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

[marcro]

Rob also got a mention from JohnnyBax - "A few of the other players were strong as well. Phil Ivey’s showing up didn’t make the outlook any easier, but he was busted quickly by a tricky Robert Yong."  Must have been nice busting Phil Ivey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Bainn]

A possible UK leg of the WPT at DTD, interesting.

However, it is amusing to imagine how the WPT will handle the bringing out of the prize money when it gets to heads-up.

Courtney friel enters stage followed by some WPT dancers dressed as Robin hood's merry men, they then proceed to "steal" the prize money of some poor actor dressed as the sheriff of Nottingham and present it to the players.

God bless the colonials.

[DTD-Nick.W]

After rooming with Aces and listening to him 24/7 for a week its good to see all his hard work networkin the Us circuit and get some press on ESPN.

The man can Talk.

Well done mate.

[simonow]

Yep Nice Work "ACES" , I dont know who can talk more Aces or Ariston, believe me there is not much in it, plus these Too are very Good pals I think we should lock them in a room.  LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chubbs

[Ironside]

Yep Nice Work "ACES" , I dont know who can talk more Aces or Ariston, believe me there is not much in it, plus these Too are very Good pals I think we should lock them in a room.  LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chubbs

come on chunky what did the room ever do wrong too you?

[ariston]

If you locked us in a room you better make sure we got a deck and some chips. Simon for me deserves anything he gets for being the first European to put so much effort into publicing poker and I read everything he wrote over a number of years- he was one of the only players giving secrets of the game away and way before anybody had ever heard of Mr Negreanu. One of the highlights of last year was playing on the same table as him in a huge event and I played some of my best poker against him (unfortunately some of my worst against others on the table)- I think partly because I had read so much of his stuff I had an advantage. I think I definately have him on the talking stakes though (side bets accepted).

[robyong]

We had a meeting yesterday with our structural engineer regarding the proposed layout of the club. It looks like we are going to have some problems with some of the layout due to the methane site that the building is built on, apparently if we break the methane seal we will blow the East Midlands region up, so we will have to make some more adjustments to our plan. This is more frustration as we have already spent a lot of time working on this, but that's life, nothing easy is worth doing I guess. It shouldn't actually halt our progress in achieving a December opening date, but it means more costs and time on the layout plan, and yet again more generation of paperwork to the various governement bodies.

I am waiting for another written offer from an internet software provider today, we met them in Vegas and they have given us a verbal offer. Our internet room is definaley delayed and I still have not made a firm decision who to go with. Its a lot more hassle setting up a deal direct rather that just doing a skin with a cage, but I'm getting used to wading through thick mud on this project. everytime I can see some light at the end of the tunnel, the lights go out!

Me, Aces, Chubbs and Nick are planning on playing the Blackpool main even this weekend. Its one of my favourite tournamants of the Uk calender, although my results there leave much to be desired. I hope Grovesner will let me continue to play their festivals when DTD opens, I really enjoy them and theres plenty of bantor. The DTD Poker Tour is into a loss now, despite me cashing in Dublin, lets hope Aces can get his first cash for DTD in Blackpool...........

Nick is getting really stressed out about the refurbishment of DTD, as he's got a number of other property projects running over the next 12 months in Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and London, so we'll be heavily reliant Redgates Contracting who are the same company that did the Broadway Casino in Birmingham. We have also retained the same designer as the Broadway usel, "Bob", whose a nice but slightly eccetric chap. These boys are not the cheapest, but we know what they are capable of. Although DTD will be going for a "vegas" theme, rather than the contemporary style of the Broadway, I think using these boys is a safer bet.

I never realised how much of my time this project would take up, maybe I am too hands-on and want everything perfect, but I really struggle to work any other way. I'm in Birmingham today to work through the DTD accounting procedures with Rebecca, my Finance Director. Although we've only spent £200k so far, my accounting records are pretty scrappy, and the Inland Revenue will be on DTD's case because its owned by me. In the last 4 years, I have had 2 personal tax investigations, 4 vat inspections, and 3 PAYE investigations. I have no doubt that DTD will be interrogated by the the tax office, so we need to get the financial records right from the start. Don't get me wrong, I believe in paying tax, not avoiding it, but I seem to get a disproportionate amount of attention  form the government, they never find anything irregular, but seem hell bent of making my life difficult, or maybe I'm just paranoid.

