and I'm not always exactly sure why. Top guy though, actual heart of gold, seems a bit odd sometimes but if you had to really count on someone he'd 1000% not let you down.

Just had a new baby daughter too, with his new partner, seems very happy and very settled these days, over the moon for him

I'm pretty sure Salfi and I butted heads several times but a) people change b) sometimes people aren't totally themselves on forums and c) dave's words about him seem good enough to me for us to at least look into unbanning him.

I don't even remember what we argued about but wow if it really was 8 years ago. that's scary

I have no recollection of why he was banned, but would be happy to re-visit the matter & see if we can start again.

Can anyone remind me of his blonde alias?

iirc it was just salfi?

Correct, I've just found it.

Looks like you & he banged heads a bit, can't see much else.

I'll have a word with the Mods.

From what I can see, it was November 6th, 2009, so going on for 6 years.

 

Apologies if defamation of charCter but is he not the guy who sold 200% of himself? Was def Leeds guy at dtd

A good friend of mine Phil Sanders  ,who was also best man at my wedding , was previously an owner of casinos in Walsall & Cardiff . He decided to sell up and continue operating casinos around various parts of the world .. Seychelles , Romania and India .


In early 2009 iirc, I met up with him in London when  he was attending I.C.E ( casino equipment convention) . I was rather fed up with England so asked if there was any opputurnities available in India.

He told me a couple of players has started to play poker , the traditional game in India is called Flush which is very similar to 3 card brag, and there could be an opputurnity to open up a cardroom at one of the casinos .


In June 2009 I went to Goa and we opened Indias 1st dedicated poker room . During my time there we also brought the Asian Poker Tour to Goa.

Sadly Phil passed away last October which left a big void in my life as he was truly a great friend and mentor throughout my life .
Now the new chapter in my life is running a Sports Bar in China which is also a lot of fun .

I have to admire anyone who takes a big, life changing leap like that.

Moving to a country with a completely different culture must be a great adventure, and now you've done it twice.

Thanks Tom . I've also been very fortunate to get these opputurnities by people who had faith in me .

I also was in Florida for a short time working at a car dealership . That was a lot of fun. If you have ever seen "King of Cars " set in Las Vegas you will get the idea.

Unfortunately the big recession hit the USA and the car industry was one of the first to be hit as the banks stopped lending .
I definately could have seen me ending my days there , totally loved the place .

Vegas 2011

When i was writing these re-caps I felt sure I would have a lot to write about Vegas 2011. As it goes though I really can't remember much at all, I think it is fair to say my focus was not as sharp as it should have been, the distractions of sin city were too much for me...who would have thought! I stayed in a house with John Eames, Stu Rutter, Matt Frankland, Richard Finney, David Dial and later on in the trip Jamie Sykes and Dan Carter, we started off at one really nice house, after 3 days we got a knock on the door saying we had to move houses as for some reason he needed this one...was a little pissed as I didn't see how I could possibly move to a better house, but as was only to be expected we ended up in an absolute palace!!

The pool area was amazing, this all I really remember...

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/247526_2166994734629_7032576_n.jpg?oh=c155f728c10005c87fabda035c8d979b&oe=56455CA2)

I honestly have no idea how I did overall on the trip for poker, I think I was a tiny tiny winner, thanks mostly to success in NL games, I was much sharper at live NLHE back then than I was in later years, I might have lost though, I know I didn't do it in or win chunks as I'm sure I'll remember that!

This summer was when I really found my feet for partying, obviously I've always been a big fan of going out and drinking, these days I'm slightly less enthusiastic than I once was, hangovers are more severe and I tend to have a quality, not quantity approach to nights out. This summer I had one of the most memorable sessions of my life though...

It all started, as a lot of sillyness tends to, with some Rutter-Shenanigans, I was playing a 5/10 NL game at the Venetian where I'd won a little bit, and had been summounded home by Stu as we were all going out, on my way to the cash desk I stumbled in to Longy + James Atkin who I'd never previously met but knew off and had spoken to on here, after very little persuasion on my part they were involved in the night out. We went back to our house where stu initiated an "Apprentice drinking game" again I don't remember the rules or the episode of the apprentice, all I recall is that James Atkin got fucked over hard by a women candidate and ended up nailed as a result. If any members of James' family do read that sentence I urge you to read the whole paragraph and take it all in context :D

The first step on our night out was to Green Valley Ranch, a bit off the strip (Budget Valley Ranch as Stu called it :D ) to see The Steel Panthers (I hope that's right?!) a couple of memebers of the team had drivers licsenses and not passports and weren't allowed in, so we had a drink and set off back to the strip... again I've managed to find a photo from this night!!

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/271156_2302113032502_2217104_n.jpg?oh=ef183c3e69499fecadd2d8217ddbc9d5&oe=56373426)

Slight problem though...

No way possible to get a taxi from this place, we must have spent 45 minutes trying to get a cab, then Stu hit upon a brilliant idea (tbf to him, the idea turned out not to be so brilliant but this is pretty results orientated, had it worked out then I would be reporting as a legitimate brilliant idea, or maybe still not reporting it all beccause lets face it, no-one wants to hear about brilliant ideas that work!) he flagged down a local, in a pick-up truck and asked the guy if he would take us to the strip, the guy said he would do it but only if we paid him. Stu asks how much and they guy replies $20, Stu accepts instantly, hands the guy $20...who then IMMEADIATELY drives off!

Despite raising my hopes, crushing them and brazenly stealing from a friend of mine, just a single atom in my body could have anything but love for that pick-up driver.

Eventually we get a taxi to the strip and head to XS, fearing we may not get a table Stu hatches yet another brilliant plan (you'd be forgiving for not having too much faith in the brilliance of this plan following the pick up truck disaster, but fair play this one actually worked) he rangg through to XS and informed them that Joe Hart, Man City and England goalkeeper (himself) and friends would be coming and would like a table...IDK if anyone there had a clue who Joe Hart is/was but we got skipped to the front of the tables queue and got a table really fast, obviously if they actually knew who he was they'd know apart from a similarity in height they actually look nothing like each other, so chances are this was just another hilarious detour on a hilarious evening...

Once inside the club (at which Pete Tong was DJ'ing) Stu insisted that we buy champange, and toast to Pete Tong, a fellow midlander, we got the champs headed to the DJ booth and toasted in the air proudly to our UK brother. half way through the toast, Stu's proud exterior shrank, he turned and ran away from the DJ booth, I ran after him, eventually catching him up and asking why we stopped toasting, he mumbled some sheepish excuse then I realised...

"That wasn't Pete Tong was it?"

"No."

And off he went :D

-On a sidenote- my favorite vegas mishap came the following year when we went to Stoneys for Stevie Devlin's birthday, 20 minutes into the night out drinks were flowing, good times were happening and then a confused and crestfallen Stevie suddenly figures out that actually he's got the date wrong, his birthday will be next week - that actually ended up being one of the best nights out of the summer!

I know it seems like currently in this post I'm just throwing everyone else under the bus, but worry not the spotlight will turn to my antics shortly!

As the end of this night out drew near I found myself with a group of roughly 10 girls, and 1 extremely camp gay guy (Marvin his name was - you'll find out why I remember this later on!) my first angle was to get them to come to ours for a jacuzzi party (swanky house, butler, jacuzzi if I can pull that off how would I ever fail!?) but correctly so none of them seemed keen, impressive sensible decision making after just how drunk I managed to get the whole lot of them :D

Turns out they are staying at the MGM so my final roll of the dice was I would accompany them back to the MGM where we would shoot dice together, at this stage in my life I would be shooting dice with or without the distraction of hitting on a 10-strong group of girls, so the glove fitted nicely, shall we say... Obviously, being a huge bellend I limo'd us all back to the MGM and started shooting dice with them all watching and drinking (they rolling ofc) i don't remember how much money I started the session with - I defo wrote a blog about this straight after, but I do recall going down to $60, before spinning it back up to a little over $6000, by this point we're all fucking wasted and it's 8.30...people are starting to want to go to bed so my targets are diminishing... eventually despite me throwing out all number of suggestions of things we could do I was left with Marvin, and the one girl who I had been getting along best with, put it this way, if I had a taser, I would have tasered Marvin :D

What happens next is...quite emabrrassing and I am not exactly sure how much of it I make up, if it's all true, I left things out or if it happened at all, but here is what I remember...

We go to the Spa in the MGM, the three of us and the MGM spa is split genders so we end up in a private massage room...and we're lying side by side on a big round puffy massage thing each being massaged, I dont remember anything else, except abruptly sitting up shaking my head at the absurdity of the scenario and looking down at the naked back of a gay man I'd met less than 6 hours ago and seeing a tattoo which says "Marvin <3's you" at the bottom of his spine. by the time this is over it's closing in on 10am and I am pretty shaken up by the experience, unable to get myself to bed like a normal person I decide I'm going to play blackjack, I have no idea how the BJ goes but nest thing I know I wake up in a hotel room in the MGM with a big pile of MGM chips, at about 1.30pm. I have a vague recollection of not being able to find the exit and ending up with a hotel room. Dazed, confused and still fucking wrecked I stumble out of the MGM side entrance and try to find a taxi on the strip, then this women comes up to me screaming to pull my trousers up, as I was "frightening her daughter" it turns out I had left my belt in the hotel, my trousers were pretty much round my knee's and my boxer shorts were under-performing in their role.

I don't think I've ever been more embarrassed than that in my whole life.

When I get back home finally its closing in on 2.30 and all the guys are in the pool, i have option 1) go to bed and sleep forever, or 2) grab a beer and jump in the pool. We chose option 2, not because we wanted too, but because maybe one day i'll be writing a blog, and it'll make for a cool story.

We go out for dinner (still no sleep) and then afterwards I meet up with JP (whollyflush) and a couple of other people - apologies to everyone else there but I can only remember JP for some reason and we got to Tao, get a table etc (such spews these tables) after a really fucking messy few hours I end up following two native american girls back to the Luxor hotel to play some roulette, I lost all my money until I was left with nothing but a $25 ceasers chip (this is going to sound like I am making it up!) I got it changed (for taxi money) put it on #8 and it rolled it for $1k... so I got another hotel room, why the hell not...

Some other shenanigans occured between me winning this $1,000 and going to bed - it involves nearly being arrested and causing $675 worth of damage to a crystal engraving stand, however as much as I'd like to I just CANNOT WRITE THE DETAILS IN PUBLIC. As a wise man once said...

Sticks and Stones may break my bones, BUT STUFF YOU WRITE ON THE INTERNET CAN END UP ON YOUR TOMBSTONE.

I returned home (without nearly getting myself on a register) about 5pm the next day, to a concerned and intrigued group of housemates and the news that we are having a BBQ, and going out AGAIN. Jon Spinks was there and he had for me $5,000 cash that I had previously leant him a few days prior, this was pretty much the only time in the whole summer I had any money in cash in my bedroom.

After the BBQ we went to Jet at the mirage, another table, and more drinks and another Rutter masterplan to get us better treatment in the club, he had informed the staff that he was the agent of Jermaine Jenas (the footballer - or Matty Lewis in this case, unlike the Rutter/Joe Hart weaze matty is actually quite the lookalike of JJ) and that Jermaine "Just wanted to enjoy himself with his friends" and "didn;t want any trouble" - one of the funniest moments of the trip was seeing Stu fly off the handle when the PR guy tried to take a picture for the website!!!

I have zero recolection of this evening past midnight, the next thing I know I wake up next day on my bed (finally!) with no pillows but one of the cushions from the sofa downstairs, im totally naked and a bottle of aftersun next to me. The first thing I did was throw up pearlescent yellow vommit for about 15 minutes, then went downstairs thinking VERY much that something was wrong... as I went downstairs I was greeted by a chorus of cheers and "good work mate" claims from the guys...

WTF is happening please...

They all assume im fucking about then inform me I returned home with a girl last night, she was sat round talking and laughing with us all then we went up to bed at about 3.30, i swear on my life I had zero memory of this girl whatsoever...then I get a bit of chilling feeling...THE MONEY IN MY drawer!!! Race upstairs and sure enough $5,000 had turned into $1,100 - why she left the $1,100 I'll never know, wtf the aftersun was about, and where my pillows went I also will never know - and I for one am pretty glad about that.

One final piece of goodwill from my pals was to take a picture of ~$4k in the fruitbowl and tell me it was "all a joke" I race downstairs only to discover that it wasn't all a joke at all...just that last bit about it being a joke.

Was quite the 72 hours I had!

awesome stuff, sounds like I'll have to come with Lawrence to see you!!!

You have plans to come back to the UK or you just enjoying yourself too much for now??

I will PM LG number now

Sorry that was inappropriate of me, totally got the wrong guy, weird because I know salfi. Just had brain freeze was a similar guy to him so again v sorry, my bad etc

The Steel Panthers are up there with The Deff Leppards and The Iron Maidens.

Hi , I currently in the UK now for a vacation , hopefully if Pete Bandit wants to go to DTD I'll come along.

You are more than welcome to come to visit anytime , be good to meet.
 Lawrence keeps threatening to come and I hope he does .
Thanks for the number

Think I had just had dinner with Longy and James A when we bumped into you in the cardroom, first (and only?) time I've bumped into you IRL.  Unfortunately at the time, I thought my timing was completely off as despite having a decent roll in my pocket, I was somewhere into my 3rd day at that point and with no definite plan in sight, I bailed out for my room.  Turns out to be quite a good swerve!!

yup, that was the first day I met you also, we ate at the Lux Cafe iirc, I do also recall you refraining from joining us on the night...

What could have been :)

Quite possibly the best thing i have ever read on blonde.

Thank you for sharing.

Ah man that house was siiiiick. Remember Eames' slow dance?

Great to see you posting again, dinner when you're back in Leeds?

TY Booder.


OMG, I might still have a video of that, I couldn't possibly post it on the internet though, could I?!

Post it!

He doesn't come on here anyway.

oh don't worry if it was a story that would incriminate just one party I might go for it...

Too much blood under that particular stone to move it I'm afraid :D

It was the kind of moment that you just hope your children never have to live through

Brilliant that post had me chuckling all the way through, great memories!

you and JA were outstanding company that night, I was lucky I went through this 3.5 year period where everyone I met was just really cool and nice!

One of my favorite nights out ever still - I think if I was to compile my top 10 nights out Rutter would be heavily involved in about 7 of them.

I wonder if Dom is still hungry

Hello Mr Pony,

Err, any other blogs you rate highly?

PS - just clicked who you are, so a belated (5 years late....) welcome to blonde.

Hello!

Sorry for a little break in action, I was travelling back from Cyprus, immediately had a lot of real world work to do (gotta try pay the bills when I 'm not floating around gambling) and have been really quite ill. I was in hospital for 9 days in Cyprus with a blood infection that was quite nasty (72/100 CRP rating when its supposed to be no higher than 6) and apparently treatment wasn't great for me and back feeling pretty ill.

Done really absolutely nothing noteworthy since being back, going to play the Sky Poker festival next week, really looking forward to it as it happens, was the WPT at DTD last time I played a tournament! If anyone can remember when that was!?

Hopefully see a few of you about for a drink!

Will continue the stories if people want!? :D

Yes continue the stories please

get well soon too

what caused the infection do you know ? i hope your feeling better now ?

the worst statement ever put on blonde !.....Will continue the stories if people want!?......of course we do they are awesome !!!!!

get well soon bud xx  dont lose your car keys at dtd again  ;tk; ;whistle;

Stop being so selfish

Carry on writing.

Sorry you have been unwell Mr N.

The High Roller starts at 7.30pm tonight, looking forward to seeing you. You bringing any other reprobates along with you?

What do you miss most about Cyprus since you got back?

How many KFCs have you had ?

Hello!


I miss the weather, and I miss the casinos (the ones that will let me in ;) )

I have had 2, one within the first  two hours of landing back in the UK, had to engage middy, Tommy and Pab in ~30 minutes of small talk (as Iv not seen them in 4 months and they are my best friends) in order to comply with social requirements otherwise I'd have had one sooner.

The second I had on my way home from DTD, as I was tired and joke tilted. Pretty stnd KFC spot for me. I was nearly induced into a third recently but refrained, try to keep under 3 p/month as you gotta draw a line somewhere.

So I went to DTD last week, fun to seer loads of people I've not seen in forever and actually (poker aside) I had a jolly good time, Laura insisted on coming with me this time so I booked us into the belfrey so could do spa and nice stuff so had some fun things to do in the daytime.

First thing I did after arriving in nottingham was go for Dinner with Skalie and Kayla at La Rock restaurant in (somewhere nr DTD)
http://www.larockrestaurant.co.uk/

Very very very good, would go again in a heartbeat, not to pricey for the quality of food either. Was a great start to the trip!

Poker went awful and booked 4/4 losses, played pretty meh, ran really bad and the games were kinda wild, sure fire way to do your money!

I had just gotten to the end of Vegas 2011 in my story...I am going to continue now, as this is the point I really start to kick on! Also if we get to to Halloween of that year, then I can tell the story behind this comment...


and I can also tell the story, and post accompanying video (which has recently been found, after me telling Karabiner it was lost forever!) of perhaps the most incredible rutter-induced day of my whole life :)

Looking forward to the stories!

Excellent news about the wedding video David.

I'm sure it's going to be just as good this time around.

Im speaking with the protagonists of the story now to see what can be achieved.

Autumn 2011

I have a bit of a blur right now, as to exactly what happened in Autumn 2011. I remember coming home from Vegas and getting back into the swing of things in Leeds live games, and I started again playing on Betfair. I was still living in our penthouse flat with Jamie and our lease was due up in October and we had decided against renewing it, Jake had, iirc just bought his house in Leeds and Jamie had decided to move in with him and I had decided that I would do some travelling - Vegas October, and then L.A in Feb. We ran down the lease, I have zero idea how I did at poker in that time, I got an invite to a private game in Yorks that was ridiculously swingy, and I had some big losses there, my up to that point biggest pot of my life occured with 99 vs  Qs Js on  9s 8s 4h, just over £45k. I had an exciting spin on betfair and from $2,000 deposit was at nearly $100k before losing most of it 25/50 HU to Rui Cao (pepperoniF) mostly those games were 10/20 and 25/50 6m and Chufty used to absolutely BOSS them, I've never quite worked out how he did this, but man did he send me to sleep shivering some nights! I ended up cashing out $10k off betfair for all the excitment*

*note, that might have been early of the following year, im not so sure.

October rolls around and I planned once again to go to vegas, me and Rutter had big plans for halloween - if you've never been to Vegas in Halloween its fucking incredible, they go beyond mental for it the yanks do, all the clubs are barmy and you have costume contests with $10-$15k up top! Me and Stu were determined to win, and set about planning the perfect costume...after some planning though we realised that with the best will in the world, we were never going to win!

I went out 3 weeks before and got an apartment over there with Dan Morgan - who was living in Barca at the time and taking a rather hilarious detour through Colombia (Try moving from barca->colombia->miami->vegas with a bunch of $ of you and seeing what happens :D poor Dan!) Stu was due to join 2 weeks later and set me the task of winning enough money to fund halloween shenanigans...

