TAKING IT FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP (HOPEFULLY).

I’ve always had a passion for poker, but my main passion has always been business I’ve always seen businesses and thought if the opportunity came along I could do that better. I always use to sit around in my local poker club analysing how things weren’t run properly, from their tournament schedule needing to be changed, to how the staff where rude and unhelpful. I thought I would love to have a go at running that club, I mean I’ve played more poker than anyone who regularly steps in that club, I’ve spoke to more poker players, and I’ve visited more poker clubs, so I feel I know what attracts a player.

This club I’m talking about was struggling to get a cash game off the ground even though there was plenty of cash players who frequented the club and there were plenty more that I felt I could attract. So I spoke to the manager and put my idea across, but saying we would make a few tweaks and the customer service would be a lot improved to what the players where use to receiving. He turned round and pretty quickly turned my idea down, which I thought was strange as he had nothing to lose.
Then I was speaking to one of my close friends, and he is one of the most agro players I know, so I knew people love to play with him. He suggested hosting the game at his girlfriend’s mum’s pub. We checked the pub out to be honest it was small and dingy and run down but it had enough space to fit two tables, and they where cramped, but even for all its down points it had a very homely feel. We decided try our best to provide the best service, but most importantly we would try fill our game with poker players who where players, not rocks but people who loved to gamble it up that way people would want to play in our games.

For four months our player base grew and grew and the games got better and better and regularly ran on for nearly 24 hours, I remember one night we had two tables full and we had to turn players away. Then, as we knew the pub was shutting down, as apart from us on a Thursday, there was only a handful of regulars who drunk in there.
So the next step, we had to find a new venue, a few people had expressed an interest in hosting, one stood out it was in what I believed was a great location, Il hold my hands up and say I jumped straight in at the deep end. Rather than thinking it through I saw my dream, rather than the new owners dream, his dream was riches, he wanted the world. This is when I should have stepped back and saw this isn’t a viable business opportunity, but instead in I dived straight in spending £3000 on new tables chips and posters. We had decided we were going to run one tournament night and one just cash night. We kicked off with our opening night on a Monday it was a £20 re entry with a 10k starting stack, it got 37 entry’s and 47 re entry’s and was what I would deem a success. But that evening we gave the owner his share of the profits, and he turned round and said I need better results boys. Straight away I knew I had made a mistake and had gone into partnership with a Muppet. On the Wednesday he spoke to us and said his business partner had thought they would be earning more money, I knew straight away it wasn’t going to work out so yet again we were on the lookout for a new venue.

The new venue, so I received a call on the following Monday from a gentleman who asked would we like to host our game there. We went and met him and soon realised he had a lovely venue, which was already set up for poker, but a very small player base compared to a venue of that size and stature warranted. So we have agreed to partner them in this new exciting venture to hopefully build the club into a fully functioning private members club offering games including pool, poker, snooker kalloki, backgammon. So this diary will be all about the trials and tribulations this will bring.