"The Downswings of Property and Poker"

[Delboy]

gripping read rich!

Absolutely!

Keep it coming 

[Eso Kral]

SOMETIMES IM A LUCKBOX

A few months passed and i was making my payments to my dad and and servicing the debt to the investor when we had a really bad month and again i knew i would struggle to meet my ends meet so was trying to work out what to knock as i owed 3.5k to the investor needed to pay £600 to my dad plus all my other debts (yes i was still paying for the kitchen in my old house that i hadnt owned for 2years) but even though i had little or no free money i would still gamble and i remember it was a day off as usual i was up early and had got the racing post to read through and been to the gym and was sat in my local William Hills putting on a few placepots to try and win a few quid.

PLACEPOTS FTW
The meeting was Goodwood not a big meeting but i had done a couple of straight line bets and a perm (for those that dont know a place pot is where you need to get a horse placed in the first six races at the meeting and if there are 4 runners you need the winner, 5/6/7 runners first 2places, 8-15 runners your horse in the first 3 and 16 runners as long as its a handicap first 4 places. There is a pool of money created from the bettors and at the end the money left is divided into this figure minus the tote deduction giving a dividend to the £) and by the 4th race it was going to pay fairly well and i was running to a line of £8 with 2 bankers in the last 2 races and my perm had doubled up twice with 3runners in the 5th race and 2 in the last.

It was likely to pay good as the favourites were not placed and when i sailed through the 5th race with my banker which was in the perm also i walked up to Ladbrokes as they can show you on the screen how much is running onto the horses in the next race so you can work out what it will pay to pretty much the £.  Going into the last race i really wanted the banker horse to come in as that meant i scooped both bits of the bet but i need'nt have worried as they both came in the first 3 and i sat quietly in my chair working out how much was on each horse taking out the deduction to find that i would be collecting just under £6750 for an outlay of £38.

Obviously the bookies didnt hold that amount of money and offered a cheque which i snap refused and i waited till the next day to collect the cash before driving straight round to the investors to pay the 3.5k plus 20% interest telling myself this would be the last time i would put myself in that position again...

[boldie]

It's just scary to read this, absolutely brutal. Gripping read though.

[GreekStein]

Rich, what do you think of these moneylenders/loansharks?

[boldie]

Rich, what do you think of these moneylenders/loansharks?

And the millions of companies you see advertising with higher interest rates than your loanshark?

[millidonk]

Rich, what do you think of these moneylenders/loansharks?

Old Rich

[GreekStein]

Gripping stuff Rich.

I have  known a fair few people who have got themselves in deep doodoo with Far-Eastern moneylenders and it's not funny at all. At one point there were around half a dozen of them who used to hang around in Gala Nottm. waiting for folk to go busto on the tables. It was so blatantly open that I was always amazed the management stood for it.

There's one I know of now who's in big big trouble from these guys. Obv it's his fault he fucked up so consistently (degens gonna degen) but he's now in so deep that all his avenues for making payments/getting out are dried up it's very worrying that something real bad will happen to him or his loved ones. It's come close already.

[Eso Kral]

Rich, what do you think of these moneylenders/loansharks?

Well people who go to them for money do know the consequences of non payment but at the same time the people lending probs dont want someone who wont be able to pay therefore a long long stay in hospital is not good for them.
Its mostly gonna be degens who borrow of them though as why pay 20% monthly??

[GreekStein]

Rich, what do you think of these moneylenders/loansharks?

Well people who go to them for money do know the consequences of non payment but at the same time the people lending probs dont want someone who wont be able to pay therefore a long long stay in hospital is not good for them.
Its mostly gonna be degens who borrow of them though as why pay 20% monthly??

In 20 years time if Maxwell said he was gonna be a moneylender would you be ok with it?

[EvilPie]

20% per month is actually very good for instant access to cash.

An arranged overdraft with Halifax costs £1 per day "to make it easy for our customers".