I started off solid, at $10/$20 NL and after winning a fair bit ended up in $25/$50 nl/plo games which went pretty well, the day before Stu was due to arrive I wound up having one of the most mental days gambling Iv had...

it started at about 11am, I rolled into Bellagio card room and sat down at $10/$20 nl as per usual, this really nice Korean (I think Korean) guy was playing and he said do I wanna play $100/$200 HU, Rounders style...we play $20k stacks with frozen blinds until "someone has it all." I agreed, why the fuck not ;)

I won the first one very easily, and at 11.40~ he shook my hand took my number and said he'd love to play again but he needs to go for lunch with his wife. It's not even midday and im up 20 grand, I think a trip to the spa, nice spot of lunch and a relax before coming back tonight! As im leaving, he walks back in and asks for a re-match, I accept ofc and we play. This one takes 2.5 hours, this guy is actually pretty decent and if it wasn't for crazy high stakes I'd be having a really fun time as he was a lot of fun to both play with and sit at a table with, however its too big to really enjoy and I just wanted it to be over! He won a big hand, where basically he could only have 1 of two flop straight draws, one has hit, one has missed. I elect to fold and he shows the missed draw, my heads a bit spinning now and soon enough he beats me. Now he has to go, his wife has been sat patiently behind him for 90 minutes but we arranged to play again* now Im a bit steaming and a $50/$100 NL game sparks off which is an excellent game, so I sit.

*We ended up playing again 1 yr later at various times, we played a total of 15 matches in total and it finished 8-7 to me :) (I won the last 6) the hardest $20k Iv ever won, wouldn't do it again for 40 lol, he told me I was the best HU player he'd ever played, which I don't believe for a minute given the names he said he'd played vs, but that was a good feeling, I really was on the absolute top of my game back then, would love to be back there!!

Within 1 hour of the 50/100 game I am winning nearly $50k and life is, once again fairly delightful, I remember ordering sushi from yellowtail and was generally just having a whirl of a time...

Three hours later I am now losing again and once again life is terrible. The game looks as though its about to break when a new player sits and asks if the game can become PLO/NL, which everyone keenly accepts. 2am and I am losing about $50k and as you can imagine, fairly fuming and the game breaks, with one player saying will likely return in 2 hours, it breaks to me and a guy who I consider to be one of the best live players I've ever played with, and a really awesome guy - he asks to drop to 25/50 and play HU till the guy comes back. Obviously at this point having people with pieces of me in this fairly bad spot (Iv been playing 15 hours and playiong vs someone very good) I msgd ppl to say I have $11k in front of me and gonna play just that, yay or nigh on keeping the piece, obviously all but 1 person (a regular blonde forum user as it happens ;) ) said GL but im out. I went on top god mode and ended up winning nearly $100k from the HU game and finished the day SOMEWHERE near peak, and with the lions share of my own action :) - NO CRIME AGAINST GETTING LUCKY EH?

Rutter arrived to the good news and we ended up having a really degenerate week with me, him, my friend Kayla (partner in the destroying of the crystal stand in Luxor! I wish I could post some Kayla stories...) and his 2 lunatic friends from L.A.

The actual halloween night out was close to amazing, I can't really remember why - I remember we had a mental good table, risen up higher than most other tables. Stu introduced the "im not hungry" game, in which if you are ever handed aNYTHING from ANYONE playing the game you must respond immediately with "I'm not hungry" - failure to do so resulted in selected a forefeit card from Stu, which mostly involved doing X amount of shots. Dom Kay, also out in Vegas was with us and he was the worst at the game there has ever been, the highlight of the night was him sneakily approaching Gena, one of the girls with us, and asked her to hold his drink...she agreed, told him she was not hungry and took the drink. He shook his head, oh well Dom, good try, she then handed him the drink straight back and he didn't say a word. "YOU'RE NOT HUNGRY!" she shouted gleefully, to which Dom who had finally had enough smashed his drink on the floor and stormed off :D

I love watching that moment of pure rage in someone when they just want the whole world to burn!

This is all well and good, but then a night or two later  is when the real fun started...

We were in Tao and Stu had met a man from the midlands in the toilets who he had excitedly dragged to our table, "This is Paul!!" Stu screamed, literally unable to contain himself.

"He wants to get married, he wants to get married!!!!"

"BUT HE NEEDS WITNESSES!!! HE CANT DO IT WITHOUT WITNESSES"

At this point, I think one of us needed to sit Stu down as he was seconds away from having a stroke, but this sounded like the start of something with some potential...

True enough, Paul, here on a holiday with his GF of 3 months had decided to marry her, on the spot - just like the do in the movies, however it's not FRIENDS, you cant just rock up you need some official witnesses, would we, friendly brits, be interested in witnessing his impromtu, horribly ill-advised wedding to a girl he doesn't really know?

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!! WOULD WE!!

We calmed Stu down, exchanged numbers and went to bed that night, assuming that it was all a drunken wind up.

But the next day, the call came - Saturday at the "little chappel of flowers" if you still want to?

Oh don't you worry Paul - WE'LL BE THERE!

How on earth does Rutter even get himself into that situation. I suppose Paul perhaps heard his accent and thought he sounds like a good british gent, he might be able to sort me out. I really can't imagine looking at post drinks Stu and thinking that. Funnily enough my night out with Stu also involved penalty shots. It also involved him being so annoyed at his hotel in Blackpool he slept in his car. I really cannot imagine a hotel I'd sleep in sober but won't when drunk lol.

You and I have no business trying to understand the how's and whys of Stu lol

Its Rutter. That is probably the only answer.

Great story. That must be a pretty particular one to tick off the bucket list.

[  x  ] witness at stranger Vegas wedding

We did a danm sight more than witness it....

Just tell me you didn't consummate it.

I'd be pretty surprised if anyone did lol

Had strangers we met the night before as the witnesses at my Vegas wedding(slight difference as we'd come out with the intent to get married after nearly 12 years together)

Was this the wedding, and I hope Im not spoiling the punchline here, that was filmed on webcam and stuck up on facebook and you guys were chanting SALT?

obviously yes lol

Can someone explain SALT to me please see it on Rutter's facebook and an explanation would be nice!

Basically one lunatic, ran into 2 even bigger lunatics when they had all been drinking

Direct from one of the Directors/Senior Execs of Tower Enterprises I concur it means Good Times. I love Salt, especially with Margarita's.  

The Wedding

So roll around saturday, myself, Dan and Kayla had gotten fairly well dressed, in the form of trousers and shirts (I didn't bring a suit with me) taking his role as the "best man" very seriously, Stu had decided it was only fitting he would hire a tuxedo, Ori and Perry (his two nutcase pals) who had been given the roles of "father of the bride" and "Usher" respectively had gone for slightly different options. Ori, proud as he must have been to be walking his daughter (a gd few yrs older than him) down the isle went for the modern "jeans and t-shirt" look, whilst Perry, clearly more of a traditionalist and determined to be just the snappiest dressed usher there went for a frilly silk purple shirt, buttoned about half way down his chest. Paul, the groom had a pretty snazzy grey suit with black shirt and of course the bride, who's name I just can't recall, had a VERY short white wedding dress with the customary amount unnecessary cleavage you would expect on such a day.

I have to tell you the stories of two journies, one of which I was present for, and one of which I was not...I am going to tell both as if I was there. Stu, Ori and Perry as the weeding party were due to meet the happy couple at the Rio hotel at midday on the day of the wedding, and myself, Dan and Kayla, as the guests were due to meet them at the Little Chappel of Flowers to cheer the arrival of the happy couple...

First, the wedding party, prompt and excited the three of them were there BANG on time only to find no trace of the happy couple and just a fairly tilted looking limo driver ready to drive off, after a few minutes investigation the couple came into sight, and they were drunk, they were so very, very drunk, so much so that the Limo driver, fearing naturally for the good of his interior had refused to allow them in the limo, plainly speaking the pair of them were too drunk to attend their own wedding :D. After some negotiations from Stu, determined not to let anything spoil the best day of his life, and the promise of a $500 deposit against either of them throwing up, they were on their way!

Here was when the first few cracks in the couple started to appear, intoxicated and no doubt feeling the emotions of the happiest day of her life, the bride was slightly taken about by Ori/the father of the bride's charm and good looks he found herself unable to resist shamelessly flirting with him, rubbing the inside of his leg and generally being ever so complimentary to his physique. This, as you might imagine caused a fair bit of tension in the limo ride to the chappel. But if you think that was the most disgraceful thing that was happening on a jourmey the chappel at that moment in time, then you'd be wrong, the three of us in our taxi journey were taking that prize...

All dressed up and heading for the chappel I was in the back seat with Kayla whilst Dan was in the front, making some small talk with the taxi driver Dan thought it would be quite amusing to suggest it was in fact myself and Kayla who were getting married, a little tipsy and spurred on by the excitement of the day I took the story and RAAANNNN with it, the taxi driver who was a very charming older man, was so over the moon about the fact he was taking a couple to their wedding that he started to go into stories about his family, and his wife who had left him and gave us all this advice for the future etc, by this point I was feeling about as low as was possible and couldn't wait to get out of the taxi, thank the man, tip him enormously and pretend it never happened! Once we got their, he opened the door for kayla, gave her a big hug, shook my hand with a tear in his eye and told me the fare was on him, it was an absolute privilege to take a young couple to their wedding and wished us all the best, and told us no matter what, to keep loving each other...

Seriously a lightning bolt should have struck me there and then! I was so close to just marrying Kayla out of principle there and then :D

With a lil time to kill before the wedding party was due to arrive, there had been a "hold up" that he was "handling" according to Stu we took a trip to the gift shop, to try find a wedding present for them. After much deliberation we went for a cake knife with a heart shaped handle, what a lovely thing. Kayla added a condom to the presents, kinda accurately pointing out that "they don't even have a cake" and we waited, patiently...very patiently for them to arrive...

When they finally turned up, over 2 hours late for their own wedding and barely able to stand up, Stu stormed out to discuss with the minister about when he would be able to perform his speech. This sparked a massive row between Stu and the minister when he was told very firmly that "he would NOT be allowed to make any speech" because this was a "serious chappell" adding that it was being filmed (yay for that btw!) and we were not to spoil it or make a mockery of the chappel by singing and/or chanting before, during or after the ceremony.

We'll get right onto that one rev ;)

For 48 hours after this glorious day, we were able to view THE ENTIRE wedding online, titbeam I think maybe had a copy saved of it, but niether myself, Dan nor Stu have a copy, all that remains from this glorious day is a video, fairly poor quality, filmed by Ori of Stu watching the highlights, which I will post for you now. The one point of the video you cant see here is the part when Paul is reading his vows, he starts off boldly, then slowly starts to lose all colour, and by the end of it is shaking, white as a sheet and unable to speak at all, perhaps someone regretting the idea eh?!

Anyway, the video, enjoy!

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v9wur6aW8Q

how the hell do you make youtubes work on here?!

FYL - eventually.

You had the wrong link Dave, it was an embed link rather than a watch link. All sorted now haha!

like it never happened sharp !

you have to remove the s after http at the beginning of the video code

That laugh tho. I think it's a laugh, it might be tears of joy.

Only in Vegas....

Great story-telling but we need tittybean to find us the whole video.

I have this abiding memory of Stu standing up doing something akin to head-banging in a pew during the ceremony, unless of course I imagined it.

I'm pretty sure I was given aggressive instructions that the video needed to be removed from existence and not posted again!!

Remember watching that when it was first posted... Comedy :D

Great read, Lil Dave!

Haha quality stuff

Long odds they are still together :)

Yeah, unfortunately you would have to say it's unlikely....the romantic in me wants to believe though.

Stu was, iirc, invited to the UK wedding party not so long after he got back from Vegas the following month, but I think he didn't wanna ruin the memories by making it too real, so never went :-D

I dont recall this...although it certainly sounds extremely plausible.

shall we look out the video and check?   ;whistle;

Love these stories.. What a life!

ok maybe I didn't delete it  ;whistle;

POST
THAT
SHIT

!!!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5egeltq9eb40xh9/vegaswedding.flv?dl=0

TOP OF THE PAGE SALT :D


Stus face throughout, the salt chant at the end, all so good  rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao

lucky I accidentally didn't delete it  :)up ;whistle;

Best 7 minutes of my day

That was excellent. But...

I'm sure I saw a different version on LilDave's original blog although I might well have been three sheets to the wind at the time with my imagination in full flow.

Despite that, I'm sure there was headbanging.

this is THE version! 

Stu's face on every dramatic pause after the word '(w)hole'....

So, TV Star, how did it go last night, in front of the TV cameras?

I'm told you were telling a yarn or two....hope you kept them clean & non-degen. ;)

Hello!

Yes, i really enjoyed Sky. Pretty gutted how pathetic my attempts to win were, never above £100, never won a pot, just wimpered out, not down in a blaze of glory as I would have liked :(

Had a lot of fun with Rich, Neil and Fraser though, took the chances to have dinner with Jake and JP on the evening and catch up with them which was great and have lunch with Mose next day, along with a bit of shopping for me and Laura in the afternoon, had a very nice couple of days, TY Sky can't wait to come back.

Right, I've been MIa for a while, taken a pause from my nostalgic roam down memory lane to focus on the here and now... here's what I've been doing...

A while ago, my parents house was selected along with loads of other houses to be part of a site for a development estate in Harrogate, great news as the price of the house was set to multiply handsomely, 5 long years of working through the planning, during which time my parents had to close their business and virtually cease to earn as their health got a bit worse, leaving me to invest very heavily (a substantial % of my net worth currently invested into the house) in the project. A few months back the planning was granted which makes the big payday a case of when, not if. There is a still a huge amount of work to be done to see this through to the end and maximise returns, Iv had to sacrifice a lot of EV over the past 5 years to get here and I'm not going to let it fall short of my expectations! This is currently taking up a good 50% of my time, as I'm keen to keep my parents workload to a minimum.

Its actually starting to become a bit fun now, prior to the planning being accepted it was so incredibly stressful that there was no way to enjoy it, now its a process that I can actually see an end too, and I have something actually worth something in exchange for all my money (lol) I'm finding it quite good fun :) This has taken up the vast majority of my time.

Outside of this Ive been really ill again, still a carry on from the problems I had in Cyprus and that's been hindering my progress on every front :(

When I've not been moping about feeling sorry for myself or dealing with property guys Ive been playing a decent amount of poker, had a few live poker sessions which have been really good and doing OK online, a few years ago I really did feel like I was on top of the world in terms of mid and mid-high stakes online, but since coming back from my semi retirement I just don't know what the hell is going on, I've been playing mostly on an unknown foreign site and doing ok.

I'm also getting back involved with another fish and chip project which excites me like nothing else, this time it's a little bigger but im way less financially involved and dealing with some very experienced people so that is exciting me...

Booked a few hoilidays, crushing on football manager in my spare time and generally speaking life is excellent!

Just need to make some bloody money somewhere!!!

Winter 2011

The Making of lil Dave :)

After my Vegas shenanigans in the Autumn of '11, high stakes games, impromptu weddings and degenerate gambling sessions (8 hour spells playing $1k /box BJ in the "Club Prive" Bellagio blackjack suite desperately trying to impress Natalia this eastern european waitress) I came back home and something happened that drastically changed my career in gambling. I'd been really good friends with Stu Barnett (Honeybadger) prior to going out to Vegas and for those of you who don't know Stu he is an absolute gambling machine, I was a kid with too much money throwing it in the air trying to see how much of it would come back, Stu was a proper PRO and he took me under his wing and taught me pretty much everything about how to make it stick at poker. If it wasn't for Stu then there is a >10% chance id be playing poker now, or that I would have had any of success I enjoyed in the following years, there's about 5 people who I owe huge for my progression and Stu is comfortably number 1. It was also about this time he introduced me to number 2...

HE took me to play a poker game in Manchester and introduced me to Julian Gardner, if any of you don;t know him he is most well known for coming second in the 2002 WSOP Main event, for a cool million dollars ;) The second I met Jules I was pretty much in awe of him, the way he plays, the way he talks, the way he acts, this isn't an act either he's just a fucking lovely bloke who is exceptionally good at what he does. BEtween the two of them I learnt more in the next cpl of years than I would have learnt in 50 by myself, and I made a lot of money in the next 12 month, pretty steadily, I played in lots of different games, mostly private, all over the North of England and did great, I'm not sure how much I should post about those games exactly, but I will defo think of some fun stories from those games and share if anyone wants to hear :)

In Spring 2012 I went to L.A to play cash games, with the plan being to go L.A.P.C, a series of poker that I both love and hate in equal measure after a few trips there, then heading to Vegas the following month for cash games - if you're ever thinking about a trip to play cash games in LV then March/April is a great time for games there, generally not crazy big but plenty of action floating around the 10/20 and 25/50 sort of levels and pretty consistent too, nothing worse than a trip where you knock it in heavy in a HS game that will only run once then spend the next 2.5 weeks creeping out of it at 5/10.

My love/hate relationship with LAPC stems from my love/hate relationship with the commerce. Firstly, and this is a fairly well informed opinion, if the only consideration for a poker venue was the poker itself, the standard of play, the variations in games and stakes and the consistency of the action across the stakes then the commerce is very easily the best place to play poker. NLHE 1/2 - 25/50 runs pretty much around the clock, PLO 2/5 - 20/40 runs pretty much round the cock (20/40 is a great stake too) 50/100 - 100/200 runs very often, means its WORTH taking a shot at and the games are generally speaking pretty good, the rake is reasonable, defo could be lower but I've played in games where it's miles miles higher, the staff there are also pretty excellent and the card-room, despite being run on 1996 technology (white-board and marker pens) is very smoothly run...You do get a fair bit of reg-favor, but you get that everywhere and with only a little charm and a few generous tips you can win yourself the same favor easily and skip yourself up wait lists, or convince the guy to give your room a quick buzz if a game is starting etc. There is pretty much no amount he reasonably ask for in exchange for this that is not ridiculously +EV! The problem with the commerce though, is that there is not one single other thing about it that isn't absolutely dreadful, the hotel is awful, the location (downtown L.A) is horrible, the decor inside the casino is depressing, the food is disgusting and if you want to get out of the hellhole then its a good 45 minute drive, because this is L.A where everything is miles away from everything else. This particular trip I spent 32 days at the commerce and left the building once, to get dinner in hollywood with a friend of mine - every other second i spent stuck inside the casino and that might be ok in the wynn, but in this casino its seriously fucking depressing :(

Obviously a great counter to that would be to win! Winning will often bring a newfound sense of peace with troubles, i started this trip like a spitfire, and was winning a lot very quickly, however things as they tend to do took a pretty horrible downturn in fortune and ended up losing a lot in some huge games, obviously morale takes such an incredible downturn during a downswing such as this and being stuck in the worst place in the world caused some for some very dark moments. This had been a pretty weird trip for highs+lows, and that started right from the beginning of the trip, I decided to fly into Vegas first, mostly because I had money there which I needed for the trip, but also because you can fly to LV from Manchester and I had enough money at this point that I could decide that 3 days in LV at the wynn to avoid going to London was a life+EV move :D - arrrh those were the days, today I might be thinking about flying via Amsterdam and Detroit to knock a few £ of the fare :D

So I arrive at the wynn and immediately I get upgraded (for free!) to the Tower suites, as i'm only booked in for 3 nights, this is the first time I was to stay in a tower suite and they are fricking awesome - if you remember the "scandalous" photo of Prince Harry with some super-model naked on his pool table (the only scandal in my eyes was why there wasn't at least 5 of them! If you've ever had a british accent and a few quid in LV...), he was in a Wynn Tower suite! So this was a super run-good start to the trip, that night I had sushi for dinner, by myself and got food poisoning, and spent the next 3 days in the tower suite throwing up. Obviously food poisoning is real run-bad, but tower suite food poisoning is probably the luckiest food poisoning you can get, certainly the most I've ever enjoyed being ill!