Expense, expense, expense, DTD is burning all of my cash resources. When I first had this "club concept" at the start of my diary, the costs were under control and within my c"omfort zone". Now, everything is going over budget and for a qualified accountant, I have shown zero financial dispipline. I'm still not sure what the final DTD project cost will be, but believe me, it is going to really really hurt my financial situation. I guess in some sick way I need it to be like this, to get that adreneline rush that taking risks give you.


Never mind, tomorrow is another day,

Cheers Rob

[Yogi-Bear]

Look forward to the DTD tour rolling into Blackpool.

Can someone bring Mr ACES into the club in plenty of time for the start. It's 6pm by the way on Saturday, so if you can get him in by then it would be much appreciated, especially after last time. Darned Gaming Board Guidelines and all that.

 

Yogi

[tikay]

Remind us Yogi. (Like we don't already know.....).

[robyong]

Dusk Till Dawn Ltd and Matrix Properties are now fully set up on the sf group accounting system and all of the costs to date have been logged in the right catorgories. I feel a sense of relief handing over control of the finances to Rebecca, I know she will control the purse strings and question any expenditure. She has worked with me for 9 years and I have total confidence in her when it comes to managing the finances and dealing with the accountants and lawyers. I don't sign any cheques or invoices for any of my businesses, she has authority to do everything which frees me up. She manages an accounts department of 15 people and one of the accoutants, Pete Jenkins (an internet poker player actually), is going to be soley dedicated to DTD accounting, which will be quite complex due to the amount of transactions and the online rewards scheme.

I finally managed to finish the content for our web site yesterday and emailed it to Pete, its taken me 2 weeks. Its hard to write content for something that has not even opened yet, but we need our web site up and running as soon as possible so we can generate members for the July Magistrates hearing for the Gaming Licence. People will be able to join the club online through the site and this will allow up to prove demand to the magistrates court. I spoke to Andy, my lawyer, yesterday, he has really positive feedback from the Gaming Board but I do not want to leave anything to chance, I want to show them that there is SUBSTANCIAL demand for this club in the UK, so the sooner I can get the web site up, the better.

I was watching Poker 425 last night and I noticed that Aces  had the DTD clothing on in Oxford Cup, where he finished 2nd, it gave me a funny feeling to see the logo which I has been the bane of my life actually on TV. TK gave him some good pr and also mentioned DTD on the program which was nice. I couldn't help thinking how relaxed TK looks nowadays in front of the cameras, he must be the most famous guy in UK poker if you polled the average man in the street, Louise's (my suffering girlfriend) Dad is one of his fan club and watches every episode of 425 as do many other people I know. They say to me, "do you know Tikay, have you ever played poker with the great one, do you get nervous when you are on his table", my answer of course is, "yes, yes and yes". Maybe we should get TK to cut the ribbon on DTD's opening night, I think he may be slightly more cheaper that Helmuth, I'm serious.

Its funny how this DTD thing seems to have taken over much of my life, when I started the idea, I thought it would be a hobby, something to give my life some balance after 2 years of dossing roung the world playing poker. Being honest, I think I actually first made my mind up to do it when I arrived 1 minute late for a comp at Notts Gala and was turned away, in the car on the way home I was moaning to Nick and he jokingly said "why don't we open our own poker room". The irony of this is that I probabably won't be able to play poker in DTD due to Gaming Board restrictions........what a plonker. However, this doesn't really bother me now, I've found it interesting doing all the reading up on the law, recruiting people into the operation, negotiating with the online rooms and mapping out the strategy, its sort of given me some purpose again as well as caused me a lot of headaches. Before DTD started I had been seriously thinking about going to university to re-educate myself and study for a degree, but I guess that student life will have to go on the back burner for now.

Right, gotta get a shower and do a quick workout, Pete is coming round to review the web site and Adam is bringing more DTD clothing round later, I gotta speak to my accountants about the online business, watch some TV with my sister, watch Louise playing online poker, discuss the online contract at 3pm on conference call, visit Nick at Maho Road (his apartment project) and something else I can't quite put my finger on.....have something to eat.


Cheers Rob

[Wardonkey]

Great post Rob!

The club really seems to be turning into something tangible now.

