DTD

[GreekStein]

lol i hope the 'unstuck' idea is a joke cos if it was a serious suggestion thats one of the most stupid things ive ever heard.

[henrik777]

Thanks for all the above posts; some well balanced and instructive replies.  I think it is important to debate these things.  You have a good point, Rob, that people who criticise publicly rather than going through the channels available are not being constructive- especially if they are just moaning.  At the end of the day, it is a private club; no-one has the "right" to be there.  I just would not want to see DTD struggling because too many people have been barred.

E.B

:-)

Hi TheKid,

To put things into context, I know of only 6 people that have been permenantly barred since the club opened nearly 9 months ago (this is 0.075% of the membership). I don't want to name them, of course, its not that hard to guess but this is why they were barred from DTD:

Person 1
this individual is very well known in the Nottingham poker scene. I always got on with him really well and enjoyed the bantor we had. I was asked by a lot of players not to let him into the club even before we opened but I refused their requests as I has said that every poker player would clean slate at DTD. Unfortunatley after a couple of visit to DTD I was left with no choice to barr him as he was causing problems with a large number of good customers and I could not be seen to turn a blind eye to his behaviour inside and outside of the club.

Person 2
another well known player on the Nottingham on the poker scene who sometimes gets a bit vocal at the tables, however I personally like him and he was very good for the game with plenty of bantor. Unfortunatley after a number of warnings including 2 personal pleas from me in private, he continued to use foul and abusive language directly to staff and fellow players, even throwing cards at the dealer (the worse and most offensive you can imagine). I was forced to barr him, as an employer I just can't have my staff called an XXXX repeatedly for dealing an outdraw.

Person 3
a well know midlands player got very drunk before he entered the club and threw a punch at one of our doorman, the whole incident was on CCTV, this was totally out of charactor for him and I really like this customer, but what option do we have when this has happenned?

Person 4
this person worked is a manager at one of the nottingham casinos that was involved in trying to block DTD's licence. I barred him immediately when he entered the premises as I thought is was inappropriate that he should play in DTD after his comments before and during the court case and his presence at DTD would cause unrest with a lot of our local customers. Again, I liked this person, he lent me my first ever poker book 6 years ago, but I felt I had no option.

Person 5
this person is another nottingham regular who sent in a letter of complaint about 2 other players behaviour during a cash game. I gave the 2 players a 14 day ban even though the incident was halmless but definatley should not happen in this club. It was however later confirmed that the facts of the letter were not 100% accurate and other players showed me text messages on their phones from this person that were clearly trying halmful trade in to the club. Again, left with no option, he had to get barred.

Person 6
when DTD opened its online card room we launched with a $25k WSOP freeroll, this person accused DTD of putting employees into the freeroll in a sneaky attempt to avoid paying out the prizes. I was just going through the courtcase at the time and felt this was a pretty low accusation from someone who knew the pressure I was under and that these sort of false accusations would not clearly not support my application to be a bona fide gaming operator!  I told him he was not welcome at the club if it ever opened but I relented on this on my "clean slate system" when we opened the doors. He did cause a few problems on the odd occasion with his outspoken nature but nothing too serious until a couple of weeks ago when my head doorman reported an unsavoury incident in the DTD bar regarding an argument over non payment of debts with another customer, our security managed to defuse the situation without calling the police but we cannot jepodise our gaming licence with these types of incidents. I had intended to have a word with him personally but before I could, he posted some comments about DTD which I thought were in very bad taste on his poker blog (stuff about employees), so I decided to call him and barr him from the club.

I spoke to a 2 ex casino managers today about barring people and their view was that over the 9 months of opening, 6 people is a miniscule number of barrings especially with over 8,000 members. I went through the reasons in detail, I do not want to be unfair, and I got a  different answer, apparently whether someone was barred from a casino, the length of the ban or if they got banned at all would depend on "how much they drop on the casino games".

In the perfect world every member and employee would be proud of DTD, care about the club being successful and want it to maintain its  high quality of service and reputation for being a nice place to visit. Unfortunatley, in the real world a very small minority of members and employees let the club or themselves down, often becoming bitter when action is taken by myself and the management. It would be crazy for any business/organisation/club to every want to lose good customers or good employees after trying so hard to attract them in the first place, but when people put you in a corner you have to deal with the problems and take action or these problems manifest themselves and things spiral.