I had a cool night at the Commerce one night, I was playing 20/40 PLO and the game broke to me and Len, who is one of my favorite people in poker, this very tall Kentucky guy who is just fucking hilarious and we played a bit of chinese vs each other, we've played a lot and happy to gamble a bit vs each other (im sure he thinks he's a better chinese player and he's likely right but a few hours, what difference :D ) so we agreed to 2 hours chinese before bed to unwind. Then Phil Hellmuth strolls along and wants to join. Me and Len were playing $50p/p and Phil wanted to play $100p/p - remember this is regular chinese this was before the OFC craze kicked off***(very interesting side story to OFC!) so it's not as big as $100p/p OFC, but still fairly big,and im playing PH, the fan-boy in me is loving it. Len goes to bed after 2 hours as he said he would and we're left HU, we played for about 6 more hours and it was fucking awesome :) such a cool guy PH, his chinese play was no-where near as erratic as his behaviour, he kept mis-setting and then jumping in the air and screaming, it was genuinely so odd. In between random outbursts we chatted about poker, life, WSOPs and he's just such a cool, great, humble guy (sounds counter intuitive to his public persona) but I've rarely enjoyed an evening of gambling quite as much as that one, I won about $4k (40 points) just to add to the joy.

I ended up losing fairly big in L.A, then went to LV afterwards and lost a little more, it was a pretty disappointing trip at the end of a very nice upswing, brought me down to earth a little!

Present Day!

Just got back from a weekend away in Edinburgh with geeforce and zel (his wife) which was a fucking blast, first night we went to the Castle Terrace Restaurant which is one of the best meals I've had in a long time, went for the tasting menu's and wine pairings which as can be expected ended up with me being absolutely smashed and in bed by 12.30am! NExt day we went spa'ing with rooftop jacuuzi and afternoon tea along with gin mimosa's. Lots of relaxing, lots of eating, lots of drinking. Lovely weekend :)

Been playing loads of online poker and doing quite well, starting to believe once again I might not be the worst anymore!

I would defo be interested to hear people's top 3 meals off all time, if anyone can remember? I'm going to need a little time to construct mine...

Julian Gardner is the original "getting it quietly" guy. Would love to hear some stories from those private games.

yep

yep

During one of Dave's poker trips to LA, I received a text from him whilst I was mid-session in the private game mentioned in his post above:

"Stu! I've been losing in the games here and my wire transfer from the UK has not arrived yet. So I only have $200 to my name till my money comes through, not even enough to cover my hotel. If Skalie is playing in the game with you then please ask him what he advises me to do"

I read the text out to the table, and without pausing for thought Skalie advised, "Only one way out of that predicament. Tell him to spin it up on the craps table".

And just as Skalie was saying this, I received a second text from Lil'Dave:

"Then, when Skalie gives his advice ... tell him I am already doing it!"

Stu is a top bloke, still haven't got a game of chess organised yet...

3 favourite foods ever, in no particular order...

Steak from a top restraunt in Leeds, owned by a Michelin star chef, French sounding name.
Barramundi, the Australian haddock, excellent fish.
Star fruit again from Aus, the folk I was staying with had some growing in their gar den the fruit was amazing, and apparently was v expensive from the shops, best fruit ever!

Oh yes.OFC story....actually this isn't all that interesting is just something that I take some pride in :-)

January 2011 me and Flushy were in Venice and got introduced to a game which we were playing, this game was structurally identical to OFC. This was long before all the craze around OFC started.

So I must have been one of the first ppl to play that game!

We both said that it was the game of the future and we should get sick at it and print! Needless to say we didn't do that.

:D :D

Made me Lol

Recently I starting doing some outside of poker work once again, which I always really enjoy - it creates a strange mindset for me because when I work outside of poker I get paid pretty well (relatively speaking for my age/experience) but compared to poker its pretty small, thing I always try to remember is poker is a short-term long term game - just because you win £5k one day, doesn't mean you win £5k every day, and just because you can make £150k one yr doesn't mean you'll make £150k every yr... the real world is a REAL long term game, if you can make £30k one yr, you can probably make £30k every yr, and in 10 years you'll prolly be making more. Whenever you try do the two side by side then it can really mess with your head, I had a fine example of this last week.

Thursday I lost £14k online (iv not been playing anywhere nr the stakes lately to lose that much for a while, 3/4k would be the biggest swing Iv had in a fair while), then friday I worked all day for £240, 58 days more and i'll be out of it!

Weirdly I actually felt quite grounded whilst i was working, I'm doing some consultancy work for a restaurant chain and working in the restaurant with people who have zero idea of my gambling background, working with real hard-working people who earn barely more than I lost the previous day in a yr, made me further appreciate the good fortune I'd had over the past 5 yrs and kinda saw it as a challenge to remain focused despite the obvious fury at the back of my mind from the previous day. It was really hard actually but I managed it, went home feeling pretty good. Woke up next day and went just dreadful.

Since that loss iv played 3 times more and added quite a bit to the deficit, after years of being really really good at handling losses this has really tested my resolve and actually I'm dealing with it fairly badly.

I think the secret to dealing with losing is a mixture of 3 things, I think perspective is the most important, understand that losing was possible and shrugging your shoulders and accepting it is what it is, the second is belief in your ability, you were there, playing +EV and it didn't work out and the third and one of the most crucial is control over your ego, it doesn't make you a bad player losing and it's not personal - the cards don't give a fuck about anyone they just fall where they fall.

Given that I've always had a good splattering of all three Iv always been a really good loser, and hardly ever a tilter - although EVERYONE plays worse when they are losing almost without exception - hopwever recently, despite still feeling like I have plenty of all three I seem to be dealing with losses pretty badly, I have no idea if the outside of poker work is helping me or not, I can't decide if it's a good distraction... I guess it's a day where my net worth positively increases to I should just be grateful for everyone of those that comes along!

Does anyone else have any experience of trying to balance work inside and outside of poker and get where I'm coming from?

Totally get what your saying. It's the other way round for me though. I have high payed job and win small throughout the year on the whole. This year though I've had a losing year over. Not a huge amount by any means and probably no more than a couple of weeks wages but where as in the past I've just shrugged off any losing sessions this year I just seem to inward tilt so bad. The way I'm handling it is by not playing :)

It gets a lot tougher dealing with the same swings the older you get believe me.  Wait til you get to 40 and see how tough it is coping with swings that when you were 30 (i know you are not even 30 yet before you state the obvious) you would have just bounced out of bed the next day after without a second thought 10 years ago.  I got told this 10 years ago and didn't believe it by Dave Welch (aces poker) of all people.  I can confirm it is true.  It just grinds you down after a while.  Arbing is the way to go.  Win the ev every day gtd!

As for balancing work with punting i can't really help.  Suppose you just have to get the mindset that when you work you get £240 100% of the time every day.  Playing poker you probably get the same long term ev wise for the same shift.  I have never done both at the same time seriously.  It's weird because when i go racing i probably make £150 ev every time but if someone said to me would you work for me on my pitch as a bookie on track for £100 i probably would say no even though the variance is less and the wages are similar.

Thinking about it like that is a lot easier than the reality of going to work for a bottle after knocking out 15 large in readies the day before!

Yeah definitely agree with this

Clearing £1200 a week, if you finished the year with £50k profit from poker you'd probably look back on it as a decent years work!

The only worry with adding in the other work is that perhaps on some level you feel the need to play higher because you have fewer available hours to play? Nothing in your post comes across that way to me though.

Plus if you're enjoying the work then there are positive life EV effects. When I switched from playing poker full time to a split of poker and my trading job it was a positive thing mentally. Its definitely -$EV in the short term but taking on a new challenge is really healthy I think. A few years back when I was playing HUSNGs there were definitely times where poker felt monotonous. PLO cash was less of a grind but I like having something else constructive to do when I don't feel like playing poker.

Is that what you do now dan, part time trader part time HU sng / PLO?  Haven't seen you about for donkeys years!

Sort of, I haven't played a HUSNG for what feels like forever and ever but according to Sharkscope its only about 14 months. I was pretty over them by that point and the introduction of spins pretty much killed the traffic so was an easy decision to switch. Played PLO cash for about a year then picked up a job as a proprietory trader with an investment fund thats essentially an MTT stable. A bunch of young guys teaching and giving a 50% freeroll trading forex and indices with company funds and mirroring those trades with my own dime.

It fits in pretty nicely with poker, lots of keeping an eye out for setups in the forex markets with a couple of cash game tables on the side, usually getting 20-30k hands in a month alongside the trading.

I haven't played any live poker in an age, pretty sure the ISPT was the last one! Might come down for the PLO side at the WPT though, live PLO never fails to raise a smile :D

excellent advice, thanks a lot.

Still unsure on the best ways to proceed, if splitting time is advisable or if im just better dedicating my focus to one thing.

I am very lucky though that I have lots of opportunities open to me.

Did the commentary on the live stream tonight, had a real blast with Neil and Skalie and the game was thoroughly entertaining.

Everyone played really good, if you didn't catch it then I would recommend giving it a spin :)

Great stream last night, you three worked well together! The game was good also!

   It was great to play in as well. Great mixture of style and skill levels! Also a lot of chat and banter on the table making it a very sociable experience. For some people that's an important part of why they play the game.

Had a request to fire this up again!

I'll tell you where I've been. About 10 months ago I got the opportunity to invest and join my friend in the running on a poker site, I took him up on it and have been really really enjoying it. Now we have casino, and hopefully soon sports book as well - boot is on the other foot, turns out its fun being the house! Who knew ;)

I also decided to get back into the restaurant game, my old boss and mentor figure (who i mentioned previously in this thread) Graham and myself managed to do a great deal and acquire a restaurant in Leeds the pair of us have wanted to own for years. He is financing it, I am running it, fucking hell how much easier all this stuff is when it's not your £££ under the axe!!!

So life is great, insanely busy and I haven't played a hand of poker bar 30 minutes on a train on my way to london in about 5 months!

So...any questions, any degenerate story requests, any stories anyone wants to share, any gossip we can start? Nothing engages me more than contemplating on my degenerate days, now that I'm all responsible...I wear a tie every day, and get up at 7am.

Well, was gonna reply that it's good to hear you are still alive and well. Then get to read you joined the rat race and wear a tie ffs. Old Dave consigned to the memories ;D ;D ;D

Glad to hear life is good. Nothing better than being insanely busy doing something you enjoy.

Hi David, good to hear from you again as always loved your diarage.

Could you tell us a bit about the restaurant please when you have time.

My first thought is that it's higher-end traditional English food maybe a gastro-pub type setup, but I could be and usually am completely wrong in my assumptions.

Happily.

Il be there soon so il take some pictures :-)

I'd bet fish is on the menu

Tell us Any of your many degen stories that may not have been broadcast before please. Always a great read!

Or retell an old one :D in any case just poast moaaaaaarrrrrrr lil D!

So the new restaurant;

Kinda cool (for me anyways) backstory to this place. When I was working for Graham (my old boss/mentor) he had an amazing restaurant in harrogate, was Fish & Chips (with a takeaway) and an 80 seater restaurant aside it, the restaurant was pretty unique because it combined restaurant Fish & Chips with seafood dishes, bottles of wine, champagne etc, people spending Av £14-£16 a head (this is back when A Tuna Steak cost £9 in a restaurant) which even today is unheard of in Fish and Chips.

It was successful for 3 reasons; 1stly (and I imagine most crucially) the location was pretty sensational - right next to a big conference venue which had 40k people a week from out of town visiting (company expenses cards and so on) 2ndly the quality of the Fish and Chips was restaurant standard (presentation, look etc) and the decor was sophisticated and pleasant enough to be a "proper restaurant".

Ever since selling its been a concept both myself and Graham have been dying to recreate, and about 7 years ago we very nearly bought this place on street lane in leeds - very similar setup, top location, great area, big car park etc but deal fell through, 2 years later same again, then 2 years ago I personally tried to buy it but couldnt reach a deal. Last easter I got a call from the guy saying "lets do a deal" - I didn't have the money or the time to do it then was just about to head off to cyprus for the summer so I threw the deal to Graham. I got back from Cyprus and get a call from Graham saying the deals on and would I come join him, I was very easily persuaded to head up the project in exchange for him financing it.

Sometimes in Life things are just meant to be :)

So same plan as before, elevate the fish and chips, improve the decor, jazz up the menu and get people spending more money.

Here's what I got;

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/old%20entrance%20marlows_zpsj4wydelf.png)

This was the Entrance - This was actually after I re-did the floor, was a shitty blue carpet full of grease, I changed the floor immediately.

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/front%20rest%20marlows_zps9kyuccpa.png)

That was as you look through, cheap furniture, sachets of sauce on the table etc

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/back%20rest%20marlows_zpsutxhvic2.png)

View from the other side of the restaurant.

So the biggest challenge is how to take people's minds away from "Just fish a fish and chips cafe" and into the mindset of "this is a restaurant, we can spend a bit of money here" The average spend was £7.20 p/person when we came in, I want to take it to ~£13/£14.

Grahams business is called "The Fisherman's Wife" but as this is a pretty fresh concept we wanted to change it slightly, so we came up with the idea of "The Fisherman's Lodge", Keeping the branding similar so the two businesses are easily linked but this would be "The Fisherman's" place, where his friends would come hang after a hard days fishing, cosy, warm, welcoming etc

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/fishwife%20logo_zpsz1jehjdf.png)

Here's what I came up with.

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/fl%20logo_zps29wqfzwc.png)
(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/fl%20logotext_zpsjmjfu3gq.png)

And here's what we did to the decor;

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/front%20ent%20FL_zpsxn3yng4s.png)

Fish tank replaced with 8ft aquarium, brand new bar area, full wine list/beer selection, some fancy local craft beers, previous capacity was 12 Natural 24 in a group. Now we have 8 Natural and 12 in a group. We also have this really cool old barrel as a bar table :)

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/back%20rest%20FL_zpsimtutzdl.png)

As you walk in.

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/front%20rest%20FL_zpswo8t4s6l.png)

View as you walk in.

Kept Menu pretty simple, made it look nice, thrown a few extra things in that sound cool but as sinple as fuck to do :)

Front of the menu;

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/menu%20front_zpso2zz9ds6.png)

First Page

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/menu%20page%201_zpskc0pcf8a.png)

Had the idea to put this "Fish Tapas" in, its basically a collection of 10 products, most of which are bought in and deep fried but presenting in a cool way (cant find a picture of any food at the moment :( ) and make the menu look miles more sophisticated/advanced than it is in reality - also its a nice thing for people to share 1 as a couple, or for a party of 3-5 to get 3 for £10 to share as a starter etc, throwing that av spend up a little ;)

Second Page - just your standard fish and chips menu

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/menu%20page%202_zpsqguq1no6.png)

Meat and Veg, always a difficult one, as it's never going to be big sellers it's hard to put on loads of choice as you either need frozen stuff or you waste too much, then when you put on rubbish selection you'll miss out on every group of 4 that includes a vegetarian or someone who doesn't like fish :( Still a work in progress...

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/menu%20page%203_zpsrloyscyo.png)

I've taken a group of really good, enthusiastic cafe staff and slowly turning into a restaurant, Av spend up to £11.50 from £7.20 and takings are about 30% increased so far, loooooooooooooong way to go.

And there you have it the fruits of my last 5 months work !

Feedback welcome, if you can spot the most stupidest of all typos on the menu then PLEASE don't say anything my morale cant handle it :P

Hmmm, unfortunately the best 10 are all probably off limits, you'll have to get me by a bar with a drink to get those out of me.

Have a pretty funny degenerate story from Miami a few years back...

Was in st.kitts with Flushy, Dubai, JP etc and we'd been playing the DTD festival over there - plans were to head on to vegas afterwards, we had a 1 night layover in Miami which was pretty fun as we had a friend in Miami who we went out with when we were there, also had one of the best meals I've ever had there too, look at this steak!!

(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/lildavefish/steakin%20miami_zpslc8izemn.png)

Had a great night out, really fell in love with Miami so me and JP decided to extend our stay here for another night and fly to vegas in a couple of days. Flushy asked us if we'd carry $10k for him as he was over his limit for cash (would not have done this flushy) sure nps bang it in the safe :P

ME and Jp kicked off the next night by going to the bar to watch some football...after the football we got involved in the most high tense and strategic game of shuffleboard ever, and by the time our friend came to collect us at 8pm for dinner we were smasssssssssshed. After dinner and more (and more) drinks we decided to go back to the shuffleboard venue to take on the locals, armed with Flushy's $10k and did the whole lot.

Flushy came to pick us up in Vegas and asked for his money...arkwards.

Love the restaurant mate and glad it's working out well for you, seems a while since me and Dubai got you down to Essex for the day in your jumper and coat despite it being nearly 30degrees 😜

Keep this going and may bounce a few things off you soon.

When you're from the North, you always have a jumper and coat.

Cool

That looks like a tremendous project David, and I wish you the best of good luck with it, not that I think you'll need any as it looks like a great set-up.

I'm definitely coming up for a visit, in fact the next time Flushy or Eso comes up to try and hustle me at golf a visit to The Fisherman's Lodge will be added to the stakes that we play for, so prepare yourself for the blow-by-blow golf bad-beat story.

Looks like I will be paying then 😞

Sweet. Il be sure to post a copy of the wine list and speciality gin menu!

Would be great to see you all, speshly if eso paying :-)

Thanks for kind words guys :-)

Rich email me let's get talking :-p

Do something a little bit different from the others and have good food and it will ways be a winner.

This place has a joint in Leeds and Notts, they have done it out like a Thai street food market, way better than others who have tried it half arse. The result is they are busy on a Monday night, and fri/sat they are jammed with a long wait....smart people.

http://www.zaapthai.co.uk

Good luck with your venture.

ahhh yeahhhh Iv seen these guys, very very good.

Yeah, lots to learn and plenty to do. Thanks Woodsey

What's the poker room?