Doesn't take a genius to work out that that's bloody expensive if you slip over by a few quid by mistake.

[Eso Kral]

Rich, what do you think of these moneylenders/loansharks?

Well people who go to them for money do know the consequences of non payment but at the same time the people lending probs dont want someone who wont be able to pay therefore a long long stay in hospital is not good for them.
Its mostly gonna be degens who borrow of them though as why pay 20% monthly??

In 20 years time if Maxwell said he was gonna be a moneylender would you be ok with it?

If you mean he is the one doing the lending then i would say yes as i know some business people who sometimes need to lay their hands on good amounts of money and although it may cost them if its not for degen reasons then it makes sense to do it.
Obv i wouldnt be happy to find out he was a leg breaker but thats not gonna happen cos as soon as he can hold a mouse he starts to work with Pleno 

[pleno1]

do you want him to be a footballer?

[Eso Kral]

COMING OF AGE

By now i was approaching the age of 30 and had probably for the first time in 10 years realised i had nothing to show for my life except a trail of destruction and hurt but i was still gambling when i had a day off and playing poker around either Southend, Walsall or Luton with the occasional visit to Brighton for a side event at a festival but the game at Southend was where i played mostly and they had a £20 rebuy every Weds and Sunday that i played in.

The card room itself was downstairs with no air con and small round tables like they used to have at Old Luton unless you made the final table in which case you sat on a dealer dealt table, it used to be a good mix of people in there and there were always 60-70 runners so a good pot was built with most players going there happy to pull up £100+ and sometimes you would see the real degens with £240 worth of buyins and the last 3 hands used to be carnage.

Not long after i started playing there they moved the room to the smaller side of the casino ( they hold 2 of the 3 licences granted for Southend and presumably are keeping the one active just incase any real development and a marina are put in on the front itself, whereby they will open a 3rd casino in the town) which was a bigger room with no air con that in the winter is freezing cold and in the summer boiling hot.  The games were ok and due to the fact that in a long while i didnt have a g/f or significant other i would venture down and play the comp plus the house games before, during the break and after busting the comp and in the early days i made the odd final but normally had blinded away to get there and then bust out in 6-9th place for a small profit.

I had started to read books like the Harrington books but you could never really apply them to our game as the comps were never really deep enough so like today many local donkaments became shove fests and you need to win 4-5 60/40's or vica versa from 20 players down to make a f/t.

The cash game consisted of the same 5-6 players waiting for value and at that time the winners in the game were Rob Huntley, John Gale (not the famous one), Ian turner and Paul Siddle who the old boys saw as an internet player but he was IMO the best player of them all. I never really played cash with them as in those days i felt out of my league and also was just a tournament donkey and one day whilst playing the comp i laid eyes on someone who would change my life forever!!!

Petra was a valet at the casino fetching drinks for the players and when i first saw her i thought she was stunning and had that sexy eastern european accent as she asked you what you wanted, loads of players used to try and chat her up or ask her out and she always said the same thing "sorry im not allowed to date customers". I just carried on and was now playing pretty much exclusively at Southend with a bit of Luton and was on one of the worst runs i had been through in tournaments and because i was trying to be disciplined had started a diary to check what i won and lost on during the year.

I was about to have a break from poker as on the 16th feb i had played 25 tournaments and out of the 25 had gone deep in 20 of which i had lost in 14 of them to 2 outers on the turn or river (in before anyone says im sounding like george) when with 10 days to go till payday and with £250 to last till then i decided to give it one last shot at the £20 rebuy.....

[Eso Kral]

do you want him to be a footballer?

I would be more than happy for him to be a footballer but i think i would guide him that he needs an education as well, cos there are no gtees even when you get signed only 1/10-15 kids that are yts (in my day) or academy students probs ever make it and when you dont you struggle to replace that buzz.

[kinboshi]

It's just scary to read this, absolutely brutal. Gripping read though.