Deals are part of poker currently but I am not sure whether they are hear to stay. Eventually I believe there will be a common set of rules for all poker tournaments decided by some commitee that gets set up. Poker is just too big money for certain people that is will become regualated in the future. Dusk Till Dawn will have a set of rules and all tournaments will be run by them, with no exceptions. What those rules will be I am unsure of, but they will clearly displayed and enforced without prejudice and exception.
Now that I have a full team of people to help me set up the club I need to make sure than everyones strengths are utilised and that we have a organised and systematic plan all the way up to our opening date. I am finding doing this plan quite difficult, as there is so much to do even though we have 11 months to do it.
I think the best approach is to focus on one thing at a time and not get distracted by things that are too far away to worry about. When you bring a number a personalites together everyone has loads of ideas and its my job is to ensure than we get the job done well, don't miss anything, and its on time. For example, what the point of talking about "types on tourneys" when we haven't even got a card room yet, or who we want to get to play in the High Limit Room, when we havn't even specced out what we are going to have in there? Consequently, the team need to focussed on the "phsycial specification" of the club during the next 8 weeks, and nothing else.
The more I discuss this project with people, the bigger and more complex it gets. Sometimes I feel like I am really on top of things, and then the next day I don't know where the hell I am. I think I have good experience of start-ups, and reasonable business skills, but this damn thing is tough. I guess Gala and Grovesner have teams of people who set thier casinos up, experts with experience, we just have me and a few mates from the poker world, so it's bound to be tough, right?
Theres no backing out now anyway, I'm "pot committed". Everywhere I go there are people asking me "how the club is going" but there are some people sticking the knife in with sarcastic comments. Everyone seems to have a view on how the club should run, what we should charge, what we shouldn't do etc etc I don't mind the people who are genuinely trying to help, but I feel like saying to some of the "negative" people, "why exactly are you telling me this?". Here are just some examples of comments in Luton:
"What are you going to do if the Gaming Board turn you down, you'll be really in the XXXX then, won't you"
"Did you know that The Vic are expanding their card room to 300+, this is going to be a real problem for you, isn't it"
"If I were you I wouldn't bother, look what's happened to the Gutshot"
"You're premises are too big, your're wasting your money"
"Noone knows where Nottingham is, why don't you do it in London?"
"The Casino's will shut you down, I guarentee it"
"Poker players don't care where they play, as long as they don't pay for anything, it'll never work"
"You're going to lose all you money, my mate has looked into it and he knows what he is doing"
"Why bother with a gaming licence, you only need soft gaming permission to do poker, my mate looked into it"
Bearing in mind I went out in the £750 and £1000 after hitting sets on the flop (which has really hacked me off), it takes a lot of self control not to tell these individuals where to go and say, "I can do what I want with my money, so why dont you stick your views up your XXXX", but hey, I just grin and nod and try to get away from them as quick as possible.
If it doesn't work we'll have a hell of a place to play a STT instead of my house, altough the bills may be slighly more expensive!