Got a brand new 8ft fish tank and stocked it with goldfish? Shocking behaviour.
Other than that abomination, restaurant looks amazing :D

come back into the gambling world with an absolute bang for chelt this week,

Started pretty meh, 4th and 400th in the first, 16-1 winner in the second, no good in the third, had the leader the whole way in the 4.10 but the mullins fave had it nailed in the last 1/4 and i dont thin it even placed, then had a win only 14-1 shot beaten by a whisker in the last. Lost £250 on the day, but have money in my pocket/online account for tomorrow which on a Tuesday at Cheltnam is really all you can hope for :)

God I've missed gambling.

Only an utter degen. can have a 16/1 winner and lose £250 on the day.


 ;hattip;

bloodbath, a few lil sweats but entirely short lived, managed to scrape a £30ew 3rd place 22/1 shot to salvage a scrap of morale, done about 800 and at no point did it look like any other result was on the cards so should be glad it wasnt more! half of them prolly still running!

Thats defo towards the higher end of my gambling limits these days.

Off in person tomorrow so i can look the horses (and bookies!) in the eyes... turn in fortunes gtd :P

got my tweed racing suit on, a few cans of pimms for the train and a pocket full of money.

LET'S FUCKING HAVE IT CHELTNAM!

Photos ftw big man please!

Who are you with today?

Any strategy to the punting and if it all goes pear shaped is it the darts punting tonight to get you out of it?

Have a great day.

Next year! Glgl

 ;popcorn;

Was me and middy at Cheltenham. We ended up losing tiny but it took a £750 win on the 4/6 ruby Walsh fave in the last followed by a £350 ew on a 25/1 2nd place in the last to get us out of it.

The worst part of the day was niceonefrankie dying, we had him in the heart of ew lucky15 and a chunky ew bet on him in a race where the fave fell early so to watch him fall and then learn hed been put down was pretty terrible for morale.

There's much easier ways to do your money :-D

Love the races, feels like you're actually part of a spectacle and not just shamelessly degenerate.

We actually ran sick after the races too, donked around like utter clowns and found ourselves 25 min walk from the train station 15 mins before the last train and zoo hope of getting a taxi in the next 30 mins...

Luckily we used our northern charm to piggyback someones taxi and made the train, that would have been fucking criminally stupid.

Yday was pretty zzzzz too, had a semi-sized single on Don Cossack and a few live dbls with that he completed but that aside another hose - job on lil daves gambling dreams :-D

Actually had a sick ew lucky sweat in Cue Card too and have a lot of love for this horse, so was pretty tilted to see it clatter the fence at the end,  glad the horse is ok and the jockey looked like he nearly took a hoof to the face which I can only imagine is highly unpleasant.

Ended up stuck ~1.2k over the course of the week which I can't help but feel could have been 3x... had 2 horses come second that were 1.2 in running that would have got me out of it, so maybe it could have been a lot better too! That's gambling innit <3

Back to work now, 2 businesses to run and some huge challenges ahead this next few months. easter weekend coming up too and iv set some pretty massive targets at the restaurant which has prompted  Graham to offer a pretty exciting reward should I hit :-p (vegas related)

I'm also in the process off adding a sportsbook onto our site which is going to be a fucking adventure. Why I insist on doing everything all the time I will never know, gotta get my degen fix in somewhere.

I was saying to middy the other day that since quitting gambling on a daily basis sometimes I wake up literally desperate to be in action somewhere on something, I guess you can just never quit gambling once you're in...you're in for life :-p

Now I have to go iron my shirt.

#lildaveslife2016

 ;bump;

Hello!

The days of wild vegas parties and $100k cash games swings have gone but I'm busier than ever. I actually think life now is more exciting than ever, however its not wild vegas parties and $100k cas games swings anymore but there is only so long your body and mind can handle my early twenties :)

Restaurant

Usually I'm a get it quietly kind of guy...however the restaurant we are absolutely crushing right now, from ~£6,000 p/w in gross turnover we're currently somewhere between £13,500 and £14,500 (15 seems to be that tough nut I cant crack) but given I was hoping to be around there for Xmas I am pretty happy. Average spend has gone from £7.10 to £12.50, wet sales have risen from 2% of turnover to 11%, feedback is great, food is good and the staff in there are doing reallllllly good.

A few slammings on tripadvisor are really the only negative thing so far, i am verrrry proud of it currently. MY biggest worry now in complacency in the staff, so natural in any walk of life that things go well and you start to free-wheel a bit - how would everyone else think is best to deal with this? Im swinging between coming down HARRRRD on the first signs (judge by high standards now etc) or just doing even more training than i currently am, softly softly approach and all.

On that note...
If anyone fancies leaving a tripadvisor review for me :)
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186411-d1316924-Reviews-The_Fisherman_s_Lodge-Leeds_West_Yorkshire_England.html

If anyone leaves a sparkling review and then wants some sort of favor just PM me !!!!

Fucking hate trip advisor, Middy nailed once when he said its "Giving the cattle a voice they dont deserve" obviously this is my customers we are talking about and I welcome their feedback good or bad...

Just a breeding ground for cantankerous misers to spread there gloom onto others. Still 1400 restaurants in Leeds I wanna be top 10!

Had some good pictures made up of the restaurant...

(https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/4b/7d/e9/marlows.jpg)

Bar Area

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13266133_619598951522589_7730441512335071383_n.jpg?oh=b086d0a8b4d68e8c6461fac5d5ceae12&oe=57D6BC69)

GINS!!!!

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13263950_619599138189237_3732808760238887537_n.png?oh=17a459f3ce39d8b1c8fd7260d4c448e7&oe=57D0C3FF)

Gin Menu!

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13227069_619595784856239_7400758798587568632_n.png?oh=76c71405e35fceb10f0cb8ce2fcaf1cd&oe=57E71669)

This has been a cool innovation we did, given that in Fish and Chips restaurants you just never sell any starters except the odd prawn cocktail and soup, we put this "Fish Tapas" menu in, like tiny sharing plates... Couples are getting 1 to share between them as a starter and tables of 4 getting 3 for £10 etc, so far since opening we're sold 1670 items off this menu which I think its pretty cool.

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13245223_619595868189564_2224983893845967129_n.jpg?oh=065617836c5246e73fc271e6b88c8d5f&oe=57E31D98)

That's how it would look

Some Interior Pics:

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13233032_619597144856103_6702113990138620940_n.jpg?oh=9ccff5e264e6df9307f0c6009eb72666&oe=57CDB5F9)
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13239942_619597204856097_1261055405824627621_n.jpg?oh=9dfea319a00bc0dae36ebe4528656f05&oe=57D52832)
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13233048_619597268189424_534556374290533509_n.jpg?oh=bb46d22ccddaa89314dc9558f6bd8ff6&oe=57E1BC30)
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13226915_619597371522747_568988854734985456_n.jpg?oh=21a3226934b36718acc0dbc4dac27058&oe=57E65F31)

Did this last month and was roaring success so going in again, anyone in Leeds fancies it was a great night!!!

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/s526x395/13245414_619588911523593_3768049345489346427_n.png?oh=634a52a479cedc5fa7ab644449519bfa&oe=57D98F1C)

Next month (June) doing Country Night!!! Sheriff David and his team of deputies! Yeee-Haaaa

Other Work

As you might be aware I invested in an online poker site and casino last year, after steadily growing the database our long term goal was to add a sportsbook to the site, after lots of negotiating over the funding for this we have agreed to merge our database with a new site that is being launched and take smaller pieces of it. The dream me and my partner had of building our own brand and becoming DaveyPower or BetDave was a grand one, but when you start to really understand the numbers these guys deal with it was pretty obviously pretty quickly that this was unrealistic, the offer that was made to us - simply because of who was making it (a hugely successful very well funded guy) was kind of a no -brainer.

Our license application is currently underway and we're setting up some swanky offices in Leeds (same place as SkyBet actually!) been a real learning curve all this and really enjoyed it, a real risk = reward business sports betting and the money involved is pretty spine tingling.

God I'm going to go all Pleno on you here...I am currently in the middle of a deal semi related, to my two work projects and if I pull it off would be the deal of the decade...I literally cannot say anything more about it but in essence I would acquire 40% of a £1m business in cash and equity for an investment of £0.00. I'd say I'm about 20% to land it but just being in this hand with a chance is exciting enough for me!!!!

Real Life

Enjoying life, things with Laura (my GF) are really good, not without the odd problem - we always look super chilled out and people always say to me "you guys make it look easy" if I learnt ANNNYYYTHING this past 2 yrs its that relationships are far from fucking easy! If you got the right girl though, worth it a million times over.

Actually done lots of really cool stuff lately;

End of March we went to Barcelona for 4 days, was amazing - I do love that city, great weather beautiful place, amazing food, Laura never been before and had always wanted to go so I thought, best do this properly...and stayed at the Arts Hotel :)

First day went for Tapas at a restaurant in the hotel, was absolutely phenomenal, one of the best meals I've had in forever, I dont have a picture of this but I got a cocktail served in a glass shaped like a pipe!!!! Served in a cogar box on a bed of tobacco, it was 27 euros but I was lovvvvvvvving it!

I also went on my first ever segway trip, the guy was telling us how safe they are, you cant fall off these they are so steady...about 20 minutes in he's telling me what a prop I am (tbh I was feeling like I was crushing it) so he took the speed limiters off our segways and off I flew...within 2 minutes I'd fallen off and cut my arm wide open lol...hubris at it's finest. Didn't take away from the segway'ing experience for me though, I loved it would do it again happily.

Little picture of me and Laura pre-my big fall :)

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/12417516_10209490334355470_5984389296255908054_n.jpg?oh=f73828acdf467fd1448627ee746d43d1&oe=57D9F996)

After more drinking and shopping and general flopping around in the sunshine we booked a table at InoTeca a 3* Michelin restaurant at like a bazzilion euro's a head, when the worst thing happened...

Sat down ordered some wine, then i got this murmouring feeling...like I was feeling a bit off, I just thought I must be hungry and woofed a bit of wine down, then the waitress brought over this amuse-boushe which usually I'm all over, but I just felt weird. I pulled myself together, took one bite and immediately had to rush to the bathroom to throw up.*

*JUST TO NOTE, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE RESTAURANT THE FOOD IS OUTSTANDING lol

This happened 3 times more and in the end I barely ate anything and struggled one glass of wine down :( Laura ate pretty much everything and she is a pretty small eater, so that goes to show just how good it was. WOke up next day felt abso fine, raging tilt.

Also been spending a bit of time in Bucherest, Laura was born in Romania but its been work thats taking us there mostly but I think she's been enjoying being back there, I like the city too - very cool and lots going on. It's quite like a bit of a mix between a really modern cosmopolitan city and North Cyprus (a place close to my heart :P ) would spend some more time there, would actually consider buying a house there as well they are incredibly cheap.

Coolest thing though by a long way was last week, Matt Perrins/Pez wedding in Norway. His wife is from a tiny tiny village at the top of Norway >1000 miles from the North Pole so they had the wedding there - me and Laura decided to spend a few days in Oslo first just as a little break the two of us - loved Oslo, one thing though it is MIND BLOWINGLY expensive, actual lumps at every turn, almost makes you scared to go out lol.

A big bag of skittles was like £10! We just did what we do in every city, eat amazing food and drink lol only here it was 2.5x the price and in glorious glorious sunshine!!!

The journey to the wedding was good as well, 2hr flight then a 2hr drive through the snowy mountains, absolutely amazing the scenery in this place...

Got drunk, hung out with my friends, ate like a King (Matt's new mother in law is quite the cook!!) did some fishing (caught zero fish) and generally just egaged in relentless merriment. The wedding was lovely, the maid of honour's daughter went mental during her reading which I found quite funny, got sat on a table with two champions of our sport, Martins Adeniya and James Akenhead neither of whom id seen in forever which was really cool.

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13237816_10209881985426502_2140576662766709126_n.jpg?oh=fecce6e79961aa45c1ceedc86ba979a1&oe=57DC345B)

Thats Midnight!!!!

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13177748_10209895403001933_6553035198263739541_n.jpg?oh=bdb953637241850720fa0289bd406541&oe=57CB0038)

The first "Selfie" Iv ever taken!

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13179386_10209881992386676_8714915028760065738_n.jpg?oh=b9777dad2e38b1efeb50001ed8394fe9&oe=57D472B5)

Back to work on tuesday with a mountain of paperwork and 4 12 hr days later barely even touched the sides...

Cliffs

Work Good.
Life good.
Seen some mountains.
Ate Nice Food.
Went on a Segway.
Fell of a Segway.
Trying to Get Rich.

:)

Find it hard to stick with long posts but read every word and loved it - you write so well. Glad things are going so well in all areas mate, keep it up! Will have to get you back into gambling with some crazy TV show related bets soon ;)

Yes Alex, love the action

would read again <3

Hey Dave, great post and  well written. It's great to see business talk in here, and just shows the diversity on blondepoker.

Congratulations on the success with the new restaurant.

With the staff, the main thing will be ensuring standards stay high so that customers get a consistent experience and consequently will keep coming back. It is a hard job/ industry really build the staff up, use a lot of positivity. It might not be a bad idea to run a promo, maybe something monthly with a prize for best customer service or something along those lines.

If you have a wine menu, start the list with the most expensive wines at the top to the lowest prices, this has been shown to increase turnover on wine/ drink sales.

To do with ta, I would just wait for the good reviews to flow in over asking people to write positive reviews.

It looks like a great wee business and wish you every success!

Oh, and what is with all the apostrophes in the menus :P(!)

Superb read, and always nice to see things going well for good people.

Mate of mine I work with lives in Norway, and he says exactly the same thing. It's just joke expensive, for everything.

As for reviews/ppl, I always go with what Joe Rogan said on his podcast 'If you can make 90% of people happy, it's awesome, because 10% of people are just whiny little c****' :D

If I ever make it up north again, I'll be sure to hunt your place out!

The trick with staff complacency is engagement. First is to create max engagement in the product they are selling, this is not fish, this is hospitality. Every guest walking through the door is unique so the experience starts afresh, it could be someone's birthday, an anniversary and the team have this exciting opportunity to create a wicked experience for people. I get a lot of success by empowering staff, coaching them about how influential they are in creating experiences for regular people. Next is to create max engagement about fulfilling potential. All staff, particularly young people, have aspirations to be as good as they can be in life and you can tap into that natural desire to get better with effective coaching. Who wants to waste their potential by underperforming in the things they choose to do?

How engaged are the team in hitting the £15k target? Do they know how they improved SPV by £5.40? Or how they're going to improve it again? Any incentive for hitting the target? Creating engagement, ownership in the performance of the business and offering incentive to grow is the best way to get a team to perform. I mean shit, you're team have more than doubled turnover, you better have taken them out for slap up meal mate!

Oh and the trick with TripAdvisor is to ask people who have positive experiences to review, we hand out little business cards. I mean Casanova said the reason for his success with the ladies was simply because he asked.

Mark obviously you'd be verrrrrrrry welcome :)

Yes Norway is Lumpy, I would go back but I'll need to save up first haha - now I realise why whenever you see Norwegians anywhere they are going nutso everything is free.

Ty shippy - great advice, actually I am re-doing the drinks menu as we speak, Ill give that a go for surrrrre. Wine sales been a big it lately, in 2015 the restaurant sold £3700 worth of wine, since March this year been just over £8500, no vodoo magic here either - put on a nice wine list and had the staff start asking people if they want wine :)

I've worked with quite a few restaurants and there is one thing everyone seems to get wrong, and that's prices - its one of the most crucial elements to the business and you'll be surprised how many people just "stick it at £15" or such when it needs a huge amount of thought, how you price stuff greatly influences what people buy. I have my own theory on it which has proved pretty successful.

Thanks for responses, I still love blonde gutted im no poker player and have nothing pokery to add anymore but enjoy the interaction!

Anyone have any questions?

Awesome post MANTIS just had a mini a-HA! moment reading this.

I'm doing a training session tomorrow and I'm going to completely change the way I will approach it after reading this seriously.

EMPOWER AND ENGAGE!

I'll be sticking a metaphorical stake into Brad as I deliver it!

goes without saying btw if anyone from Blonde is ever in Leeds and want to come see me then I would be delighted

Terrific post , thanks for sharing.

Great read! Loved Barca as well, can you remember the names of the 2 restaurants you went to?

Arola the tapas place, i asked for the cocktail list and the bartender came out and made me my own cocktail, served in the funky glass - I love that stuff.

Second night went to a Spanish restaurant had Paella, cant remember the name, I had lobster was really good, actually interesting thing they served it a whole lobster then cut it up in front of me, meant it was still in its shell but easy to pull out with a knife and fork, never seen lobster like that before. Laura had a squid ink paella it was awesome.

Third night Enoteca, Laura raves about it, my experience was kinda ruined but the place service etc all looked amazing.

I thionk the secret to good food in Barca is staying away from the water front.

I like these deeper stacked posts.

Have you ever heard the story about JFK and the janitor?

Amazing the power of a motivated team.

Definitely about giving an incentive for the staff, as I presume they're in a minimum wage/ near minimum wage job. My first job yeard ago was an evening job at mcdonalds (someone has to) after sixth form, where there's no real incentive to work hard- whether you give a shit and work hard or decide to play dodgeball with frozen chicken nuggets you're paid the same. If there was incentive such as the person who works the hardest, sells the most etc gets to go home an hour early with full pay, or maybe an extra tenner in their pocket you should see an increase in performance, and it creates a fun competitive spirit among the staff as well.

Sounds like it's going well though! It's got me craving a cod and chips...

Not even having a cheeky go on the darts Dave? You've changed :p

Not that I've ever managed anyone, but I kinda feel like the answer to motivating staff is usually incentives. I don't think it's realistic to assume that all the members of your staff actually care that much about the business itself, but if you offer them more selfish reasons to perform well then imo you give yourself a good chance of a positive response. One of my old bosses would buy us all lunch if we hit certain targets at the end of the week, or we'd all go out for a pint on him, or he'd stick on a cash bonus/crate of beer for the person performing most above expectation, and it had a noticeable effect. After all, do you really expect people to work really hard whereas they could work less and get the same return? In my first job, when I started I was super motivated and worked hard, really wanted to learn etc, but after a few months when I realized that I was actually not going to get anything for putting in that effort, and that everyone else around me didn't give a shit (this obvs had a lot to do with it as well), it became increasingly difficult to motivate myself.

Just my two cents :)

Great diary. Wouldnt put all the effort into the restaurant you have to tarnish it with dodgy trip-advisor reviews. Often read reviews of places on sites and its so clearly not real or from someone whos opinion is laughable/ overly enthusiastic/ unrealistic and detracts from what the place does offer. Place looks great, you are rightly proud of it, dont take reviews personal, its all business (know its difficult esp when someones being petty or outright lying/wrong.). When someone writes a review for any reason its a free read, a free insight into how someone thinks, use the free info, take out the feedback/facts and ignore the pettiness/spiteful parts.

If you are keen for reviews hand a small discount on next visit for reviews. Pretty much win, win- you get real reviews, and people comeback.