I am still learning about running a poker club, I do not want to barr good customers or lose good employees, but people are not a science, with over 1000 employees and 50,000 customers accross all of my businesses, I get surprised every day by people's actions but I try not to let this get me down as the 99.9% majority are great to deal with. Also, often people that you think you know well turn out to be very different, its hard to always make the right decisions but taking a stand and trying to do the right thing is better than putting your head in the sand.

As for as DTD struggling, it has done a lot better than I expected and is  just over breakeven after the first 9 months thanks to a few decent events and festivals. This is not bad for the first year of any project especially since we have to pay the running costs of a casino without the casino tables. It will be pretty easy for anyone to check this as the accounts will have to be audited and published like any other UK company.

We are running a club that is only recently licenced by the UK gambling commission, they have the power to take our licence away at any point, we are being watched very closely by them and rightly so, the local casinos will use any political capital they can to cause problems for us (they are currently doing everything they can to "induce" the bigger cash game players away from DTD -  this is not conspiracy theory - its reality) as a lot of the "big casino punters" are playing poker at DTD instead of dropping money on their house games - we need to run every aspect of DTD well, and any individuals who seek to halm DTD by their actions inside or outisde of the club need to distanced from our club ie be barred. Everyone knows that they can email Simon Trumper or speak with him personally if they genuinely want to help us improve DTD, this situation has never changed since we first opened the doors.

I hope this detailed post explains my/our stance of barring people and why it is important that our members are on our side and positively contribute to the success of the club.


Cheers Rob

Seems like ferrules to me.

Sandy

[S3 TRX]

Thanks for all the above posts; some well balanced and instructive replies.  I think it is important to debate these things.  You have a good point, Rob, that people who criticise publicly rather than going through the channels available are not being constructive- especially if they are just moaning.  At the end of the day, it is a private club; no-one has the "right" to be there.  I just would not want to see DTD struggling because too many people have been barred.

E.B

:-)

Hi TheKid,

To put things into context, I know of only 6 people that have been permenantly barred since the club opened nearly 9 months ago (this is 0.075% of the membership). I don't want to name them, of course, its not that hard to guess but this is why they were barred from DTD:

Person 1
this individual is very well known in the Nottingham poker scene. I always got on with him really well and enjoyed the bantor we had. I was asked by a lot of players not to let him into the club even before we opened but I refused their requests as I has said that every poker player would clean slate at DTD. Unfortunatley after a couple of visit to DTD I was left with no choice to barr him as he was causing problems with a large number of good customers and I could not be seen to turn a blind eye to his behaviour inside and outside of the club.

Person 2
another well known player on the Nottingham on the poker scene who sometimes gets a bit vocal at the tables, however I personally like him and he was very good for the game with plenty of bantor. Unfortunatley after a number of warnings including 2 personal pleas from me in private, he continued to use foul and abusive language directly to staff and fellow players, even throwing cards at the dealer (the worse and most offensive you can imagine). I was forced to barr him, as an employer I just can't have my staff called an XXXX repeatedly for dealing an outdraw.

Person 3
a well know midlands player got very drunk before he entered the club and threw a punch at one of our doorman, the whole incident was on CCTV, this was totally out of charactor for him and I really like this customer, but what option do we have when this has happenned?

Person 4
this person worked is a manager at one of the nottingham casinos that was involved in trying to block DTD's licence. I barred him immediately when he entered the premises as I thought is was inappropriate that he should play in DTD after his comments before and during the court case and his presence at DTD would cause unrest with a lot of our local customers. Again, I liked this person, he lent me my first ever poker book 6 years ago, but I felt I had no option.

Person 5
this person is another nottingham regular who sent in a letter of complaint about 2 other players behaviour during a cash game. I gave the 2 players a 14 day ban even though the incident was halmless but definatley should not happen in this club. It was however later confirmed that the facts of the letter were not 100% accurate and other players showed me text messages on their phones from this person that were clearly trying halmful trade in to the club. Again, left with no option, he had to get barred.

