"The Downswings of Property and Poker"

[Dewi_cool]

ha ha

[4KSuited]

I'm a bit ocd, so it's taken me a month to read the entire diary before making a comment....

Congrats is the best I can do for now. WP Eso & Petra!

[Eso Kral]

I'm a bit ocd, so it's taken me a month to read the entire diary before making a comment....

Congrats is the best I can do for now. WP Eso & Petra!

Hi Phil (I assume this is you?) and Thanks very much.

Happy New Year to all, I hope it brings great health and happiness to all Blonde Folk, friends and family with mine being a quiet one with the kids asleep and Petra lasting till 11.15 leaving just me to see the London fireworks and then keep up my late Nan's tradition of opening the back door to let the past year out and then going to the front door and let the New Year in.

The last month or so has been pretty manic all around with me really working hard to put some effort into finishing this business plan and also looking at different locations to launch in 2016.

I wont go into too much detail at the moment of what I hope to be launching in a few months time as all will become apparent over the next few weeks but I may need a favour with a few FB likes etc once we do get up and running but it is pretty exciting times ahead and I will either knock in a years salary (or in Arbboy terms 6months property price growth ) or will have a scaleable business that can be replicated in other affluent towns that we will be launching our first one in.

The thing I have probably enjoyed most about this is that even though you are starting with just one venue at the start as we need to prove the concept, I have had to think about "Brand" from day one so have already instructed a branding and marketing company who I am working with on name,logo positioning etc as its not just like naming it "Eso Estates" (its not an estate agent btw)

Hopefully in the first 2 weeks of this year I will have a name and then can crack on and I should be seeing a premises in Chelmsford in the next week that I hope is the right size for what I want to do as it's the perfect location in terms of demographic, location to get this off the ground even though it's pretty scary with leases coming in at £50-65k per annum for 1500-2000sq ft and then rates on top of that!

This does need to be right and I have a certain amount of DD to complete before committing any real funds to this and am not worried about walking away if I dont get the right vibe over the next few weeks but so far it all looks good.

What is does mean though is that we will be putting back our move to Malta to August 2017 now as combined with an Easter launch and the baby being due in May it will put too much pressure on us to get it done this August and Petra would like to have a year where she knows where everything is in medical terms etc so I can just concentrate on this business and crack on!

With Max and Ivy we chose not to find out the sex and had home births with Max being born in our bedroom and Ivy in the Lounge and if all goes well we will have a home birth again this time however Petra being the organised one out of us wanted to find out the sex so she can keep Max or Ivy's newborn clothes prior to leaving here in 18 months and we have already started the de-cluttering so on Friday we headed for our 20+ week scan and found out

Click to see full-size image.

It's a BOY!!! Here is his head shot where you can see the nose and mouth etc and it is pretty incredible what they show you even though the baby is literally 12cm at this stage.

So now we have a few months of argueing agreeing on a name and we always wanted Rory which was name 1 on the list when Max was born but he just looked more like a Maxwell (name 2) than a Rory and unfortunately he has a bit of difficulty with his "R"s at the moment so we are in two minds.

In bed this morning the conversation went something like this

Petra - What about Vince or Vincent

Me - No way

Petra - Why not? You like Vinny

Me - I can just see it now, all the jokes about naming him after his Dad blah blah blah!


Anyway thanks to everyone who posted in here or read in the past year and hopefully I will post some updates over the next few months and a big thanks to anyone who was confident/crazy enough to buy a piece in me in the events I played last year which just happened to be my best year in terms of cashes with 15 cashes from 38 events for about £32k when you include the value of the WPT seats won so thanks for letting me play some of the events that I would never have been able to without you guys.

HNY everyone may all your dreams and wishes come true!

[celtic]

😳

Vincent blacklock. Sounds alright.

[shipitgood]

All the best for 2016!

[4KSuited]

Hi Rich, yes it is I (lol).

Thoroughly enjoyed the read of your diary/blog, and was "should I, shouldn't I?" about starting my own... But I've concluded that a) I don't play enough poker at the higher (more interesting) levels and b) Not enough ppl on here know me to make it interesting for a wider audience, and c) I'd be embarrassed by the tedium of my current life, whilst yearning for a return to my past.

You continue to be inspirational for anyone who wonders whether they can 'make the change' and/or 'just do it', taking on what appears to be the substantial challenges of both a new business start-up and emigrating at the same time as welcoming a 3rd child to the family. It's an over-used word, but in your case it's appropriate - awesome!

FWIW, if Max is having trouble with his r's, I think I might swerve the name Rory. There's something I like about Vince, though... It was my dad's name. More importantly, what room are you planning for his birth?

Have a fantastic 2016, Eso - here's hoping everything works out!

[Doobs]

Has Max got a tongue tie?  I have one, and had problems with my Rs when I was younger.  I had to go to speech therapy when I was young and pretty much hated every minute.  Felt like a right dimwit because I couldn't speak properly.  Can't imagine he will be happy with you choosing Rory.  My youngest had one too, but had it snipped when she was a baby.  

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/tongue-tie/Pages/Introduction.aspx

[RedFox]

Hi Rich

I was reading your diary about the Malta WPT got interrupted and thought id leave it for another day which is now  and holy hell great news about your new boy, the Malta move and the  new business.

Best wishes for the new year for all above.

[Eso Kral]

Thanks for the GL's and thoughts over the past couple of posts and cheers Doobs for the info I will have a deeper look into that link.