Loved that long post David and pleased that everything is going well.

The restaurant looks great and I'm determined to get up there this summer.

Do you really fillet the whitebait?

Is there another chain called the Fisherman's wife? :) edit just seen the others in chain are wife's/Wives :)

I love your responses to the bad feedback, anyone turned up to claim dinner with you yet?

The money-man behind this project has a chain called The Fisherman's Wife, he's my old boss I used to work for when i left school, wonderful guy I'd crawl over crushed glass for him :)

The similarity between the two is prolly a bit close in hiensight though :P

Thanks - actually 3 people in the last week with one more booked in! Let the good reviews flow :P

You're absolutely right, exactly the way to look at it a free insight into the mind of a potential customer - gotta learn not to take it quite so to heart when you get slated in public for something you pour your sole (hahahahaha) into... Good life lesson for me there.

Done my brains on the darts obviously, some things in life never change :P

Great read.

Craving fish and chips.

Don't get to Leeds much now but if I do I'll be sure to pop in.

No egg used in your batter right? (COD)

Good Sunday, Dave?

I'm trying to put 2+2 together here but i think he might have money bubbled me in the WSOP main seat  :'( :'(

Sup bubble absolutely yeh come on in would be good to see you.

No, no egg, pretty firm believer in simple is best in the batter department, and we're in Yorkshire son, all haddock up here!!!

HAd best ever "regular" day in the restaurant on Friday, was struggling for a little momentum as well so came at the right time - Tomorrow I'm hosting a Jazz evening with special (more expensive¬) menu and a local Jazz band, did it last month and it was brilliant, restaurant usually pulls in about £400 on a tuesday night and we took nearly £600 that night just on booze :)

Next month in Country night, I've got flyers out...I've got posters on the wall...I've got a full page advert in a local community Jewish Magazine, I am super fucking on it!

Just one thing I've over-looked... a bloody country band!!!! Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!

Yesterday was a good day :)

First actual day off in an aggge, Laura wanted a picnic but the weather wouldn't quite play ball so I made an indoor picnic which went down like a storm! I drank a bottle of pink sparkling wine, a few desperado's then cracked a bottle Malbec open and jumped in the £1k sat to main event which i ended up winning a seat so wiiii I'm going to Vegas first time since 2013 when I got my insides ripped out and handed back to me.

I can absolutely not afford the time off in the slightest as sports book project goes live in 7 days but whatever I won a seat now so off I go!

In fact, seeing as I'm going...I'll prolly extend another week and go for 18 days, live and let live and all.

Laura never been before so that will be cool for her, actually seems the process of her getting a visa is a little more complicated than your regular ESTA, anyone have any experience with Romanian - US travel visa's wanna drop a PM i'd owe you a drink.

Playing last night towards the bubble I was actually really nervous lol much more than i ever was in big cash games back in the day, as we got a bit closer I was just thinking about vegas and the fucking mirage and wanted to go so bad, was over the moon when i won the seat.

Sorry JP, I'll buy you a steak in the rhino one lunchtime make up for it :)

I'MMM BACK!!! whoohooo 5,6,8,9 max behind the line full press till I say otherwise please dealer.

yessss David.  yesssssss

This blog gonna get fun.


Gl with the visa stuff, it can be a real hassle having to jump through so many hoops. Run well!

No worries mate , well done cya out there!

Congratulations on winning a seat Dave.

Really looking forward to the Vegas reports for the diary.

Also wish you the best of luck in the new business venture . A few oil guys who come in my bar while working in China are from Leeds so will be certain to give your restaurant a mention. They really are top guys

Congratulations Dave on the seat, outstanding work sir

Hi David,

Now you're a top business man, isn't it time we discussed a fair price for that fiesta?

Kind Regards

Christopher

Congrats Dave. Unlucky JP.  Glad to see the diary back.

I'm only 3.5 hours from Leeds (I checked) so I'll def drop by and sample your restaurant soon 👍🏻

"I'm only 3.5 hours from Leeds (I checked) so I'll def drop by and sample your restaurant soon 👍🏻"

Put yer foot down :P

 ;whistle;

man I thought this once in a lifetime deal would never re-surface, lets talk turkey

I will get some piri piri sauce in specially

Dave

Just been reading some of your diary and very impressed with your new business and enthusiasm.

Hope its gonna prosper.

Cheers

thanks mate, appreciate the kind words.

Lets hope!!

Devilfish

(http://www.pokerguru.in/article_image/7702427087352.jpg)

Found myself alone the other night, sipping a glass of wine and enjoying a rare relaxing moment, ended up picking up the Devilfish autobiography and having a little read - half of me rejoiced in the memories of such a fascinating man, the other half felt deeply saddened that i'll never sit in a poker game with him again.

So I thought I'd just write a little about my experiences with Dave "Devilfish" Ulliot, and why both myself personally, and poker on a whole really miss him.

In general terms his poker game over the last decade had been declining in terms of the respect from his peers - I always found it funny his public spats with Phil Hellmuth given there startling similarities, both adore the spotlight, both have an internal rant-tilt switch whenever they perceived they had been done wrong by fortune and both have a deep down "to-the-core" belief in their own ability (a lifetime of winning breeds this) and this lead to a element of dismay that they were not fully respected by other pros/everyone for their ability. Deep down neither of them care, because they passed the biggest test of all in gambling... The test of time.

He admitted to me privately once that he had a huge amount of respect for PH, he stands up for himself and has the record to prove it, I'm pretty sure the feelings were mutual and away from TV poker Im pretty certain they were pals :P the oppurtunity to wind Hellmuth up whenever a camera was around though I think was just too much for Mr. Ulliot to ever refuse :D

I played a huge amount of poker with Dave, and I was the complete opposite, I had a lot of respect for his poker game, that wasn't to say I was ever particularly worried about being in a game with him - in fact quite the opposite I loved playing in poker games with Dave, technically speaking of course he had flaws but he was an absolute master of his image and his style, he always knew exactly when someone was scared of him, or when someone was after him - and he knew the precise spots and cards to take advantage with and knew how to make it pay. I learned a lot from him about this side of the game and it was this skill alone that kept him ahead of the curve for as long as he was. People loved to play with him (despite him being a grumpy bastard 80% of the time win or lose) he wasn't a Jake Cody character, lovely kid from Rochdale, won millions and always with a smile on his face, time for everyone - Dave's character was an old school Rounder, wearing his suit and sunglasses and regaling old gambling stories from smokey rooms mumbled out of a husky south Yorkshire accent, there was an air of mystery around him and people were drawn to it, myself included.

That's something that died with Dave on 6th April 2015, the throwback to the old days of gambling, underneath Chinese restaurants and in rickety old barns, you can count the number of people that survived those times and learnt to grow into the new age of gambling on one hand (one of my hands even!), in swanky card rooms, being served wine and beer by attractive young waitresses and playing with 19yr old Latvian kids with $500k to play with, he was proud of those days, where he came from and loved sharing the tales. He was a proper gambler, before the days of bankroll management and turn raising ranges came in and turned the game into a scientific formula, you got some cash together and you played against whoever was there to play.

The main thing i loved about him though, was that he was just straight up bloody hilarious, I never played a game with him where at some point in the game I didn't just howl with laughter, yep he was borderline misogynistic, could be a tad racist and definitely lacked a little tact from time to time but he did it all with this goggly smile on his face which meant it was genuinely close to impossible to ever be really offended. I remember a game at DTD once, I was sat in between Rob and Sam and we played until ~midday and Devilfish was on such good form, playing his accordian, calling the dealer Rolf Harris (this was before the child abuse cases, and the guy didn't look anything like rolf harris) telling stories in between raging about how unlucky he was getting and the three of us were in absolute stiches for nrly 12 hours straight.

I mean the man used to roll up in a massive Hummer with his name on the side, get out in his suit with sunglasses on play poker for 16 hours then get back in and sleep in it in between burst of accordian playing (occasionally brought his guitar which was always a treat...) there will never be another character like this in poker or any other "sport" for that matter ever again - he said what he thought, did what he wanted and fuck me was he funny. 

He was very proud of his family too, and would never pass the chance to show pictures or tell stories of what they were doing.

The final thing I wanna say about him, and this is the main thing that kept him alive him poker all these years was that he just LOVED the game, he loved it, and not only did he love it but it meant something to him every time he played, every win made him happy and every loss made him furious.  Of all the people I've ever played with I've never met anyone with as much passion for the game as Devilfish.

I remember once we'd been playing a game in London and he'd won about £25k, which you'd think would have put him in a good mood (i'm sure he is looking down from whatever cloud he is sitting on right now, playing 3 card brag with some suckers and slapping the angels bums as the fly past and would claim he bought the drinks that night! There is never a man who has claimed to have paid for as many nights out as DU :P ) he was moaning to me about a hand at the start of the night, some young Romanian kid had made a really sketchy turn call early doors and got it in drawing pretty thin and 2 outed Dave, pot was £3-4k maybe, I said to him "Dave that was like 10 hours ago and you won 25 bags it doesn't matter anymore"
He stopped talking, threw his head back - looked thoroughly disappointed in me and replied.

"Kid - it's a poker hand...They all matter"

I think sums up the man's approach to poker really well.

R.I.P Mr Devilfish, you'll be remembered by poker players long after todays superstars are gone.

(http://pnimg.net/w/articles-attachments/1/4c2/74d75c36d2.jpg)

Great write up Dave.

Wanna write 'cool story bro' but that sounds sarcy. Great read, enjoyed that

"you can count the number of people that survived those times and learnt to grow into the new age of gambling on one hand (one of my hands even!),"


Brilliant   rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao

That's a great piece sir.

I played a lot with him back in the days of the old Midlands circuit and he always brings a smile to my face whenever I think of those games. Cracking photo too.

I hope someone sends it to Des Wilson who wrote that abysmal obituary.

What a great write up. More of the same please Dave

Also have some fond memories with Devilfish. He will definitely be missed

Dave

I gather DTD are to institute a "Devilfish Trophy" tournament to be played annually

PLO, not NLHE as that's what Devilfish preferred

i think there are discussions with Mrs Ulliott at the moment as to dates, a charitable element etc

Great read Dave.

Great read, write more please.

My daughter read the autobiography by the pool in St Kitts. At one stage she was away getting another cocktail and had left it on the lounger. At which point Devilfish walked past, and got some abuse from those with him over it. He was great entertainment value over there, both with and without guitar in hand.

As an aside, I learnt from that autobiography that he was born just one day after I was and having had a few bottles of Carib I shared the fact with him on the first night. I was told, both firmly and emphatically to keep that fact to myself :)

Haha, I like that

Brilliant Dave  :)up

sorry Dave, but I wanted a few more Devilfish stories!

Dave

FYI

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck1trHdWgAAOdYs.jpg)

Dave - check your PM's please. (Urgent-ish).

 

Super write up Dave.

Arrived in vegas 3 days ago and I am FUCKING LOVING IT!!!

If you followed my blog back "in the day" (2010-2014) you'll know I have a real love affair with LV, I have made 7 trips here in total, 3 in the summer and 4 out of the summer and the pattern has been pretty reliable, done huge money every summer (bar one where I didnt do all that badly, but spent a fair bit on "VEGAS EXPERIENCES") and won pretty hefty every other time, you'd think that someone like me would sit down and think, meh maybe what i'm doing in the summer is not working.

Well I didn't! my last trip here was summer 2013 where i lost abso huge and it pretty brutal fashion, I won't repeat the details of the last game i played on here but flick back through this diary if you're interested :P

The minute i stepped foot back here it all came rushing back to me - the wins, the losses, the absolutely mind-bending head losses, the sheer lunacy of what i used to get up to and one big burning question...how the fuck did I ever afford it!! I always remember at the time, feeling like...I could genuinely afford it all - who knows! Anyways I had a blast here and wouldn't change anything, this is a special place for me and I'm over the fucking moon to be back.

First thing I did was go the Rio to see UK #1 money man Firaldo and collect some $, and saw the friendly face of 27x triple crown winner Chris Moorman on the table opposite, lovely. Met middy for dinner (don;t like to go over a month without seeing each other) went to La Cave then got straoght into dice tables! Ended poorly but many great moments were shared!!!

Actually not done all that much yet, a lot of eating, drinking, chilling by the pool - like a proper holiday!

Vivvvvvvvvvvvvvva

I'm so happy at the prospect of a few "VEGAS EXPERIENCES" reports in the next week or so.

Good luck mate. Get it all!!!

+1

yesssssss

Hello!

Had a nice meal out of the blue the other day with Dan Carter and his lovely gf inspired me to check in with the good people of blonde.

Here's what i've been up to;

Vegas

Vegas, was absolutely amazing, I loved every second of it, I played poker just once, in the main event which I enjoyed thoroughly, saw loads of great people and good friends of mine who i hardly ever get to see, drank a lot, ate a lot, gambled like a lunatic and generally just touristed it up. Never had an actual holiday in vegas before and I have been hugely missing out. I was relaxed the whole time, never stressed or anxious honestly it was a revelation. I was kind of sceptical about how much id enjoy being there not to grind poker after that's what i know.

My birthday was particually awesome, me laura middy and charlotte (tom mac's gf) went to margeritaville to play craps - on this note margeritaville is by a long way my favorite place to gamble, give me margeritaville 1000 times before the venetian, pallazo, or even wynn/encore - so chilled, no grumpy pit bosses the dealers are all class and they seem to understand that I'm on holiday trying to have some fun. Somewhere in the midst of all the fancy chrome and incredible resort features wynn/encore/venetian/pallazo have kind of forgotten that gambling is entertainment... That's a view I've had on those places for a long time stemming back to some incidents in my early trips.

I had an incredibly proud moment for Laura when i was out there too...

We were in margeritaville gambling with Andreas (who'd just won an aria tourney for 250k) Mark Kelsall and Steve Warbs, i was taking control of the craps syndicate when i needed the toilet, i rushed there and back obviously didnt wanna miss any big hardways or points landing as i come back to the table i stop dead in my tracks and watch Laura screaming "full press change on hard 6" at the croupier...brought a tear to my eye it did. A few rolls later a hard 6 actually came in too...a truly wonderful vegas moment!

We went to see absinthye which iv seen before but would be pretty happy to watch 20 times, tournament of kings which me and laura enjoyed but the rest of the group weren't so keen on. The second to last meal was great as we got a $500 comp at Sushi Samba and after considering inviting someone to join us for all of about 75 seconds we decided we'd just go nuts ourselves... champagne, cocktails, i'd previously been dsuaded from the wagyu gyozas because laura doesn't eat meat but went straight in for them this time - was funny actually on the table next to us was a couple in the exact same spot (she doesn't eat meat) as soon as he saw my wagyu gyozas he just snap fucked off being a gent and ordered himself some.

I got to see the giant frog at wynn a few times (love that frog) and was pretty disappointed to come home, was railing middy so hard as a return trip to vegas in november would have been perfect. Been considering it anyway but Ash's wedding is in February next year and we're going to do thailand just before and thats shaping up to be a truly expensive trip, so I think i'v borrowed my mum's timeshare to do a quick october week in Tenerfire instead at about 5% of the cost :)

Since coming home from vegas things have been pretty chaotic.

The restaurant has provided some huge challenges, given i had time in Vegas to actually sit and think things through I came back with lots of ideas for the restaurant and realised what it is i needed to do and the errors we'd been making so far. The style of the service in the USA, Vegas in particular is just pure class, our CUSTOMER SERVICE is really really good but this is the actual service, the staff need to know the menu back to front, the drinks need to be perfect and served the same every time etc. However my plans to put this into practice were jolted pretty quickly by things that had happened in my absense...

Firstly the office that do our book-keeping have been down in my absense and casued mayhem, this promted a spell of high tension between myself and my partners who are the ones who insist that we use their office, then we had a falling out over opening times, budgets, marketing, websites pretty much everything. People who know me well know i'm a very unconfrontational guy but sometimes you gotta fight over stuff, I conceded on a few points where they made good sense and then got my way on most of the other things.  The problems we have is that they are running 8 restaurants and i'm just running 1, tensions can get high and we have VERY different views on a lot of aspects. None of this matters really though as long as business blooms as a result.

My strategy with the staff has been a challenging one too, Ive invested a lot of faith into young and inexperienced people, trying to grow them into managers - the advantages to this are that i) you pay less wages, ii) you build a staff member to work in the way you like and iii) you gain some ingrained loyalty as you're the one who gave them the break. Strategy such as this though is not without it's problems, ego mixes with inexperience and this leads to some disputes, people do the job successfully under your supervision for a few months and now they believe genuinely that they are the finished article and should be paid the same as anyone else doing that job for 10+ years, it's a difficult conversation to have with someone you are trying to nuture to say "actually you are not there yet" you have to show some tough love sometimes, and of course the obvious one that you need to be on hand to pick up the pieces whenever things get a little OOH...

2 guys I really put faith into here, 1 is doing very very well and the other is not doing as well, I've taken the rather difficult decision to effectively demote him (bring someone else in above) it's been a tough one because the lad has really worked so hard and given it his all but he's just not there yet and on reflection it was too soon to make this move for him. I'm really hoping he'll respond positively to it and become stronger and stronger as a result.

Now Ive finally sorted that, and gotten August (traditionally awful month) out of the way I can finally start work on what i wanted to do after Vegas!

Just gonna spam some pictures at you now ;)

Cool picture of me in action;

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14355120_677273049088512_7999225078209917378_n.jpg?oh=88da8d8e1963ae776c0e49b6705c5508&oe=5844BBA8)

We had a rockNroll band in last night was a brilliant evening, took 4x what we usually do on a tuesday!
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14344337_677273172421833_4026449487861746185_n.jpg?oh=41f8debb1448de96e2e816c73e1b284b&oe=583D4277)

Lobster on the menu

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14333812_677272949088522_1003703999581352806_n.jpg?oh=9e3a0304540f738554f177b1e46d2e69&oe=5842413A)
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14316821_677272892421861_7458179320985011693_n.jpg?oh=63e9fd283835c80ff6dbd34532f683fe&oe=583C1EBE)

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14358815_677273119088505_9145561506682629478_n.jpg?oh=62f29d8d27222a1de9fc7382ad02313c&oe=5880EF5C)

Charming some of our regular customers ;)
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14322403_677183169097500_3662048242108896609_n.jpg?oh=2125e67fc61b0d71c7562ccefbbbc05e&oe=587D2D45)

HAd people dancing too!
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14344844_677183235764160_7397782818115621090_n.jpg?oh=67fb6309143c7c3a337288252821d416&oe=583BE138)

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14358789_677182715764212_7089426277398603001_n.jpg?oh=8cd85c48307952a2f73cf8b3a09b4b8a&oe=58763C75)

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14264993_673533762795774_3565740748880012480_n.jpg?oh=526e239966e837ee0a51860e5ab58a4e&oe=5884DBF3)

THe Bar Area
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14225395_673533652795785_5544579301011570812_n.jpg?oh=df32e31598cb72ecfc37712a0a553279&oe=58754430)

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14233228_673536492795501_3455945138403248930_n.jpg?oh=14cc5567a6c234e192bd7f7ec4b3d44f&oe=5843C488)

Finally got the website running too - after months of arguing about it, where the other two insisted that the restaurant go on their website www.thefishermanswife.co.uk titled as "street lane outlet" (eurgh) I have finally persuaded them to break the terms of our arrangement at the start - that it would be branded as fishermans wife and we've broken away totally from that and stand alone... Here is the new website, you'll see a slight improvement...

ww.thefishermanslodge.co.uk

It's a battle but a fun one :)

Outside of this my application for a gaming license is in! Had to jump through some pretty tiny hoops to prove i am a person of good standing, makes me think I should start standing a bit better :)

Anyone got any Q's fire them at me, enjoyed the morning on blonde again :P

What is the gaming licence for.

