Over the whole year I'm £31,547 down on what I call "recreational" gambling, which is a combination of Poker, Blackjack and Football Betting + expenses. Its sort all started going downhill from the WSOP after a promissing first 6 months. However, my "business gambling" has gone alright in 2005, so on overall, we're in reasonable profit.
I draw no distiction between business and gambling, as far as I am concerned, any activity that can win or lose you money, is "gambling". "Business" just looks more respectable from the outside, but I can promise you it is not. In poker you have to beat the rake, the moodies and your own personal discipine, in business you're got the banks, lawyers and certain employees making life difficult for you, its all the same thing, its all "gambling" - which gives me my adrenaline kick.
One of the highlights of the year for me was my WSOP diary, whick TK persuaded me to write, I'm dead chuffed that people who I have never met or spoken to enjoyed reading something that I wrote, believe it or not, I'm quite a private person. I guess this and general "niceness" of people on this site, and the people I have met over the last 2 years playing poker, are the reasons why I want to be more involved in poker by opening a club etc. I admit that some of the poker community are pretty selfish individuals, but I've met some top people who I would never have come accross if I had not played poker, and the club is a chance to bring all these people together.
Anyway, I'm all packed and ready to get my flight tomorrow. The trip has been a net profit of $20,000 after all expenses, so I can't really grumble about the $50,000 2 outer last night (that I will never mention again...). The Bellagio have paid for all my drinks, food and a beautiful suite looking over the Vegas strip. My casino host even agreed to pay $5,000 to cover my flight costs from England...........all this to get me on their Blackjack tables.....................so a profit gives me a warm feeling of accomplishment inside. Being a degenerate gambler I need to take a minute to savour moments like this, treat myself to the free mochachino in my mini bar (normally $8) whilst posting on Blonde via their internet connections (normally $10.95 per day).
Chubby Nowab is coming round to mine on Friday to discuss his role in the new venture, he's offered to put £50,000 in himself but I can't see the point, as over time this money will be mine at Heads-Up anyway. Seriously though, Simon used to run his own advertising and marketing company before he became a full time poker pro, so he can bring key skills to the overall venture. I think he also wants to get his teeth into something else, as he's been doing the poker circuit for some time now. If we can agree something, he'll be the Marketing Consultant.
I also need to draft up something for Action Jack, who I am trying to persuade to be the Online Consultant. I'm sure I mentioned in a previous threads that we are going to have our own online poker software, and we have taken on an Applications Programmer to head this up, Pete Langley (the big guy at my home game). This way we will be able to allow people to spend/withdraw their "online cash" in the club so people don't have to worry about carrying cash etc. It also means that people can enter comps online so they know they have a seat. I am very consious that we should try and have the least amount of cash in the club as possible for security reasons. There's a load of work to do here, and I estimate this won't be operational until 12 months after the club has opened. This is a massive challenge, similar to what I did few years ago when I bought an IT software company to develop my own recruitment software, everyone who was anyone said i was an idiot to do it (the result was it costs loads more than I thought, was a massive ball ache, was finished 1 year late BUT was worth all the pain in the end).
I'm being pretty open and honest about what my thought processes here, talking about money and even mentioning peoples name etc but I don't see the big deal, when this club opens I want the members to know what it has taken to get in off the ground and I quite like documenting my thoughts. It may seem a bit strange to people who don't know me, but I like things this way. People who read my posts have been great, PM'ing me with ideas etc. I may not the most confidential guy in the world but everyone who works with or for me trusts me implicity. This is the greatest compliment anyone can be given. I have over 700 people employed in my businesses using this honest approach, but I do get slagged off for it! This venture will employ over 60 people, so its no small beer either, and without the support of its members it will fail miserably. I'm getting over 150 people reading this thread everyday, thats 150 potential customers, nearly 20% of what I need to break even, so I don't see it as a problem telling everyone what's going on.
I am getting a bit nervous about the premises again now, we were supposed to sign Dec 1st, mind you, I was in Vegas so couldn't have signed anyway!
