"The Downswings of Property and Poker"

[Ant040689]

I know! The game was bridge?

Good diary keep it up.

[Eso Kral]

So the following friday at about 4pm i arrived for the first of 2 games they held on a friday which was a £5 rebuy non dealer dealt and as a newbie i was told i didnt have to shuffle or deal the first time  phew.
Obviously i luckboxed my way to the last 16 players and then comically nearly folded a straight flush forgetting it beats the A flush despite having a hand chart on the wall directly infront of me until Paul nudged my as i held my cards looking like i was going to fold and sailed to the final table. Unfortunately there was no 1st win as i proceeded to spew off my big chip lead in a similar way to today, and was so easy to read obv if i bet i had it and when i checked i didnt and a tall Greek gent called Saeed taught me a lesson as he played every pot i was in and took all of my chips over that hour.

On the gambling side i was losing heavily and had now added horses and dogs to my addiction, but Sarah was still in tow and had no knowledge of my problems but my Dad had started to get wind and was wondering why people were phoning asking after me and why all of sudden i was receiving masses of letters that i just didnt open and stuck them in a draw "its nothing i would tell him" and claim it was all about the personal training business etc etc

The next course of events is something that im not to proud of and wont go into that much detail on but it was the closest that i have ever come to going to prison as when someone in the casino approached me and offered the chance to solve some of my money worries for no risk to me and by doing something that all his mates had we could get a couple of grand i took the chance and watched 2 hours later as he got carted off in a police car and i went back to the casino absolutely bricking it.

2 hours later when the casino announced over the tannoy "can Richard Blacklock please come to reception" i knew it was either the police or my Dad and wasnt to sure which one i hoped it would be, anyways it was the police after they had been to our family home and Dad had told them i could be found down the casino or Ladbrokes.  I dont remember the chaps name who got me involved but fair play to him as he didnt squeel and kept his side of the story but the next day interview i had to have at the police station was the most nerve racking thing i have ever been through especially when the first thin the copper said in the interview room was "Is there anything you would like to tell us before we start?".

Im pretty sure i went red and stumbled my way through the interview but was let out and to my knowledge the other chap served a bit of time and i was on the slippery slope a bit further...

[Eso Kral]

Poker at the Stanley casino had some characters some of them still around today
Mickey Wernick - in these days even The Worm played the £5 rebuy
Ash "the cash" Pervais - i think he made an appearance on LNP
Paul Jackson - was always one of the better players there
Anon (state in america) - still the same today
Anon (Raul moat lookalike) - had a pony tail in those days and had some massive spin ups on the magic wheel turning 100 to 20k on a few occasions
also some other comical people
Maggie Fryer - always played 10/6 and if it was suited it was all going in obviously 10/6 at stanley became known as "the fryer" even today i think of it when dealt it.
Wallop - an old boy who when in a pot used to bang his fist on the table and shout "wallop" when he had a good hand - he was fairly exploitable
Kath P -  a big greek lady who used to bring a carrier bag of sweets to every comp and they would go round the tables one by one
I later found out that one of the pit bosses got sacked as it was common for them to come and grab a sweet from time to time but this gent inparticular used to grab a sweet but deposit 4-5 pony chips in the bag on each occasion that then were cashed and split up weekly in a secret rendezvous.
Micky P - had obviously won a big pot once requiring a 7 so in walsall when you called in a 7 you would "send me a micky p" dealer!
I started to really enjoy poker but was still losing eveywhere else and had already been bailed out once by my Dad who told me he would not do this again (more on this as we go on) when they intriduced a game that would change my world for unfortunately only 1month before some idiot with a big mouth lt on what was happening, the game was "Carribean Poker" the 5 card house poker game where the dealer only opens AK+ and you have to beat his hand...

[Eso Kral]

LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS!!
When your losing and find that you can make a steady stream of money at no risk why would you tell anyone? Well one day Paul said lets play Caribbean poker and i said why to which he replied " you will see!"
The Dealer dealt our hands and his own and after a few hands Paul leaned across to me and said have you seen it, obviously i had not so he told me to watch how the dealer dealt his own hand and to lean back slightly so i did and to my amazement we could actually see all the dealers whole cards as he turned the corners up as he dealt.

