Lee Davy sits down to talk to the cash game specialist from the UK, Lil Dave Nicholson, to discuss his move into the restaurant business.
This week my guest on Life Outside of Poker is the British poker pro Dave Nicholson. Known to everyone and sundry as Lil Dave, this cash game genius achieved world wide acclaim through his raw, warts and all blog: Lil Dave’s Life, where his saucy stories away from the felt had people leaking liquid from Leeds to Las Vegas.
But Lil Dave was nowhere to be seen at the 45th Annual WSOP?
Where was he?
The lad from Leeds has decided to exchange the plastic type of chip for the one you scoop out of the fryer and we are just about to find out why?
First of all, Dave, have you retired from poker?
“I am classing myself as semi-retired. Five and a half years of fairly aggressing gambling has led to the need for change. I have always been interested in stuff outside of poker and have had a few little business ventures but nothing that has taken my time up fully. I have always wanted to be involved in the restaurant business, for a long time, and an opportunity came up and it was a good time for me personally, financially and where I was feeling about poker so I took it.”
What sort of restaurant have you opened?
“I have taken over a fish and chip shop, and take away, in northern Leeds. I have been involved in fish and chip shops before when I left school so I guess I have a little affinity to the industry anyway. The restaurant at the moment has a cafe version of a take away but we have hired a chef and built a new menu for it so it’s going to be a new seafood-type restaurant.”
Is the term ‘Fish and Chip Shop’ not posh enough these days?
“There is nothing wrong with fish and chip shops—everyone loves them—but for where I am here, the kind of restaurant I am building is really suited for the location. It’s also the type of restaurant I would like to sit down in so there’s a personal indulgence involved as well.
Any plans to branch out into a franchise?
“Maybe, who knows? I have been here for five and a half weeks now and the new menu comes out next week. I can’t sleep at night because I am so excited. Who knows how it will be received? Perhaps, I might end up at the WSOP next year with my tail between my legs?
You could sell fish and chips.
“I could open up a little kiosk. Don’t air that or someone will steal my idea.”
Why are you so excited about this new menu?
“Basically, I have tried to take stuff that people know and put little bits of quality in them where people might consider standard. The way it’s served, presented and the way it’s put on the table in front of you. I wanted to make the dishes fun to order and fun to eat.”
What headaches has the transition given you?
“One thing I found previously being involved in gambling every day is that everything is resolved very quickly. You make a bet on a football game, or a cash game, and the result is produced quickly. In the real world it takes 3-5 days for someone to get back to you about something, so you need a lot more patience, with this project in particular.”
What new things have you learned?
“I have never built a menu, never hired a chef, none of the little peculiarities of running a restaurant, so I kind of jumped in at the deep end. The building of the menu, the detail, the cost, and the little things that will make a big difference, that may seem trivial, but are important. I have earned an eye for detail in the past 6–7 weeks.”
What has poker taught you that you have taken into your new business endeavor?
“It taught me a lot of social awareness and dealing with situations as they come in front of you. That’s a big strength of mine. Managing staff for the first time is sort of challenging. You have to motivate them whilst maintaining a level of authority. You meet every type of person at the poker table and so you get a good understanding of social situations. You get every type of reaction from the way you look, talk and act. A very underrated skill that a lot of people who play live poker pick up.”
And I guess risk taking is also an important quality?
“You have to have balls to gamble with your own money. I did a promotion this weekend where we sold fish n chips for 18p, which was the price during the 1966 World Cup final. That was a gamble.”
I have seen the queues on social media, tell us about the hysteria?
“That period on a Saturday, the team would do maybe 60 portions of fish and chips, but we did 683 in that time. Obviously, nobody working there had ever seen a volume like that, so there was a lot of pressure on everyone. It was a fun day but an expensive day. I had 100 people in the queue for two and a half hours. Give a Yorkshire man fish and chips and life’s sorted.”
James Akenhead, Roberto Romanello and Rupert Elder are just three young British players who also work in the food industry. Are people growing up?
“I think there is some of that. I speak to all three of those and have chatted business with them. I think poker can become unfulfilling after a while. Look at Trickett for example. He has been playing for as long as any of us in our 20s but he’s constantly moving up in stakes. Some people reach a level where they have been successful for some time, but don’t feel the inclination to press, and after a while it becomes unfulfilling, and you do wake up wanting to tell people, you have never met before, that you own a restaurant, or something else, rather than having to explain poker.”
Is the roller coaster with money responsible for that fulfillment?
“Money to a certain extent, but with a few people they reach a point where they need to move down in stakes, and play $1/2 in order to make money, which leads to a lack of motivation. I have been very fulfilled by poker. I have travelled around the world, stayed in some amazing places and eaten in the best restaurants. But as you get older you do think what else is out there? Is this a realistic thing that I want to do when I am 35? The answer for me is no. But I do still want to play some poker.”
Has it become dangerous to play poker now you have responsibilities?
“Perhaps…yeah. I think you have hit the nail on the head with the responsibilities. When you are 21, and single, and you have a little bit of success, you can just go for it. If you go broke it’s not the end of the world. For me, I don’t want to be there hitting 30–31 and not having something else that makes me happy and develops me as a person. I really enjoy playing, and consider myself a very competitive player, but it’s getting such hard work as a pro gambler. The margins are shrinking. How much money there is to be made is still there, but you really have to fight for it now. I would put myself decently ahead of the average, but if I am driving 45mph down the road everyone else is driving at 50mph. I see people online knocking around $1/2 and before you know it they are playing $25/50 with full stacks completely fearless. So I would have been caught up eventually.”
Are people, British players in general, starting to learn that they need a Plan B?
“I think British poker is hitting a wave of sense. It did seem like it was all a breeze and few people have hit some hard times. Some have come through it and others haven’t.”