After hours gambling in the restaurant?

Ha - no, although what a great bloody idea!!!!

We are launching a betting site - after running a poker site for the last year we are taking the step up!

What's your betting site's USP?

We have an existing database from the region which is pretty extensive, built our own software which is going to be really good and we have teamed up with some very shrewd guys on the pricing model to get a really good risk management/pricing strategy which is what really gives you the best product for your customers.

Non of this is unique, but this a very strong, very competitive industry and the value of the products are all pretty well known by the customers, so it's less about unique and more about doing it right. The software, the price model, the bonuses.

Also you need to throw a shitload of money at it, it's really hard work, but coming into it with a large existing player database is a very good starting point.

Good luck with it, I think Richard Bransons book said that there are two options for a successful business.

1) Come up with a new idea, test the market, gamble etc etc
2) Take a successful business model and do it better than the competition.

It was not quite like that but you get the jist.

Option 2 is actually a hell of a lot easier and is what branson has done. Similar to what you have done already with restaurant you just in my eyes have to always keep on at what your good at.

So many of my friends have started something, been great for 2 years then took their foot off the pedal and shit has hit fans quicker than they can recover it. I think the ethos you have with your staff is great, and a great model for going forward but you have to keep the next generation coming through.

Would love a can of refreshing Virgin cola right now.

All the best Dave! Always enjoy reading your thoughts, be that gambling, business or otherwise. I'm not far from Leeds so shall try and pop in for some fish and chips sometime soon. I'll drag all my friends with me, so a table for 4 will suffice.

I liken it to pushing a snowball uphill, if you push hard enough it will always get bigger but stop pushing and it melts, let go and it rolls to the bottom and smashes.

Hi mate - yep call in anytime would be more than welcome.

Holla! Fascinating reading.

1. Hardest thing about running a restaurant? I can imagine the awfully long hours sometime must get the staff down sometimes. How do you motivate them?
2. Where do you get your fish from. Leeds is not exactly near the coast.
3. Whats your preference - Cod or Haddock

Love the gluten free option on the menu. Many takers for that?
MrsD has been gluten free for 3 years now. A chippie near us at Southend does the most fabulous GF food and i love it. The batter is almost tempura like. Really light and crispy ( due to lack of gluts I expect)
We also found a great one whilst on holiday in Norfolk last week.
www.ericsfishandchips.com

HI mate,

Hardest thing about running a restaurant is just the sheer relentless attention it requires, never has there been aything so demanding for attention, so needy and so fickle, it literally never, ever ends. Take your foot off the pedal for a day and you can undo weeks of hard work. 100 delighted customers can all be undone by 1 unhappy one. The long hours are a doddle in comparison.

Motivating the staff is a challenge, actually got some very good advice on here about it, the style i've developed as a manager of people is to learn about each person individually and try to figure out what motivates them, different people want different things but I try to create a challenging enviroment where people's strengths get the chance to grow.

Contrary to popular opinion most places buy fish from the same place and that's Russian/Icelandic waters - Scarborough, Whitby, Filey, Brighton etc all have the benefit of being on the coast and can take fresh fish straight off the fishing boats, which is amazing for restaurant dishes (I'm involved in a restaurant in whitby that can buy X fish from a fisherman at 6am 2 hours after he's caught it and have it on the specials board by midday which is just the most amazing thing) but for battered fish and chips fish the icelandic/russian frozen at sea haddock/cod is the best and actually iv worked with coastal restaurant who've had fresh north sea haddock on the menu lightly battered and it sold at a rate of about 1-to-10. The quality of the fish coming from those super north sea's at the moment is just unreal as well. The modern age of the Chippy is that the best quality fish is on everyones fingertips, but you gotta pay the price.

Ahhh the old cod vs haddock debate, the history of this goes back to the days when you had to get your fish from the local fish merchant and if you were in the North East you got from Hull/Whitby etc and it was always haddock, if you're on the south you got from southampton and it was always cod, this created a taste preference in the local areas and as a result if you're form yorkshire the vast majority of the fish sold up here is haddock and likewise downsouth it's cod. The real truth is that when it's battered very few people can taste the difference, if I was asked to pick which was which i'd prolly have a pretty good idea, if you give me some cod and tell me it's haddock I wont have a scooby. IF it's cooked differently though the difference is much more obvious. God I wish chinese frankie was here his comments on this subject are just priceless.

My restaurant is in a Jewish area and given the local preference is strongly for haddock and cod is non-kosher I don't even sell it. So to answer your question I'll be a proud yorkshireman and say haddock!

A fun story on this topic, I used to have a shop in wakefield a few years back, we had people asking for cod i just used to give them haddock (terrible i know) until i did one day only to be told later that the person was allergic to haddock!!!! Shiiiiiiit - i never did that again of course :)

GLuten free actually hasn't been as popular as I thought it was going to be, I think just need to give time - yeah you're right it's much crsipier than regular batter, we put gluten free beer in ours which makes it quite nice.

I'm glad you've got a good chippy on hand, means i don't have to open near you :)
 

I think you'll find that cod is Kosher David as long as it comes from the sea.

It's only freshwater cod(which is something that I had never heard of) that is not Kosher.

Really enjoy reading about the day to day running of the restaurant.

How important are websites like Tripadvisor to your restaurant, can good or bad tripadvisor reviews make or break a business like yours, or is it just a side thing that can bring in a few web savvy customers sometimes but doesn't matter too much either way?

Genuine questions here which may seem like a troll but really aren't:

Who decides what is and isn't kosher?

Is there a method of making something that isn't kosher kosher?

Could you take a freshwater cod, throw it in the sea and then it becomes kosher?

Apologies for the derail but this may influence future fish choices so needs sorting asap.

Kosher for fish needs to have scales and fins, and not feed from the bottom (eat shit effectively) cod is a bottom feeder and therefore non-kosher, some cod is kosher but jewish customers seem disinterested in distinguishing the difference and just eat haddock. Monkfish, turbot, swordfish etc all feed from the bottom and therefore not kosher, crab, prawns, lobsters dont have scales or fins and dont qualify either. As for who decides this I really have no idea lol, assuming it comes from an old jewish source somewhere? When i first took over i was wondering how much influence i should let the kosher/non-kosher fish affect my menu choices and its not really made much difference.

It's amazing that this is the first time I have ever heard about cod not being kosher.

I even have an old Jewish cookery book that belonged to my great-aunt which has several recipes for cod inside.

The "freshwater cod" is actually burbot and somewhat eel-like which would explain it's not being kosher. Is it possible that "freshwater cod" is a more marketable name for the fish rather like "rock-salmon" used to be?

I've found this to answer the cod and other kosher-related questions such as evil-pie's:

http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/307920/jewish/Kosher-Foods.htm

thats strange all the resources i used said it was non-kosher, might have to get it on the menu!!!

TBH it's a total faf anyways and it's quite a bit more expensive atm

There's a smart new fish and chip restaurant/take-away recently opened around the corner from me call The Cod and Scollops.

I checked it out the other day as everyone was raving about it, very nice indeed with chips fried in dripping and fresh fish with light tempura-style batter.

There's another of the same name on the other side of Nottingham which is well-established, not sure if that's it or the chain is bigger.

It's not as classy or as big as yours which I'm definitely going to visit next time I'm in Leeds(for kosher cod:)) but certainly a welcome upgrade to the local chippie up the road.

I hadn't realised that you were involved with this place, Dave.  My wife is coeliac and she wants to go there at some point for the gluten-free option (we've used the Fisherman's Wife before, but they only served GF on a Tuesday).

Will have to make the effort sooner rather than later, having caught up on the thread.  Looks like a good option for an evening out.

Good luck with it.  Hope it's a huge success for you.

Doesn't cod "flake" a bit differently to haddock?  

<3 lil Dave.

Shout when you're in London and I'll take you for a beer.

it does, but in batter honestly you won't notice the difference.


At london prices?! you're on!!!


Looks nice, although the website seemed to crash when i was looking!! The balance of putting restaurant food onto a chip shop is a really tough one, lots of people have failed. I think the key is to remember what you are, and thats a cool, casual place that does a few nicer dishes, dont try to be michelin star as you just look silly. "Smart-Casual" dining i call it :)


Hi mate - yep we do GF every weds, but unlike te other FW im doing it properly. It's different here to the fisherman's wife, not because i think they are bad in any way (far from it) but i think they are different and the association doesn't benefit me :)

Would be great to see you!

Enjoying the questions.

Restaurant looks nice bro. Stands to reason the business will require all your time and attention, a consequence of employing young guns. You need an experienced Pirlo type who can deliver your vision effectively day-to-day without micro-management. Don't forget you gotta factor your $$ hourly coaching into the overall staffing costs and your $$ hourly is huge isn't it?

Nice looking place Dave.
In my fortieth year I have just started eating fish for the first time so might give it a try.
Do you do the kids menus in the restaurant? I notice you have a kids special for takeaway but not on the main menu.

Looks class that Dave. I really want fish and chips now.

What beers you serving? Any craft beer? I've always thought a nice citrussy pale ale goes lovely with fish.

Ha thanks mate.

Yep funny you should say!  There is a brewery in Scarborough iv worked with a while that some people will defo have heard of called Wold Top, we have three nice craft ales from them one of which is a pale ale called anglers reward and is brewed specially for fish and chips, obviously we sell tons of it. Personally not for me at all but this type of beer is so popular now so what do I know.

Peroni (bottle) sol (bottle) San Miguel (draught) and tetleys (draught)  our others, strongly considering putting another draught lager on too but can't decide what, thinking Estrella might be good. Kinda wanna replace tetleys cos it's so old hat but we're in Yorkshire and people like it and you can't go against the people!

Wet sales has been one of the biggest areas of Improvement since the takeover.  The total wet sales last year was £2,700 and this last 3 months is been about £1,300 a week (not including tea!)

Sup defo come down be great :-) I'm glad you've seen the light even if it taken a long time.

Yeah we do v good kids options, meal drink dessert and our monthly colouring comp £6.50. A lot of parents say the only meal that ever finish is fish and chips, Yorkshire kids :-)

Yep huuuuuge :-p

Thanks mate, yeah it's that fine balance ofv exactly what you divide your time between, you have to accept that you can't do everything so some things you have to delegate, some things you have to outsource etc you gotta be where your most effective.

The only place I really wanna be is on the floor looking after customers hoping to get to a point where pretty much everything else is taken care of and all I have to do is look over it,and can spend 30 hours a week talking to customers. Im a long way off but it's certainly not impossible.

These websites are absolutely crucial, make or break is perhaps a little dramatic but they have a huge influence - firstly in your search engine results tripadvisor, google and fb ratings are very powerful, you have to go a LONG way on your SEO to keep those 3 from being visible straight away when you google if you have a bad rating its impossible to hide it even if people dont use tripadvisor specifically, also if you have a lot of traffic going to tripadvisor then it helps your google profile immensely. IT's pretty well acknoledged that tripadvisor has a huge amount of influence in diners selecting where to eat, it's impossible to hide from google/tripadvisor so not doing it is not an option, doing it badly can be very detrimental to your business and doing it well can be fantastic.

This is how things are in advertising nowadays, the old methods are still effective at certains times or places but online and social media is where it is now, it's not a case of you can do it well and be an innovater, its a case of if you don't do it right you get left a million miles behind most other places - accepting it is really your only option.

Most frustrting thing about it really is the distinct lack of control you have compared to old fashioned techniques, but then try find an old fashioned marketing technique where you can reach 4000 people who are interested in eating out aged 18-65 in a couple of days!

Replace it with another Yorkshire pint and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Taylors Landlord just happens to be the greatest pint around, and fits the bill nicely!

We intend to take bets.

yeah we're going to be pretty aggro on risk management, but most important its going to be straight up. If your business not welcome you get straight told none of this pathetic you can bet £20, no you can bet £11, no you can bet £7, no you can bet £4. This is from companies worth like a billion pounds too, honestly its fucking pathetic.

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14344337_677273172421833_4026449487861746185_n.jpg?oh=41f8debb1448de96e2e816c73e1b284b&oe=583D4277)

So where are you putting the FOBTs?

Hi Dave, I've got to admit it all looks and sounds really good. Having quickly glanced at this diary, yesterday before a meal out at some pub in Derbyshire, the only thing I fancied was the haddock and chips. It was great although strangely enough it was very non-greasy. Now I get that cooked correctly both the fish and the chips do not  necessarily get overly greasy but these were too dry. Do you have any secrets when it comes to the cooking you'd like to share?

BTW I like the website but the gallery section doesn't seem to run very smoothly and the pictures seem to be repeated quite a bit. Not a criticism just something that would annoy me if it were mine.

^^^^
Agree about photos, some good shots but the trick is capturing people as much as the facility. A group of smiling diners all raising a glass, bringing out a birthday cake to a celebrating group. When people think of going out for dinner it's the experience that draws them in, not the furniture. Pictures should portray the EXPERIENCE for max advertising effect. That said I've got the same bar stools and know they are $$$ so the furniture is cool. Strong emphasis on gin which is bang on trend at the moment. I do 4 gins with 4 different fever tree tonics and 4 different garnish including rosemary and cucumber, punters love it!! Your website, image and social media engagement are all pretty impressive mate.

Haha Larry Lobster "lobstermania" slot machines, you remember them?

(https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiRnav0_JXPAhUEPhQKHfAhDU4QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffindfreeslots.com%2Ffree_slots%2Flobstermania-slot-machine%2F&psig=AFQjCNF7d-lA99Xa82PQpnBC215svxldEQ&ust=1474187057637440)

Had my greatest ever gambling win on one of them, 18 years old at merrion centre grosvenor, £5 in the larry down to 1p, one line, 1p, mega jackpot hit £48 return :) 4800% ROI :)

Good idea, really good idea - looks a bit classier too.

MBN!

Sheffield brewery Kelham Island make some nice beers too, notably Pale Rider and Easy Rider(the cooking).

Hello!

It's all in the details, batter needs to be the right consistency, not to thick or too thin, and the fish needs to be rested after coming out of the fryer, 2-3 minutes ideally. If the batter is too thick then it will hold a lot more grease and there's pretty much no way to get that back, if it's too thin then it will not hold on the fish as well and its likely to burn or curl in the fryer. Lots of different ways to cook the chips and opinions on temperature etc but if you want them perfect then (IMO) just ever so slightly undercook them at a very high temp (180-190) and leave to rest in the box for 3-4 minutes, that way they are nice and crispy and most of the grease should have drained. It's not really practical to cook like this though in service and very easy to over-cook slightly and then if they sit in the box for longer than 4-5 minutes they will get dry pretty quick.

Were they beer battered? A lot of pubs do fish like this which is really nice but makes the batter a bit crispier and if they rest it for too long can dry out pretty quick.

Agree totally about the gallery section, I think we just need a lot more pictures?

Checking it out!!!

Awesome, which ones? It's all about the garnishes, we've got blueberries grapefruit, cherry tomatoes, thyme, basil, orange peel, cardamon, apples and such, gotta be served in nice glasses too :)

Great point r.e people and people having fun - we took a lot of pictures like that the other night and from our other music evenings I'm going to get them up this weekend.

Thanks for the nice comments on the image/SM/website etc, it's been a real struggle actually because my partners don't really appreciate the value in this stuff, and certainly don't understand just how delicate and time consuming it is. I've had a strong vision for the place since we started and it's starting to take form, it's not a case of us trying to build an image from scratch, which in itself is really difficult but we're trying to replace an existing image that has been built up over 25 years, and severely damaged over the past 3-4. It's going to take a lot of time and a lot of work. Got miles more to do, and I'm going to have to bring in some help soon as i think it needs "pro-ing" up a bit and also the time it takes is just intense, haven't even really kicked off on twitter or instagram or any of these things either.

Don't overdo it with the 'fun' pics. Personally can't imagine a worse dining experience than being surrounded by people singing and dancing.

You can't please us all.... :D

Massively this.

"Let's all go to TGI Friday's", said no one you'd want to eat with, ever.

Think I have to agree. Not sure what kind of atmosphere you are trying to portray. As someone who eats out quite a lot I'd rather see pictures of how clean the place is, how nice the food is and how tidy the staff are,

what a bunch of mood killers!!

These sort of things can work as a once a month thing but unless you're in a holiday town in the high season that's the best you're going to get.

Might even work as an every weekend thing but it'll be a fad and it won't last long.

In my opinion of course.

These live music nights we have twice a month, it's not like there is a lot of money in them - given we have max capacity when the band is there of about 65 and only one sitting all night and include the cost of the band, promoting it some likely food waste etc the biggest financial upside is probably about £250-£300, so these aren't money spinners - what they are great for is they bring people into the restaurant who have never been in before, and they create a buzz about the place too - so many people come in and say "when's your next evening" "I heard you had a jazz night" "I drove past last night the place was full" we've even had times when people have turned up at one of the nights not realising that its a music night and us being full, which is annoying to turn customers away but defo leaves a good impression - fully booked on a tuesday.

Also it's on a tuesday night which is always a crap night.

I think it's really important to have different things on, try new things and basically show your customers, even those who dont want to eat when live music is on, that we care, we're always trying to bring new experiences to the customers and imrpove the restaurant. We've also done a Gin tasting evening, charity coffee mornings and I did lobster month in June which was really popular.

The real crux of my vision for the place is to create a fun friendly dining experience, the food is good, lots of nice drinks but it's not too serious, you know that you come to the fisherman's lodge, you'll have fun. Staff are up for a laugh,the place is spotless, nice warm friendly decor and you know you're going to get good service. Fish and chips are the star of the menu and we're not trying to be anything we're not, just trying to do it really well. Trying to reach as many new customers as we can.

Any tables about for lunch this week?

Lovely drink that, could drink it for days. Was actually the drink that first got me into drinking ale.

Just did a bit of googling to find out exactly where it was brewed because I thought it was a little bit further south, but hey ho what do i know.

And this came up on the website:

FOOD MATCHING

"Landlord is one of the most versatile beers when it comes to food pairing. The citrussy notes are brilliant with fish and chips, and the Seville orange marmalade flavours bring out the best in duck. The depth of the beer matches up to strong, salty cheeses, like mature cheddar."

