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

[robyong]

I got the written confirmation for the premises from Fisher Hargreaves Proctor, the property agents, this morning. My solicitor at Freeth Cartwright send me a nice email informing me that there will be £19,000 stamp duty payable on the lease, charming.

We won't actually complete on the premises until the liquor licence comes through. This could take 8-12 weeks, but we should "exchange" subject to contract in January. The actual building is built on a methane site so we will need to have a structual survey and sumbit our plans to building control at the council. Lots of fiddly admin and red tape.

I've had a few posts asking about the poker schedule in the club. I have asked the Card Room Managers who have applied for jobs to come up a complete monthly schedule of what they would like to do, as part of the application process. All I can say at the moment is that we will be avoiding crapshoot and re-buy events and looking at catering for early starts. We may even look at running 2 comps each evening with less runners and different start times to achive these objectives.

In terms of cash games, I am sure hold'em, omaha and dealers choice will be catered for at various limits We have planned to have 2 cash game rooms of 13 tables , one high limit, separate from the regular tournament area. Of course, what we end up putting on will untimately depend on the what the members want, and external competitions we are able to attract. There is so much to around setting up the club, we probably won't know the details of the poker schedule until 2 months before we open.

I've had a lot of requests for membership forms (which is positive), we will be setting up a web site where people can log in to join. This should me up some time in January. No money will be collected, people can just indicate which type of membership people want and enter their details into the site. Everyone who joins will be invited to the opening night party and be given their membership cards on their first visit. All fees will be able to be monthly. At £1.25 per vist for Gold Members I have no concerns at all that this will put off the type of players we are trying to attract.

Cheers Rob

[Heid]

I'm very tardy in catching up with this thread, but one point you made a few pages back surprised me, not so much in the point you make, more the fact you have made and and thus appear to be perturbed by it.

You say that public advertising will be very seriously limited.

Can I just say that your target demographic are online, reading all about the club (they may not be agreeing with every decision you make - but hell it's your sandpit), and are getting massively excited about it.

How many people who you don't know from Adam (not you AdamM!), have approached you either by email, or in person and spoken to you about the plans for the club? For every person that has posted on this thread, hundreds of others have read it, lurked and spoken to their friends.

IMHO you don't need to advertise "publicly", WOM of mouth online will do you just fine.

Not a big point, but one worth mentioning if it aids your sleep at night.

Heid
xx

[Jim-D]

I'm very tardy in catching up with this thread, but one point you made a few pages back surprised me, not so much in the point you make, more the fact you have made and and thus appear to be perturbed by it.

You say that public advertising will be very seriously limited.

Can I just say that your target demographic are online, reading all about the club (they may not be agreeing with every decision you make - but hell it's your sandpit), and are getting massively excited about it.

How many people who you don't know from Adam (not you AdamM!), have approached you either by email, or in person and spoken to you about the plans for the club? For every person that has posted on this thread, hundreds of others have read it, lurked and spoken to their friends.

IMHO you don't need to advertise "publicly", WOM of mouth online will do you just fine.

Not a big point, but one worth mentioning if it aids your sleep at night.

Heid
xx

  

[robyong]

I went to play the £50 re-buy in Nottingham tonight, the club seems to be improving all of the time, Card Magic on a plasma screen, enforcement of rules and decent structure. If I'd known all this was happening and I could get all this locally, I might not have come up with this Poker Club idea in the first place.

I think the management of Gala know about about my plans, and they've not banned me yet. I'm sure my club will generate extra business for Gala by bringing in players to Nottingham who may use the gaming tables at Gala after they've played poker at my club anyway. At some point I guess I'll speak to the management to ensure good relations going forward, I've been a member for 15 years so hopefull they can.

The interest in the club is growing, I can't get to the bar at Gala without 3 or 4 people asking me how things are going with the club and my inbox on my hotmail is constantly busy. Its nice that so many people are interested. I think a lot of people have read the posts on Blonde, and at least 10 people came up to me tonight and said they think the membership fee is a good idea, and they would have no problem paying it. I'm aware that people who would have a problem are unlikely to say this to my face, but it's still positive feedback.

I went out with my old school friends on Saturday night, and they couldn't stop talking about the club, although I strongly expect they are expecting free VIP membership and a free tab in the bar and restuarant! Everyone is poker mad.

It's also nice that so many people have expressed an interest in working for the club, I still feel that it will be a tough job to recruit 50-60 great staff, but we probably have over 40% of that number "earmarked" already, although when reality happens, I'm sure some people will have second thoughts. I really want to pay people good wages but have not finalised what the pay structure will be yet.

I won't be trying to pinch staff, dealers etc, from Notts Gala, as a few people have suggested to me, the dealers in club will not need "licences" to deal poker, and we will have plenty of time before the club opens to train people to deal and work in the hospitality areas. Its more important to find the right personalites, and there is a huge student population is Nottingham, so we should be able to get plenty of part-time help aswell, maybe 25 hours per week, 3 shifts. I've had 5 poker players ask whether they could wrok as dealers in the club - they are sick off bad beats!


This week I'll be spending time planning the layout of the club, meeting with the Gaming lawyers and writing job specifications so that I can show "potential employees" what their responsibilites will be. Its just chipping away each day, working down my "to do list" and ensuring that the people who are already on board are doing their stuff.

I still want to recruit 1 professional poker player to assist the card room managers planning the way that the card room works, and running "poker schools" in the club etc, but there's no rush with this. This is probably the last appointment I need to make for the "committee". I want this person to be a househould name in poker but be prepared to reduce their current poker travelling schedule. Ims sure I'll find the right person over the next 3-6 months.

Some people may wonder why I am recruiting for the club so soon, maybe 12 months before we open the doors; the reason is twofold, so they can be involved in the setting up stage and also so that I can give them plenty of notice, as some people may have to relocate to Nottingham to do their jobs.

