The Cincinnati Club

A few guys (and gals) have mentioned that they feel a little bit let down by me for ditching my involvement with the club. So i've decided to tell the story....

In the autumn of 2005, Tony Girasoli phoned me on several occasions trying to get me involved with his club and asking me could we get together for a meeting. Although I had too much on my plate with the blondepoker website I was harbouring thoughts of maybe starting a string of ‘blondepoker’ clubs up and down the country.
So eventually Tony persuaded me to meet him in an airport lounge one afternoon when we just happened to be in the same vicinity. He explained that The Cincinatti Club was dead at the moment except for a Sunday cash game and a Thursday students tourney, but he felt I could perhaps fill the place on a more regular basis. A key point that he kept re-stating was that Scottish law was different to England and that The Cincinnati Club had a poker license. (This was a complete lie but integral to me getting involved) After a few hours of talk and negotiations we came to an agreement along the lines of
a)   I would be given a third of the club (Tony & Sid also owning a third)
b)   I would promote the club
c)   I would manage the club the way I wanted. I would have complete control for this purpose. It would not be run by committee.
d)   I could call the club, ‘The Blondepoker Club’
e)   The building was also owned by Sid & Tony. The club was being used to pay of a 10 year mortgage to buy the building. This was a major overhead but Tony offered me a share of the building at a discount price. He said the value of the building was over $400,000. I could buy into the building for a knock down price of £75,000. A down payment of £25,000 when I arrived at the club. £50,000 at any point within the next 18 months.
f)   Tony stated that the company would start afresh and had no debts.
All in all it was a good deal from my point of view. From Tony’s point of view he had nothing to lose because the club was dead at the time.
I arrived at the club late in 2005 to get started. I brought in my own manager Paul Carnegie so that things could be run the way I wanted. I made the mistake of transferring £25,000 into Tony Girasoli’s personal account. Tony had agreed this money would be transferred into the business so that I could use it to buy computers, TV screens, advertising etc. At no point did the money ever go into the company. Comment deleted by moderator. Sid claims that it was lost during a 200k tilt session at the local casino on blackjack and roulette.
It’s hard to believe that I could have been so naïve but Tony had been a sort of friend for a few years and was well respected as part of the northern poker scene.
Within the first week, Tony was breaking our agreement elsewhere. He had had long discussion with Sid and they didn’t want to change the club name to The Blondepoker Club and they wanted to keep The Cincinnati Club name. I wasn’t happy but relented in the hope of getting things moving.
Within a couple of weeks we also had our next major disagreement. Tony insisted that a dealer called Robert was the only dealer in the big Sunday cash game. This would mean that Robert would deal for 10-12 hours with no breaks. I had never heard of anything so ridiculous anywhere. Tony insisted that it was more of a ‘private game’ and all the players were comfortable with Robert.
I have nothing against Robert in any way. However, any dealer who deals that long without breaks is gong to make mistakes. I played in the game and witnessed Robert making plenty of mistakes.
I was also concerned that new players may worry about the integrity of the game with Tony insisting that only 1 particular dealer was used all the time.
To make matters worse, Robert was being paid £15 an hour and getting keep tips on top whilst I was trying to recruit dealers on £5 an hour.
We argued about this point every time I visited. Our original agreement had been that I ‘had complete control’. Tony had no intention of keeping to the agreement.
I continually asked when the money was being transferred into the business account but Tony had no intention of transferring the money. I had made an agreement with betfair to place terminals in the club and we were going to buy several TVs and get linked up for horse racing and sports betting. The money never arrived, so the TVs never got bought. The betfair system was never used.
By February I could see that Tony & Sid had no intentions of keeping to the original agreement, so I told them that I wanted my £25,000 back and that I wanted to leave. I had also learned from Sid that the premises was not worth anything like the £400,000 that Tony had stated. It was worth closer to £270,000.
By now, the club was getting busy every night and I was also in the middle of negotiations with Littlewoods about sponsoring the club. So Tony & Sid agreed that I could get my money back if I stayed. They promised I would get my money back.
Littlewoods agreed to place 10 terminals in the club. I was sure that this was an easy way to make the club profitable. So as long as I got my money back I thought it would be a worthwhile profitable venture comment deleted by moderator.
I started to get the club rolling with the help of blondepoker and other friends. We got extensive press coverage in the poker press and in the National papers in Scotland. The TV cameras covered events at the club twice. I organised three major weekend events and generally the club became known throughout the country.
I never got paid in any way or drew any money from the club. In fact I had considerable expenses myself and even ended up paying for many club expenses myself. All I asked for was my own £25,000 back.
When I organised a national team event at the club, it was full and there was a lot of money flying around. I witnessed tens of thousands of fifty pound notes go into the safe comments deleted by moderator. The club also made a fair profit this weekend…I didn’t even claim any expenses.
Later as Littlewoods terminals had still not arrived (even though Willies around the corner had been given a couple), I decided to put 2 blondepoker laptops in the club. These were bought and paid for by blondepoker and the idea was that the rake generated through them would be shared by blondepoker and the Cincinnati club
Sid promised me that he would ensure that they were only used for playing on the blondepoker site. I returned a week later to find that one was being used by a dealer for downloading limewire films and the other comment deleted by moderator. Blondepoker has never been paid for this laptop even though Tony promised to do so.
This event also taught me that Sid had no real interest in making the club profitable through new technology. He was still under the belief that the club could survive on live rake. If I was to make a profit out of the club I knew that we needed computers.
Every week I turned up and asked for my £25,000 back. Every week I was told ‘don’t worry, you will get your money, no problem’. Tony & Sid continually promised me I would get it. However by the time June had arrived I belatedly admitted to myself that I was comment deleted by moderator. I had done a lot for the club and we had made a lot of progress and I really didn’t want to leave, but I had to put my foot down. I insisted that I wouldn’t come back until I got the £25,000 back.
‘Don’t worry, you’ll get your money’ I was told. I have spoken to Tony once a month since then and still I get the same bullshit.
Just to add insult to injury Tony also managed comment deleted by moderator. Before arriving in Glasgow, Tony told me he had a friend selling a nice riverside apartment for £220,000 even though it was really worth about £240,000. He arranged it and I bought the flat through Scott’s all-in one service (which included a Tony friendly valuation of the flat). I have since had the flat independently valued at £175,000. Make no mistake, Tony Girasoli is a not a man to get involved with, and Sid is not much better. I would not recommend anyone went anywhere near the club.
Believe it or not this is the abridged version, there were all sorts of problems with the way staff were treated, illegal roulette machines, Tony’s son but as you can see, I was left with no choice. I couldn’t possibly continue to support The Cincinnati Club.

(Various comments have been removed by moderators in consultation with Dave Colclough. A right of reply will of course be allowed)