There you go Dave, it's decided.

I look forward to trying your battered duck and chips.

ha ofc mate just say the word!

Awesome :) incredible work!

Had me a nice lil day off yesterday which is the first in a long time, restaurant has had a shocker this week, absolute howler, all over the city my friends who own/run hospitality businesses are having the worst weeks of the year and throw in some shenanigans at roudhay park meaning traffic from one side of the approach is totally cut off, i'm not going to lose sleep over it, and look at the positives for the week of which there are actually a few. Nevertheless still tilting and our weekly Monday morning meetings have been very tense over the past 3 months due to the professional divisions between the 4 of us so every poor week just makes even tenser, even though it shouldn't - "DONT BE RESULTS ORIENTATED" doesn't go down as well in the real world :)

Spent most of the day with Laura which is very important as we see increasingly less and less of each other recently, until about 5pm when she was working and I have since been sat on my bed drinking prosecco (I know what a knob) and watching old poker videos, made me reflect a bit on my poker days.

Kind of interesting discussion I have fairly often with people is regarding my decision to retire from pro gambling, and what it's been like since. This week I had a very long phone call with an extremely good friend of mine, who has certainly been one of the biggest influences on my poker career overall who is also transitioning away from poker and back into (cringing expression but entirely accurate) the real world. Here's what it was like quitting poker for me;

Incredible, I just cannot describe how good it felt - it's common to hear it said that the best (or one of) thing about pro poker is the freedom, I have never in my life felt a bigger sense of freedom than the first day i realised I was not professional poker player any more, all the worries, anxiety and stress i'd endured over the previous 12 months was literally draining from my body, I honestly can say it's one of the best feelings I've ever had. That's not to say my time in poker wasn't amazing, as it was and I have nothing but appreciation for how lucky i was and how much fun i had, every so often i get together with my old running pals from the glory days, Jake, Pez, Ash etc and share a lot of fun memories, some of the antics were truly insane and if i ever share stories with non poker friends im sure they think im exaggerating or even just making most of it up. HOWEVER compare my overall state of happiness, contentment and mental well being from those days with today and you get really no comparison at all, I always came across happy-go-lucky and without a care in the world as a poker pro, and to a certain extent that was true but there was definately some darkness behind that exterior. Part of the reason for me care-free attitude was that I always feared with poker that the next disaster was always round the corner, usually with me it was lol, big upswings would usually be followed by big shots and shattering downswings and I just took the approach, hey lets spend it before i lose it! I still maintain some of that same attitude in my working life, perhaps i am just a relatively chilled individual, although opportunity bias certainly helps, but like to try take things a bit more seriously and in return get taken a bit more seriously too.

All this being said, yesterday watching all the old poker videos made my very rueful as to the poker, and for the first time i really really missed it. Made me wanna jump straight into a 50/100 game somewhere, started to reflect on the crazy things i saw at the poker table, all the big wins and losses and the fun hands i played - might re-visit my top 5 hands of all time and go over that again for nostalgic purposes, if i can even remember...

The advice i give to people looking to move away from poker is this;

Forget the "I've nothing else to do, and certainly nothing i can do to make the same money" excuse, this is just really weak stuff, if your decision is financially motivated then thats fine, just get your head down and grind - I would advocate making a plan for exit though if you are finding it unfulfilling to motivate yourself, and "nothing better to do" just = lazy, get out and do something, charity work, maybe try get an internship or work placement, or take a course in something. You gotta make your own moves!

Most people though, dont' actually want to quit poker and are just finding the stress of pro poker in todays age is getting to them a little more than before which i absolutely understand, unfortunately i can't really offer advice on this because I quit :P I would say to those guys go back to basics and look at everything, BRM, game selection and make sure all the fundamentals are in place, if you have the utmost confidence in that side of what you are doing you'll probably find that you feel a little less pressured by the results.

If you really do not enjoy playing poker full time then you need to do something different, it's never too late to make positive changes so just get out and try something, if you can't say goodbye to the money or the lifestyle then dont (!) just get your head down and grind it out, one of the hardest things I've found in life is being totally honest with yourself about what you actually want, and having the courage to change things that are bad, espcially when you consider all other things, pride/reputation/lifestyle etc anyone ever wants to talk to me about stuff like this on here, PM, FB etc just hit me up.

Just putting open-table into the restaurant, which means brand new ipad and new technology to play with, wiiiiiiiii

Absolutely love this diary and the great attitude that drives it.

Another top post btw.

RIP The Firm Poker.

You're about 5 years late to the wake kieth but thanks for coming nonetheless :-)

Not spoken to Aaron in years going to try contact him I think check in

Chilling moment I had last night, this has actually never happened to me before and I think this moment will change me forever. I am going to deny to use name of the people in this story because it's not a good story for any of us really although most people who know me even moderately will prolly figure out who the other 2 protagonists are very quickly, don't post it...just let it be :)

So we went out last night, myself, Laura and 2 of our friends (single guys) to the quiz at a bar in headingly - if you don't know leeds this is student hotspot. The quiz we came 3rd (well 4th but a "pure" 3rd) out of 26 knowledge hungry student teams, I was pretty pleased with this, a few shaky moments, like mistaking David Copperfield for Uri Geller, and answering the 3 gentleman of verona instead of 2 gentleman of verona for a shakespeare play despite doing that exact book as one of my A-Level projects (even though thats over 10 yrs ago now, which will become apparent later in the story) at the end of the quiz one of the members of the group got a message from a girl that the pair of them had met the other night and it happens they were in the same bar so we went to join them. Being the relationship guy in such a dynamic is pretty cool because you get immediately warmed too and welcomed, the girls seemed like fun we were having a few drinks and a pretty decent time, Laura and one of our friends went to the bar and then somehow the question of how old we are came up...and for some reason we didn't lie (these girls we know are 20-21) Upon learning we were both in fact nearly 30 you should have seen the look on their faces...absolute dismay! I honestly think dipping your testicles in one of their drinks would have gotten a softer reaction!

Anyway, I showed them - went home exhausted at 12:20am and have since woken up with a dreadddddful hangover.

Going to post about some fun hands I remember from my poker life too for nostalgic purposes, if anyone wants me to try remember some (funniest, wierdest, most tilting etc) then let me know - I think biggest has been done already :P

Craziest Ever Angleshoot

Title kinda ruins the twist in this hand but that twist spoils itself as the story goes on anyway lol. I'm afriad I can't remember the board, the action or actually the stakes very well at all in this hand lol - none of which are relevant.

10/20 (I think) NLHE at Bellagio. Players in this hand are "Old Tom" a lovely old super reg in the 10/20 game who was there EVERY day in the morning, and Matt "ADZ" Morifiatti who lots of you will know, I'm pretty sure the action has gone on the flop T86 ADZ check called then on 7 turn he's called a check raise and the river comes a 5 so the board is (something like)...  T 8 6 7 5, obviously this quite a "straighty" board lol. ADZ bets $3k (I remember exactly the amount because tom lined up 3 stacks of $20 chips, he used to keep pretty much only $20 chips and always stacked in 40's) Tom sighs a bit (he has top set btw) shakes his head and then announces "I think you're going to have to show me this one Matt" .... He then puts his hands behind the chips and looks absolutely certain to be pushing them forward.

ADZ instantly announces he has a straight and goes to turn his hand over, Tom says wait i haven't called yet and moves his hands back - ADZ insists that it was forward motion and he said call, floor is called ADZ getting very worked up at this point. Floor rules that Tom's hand is still live and he still has the action. ADZ tells the floorman it's bullshit and asks for the poker manager, who comes over and rules there was no forward motion and when the dealer confirms Tom never said the word "call" he gives the same ruling. ADZ now insists they check the camera's and they will see that there is clear forward motion, keeps saying "I know that's a call" and muttering about favouritism for regulars etc. Obviously the floor guy comes back, final ruling is made that tom's hand is still live so he quickly mucks whilst trying to convince the table he didn't call and that there was no angle etc.

During this whole debacle, I never had a moments doubt that ADZ had a straight, I was sat next to a friend of mine, who confirmed that the thought never crossed his mind either... As soon as Tom folds, this huge smile breaks on ADZ's face and 1% of me starts to think...surely not... then he triumphantly reveals QJ (or something like this, overs+nut gutter kinda hand)  for the most audacious angle-shoot i've ever seen. The atmosphere was, how to say, a little tense following that hand!

that's a fucking brilliant HH. <3 <3 <3


moaaaaar stories ples

This is a slam dunk case of "what he said"

Justice Hand

Going back to 2008, there was a guy who ran the leeds games called Faz, tiny little Iranian man, always wore a waistcoat and bow-tie, very pleasant guy, im sure a couple of people on the thread (Danny Morgan) have their own Faz stories, obv as he was running the games he was making a fortune yr on yr - more than anyone was winning im sure (lets say conservatively 250 a yr) but sometimes he also PLAYED in the games - he was insaaannnnnne! One day we were playing in gala (not in the game he ran) and it's a pretty small 2/5 game we're playing, I remember this game well as the average pot was about £50 and I was somehow winning £2k :P In the game there is this horrible little nit who was just disgusting, so smarmy and rude, I'd never seen him lose more than about 2-300 before and when he got winning he was impossible to get a lose £5 off.

Anyway i think he's losing about £300 and has ~£100 in front of him when Faz walks in, now a small 2/5 game when you introduce Faz is not going to be a small 2/5 game for long! He sits down, fires a few bullets off runs it up a bit then pot 1) of the justice commences, me and faz playing about 800 effective, the Nit has limped on Faz's straddle (alarm bells) I've just flatted KQs OTB, faz has gone 100 from the straddle, the guy has snap got his money in, I am pretty sure Faz is fucking about so i tell him im gambling and set him in, he snaps me off with J9s (LOVE FAZ) the nit has KK (whoops) flop comes KQT which would have been hilarious anyway and faz wins. The nit is now FUMING, FUUUUUMING telling us all how terrible we are and storms off, stuck £400 which is the most ever for him I assume he's done. The whole table is laughing...Much to my surprise he comes back with...£1,000!!! Never wanted to stack anyone so badly.

Play goes on for a bit and faz is going berserk, then this hand comes along...

Nit has like £1100 and Faz covers, multiway flop, £20 straddle flpo comes 9xx (small cards) faz decides for whatever reason to open ship loads, like 20x pot. We all laugh and the nit snap calls - Faz is now grinning like a cat and syaing OH DEAR, I lean over and ask how much help he needs and faz replies "its very bad, very very bad"

Nit has since slammed 99 down and telling everyone how great he is... board runs off Q T and faz flips over KJ and takes the pot....

Never saw that guy again :)

(https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/54450695.jpg)

yessssss fk horrible nits justiccccccce <3 faz


 rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao

Great stories. Keep them coming please

Hopefully numbers #19 and#20 in the greatest hands list were just the amuse bouche, looking forward to the starter, main course, and especially the dessert.

Biggest Head Loss

This is a funny hand, contrary to popular opinion I was never that aggro at all, I am sure I was generally considered by people who played a lot with me online as being on the tighter side and despite my tendancy to play wayyyy too lose in live games I used to play in very splashy line ups where it was ok (kind of) to play like this, I'm sure today this probably wouldn't work as well. Anyway, I didn't tend to go in for the whole 3bet/5bet/7bet stuff - except this hand...where I completely lost my mind!

Hand is vs a player called David Diaz, who you might know because he only has 1 arm;
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRPihHfO6oaLrAewWLmJ_E1BytVVw9EmwUZk5plQFIETFWKAb0GJwyaeUk)
Anyone with a sharp memory might remember that our very own Rick Trigg finalled the bracelet event he won!

Anyway, we're playing 10/20 NL and the game is pretty wild and insanely deep, hardly anyone with under 15k, I think it's about 11pm and I've been sat in the same seat playing for over 12 hours, winning heaps (~25k iirc) have a great seat on the table and have been going decently mental for the past few hours.

*Don't really remember sizings that well going back about 4 or 5 yrs.

There were two VERY fun splashy players on both my direct right seats. 1 limps for 20 and the other makes it 100, I elect to make it 300 OTB with  Ts 4s - I wouldn't recommend this, I had my reasons at the time but they were not good ones lol.

Now David Diaz 4bets out of the big blind playing a bit over 30k to 700. Both the other two players fold, and now i've got my live reads on, confidence is high and i've decided now that he's fucking about with me, so I'm going for this pot :P but yeah obviously there was some range thinking and maths going on too ;whistle;

I 5bet to 2,200, he then 6bets to 4,800 (this is the only size in the hand I really remember) I was never a fan of these silly small PF raises in live games, bet like a man, play like a man, take it like a man was always my philosophy!

Events up to this point have not detered my determination to win the hand at all, I 7bet to 11,000. He calls. YEP. Calls! It's at this point in the hand I'm starting to think Ive run into it... Anyway, 550 big blinds in preflop with a Ten...and a Four.

Flop comes  Tc 4h X  ;sark; ;sark; ;sark; loving my preflop play all of a sudden!

He checks, I decided to bet 3,500 and he goes all in. I call, at this point I'm now decently convinced he has ACES. Then he flips his cards over and it transpires he does not have Aces, he has  Ahrt Qc ....

The pot is 60k, or 3,000 big blinds and the whole table is obviously pretty keen to see what hands we both have...there was a few comments from a couple of players about the holdings being not what they expected to see !!!

At this point in my career I was never really running it twice, however...David is a real nice guy and I'm so far ahead, the hand has been a real head loss from the offset, Mose and Rutter both had a piece of me on this vegas trip and didn't fancy having to report to my friends and investors about the dusting of 30k with T4suited in a 7bet pot so I thought sure run it twice why not.

First run out came Q then paired the bottom card...

Second run came ACE...then... TEN :) so we chopped, but a fucking horrible sweat. I took my money back and vowed never again to do anything like that EVER...and I never did :) not in NLHE at least ....

but it was sooooooooted :D

Great stories bro, keep em coming. Funny about the girls you met who baulked at your age which is what, late 20s? Try sidling up to a girl on the dancefloor in your 40's mate. They recoil in horror and reach for the pepper spray. Rather disconcerting. I mean when I was young I used to think women went for the older, powerful type, like JR Ewing. All very glamorous, very sexy, fast cars and fancy restaurants. In fact I couldn't wait to be "middle-aged" so I could swan around flirting with my secretary, the office juniors, even the lollipop lady. Just wanted to let people know that despite what we read in Dear Deidre the reality is younger girls tend to find older guys creepy.

Maybe its in your delivery?
Bet Brad never complains about such things.

Just for clarity Brad is happily married to the girl next door and has exactly 2.4 American children.

When you get to my age, girls tend to regard you as harmless, safe, trustworthy even...   :)

Hahaha the three of us are 28, 29 and 30. I'll tell you EXACTLY how it went down.

*General merryment, obviously some small social tension given that none of us really know each other but conversation is flowing nicely and I personally am reasonably enjoying the company with no reason to think anyone feels differently.

I can't exactly recall how the age topic got brought up, I think one of the girls mentions she is doing English Lit at UNI, I did this for my A-Level and have long standing interest in the topic, I think i made a comment like "it's probably different to when i did it" bearing in mind its nearly 11 years since i left school, promted them to ask how old we were and my friend answers honestly that he is 29...

Her face absolutely drops, mouth visibly open, it seemed as if they had never been in the presence of people quite so old in a bar before - I will preface this by saying we were in a student bar...during freshers week (which only as i type this does it sound a little creepy - we were just there for the quiz HONEST JUDGE!) anyways mood in the group shifted visibly after this revelation and the first time i've experienced such a thing.


Yup


Finally glad i wear glasses, might block some of it :)

This happens very rarely but once every so often I get into conversations with the younger guys at work, if i ever doubted just how late 20s i am this tends to hammer it home - for example did you all know if you refer to a girl as "Bum" that means she is hot (no idea before anyone asks!)

ANNNYWAY.

One of my two ancient companions ended up spending the night with one of the spring ckickens (I was unaware of this information when I posted it initially) so don't give up hope just yet you old bastards :D

OFFER TO BLONDE

(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14233265_674639852685165_1985666002548641701_n.jpg?oh=cee5750cacde8e28c3e7e5fe3f8264d8&oe=583787C4)

Just had 6 people cancel so got a few tickets available, would love to have some blonde people come down if anyone in Leeds!! I'll even knock you a few quid of the ticket!!!!

Message me!

Mrs Long is a bit of a gin connoisseur lush, out of interest what gins are you serving?

Bit too far for us unfortunately :-(

Here's what we have on the menu;

Beefeater
Brockmans
Portabello road
Haymans Sloe
Gin Mare
Caoruun
Mahon Xogruier
Tanquery 10
Prof. Corneilius Old Tom
Hendricks

We have;

Monkey 47
Amplerforth Bathtub
Leeds Gin

on as specials.

Tomorrow nights will be a few extras as well as one of the suppliers is providing the gins and the expert, so they all have to be gins they sell!

Menu is this;

Course 1 = King Scallop, chorizo + onions with manchego (cheese) sauce
Course 2= Grilled asparagus with truffle vinigrette and homemade hollondaise
Course 3 = Beetroot cured salmon
Course 4= Slow cooked Lamb Henry
Course 5 = Lavender and Almond Creme Brulee

Should be tasty :)

Nice selection, the Monkey 47 is superb. Tanq Rangpur also great with fish.

<checks menu>

Bollocks, looks awesome. Good luck with the evening.

Most Owned I've Ever Been

One of the most beautiful things about poker is that 2 players can be in a hand, or game together and you'll be on such different planes of thought about the game that you can end up in a situation where the players in a hand are thinking about it completely differently and the loser of the hand has no idea if he's gotten really unlucky or just been totally owned, whilst the winner will almost certainly feel like a boss whereas in reality he probably wasn't.

I had one of these hands in Monte Carlo where I ended up on the losing side of the hand, wondering just how I lost the pot, why I lost quite so much and just how owned I got.

10/25 euro PLO.

Pretty sure it's a single raised pot, I'm in the big blind wth KQQ4 with hearts. Flop is J96 r and the original raiser, a belgium man called Rico who i have extensive history with from playing in Vegas with - we played some HUGE games in LV where he went on one of the sickest runs i've ever seen he literally broke about 3 or 4 pros during the carnage.

I just called and the turn was a small heart bringing me a flush draw, I checked and Rico pots it - now here comes a pretty important part of the hand, I have some pretty solid live tells on Rico, he goes half pot with draws and weak hands and then full pot with big hands, i'm willing to live and die by this one at this point, so when Rico pots it im figuring that all my draws are money shots if they hit. Problem is Rico is one to also wildly over value hands so strong hands to him here are like middle and bottom pair etc.

I call and the river is an 8, I check... there is 2000 in the pot and Rico bets 1000. SO he doesn't bet thin for value, he pots with big hands and despite the fact he does like to over-value all signs here point to being a bluff, I was tossing up between calling and raising and decided it was safer to raise so i raise to 5k and he literally beats me into the pot with AKKT with the turned nut flush draw.