Cheers Rob

[robyong]

Me and Nick spent a few hours at the premises today, measuring up and brain storming ideas for the 1000th time about what should go where and how it should look etc. Nick keeps warning me how much everything is going to cost everytime I suggest something. We have to submit these plans to the owners for approval by January 2006.

My property business, run by Nick, is called Marix (after my favourite film). It employs a mixed bad of people, including old school friends and young offenders from the probation service who we are trying to "re-habilitate". My girlfriend, Louise, works with young offenders and if she sees someone who she believes really wants get out of crime, Nick interviews them for a job. I admit, it does provide cheaper labour, but that's not the reason we do it, scouts honour.

I am hoping Matrix will be able to do as much of the refurbishment as possible, especially as the professional opinion of the re-furb cost is £1.5m and our budget is less than £1m. I think we will need to employ more people to achieve an opening date in 2006.

For people who do not know Nottingham, the building used to be a sports bar/restaurant/pool hall/arcade. It is a detached building painted white set back from a 225+ car park. There is nightclub/lapdancing bar next to it, a Megabowl and Showcase Cinema opposite, and 2 restaurants, Frankie & Bennys and Cinquento on the same complex. Entrance is from a slip road that leads onto the A453 that continues for a few miles before reaching juntion 24 of the M1, the East Midlands airport junction. The complex is about 3-4 miles outiside of Nottingham Ciry Centre where the nearest big hotels are.

I have just finished doing the project plan for the set up of the club. I've used an excel spreadsheet and listed tasks by type and by person and deadline date. I'm handling the key recruitment, finance and legal issues. Nick is handling the re-furbishment, Chubby Nowab the marketing and Pete the technology. Its a pretty long list and is only going to get bigger as we find out all of things that we've forgot to include.

I've been feeling that I should be paying something towards Blondepoker for using their site to promote my club, but Tikay and DC won't take anything off me, so I've emailed them to see if I could maybe sponser the "Blonde Bash", put some money behind the bar or add a few quid to the prize pool. Something anyway, cause there is no doubt that I am benefiting from their site. We're all friends but Blonde's not a charity service. I'm hoping there will be lots of good stuff the club can do with Blondepoker when it opens, live comps, social nights etc.

Chubby emailed me a few promissing logos for the club today, he's been working with my Marketing Director of sf group, Michelle Hill, on the design. Apparently he turned up to my head office all decked out with a suit, briefcase and posh accent and everyone said "what a nice polite young man".

Now I've finished my project plan, I feel a lot more organised and on top of everything. Just gotta get back into the groove after 2 years of bad beats on the poker circuit.

Cheers Rob
 





 

[ifm]

That's a fantastic gesture!!

[Robert HM]

Indeed.

[Nem]

A very nice gesture Rob

Shame I'm not going

[4dam]

The more i read your diary rob more i feel like a kid at xmas who cant wait to open a prezie (or in this case a pot) I really wish you well in this venture and i will only be more then willing to show my support by spending as much time as i can there.

And with your gesture for the blonde event you will only get more of us turn up. Make sure you bring some membership forms to the event.

[Trace]

Rob's excitement and enthusiasm is oozing off the page and getting me all giddy too.
I'm just mad as hell I live too far away to apply for a job myself!

I'd certainly love to be there for the opening night.

Great work Rob, I'm loving this thread.

T
xx

[robyong]

I keep looking at the vote on the club name, looks like nearly everyone thinks "tilt" should be "till" or "til" and the "from" should be dropped, Nick won't be happy, he thought the "tilt" was a nice poker related term into the club's name. At 1pm tomorrow the thread will have been on 48hrs, so we'll know then.

My horse pulled up today in the 3.40pm at Fontwell, when I thought is was an absolute cert to win. Tony Mccoy, the champion jockey, was riding it and he said after the race that "I have a problem horse". ie. it doesn't like racing. Typical, as well as my bet of £6k, a number of people had rung me up for a tip and I've been getting abusive texts since the race finished. Apparently Barry "from Sheffield" Neville backed it pretty big aswell AND didn't even know it was my horse before he put the bet on........he just noticed that it had been heavily backed for 11-1 into 6-1, unfortunatley for Barry this was due to me putting 6 bets of £1k in this morning with 6 different bookies.........sorry Barry, you should have called me.

I emailed everyone with their task list from the project plan last night, Nowab was straight on the case today, visiting a web site designer. He' gets a 10 for enthusiam but I can't get any peace, he's either on my mobile, home phone, email or messenger, he's got me cornered! Just joking, Chubbs, if you can convert the energy into results the sky is the limit.

Our site will allow people to join the club online and we hope it will be up by the end of January. We need these memberships to prove demand to the Magistates court for our gaming licence. Hopefully, the membership fees won't put too many people off, we'll see.

I'm going to the premises tomorrow and taking a few photos - I'll put them up on this thread. You'll really be able to appreciate the potential of the club when you see them, although most of the inside will actually get ripped out in the refurb.

Thanks for all you nice comments on this thread (even my favourite poster "IFM"!)

Cheers Rob


 



 

[Royal Flush]

Chubby emailed me a few promissing logos for the club today, he's been working with my Marketing Director of sf group, Michelle Hill, on the design. Apparently he turned up to my head office all decked out with a suit, briefcase and posh accent and everyone said "what a nice polite young man".

 

[Bongo]

If you need a simple online membership form put up rob i'd be happy to do it for free, would only take 10 minutes or so anyway.

[ifm]

Thanks for all you nice comments on this thread (even my favourite poster "IFM"!)

[ACE2M]

Keep up the good work rob.

the missus leaves uni this year and asked where i would like to live as she looks for a job... i expressed a keen interest in nottingham.