[turny]

blwng u the east midlands is that suh a bad idea?


keep up the good work rob theres thousands out there waiting for this club

[robyong]

Got back from Blackpool at about 8pm last night, me and Nick decided to try and win back the Blackpool £4k deficit and played the Stars and Party comps but had no success, I then logged into Louise's Littlewoods account and played 1 hand of cash (got KK v AA) and lost £1k. I also walked into AA 3 times in the main event at Blackpool, I had raised with live cards everytime though, but my 65, 62, 74 did not hold up. I had planned to give tournament poker a rest until the WSOP but Chubbs decided to buy me in to the Barcelona Heads-Up (well, not exactly buy me-in, sort of "enter me", and then I owe him the 2,500 euros).

Loads of people were buzzing about DTD in Blackpool. They speak about it like its already open, although when the same plonker asked me "when is the club open?" that asked me 4 weeks ago in Luton, I had to grit my teeth and say, "its a big job you know.............". It's nice that so many people are looking forward to it, I think some players feel like in some small way they are part of it, a bit like members of Blondepoker do with the BP forum. Imagine if Nottingham Magistrates turn us down for the licence on July 27th, how will I ever be able to show my face at any poker event ANYWHERE!

Anway, I'm on a new regime today, here's my list of jobs:

1. Finally sign a contract with an online poker room for DTD after soooooooo much faffing about its unreal
2. Arrange for Nick to be do on a course for Microsoft Project to help him manage the refit project of the DTD Club
3. Pay 1 years gym membership up front to comitt myself to getting mentally and physically fitter
4. Do a job spec for Sarah, my new PA, who I have not spoke to for 6 weeks since I initially offered her the job
5. Do a complete final list of fixtures and fittings for the Club at the DTD meeting (we have 1 every 3pm Monday)
6. Do all little crappy admin jobs outstanding (eg. fax over passport to lawyers)
7. Try and set up a meeting with TK to discuss DTD/BP
8. Sort out my Gambling  Log* TOP PRIORITY

*I used to be pretty meticulous about keeping gambling records. Since DTD started though, I have had to retire from Blackack and Sports Betting, you need time practice your card counting for Blackjack (I have a computer program called Wilson Software which trains any mug to win at Blackjack) and to bet on football, you really have to study 2-3 hours per day to have any edge. I enjoyed doing that stuff, but without the time, I would just be a guarenteed big loser, so I stopped.

However, now my poker has now gone completely to pot since I stopped recording wins/losses. I have always been a loser at live tournament poker (and not really taken it seriously to be honest) and also dealers choice cash games, but a winner a NL online and NL live games.............however  recently I know I have been doing my brains on all types of poker. At the end of February, I was over £100k up for 2006, mainly from online NL cash, but I stopped updating my gambling log when DTD got too busy and Blackjack and Sport betting came to an end. I estimate that I have lost since February:

1. £15k on the DTD Tour (thats buy-ins + expenses for 4 people though, so not too bad)
2. £40k online NL cash (including the "nowab" factor)
3. £15k live NL cash (after vegas disaster)
4. £25k on Bellagio main event + misc expenses

Thats about £100k in last 3 months, so I've done at least all my profit in since I stopped keeping records, and this doesn't include the £200 I lost to that fish, Ariston at heads-up in Walsall. If this losing streak continues, I'll be £500k in the hole by the end of 2006, so I got to get some discipline back, or the DTD Tour will be playing £30 freezouts (although this may suit Ace's current form, 1st at Blonde Bash 1, and 2nd in Oxford Cup!).

I've never really cared much for money, its always been a "currency of risk" for me...........its for investing, gambling, spending on friends and family, or giving to charitable causes. I never had any money when I was younger, so as long as my loved ones are okay, I'm happy to risk the whole lot, as long as I believe the upside is 0.1% more likely than a downside............but these recent losses at poker are really xxxxing me off, its just reckless and bad money management, I could have put that £100k in my charity and done some good with it (or bought all the poker tables for the club!).

When I sit down and write this diary I never know what I am going to type and god knows what impression it gives. When the club opens I'll probably read the whole thing and think what a dickhead, but writing it is sort of "theroputic", sure I've spelt that wrong.

Cheers Rob "turning over a new leaf today" Yong

[ripple11]

Keep up the great work Rob !!....compelling reading.

[M3boy]

Rob, great reading, totalliy compelling stuff!!

(Are you sure you were not an author in a recent life?)