"I knew you were going to do that" he said and smiled.

Did this guy REALLY just 1/2 pot the river on J 9 6 x 8 with KK planning to induce me to bluff with QQ? Seems so, I'll be going then...

Gin night was a roaring success, 16 people, 11 of whom have never stepped foot in my restaurant before saw the place in it's absolute prime. Gins were brilliant and really interesting, food LOOKED great and out of 80 plates i'd say 75 of them came back spotless clean - we're going to have to put the price up next time :).

I think one of the most important things about restaurants is the strategy behind them, so many really good places struggle and you really have to realise your weaknesses before you can understand your strengths. Making money from restaurants and being a restaurant that serves great food are not necessarily exclusive - lets take the most profitable restaurant chain in the world as a golden example...

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Mcdonalds-90s-logo.svg/2000px-Mcdonalds-90s-logo.svg.png)

Macdonalds have a pretty simple strategy, sell as many burgers as possible. When you only have a 75 seater restaurant you have one huge issue, and that is that you can only physically serve 70 customers at once - lets suppose 200 people wanna be my customer, I have to refuse hlf of them... So what's VERY important is that the 70 I have are spending enough money, that's why spend per head is so important, now we've gotten to £13.80 we have a real chance of success, the previous regime was £7.10 and thats why they struggled so badly, now all i need to do is find some more customers :)

The takeaway is such a huge help to this business it's unreal, its very easy to manage, very easy to control and margins are very consistent, it certainly isn't a money press but it lays a great foundation for the restaurant to build upon and thrive.

Drank an awful lot of Xoriguer on holiday this year, thought it was very decent for the price.  Would be interested to try it over here, as in the past I've often gone on holiday and got stuck into the local tipple, bought a bottle home to find it is rough as a badger's backside back in Blighty.

Gin Mare undoubtedly rocketing to my fav drink atm, at the risk of tempting fate it seems to be hangover-free which is always handy.  Lots of differences of opinion on how to serve it, but through substantial trial and error, rosemary+orange peel+black pepper is the nuts.

Tried it with Rosemary and Cherry Tomatoes? I like it like that, the garnishes for the gin are kinda what makes it nowadays :)

Unsure about hangover free, if it is then great, nowadays 2 glasses of wine at dinner is enough to give me a headache for 48 hours!

Are the tomatoes meant to go in as whole?  I tried one like that, maybe halved would have been better.  Always happy to try suggestions, but rosemary/orange peel/black pepper is going to take a lot of beating.

yeh 2x half cherry tomatos. Gives a margerita pizza aroma :)

Had an absolutely INSANE few weeks.

First thing going down, and possibly the biggest - Laura, has been given a work opportunity in London which is obviously far away from Leeds. She's had long term passion for the fashion industry and was working towards this when she met me, since then she's quit all that to follow me on my merry adventures and then when I took the restaurant over again she took over the running of our poker site. It's all been lovely and we have done just fine financially but it's always a big concern that when someone has to make more sacrifices than the other in a relationship then an underlying level of resentment will build up, it's true to say that financially we've done the best things (we've have not made NET as much combined money any other way) but then that's like saying that money is more important than her dreams, which would be horrible. Obviously I've been able to do what i like doing in the midst of all this so whereas I might have worked really hard I've sacrificed pretty much 0 whilst she's given up lots (she actually wasn't a huge fan of me taking the restaurant on but I did it anyway.)

So this puts a bit of a dilemma on the table for us, leaving really only 3 options;

1) We move to london together - I leave a controlling position in the restaurant and just retain my shares.
2) Laura doesn't take the oppurtunity
3) She moves to london without me, we take house in Richmond keep our place in Leeds and I hop-foot it down to LND at any chance

None of these 3 stand out as particularly appealing. I feel like it would be dreadful of me to even suggest #2 after all she done, I don't want to leave my business in Leeds so i guess option 3. IDK if anyone has any advice for me? I feel like, pretty young no commitments these days are about following dreams and doing what you want to do, seems to me like it's so easy to make excuses and find reason after reason for not doing something when really should only be 1 question;

Do I want it? Yes = GO, No = DON'T GO.

Restaurant has been doing OK, emphasis hasn't really been on trade lately (sounds ridiculous) but we've reached a point now where on current advertising levels and staff costs we can consistently take enough money week on week to wipe our feet, cover a little old debt and have a few quid left over to put towards the next stage, focus lately has been all about the kitchen.

The last EHO visit we only got 4/5 stars for the most infuriating reason, we had disgusting shelving in the dry store, about 20 yrs old and basically falling to pieces/close to rotting, obv you can never have 5* when you have that and i was pretty dam furious at myself for not sorting it quicker. I've since had the dry store completely refurbished and it's slick as anything now, dedicated chemicals area, wall mounted stuff, lots of health and safety stuff laminated and on the walls, like a proper job :).

I need to replace a few pieces of kitchen equipment when i can organise the finance and we have our new menu launching this coming week. NEw menu has taken a month of pretty much solid work to get organised and had plenty of training sessions with the kitchen guys, absolutely brain-warping what problems crop up you'd have no idea... MY new kitchen manager also started and so far his enthusiasm for the job has been refreshing, once again i'm putting my faith into someone younger, around 26~ but has run a kirchen taking similar money before and his organisation and eye for detail are, so i'm told, particularly good which is exactly what i'm looking for, so it would appear that i'm on the right track!!

We had an Elvis night last week which was awesome;

(https://scontent.fmad3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/14711197_692541404228343_2033387643140967234_o.jpg)

The man had the most fascinating hips you've ever seen!!!

There's been a real shift in customer profile over the past 2 months which has been really pleasing, although it has lead to a reduction in the actual amount of customers we're getting in the restaurant...spend per head now exceeding £14.00 which officially makes it double what it was when i took over, and the prices are about to go up a little too. Starting to build some real momentum on social media and planning some more advertising campaigns too with local advertisers so we'll see how we get on!

Currently in Tenerife on a quick week away, hotel i've ended up at is kinda horrible, its absolutely awful by the pool - yesterday something happened which i thought was just insane IDK what everything thinks but i was fuming...

You have to hire parasols at the pool (fine) but we didnt know this at first, so we sat next to a parasol and put it up, a scottish lady was sunbathing next to us and wasnt touched by the shade she woke up, told us that you have to hire the umbrellas and she had hired this one, then she took it back and came back to sunbathe, so she went through all the effort of taking it back just so we couldn't use it... Long happy life filled with people who love her ahead for that lady i'm sure, me 100 times from 100 i'd say "btw you have to hire parasols but you can use this one but ight have to move it towards me if i want some shade in a bit" and i'd like to hope virtually everyone I like in the world would do the same.

I feel like the worlds biggest snob but usually stay in better hotels and don't seem to get antics like this i've seen round the pool, it cost £125 for the week (through my mum's RCI) and I think you just have to accept what you pay for is what you get, beds are so uncomfortable too hard to actually sleep, going to move hotels tomorrow somewhere really nice.

Did have a pretty hilarious moment last night though, we were playing bingo (not something you would have expected in this blog 4 years unless there was somehow some insane sidebets on it) was actually waiting for the magic show (a real banging saturday night!!) the winner of the bingo was a ~8/10 yr old girl, who went on stage to collect her prize, a massage at the spa, just as she leaves the stage the bingo host (a huge black guy) gives her these words of wisdom...

"Remember - NO MEANS NO"

I met Mrs Mantis on a lads holiday in 1992, God those were the days! After tooing and froing between London and Birmingham for a year, which was OK I guess, she moved up and we made a life together in Birmingham. Then we moved to Hong Kong and made a life together there. A couple of other cities and 20 years later we moved down to Surrey and made a life together  here. Each chapter was as cool as the last and we've been blissfully happy every step of the way...just different scenery.

Don't ever forget that you and ur Mrs are life partners together. You take on the challenges together you make sacrifices for each other but the one overriding element is that ur together. Wherever you end up you can always make it together! Life is about chapters mate and the only question that matters is do you love her? If you do the restaurant is small potatoes insignificant. Close that chapter and move onto the next together. It feels important because ur putting ur heart into it...but u will put ur heart into the next venture just as well. One thing's for certain the emotion you put into business should pale against the emotion you put into the woman you love. There isn't a job or business out there which would temp me to live apart from my partner in crime'! You are a smart kid and will make it anywhere so would fuck the restaurant off in a blink of an eye!

Good post mantis.

If you were to go to London, would you have a job/ business you could walk right into? Or be able to run your non restraunt business's from there?

Could always have a period of a few months, where you move between London/ Leeds, e.g. Not rush into anything, given it's a big decision. All the best with it.

says the man who maybe doesn't believe in love but believes in infatuation :D

 

Kinda agree - I do think different cities can work for some couples for a while, if they're already solid, good communicators etc. Longterm probably not a great idea as relationships require attention and work but for a year or so if you wanted to make sure the restaurant gets off to the best start it could definitely be an option. Ultimately though if you think it would have a detrimental impact on the relationship then managing a restaurant indeed seems like small (deep fried) potatoes.

I would move to London.

Factor in you will probably need at least 50% more cash to have a similar lifestyle in the big smoke.

The girl and it's not even close mate.

My wife and I were lucky enough to have a son together after several years of trying to get pregnant and then remarkably fell pregnant again not too long after. Fast forward 18 months and my wife was itching to go back to work full time and we had long since decided that we were going to be the type of family where one of us looked after the kids and not a nanny/nursery. I resigned my position as a teacher the next day without a tinge of regret knowing it was the right thing to do.

Fast forward one year and my wife had decided that she missed the boys too much and wanted to go back to how it was. I applied for teaching jobs and ended up in a much nicer school with far better prospects. I have been promoted three times in my three years there so my career is in a far healthier place and as a family we have never been happier. My wife and I have a wonderful relationship and she is incredibly supportive of me and a fantastic mother to my boys. I really do think if I had not given my wife the opportunity to resume her career and put my foot down about my job, resentment would have built over the years and our happy marriage may not have been so happy.

Jobs and careers come and go. Family is forever and should always come first.

Go with what you think is best

Sounds obvious but you know the situation better than anyone

Surely we need a selection of pics in order to make optimal decisions?

I think you already know what to do.

such brilliantly well thought out and well meaning posts i do very much appreciate the time everyone has taken to relate personal experience to my situation it's defo made me see things quite differently to before.

So, London, the streets really paved with gold?

I feel like a resurrection of the poker career could be on the horizon.

Some good games in London.

Having never met you together I can't comment on your relationship at all but I can give you advice that I have learnt from 6 years of marriage to a woman who followed my poker and then business career, putting down her own career in care to do so. (Similarities?) the most important piece is that your actions speak louder than words ever could, if you stay in Leeds while she goes to London or encourage her against following her passions you are showing her that your business and life in Leeds is more important to you than your relationship with her. Secondly whether or not she takes the job is her decision not yours, however as her man she will probably be looking to you for leadership and you have the opportunity to put her before yourself and lead her in the direction she wants to go in even if it will be tough for you. This will also build trust and loyalty to a deeper level for you both.

From reading your posts you are clearly an intelligent and driven man and you will succeed in whatever you put your 100% in to, there will be bigger and better adventures for you to get your teeth in to! This drive and intelligence can be applied to your relationship as well as your business and it will develop and flourish in the direction you drive it in. Keeping an interest in your restaurant is a good idea, maybe consider option 4, living in London with Laura and for a couple of days per week travelling up to Leeds to make sure the restaurant is still on track with the management you put in place as you transition in to your next chapter. Moving with her and travelling occasionally for work is a better compromise than staying for work and travelling to see her occasionally.

To sum it up, you either grow together or you grow apart, the choice is yours. If you want to keep and grow your relationship with her then it seems to be time to do for her what she did for you.

They used to be but the golds been picked up
Then it was dog ends dog shit n chewing gum
But the price of littering n cigarettes has just left the dog shit n gum :)
Lots of nice posts my 2 bobs worth is support the gf
Put a manager in n let it run itself

Hello!

Thanks again to everyonne's nice comments and advice r.e my current life situation, had a long old think and realised that the option is fairly clear to me now.  I will be joining Laura in London, she is delighted and is way more enthusiastic about her adventures now which instantly made me realise it's the right thing to do.

What's less clear however is what I'm to do a) for day - to - day income, given expenses are going to rocket up and all my regular incomes are up here in the north... neither my gambling or restaurant businesses provide constant income it's all a bit unreliable and sporadic, but I have some network for making a few quid here and there but all up here... higher expenses and more unreliable income is defo a cause for a couple of sleepless nights, the days of having a big whack of cash laying in a bank account or deposit box somewhere are long gone. Hmmmm

and b) what to do about my restaurant here, my partners here we've talked about the options and it's all been very reasonable, i've ended up just leaving it in their hands, given two options, one where i fully walk away and one where i stay involved and told them (as between they have me outvoted) to choose which they'd prefer. Kinda really want them to pick one option where I remain involved but think the most likely outcome is the walk away one, but out of my hands so i will just plough on and see what number they roll...

This is a good lesson, don't let emotions get in the way of good business, I've put furious amounts of work into the brand, the concept and the place itself...I'd be pretty gutted if the good work wasn't continued.

Big changes, need to think hard.

Smart decision (not that I'd expect anything less from you).  Short-term uncertainty signficantly outweighed by long-term lifetime +EV for both of you.

I was promoted into a new role and relocated from Leeds to Buckingham not long after meeting the Mrs, and we did the weekend travel long-distance relationship for about 6 months (the separation was actually the catalyst to me realising she was 'the one').  Ultimately, she relocated and moved down with me, since which time we've subsequently relocated back to Leeds to make childcare easier.  Plenty of big 'life' decisions over that particular decade, but the one constant was that they were taken together and with regard to what was best for both of us.

You seem to be someone who tackles short-term challenges head-on, and generally succeeds from doing so.  The only real difference now is that the challenges over the next 24 months or so are not the ones you were anticipating previously, but the support network you have to tackle them is as strong, if not stronger, than it was previously.

Best wishes to both of you going forward.

Good luck in your new adventure! You will find something satisfying and  interesting down south to put your effort in to I'm sure

Isn't this what you've done though? I'm sure you can and excel at whatever you do but something tells me this isn't the right move for you. I know I'm probably going against the grain but this smacks of future resentment.

Sorry to put a negative spin on things.

Good luck mate.

What about poor Hatthehole, isn't he going to be lonely?!

(https://i.gyazo.com/4b9ad4fee63e80662ad413e703cdbab9.png)

(https://i.gyazo.com/0d99375b1f02fe6ec669eaf0c9eeb8c1.png)

(https://i.gyazo.com/4f9cf717aad97412f8139b27e93282bd.png)

thanks Brent, I'm glad someone is taking my feelings into consideration throughout this difficult time.

Ohhhh I always assumed you were the "girlfriend" ;)

I don't see this as a business decision, I'd say it's a life decision, and emotions are one of the considerations in that respect. He is choosing to distance himself from a business to support a woman who did similar for him. That is a touch of class imo. With exception of a couple of stupid adolescent actions  I have never regretted any decision Iv made, I have only resented not doing things that I should have done. I only see business as one small part of life and would never do something to make my business succeed that negatively affected other major parts of my life. Probably why I failed as a business man but am very successful in life and I am proud of myself.

Each to their own but the decision to stay or go affects both private and work. I'm sure Dave will do what's right for him and his misses. Please don't think that this is a criticism it's not meant to be I just wanted to put my POV across as upping sticks is never as easy as it sounds especially if money is a factor.

All the best in London, will be some juicy cash games there and always plenty of action.

Can't you open a branch of fisherman's friend, wife, lodge? in London somewhere? Expand the brand brother.

OK, first off, once again advice from SO many people, in person, on here, by PM, it's amazing - I was genuinely quite torn between what i should be doing and now I feel like i'm bang on track again, thanks to everyone.

The final decisions have been made, after much discussion with my partners, Laura, my friends, everyone.

I will be resigning from full time operation of the Fisherman's Lodge (my baby!!) and relinquishing my financial involvement at the same time, in short I'm cutting ties. The decision when it came to it was pretty easy once i separated myself from the emotional attachment I have built up with the place, the brand, the concept, the style and the successes of the place were basically all mine (not being big headed that's just true) and I felt like i didn't want to miss out on the upside and seeing it come to fruition. I have realised though, what is it I'm actually working for? Is my sole motivation really just to build a great restaurant? When broken down that's a dumb as a singular life ambition as wanting to be the greatest poker player in the world...

What I want is to be happy, loved and financially content (I want to be rich I'm hugely money driven always have be and make no excuses) and whereas restaurants are a passion of mine and the upside to doing well at them is money...Laura is 1000x more important than any singular restaurant and being able to help her succeed (despite being incredibly strong minded she is lacking a bit of professional confidence) would play a much bigger role in the accomplishment of my objectives than seeing the Fisherman's Lodge take £25k a week. The Fisherman's Lodge is just one restaurant, and Leeds is just one place, if i resign myslef unwittingly to the fact that this pace is all i am capable of, then i have failed on multiple levels. I have done great work at the FL, i'm proud of the achievements there (100% increase in turnover, 100% increase in spend per head, project managed the full refurbishment etc) and I've learnt a LOT of very important lessons, there has been mistakes too, some big ones which I will learn from as well. Would it have been nice to see the place really flourish under my reign, yes of course, but what's going to be even better is me and Laura being together, and both happy. This is what I'm going to do!

The handover period will take 2 weeks - 2 months depending on many things, the new kitchen guy Max defo has what it takes, he is not as strong in the restaurant side which is obviously my forte...so I will provide as much support as he needs.

MY flat is up in Jan 27th and from that day on I will be living full time in LONDON!

Small issue is how I'm going to finance all this, details though - I'll figure them out :) We can afford 6-12 months with no income even at london prices (depending on the timescale selling my shares) and my parents owe me quite a lot of money which they'll pay me back when they sell their house in the next 18 months so I guess not under too much pressure. I would like to be earning enough money to live though ideally as the cash we have is basically everything so Id rather not just rifle it off. Might have to consider somewhat of a reduction in lifestyle for a bit, as against my nature as that is.

OR could punt like mad on the DARTS WC, try spin a years london living up!!! ANyone got any tips?

I'm very excited now and really looking forward to getting going, practising my cockney accent daily. "awite there gov jus avin a butchas at yer ol dog an bone" etc, needs work.

I'd defo recommend a job asap, it really sucks watching your savings go down way too quickly. Also it's much easier to find better work while currently in employment, easy references and plenty of box ticking that is much harder from an unemployed position. If you enjoy driving then a van/courrier/taxi/delivery etc is great for learning your way around your new city while bringing in decent money on your own time. Uber might be worth a look but Iv never investigated it so I'm only guessing.

very best of luck Dave

I might have missed something relevant but http://www.indeed.co.uk/Restaurant-Manager-jobs-in-London has 4500 vacancies - given what you've written here about your experience in Leeds I think you'd walk into a role?

Picked one at random: https://www.caterer.com/job/restaurant-manager/first-course-recruitment-job67083265