Happy Days so for 4 weeks we only ever played Caribbean when he dealt and won a good few thousand each not going for the big hits but taking a steady stream of money on a daily basis, it was just a case of being around on his shift and then staying for a few hands after he left whilst throwing in the odd loser as well every 10 hands or so.

Unfortunately Paul told someone else and this got back to the management and we were both pulled to one side and told we were barred from playing Caribbean when this dealer was on but it didnt matter as they had retrained his dealing skills now    if only Paul could have kept quiet i would have been out of the hole for a few weeks.

I was losing heavily now and was earning around £15k per year from my personal training and gym job but was in debt to the tune of around 10k with the banks and my initial bail out from my Dad which was 12k a figure that was written in a little red book as we callled it, and i was to pay money off the red book as and when i had it or if anything happened to my Dad this would be accounted for to make things fair for my brother.

Credit was now becoming hard to come by as i had bounced payments so the bank and credit card company didnt wish to extend my credit line so i found out that the casino would let you cash 3 cheques per day with a bankers card and with a chq gtee limit of £100 this was a funding stream that if used correctly ie  start cashing on a Thursday i would have till Tuesday before the bank would put a stop to this line of credit...

[pleno1]

absolute degen... keep going..

[Eso Kral]

Well i was still doing chunks in all over the place but my relationship didnt suffer in fact we were getting on really well and Sarah had no idea that i was losing money as i was always the same person with a pound or 3k in my pocket. The personal training side was doing ok but i could not find enough clients to do 3 sessions per week and pay the ££ so iwas starting to think of alternatives as i had found i was enjoying selling the benefits to clients and getting them signed up more that i was training them so sales seemed like a good way of earning my money.

Gambling wise was terrible until one night when playing Roulette all my numbers started to come in, now i was a sucker for Tier with 8/11/30/36/23 my abs favs and if it came 16 it was probably a losing spin similarly if it came 28/29/7 or 0 section it was most likely a good winner also. This particular night all MY numbers were coming in and before long £200 became £1000 became £5000 and i stopped playing, i dont know why and you never know whether i would have carried on winning or done the lot but i cashed up and made my way out where Paul stopped me and asked if he could borrow a grand till he got paid at the end of that week. We were pretty tight so i was comfortable with this as through the ups and downs money had often changed hands.

Now there have been a few stories on here some recently where people have been nipped i learnt the hard way firstly through the hurt caused to my family most importantly my Dad who is no longer with us and i will come on to this later but also thorugh lending when i had and being promised money back only to never see it again so now im definately in the camp of never a lender nor a borrower be!

Obviously Paul never turned up or returned calls which i ended up finding really disappointing as whilst 1k is even today a lot of money in the scheme of things its not that much, whats more disappointing was the fact that it was when i needed the money and another batch of missed payments happened with the phone calls before i went back to my Dad again for help only this time it was a case of "once more and your out on your ear son".

My relationship was still going strong and we were starting to talk of engagement but i couldnt save money and was still frittering it away so when an opportunity came to go and stay in Southern California for 6 months coaching kids Soccer it was too good an opportunity to miss plus it would give me a chance to save some money for a ring and decide what path my career should take next, it was around this time that the Royal Casino was closing as they were going to knock it down as part of the towns redevelopment and the new Grosvenor Casino at Junction 10 was born.
Off to America we go....

[Karabiner]

This is a great read Rich and I can certainly relate to the degen stuff, been there/done that.

[JK]

Awesome read so far mate, keep it up!

[flushthemout]

Keep going Rich, great read.

[pleno1]

whos paul?

[Eso Kral]

whos paul?

not The Ho

[Eso Kral]

Awesome read so far mate, keep it up!

TY JK isnt it about time urs was upto date?

[Eso Kral]

WORK UPDATE

Today is not a bad day in the office, obv im on my own hence posting loads on here but also sold a cute little bungalow that i put on the market 3weeks ago and then had a sale fall through but when i tied it up first time i had 2 offers so snap called the other lady and she had not found so resold it to her for a couple of grand less.
Then i have a 3rd viewing on a property tonight at 6.30 which must turn in to a sale tomorrow!!
Ship the commission 

[pleno1]

do i get a %?

[Eso Kral]

do i get a %?

yeah your on your standard eso tariff