Person 6
when DTD opened its online card room we launched with a $25k WSOP freeroll, this person accused DTD of putting employees into the freeroll in a sneaky attempt to avoid paying out the prizes. I was just going through the courtcase at the time and felt this was a pretty low accusation from someone who knew the pressure I was under and that these sort of false accusations would not clearly not support my application to be a bona fide gaming operator!  I told him he was not welcome at the club if it ever opened but I relented on this on my "clean slate system" when we opened the doors. He did cause a few problems on the odd occasion with his outspoken nature but nothing too serious until a couple of weeks ago when my head doorman reported an unsavoury incident in the DTD bar regarding an argument over non payment of debts with another customer, our security managed to defuse the situation without calling the police but we cannot jepodise our gaming licence with these types of incidents. I had intended to have a word with him personally but before I could, he posted some comments about DTD which I thought were in very bad taste on his poker blog (stuff about employees), so I decided to call him and barr him from the club.

I spoke to a 2 ex casino managers today about barring people and their view was that over the 9 months of opening, 6 people is a miniscule number of barrings especially with over 8,000 members. I went through the reasons in detail, I do not want to be unfair, and I got a  different answer, apparently whether someone was barred from a casino, the length of the ban or if they got banned at all would depend on "how much they drop on the casino games".

In the perfect world every member and employee would be proud of DTD, care about the club being successful and want it to maintain its  high quality of service and reputation for being a nice place to visit. Unfortunatley, in the real world a very small minority of members and employees let the club or themselves down, often becoming bitter when action is taken by myself and the management. It would be crazy for any business/organisation/club to every want to lose good customers or good employees after trying so hard to attract them in the first place, but when people put you in a corner you have to deal with the problems and take action or these problems manifest themselves and things spiral.

I am still learning about running a poker club, I do not want to barr good customers or lose good employees, but people are not a science, with over 1000 employees and 50,000 customers accross all of my businesses, I get surprised every day by people's actions but I try not to let this get me down as the 99.9% majority are great to deal with. Also, often people that you think you know well turn out to be very different, its hard to always make the right decisions but taking a stand and trying to do the right thing is better than putting your head in the sand.

As for as DTD struggling, it has done a lot better than I expected and is  just over breakeven after the first 9 months thanks to a few decent events and festivals. This is not bad for the first year of any project especially since we have to pay the running costs of a casino without the casino tables. It will be pretty easy for anyone to check this as the accounts will have to be audited and published like any other UK company.

We are running a club that is only recently licenced by the UK gambling commission, they have the power to take our licence away at any point, we are being watched very closely by them and rightly so, the local casinos will use any political capital they can to cause problems for us (they are currently doing everything they can to "induce" the bigger cash game players away from DTD -  this is not conspiracy theory - its reality) as a lot of the "big casino punters" are playing poker at DTD instead of dropping money on their house games - we need to run every aspect of DTD well, and any individuals who seek to halm DTD by their actions inside or outisde of the club need to distanced from our club ie be barred. Everyone knows that they can email Simon Trumper or speak with him personally if they genuinely want to help us improve DTD, this situation has never changed since we first opened the doors.

I hope this detailed post explains my/our stance of barring people and why it is important that our members are on our side and positively contribute to the success of the club.


Cheers Rob

Seems like ferrules to me.

Sandy
[/quot

Number 3 sounds like a tosser,wot sort of a moron would do such a thing :-(.......applogies again.

[gatso]

Seems like ferrules to me.

Sandy

after googling to find out what the hell you were talking about I've decided that that is deserving of a lot of love

 

[The_Kid]

Hi Rob,

thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed and eloquent reply.  I must admit I thought more than 6 people had been barred; obviously this is not the case.  Now I have listened to your arguments I feel that you were justified in taking the actions you did.  It seems DTD has done remarkably well and long may it continue. Especially as you said, you are only in the first year of business and also in lots of ways DTD is the first club of it's kind.  Keep up the good work.

E.B

:-)

[GreekStein]

Its just a shame Mick McFool has to keep attention seeking on his blog

[boldie]

Its just a shame Mick McFool has to keep attention seeking on his blog

from his blog "Possibly in the past l have being a bit too honest and have been massively criticised for it and even banned from the Blonde forum". He's not realyl truthful there, is he?

[tikay]

Guys,

I don't really want to get into a mud-slinging affair with Mick. He cannot respond on blonde, so I don't think it's really cricket. If he decides to have a pop at blonde, so be it, but I'd prefer we turned the other cheek.

He's gone his way, we've gone ours.

I shall be commenting on a Mick-related matter later today, in my Diary, but not to have a pop - merely to set the record straight.