I am due to see a premises in Chelmsford tomorrow which hopefully will be suitable in size (it's a tad small at 1600sq ft) but should be workable so fingers crossed on that and I have been cracking on with bits of the plan and making contact and for what I am doing I need some nutritional help so always liking to keep things with people I know and trust I messaged two Blondes about hooking up and on Saturday I drove up to Nottingham to hook up with the guys and buy them early dinner (sorry Vin) and off to Reds we went for some smoked meat!!

Here's the boys, Iraise on the left and birthday boy Zerofive on the right with just half of my noggin in shot (note to self to learn how to selfie properly in 2016)

Click to see full-size image.

I went through my business plan to date as we ate and we discussed various aspects and whilst they wont become rich out of it in the start I hope the endgame is good for them and being focused on this at the moment with every penny important to the launch of this business I took them back to the DTD car park and then played the deepstack drove straight back to Essex which was pretty disciplined of me even if I say it myself as they were only just starting level 2.

I'm going to search back over my 2015 goals in a bit and re-quote and then put up some aspirations for 2016 to give me motivation for the year ahead.

[celtic]

You didn't think to consult me about nutrition?

Think I've played with iraise. Coventry I think? Looks a lot different to how I remember him.

[iRaise]

You didn't think to consult me about nutrition?

Think I've played with iraise. Coventry I think? Looks a lot different to how I remember him.

That was around the time I started the beard, would be great to one day have a proper one.

[Eso Kral]

2015...

1) First and foremost this year the biggest goal I have is to be the best Husband and Dad that I can be to Petra and the kids as I am a pretty lucky guy to have them so they are the number one priority and everything that I do or achieve is ofr them or to improve our lives as a family unit.

2) I am not going to say I am going to lose x amount of weight or any of that malarkey but I do intend to try and shape up this year as I am concious that this is the time of life that my Dad had his first heart attack and as we have Heart disease in the family I really need to focus on this again so will be joining a cheap gym at the end of my road and am determined to put in 3 x sessions a week in the evenings and may even join the fatties thread for motivation unless anyone fancies some kind of prop...

3) On top of everything else this year I plan to buy one property as an investment (renter for the kids) as with hopefully doing the restaurant venture it will be tough to secure deposit to buy and do a flip or two this year so I am looking at a property this week that with a bit of jiggery pokery I may be able to secure in a mutually convenient way!

4) I really hope we get the restaurant venture off the ground in the first quarter and there has been some good movement this week and hopefully next week we can have the premises locked up and really crack on with the planning/design side and I will post further on this as we go.

5) I would love to put some kind of poker goal in here but it's really hard to as saying I want to final a £500+ event in 2015 is imo not a quantifiable goal for me, therefore I will just hope to have enjoyed the game as much as I did in 2014, continue to make good decisions in game and hope to at the bare minimum cash for a bit more than my entries are this year in the 15-20 tournaments I am likely to play.

Just quoting this to make it easier to come back to later on

[Eso Kral]

So in the midst of all this business panning it’s been very important to retain some family time too and yesterday was one of those days.
After Max’s football in the morning we rushed home for a quick change and then attempted to make the 10.44 train to London but if you have kids then leaving the house for us is pretty much exactly like this…



Eventually we made the station for 10.50 and ended up catching the 11.10 instead heading into London where we were going to research a couple of venues that offer a similar service to what we hope to launch in the next couple of months and we ended up in South Kensington for a couple of hours.

Here was the team before we left the station

Click to see full-size image.

After the bit of research we wanted to do we walked through Serpentine Park stopping where a couple of friendly Squirrels decided they liked the little snack bar that Max was having and after a bit of coercing they we happy to approach and take food from his hand even holding his fingers whilst they took the little bits from him.

Click to see full-size image.

An hour long walk was ended when we reached our final destination which was the Sanderson Hotel just off Oxford Street having been given a “Mad Hatters” tea party voucher affording us an afternoon tea for 4 with Champagne (for me only ) and we were seated quickly before being given a choice of tea which even Max got involved with Ivy being more interested in her hot chocolate and the Ballerina in the sugar pot.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Eventually we were presented with a plate of food each consisting of a ham and cheese toastie, some green bread filled with cream cheese and cucumber, a crab croquette and a quails egg scotch egg with a tiny bit of caviar on which was really nice and then the desert was brought out with a variety of nibbles all well presented and extremely tasty with a final ice cream served in a miniature flower pot consisting of raspberry ice cream covered with a crushed oreo biscuit and some water cress.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Needless to say we were all stuffed by the end so the kids decided to have a play around in the lobby before we left for the train back to Leigh on Sea.
Here’s Petra being the queen and feeling full

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Whilst not the cheapest of afternoon tea’s I can thoroughly recommend this afternoon out even though it’s probably wasted on kids if you were looking for a little surprise or break from shopping in London for your girlfriend or partner, Mum or even someone else’s Mum as I am positive they would enjoy being looked after here at this great hotel.

This week is a big week as in an hour’s time I have a big branding meeting for the new venture and tomorrow am at the venue we have an offer in on with a designer which subject to that going well will see me reinforce my offer to the landlord having proved our covenant to them last week where they wanted to see cleared funds able to get the venue open which we did and suddenly they were happy to give us some time in the venue and if we get confirmation this week that we can proceed then it’s going to be a busy few months ahead.

[RED-DOG]

Great stuff Richard.

Can you believe how quickly kids grow?

[Eso Kral]

Great stuff Richard.

Can you believe how quickly kids grow?

I find it incredible Tom and even though I still have this edge in me that feels like I could press the (not literally obv) self destruct button at any given time they ground you so much and change your thought processes on everything.

The way they learn these days is so different to when we are kids but I find it amazing the stages they go through with mine gonna be 5 & 3 this March and the next one due in May when we will go through it all again.

I love every minute of it and am sure that never stops 😀