There's a certain decorum to these matters, & I'd prefer that we in blonde behave in a dignified manner.

Prolonged "baiting" has never had any positive benefit to either party, & we've seen some recent casualties & exits from blonde because of it, some of which were regrettable, & all of which were avoidable.

I'd like to move on.

[henrik777]

Don't panic Tikay, only 34 more posts until we get to the maximum.

Sandy

[Pelham Boy]

Don't panic Tikay, only 34 more posts until we get to the maximum.

Sandy

 

Relentless.

[henrik777]

Don't panic Tikay, only 34 more posts until we get to the maximum.

Sandy

 

Relentless.

Does that make me



?

Sandy

[Royal Flush]

Am surprised by all of this.

IMO Rob has gone OTT but at the end of the day like he says it's his club and he can do as he likes.

I for one am never going to post anything about DTD in public if it can get you barred!!

[AlexMartin]

rob,

is there any chance you can introduce an "unstuck" option to your business? id hate to go to DTD and get stuck £5k or so in the nit infested 5/10 nl games and not have a chance to spin my way back to even. My suggestion is that you offer a service whereby people can "flip" up to the value of money that they are stuck in the poker games. I will not charge you for my expert advice on this occasion.

Are you talking about adding roulette and blackjack tables, or allowing a losing customer to flip a coin with me at the end of the night and if they guess right - I give them their poker loss back personally? (and if they are wrong they get a free meal?)

If you are talking about casino games, the answer is "yes", we have a full casino licence, but I really believe that would be bad for the club and something that I would not want to get involved with.

nah i dont mean u shoul freeroll urself,if they guess right they get unstuck, if they guess wrong they double their losses. The ability to get unstuck, in one fell swoop,  when dealing with small sums of money is imperative to any dedicated internet professional!

its ok mr townsend, im sure your local internet casino can help deal with your ability to get unstuck.

[robyong]

Am surprised by all of this.

IMO Rob has gone OTT but at the end of the day like he says it's his club and he can do as he likes.

I for one am never going to post anything about DTD in public if it can get you barred!!

Flushy,

I am interested in how I have gone OTT. I assume you are talking about person number 6 that I have most recently barred. This was the reason as per my previous post and it all 100% fact with no exageration/inaccuracy, it is also true he spends/has spent a decent amount of money at DTD on tourney juice, rake, food and drink so he will be a financial loss to the club:

Person 6
when DTD opened its online card room we launched with a $25k WSOP freeroll, this person accused DTD of putting employees into the freeroll in a sneaky attempt to avoid paying out the prizes. I was just going through the courtcase at the time and felt this was a pretty low accusation from someone who knew the pressure I was under and that these sort of false accusations would not clearly not support my application to be a bona fide gaming operator!  I told him he was not welcome at the club if it ever opened but I relented on this on my "clean slate system" when we opened the doors. He did cause a few problems on the odd occasion with his outspoken nature but nothing too serious until a couple of weeks ago when my head doorman reported an unsavoury incident in the DTD bar regarding an argument over non payment of debts with another customer, our security managed to defuse the situation without calling the police but we cannot jepodise our gaming licence with these types of incidents. I had intended to have a word with him personally but before I could, he posted some comments about DTD which I thought were in very bad taste on his poker blog (stuff about employees), so I decided to call him and barr him from the club.

Now answer these questions honestly if you were me for a day:

1. Would you want to sit down at a table in your own club and play with this person?

2. Do you think his behaviour is acceptable as a member of DTD?

3. How muh do you think he cares about DTD? (mark out of 10 please)

4. Would you barr him?

5. What action would you take then if not to barr him?

Cheers,

Rob

[Royal Flush]

Now answer these questions honestly if you were me for a day:

1. Would you want to sit down at a table in your own club and play with this person?

That was my point from an objective point of view i think its harsh but its your club and you wish to enjoy it so i can see why you have.

2. Do you think his behaviour is acceptable as a member of DTD?

I wasn't aware of the bar incident, i thought he got barred because of his blog

3. How muh do you think he cares about DTD? (mark out of 10 please)

I'm not sure my guess would be pretty low.

4. Would you barr him?

If he had caused aggro in the club then yes for sure, like i said i thought it was for events outside of the club (his blog)

5. What action would you take then if not to barr him?

Let him have his say on his blog and see if anything he says makes sense, i would look to turn it into a positive.

Cheers,

Rob