Quote:
Originally Posted by poker_triad
From my perspective the start of RK1 began when we had two visiting players from Singapore. They were pushing their PPpoker club and wanted us to work with them. As discussions progressed one of them mentioned to me that he had a scheduled lunch with someone about being the manager of a new poker room opening up in Phnom Penh. Then he dropped that the Cambodian manager of our room was involved and knew all about it. I don't really beat around the bush so I asked the manager directly what this was all about. He first denied all knowledge and then later backtracked and said that he took a meeting, but only to discourage them from doing it and making sure that such a thing would never happen. In what I admit was a naive mistake, we gave him the benefit of the doubt and moved on.
Fast forward about three months later and we received word that the original owner of the Riverking would be opening up a new room in one months time, that it would be located two blocks from us and that it would be called Riverking 1 Pub. The news was confirmed to me by the aforementioned Khmer manager of our room, at which point he also informed me that he would be going over along with two dealers and the head cashier and server. In the following weeks the room went along well and while we did slow down a bit once the new room opened, we bounced back and still had two games everyday including the big Omaha game. But then just about when the month was coming to an end the remaining dealers told us that they were instructed to finish out the month, collect their salaries then "disappear." The assumption was that we would be caught by surprise and they would later be given jobs in the new room.
At this point we were preparing for the opening of the Sihanoukville room and we had already hired a couple of dealers. So we brought them up to Phnom Penh, hired a few more and we were fine when our old dealers "disappeared." So we continued to carry on and while business dipped a bit, the room was still profitable and under no threat of closure. We had internal discussions at this point about what our strategy should be going forward as it did seem as if the two rooms could coexist. But we wondered aloud if they would be content with such an outcome. We received an emphatic answer to this question when our lone remaining Cambodian shareholder reported to us that he had received a threat that he should not enter the premises of our room or that "something" would happen. We knew at this point that the new room would never allow us to continue. Nothing did ever happen and so we continued on, but everything was starting to have an effect and business by this point was struggling mightily.
I've now told the "what" and "how" of the events that occurred. The only question that remains then is why. I've already mentioned that the original owner of the Riverking was the one to open the new room. But the prevailing opinion on our side was that he had very little to do with this or anything else I've mentioned thus far. At this point we need to do a little rewind in order to add some context. When the original owner sold out and left the Riverking, the next owner was American and he in turn hired me as the first non Khmer employee of the room. I was originally hired to do the marketing but was quickly made a manager. It wasn't too long before I was made General Manager and put in charge of the entire room. And while this last move didn't cost anyone their job, it did mean that the previous GM was demoted. And even though his $4,500 per month salary remained intact, still it had to sting a bit I imagine. But a lot of changes were in store that would not sit well with much of the Khmer staff. Managers were not allowed to run the tournaments alone anymore as the owner's assistant was required to be present to account for every single rebuy and add-on. The dealers were not allowed to take their "extra" tip out of the player prize pools and lastly a couple of salaries were decreased after theft was discovered. We then hired pops, another non Cambodian, and those that were previously in charge were fairly marginalized. I would like to add at this point that in most cases these changes occurred without affecting their bottom line. As previously stated the Khmer manager's salary of $4,500 remained the same and the dealers were doing quite well themselves. With tips the head dealer was making about $2,300 per month and on average as a whole the group made about $1,700 per month. And none of this even accounts for all the personal tips that the owner gave daily to all the staff.
There is another group that were affected when the American owner and I came in and those were the ones we affectionately refer to as the "bongs." Under my management the Cambodian players received no preferential treatment. I did not allow them to jump up on the waiting list and if they left their chips on the table for more then thirty minutes I picked them up and put the next player in, Cambodian or otherwise. I admit that I wasn't able to clean everything up but the bongs were repeatedly warned about collusion, soft playing and about any other antics that were generally viewed as angle shooting. I'd like to say at this point that many of them were really great about the whole thing. I reasoned with them that if such behaviour were to continue that foreigners would stop coming and they would just have each other to play with. Many of them listened and I have a great deal of affection for them to this day. As for the ones who could not be reasoned with, some of them would go on to be shareholders in the new room.
I admit that the "why" of this entire situation is a bit of speculation on our part. But based on the events I have described thus far, it seemed to us that the disgruntled staff and players got into the ear of the original owner to open up the new room. It always did puzzle us as to why he would do this. He certainly doesn't need the money and he had grown quite disinterested with poker at the end of his tenure at original Riverking. We surmised that he would open up this new room and be involved to give it some momentum, only to quietly slip out at a later time. In fact, as of the time of this writing I'm told he's not even in the country. We certainly don't think any of the threats or the impetus for any of these events originate with him. We all considered this sort of dealings to be quite uncharacteristic of him.
So these are the events that led to the opening of RK1. From here it all just got really ugly, leading to my resignation and the eventual exit of the owner. Anyone who was present for these events knows this account is accurate and beyond contestation.
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Sry to hear this but I can't help but chucked having deal with a fair share of local/Asian guys within vietnam. They don't give a shi.t about what fair or rational. It such a weird dynamic with gambling where everyone just try to gain an edge there no line draw on what illegal or not ex. you have a group of owner trying to screw/cheat each other. Also after reading you trying to make sense of it. Don't waste your time it how the culture are in Asia. FYI I am Vietnamese-american and for my whole stay(7 years) in Vietnam I realize I couldn't trust one local dude.
Actually to be fair I done some screwing up the local/singapore guys myself but nothing serious just totally ignore them mid way on "planning" deals together. I just pretend they don't exist and don't reply/left without warning. It really hard trying to be nice because you going to keep getting suck in to there "plans" that make no sense.
Last edited by DonJuan; 07-22-2018 at 12:31 PM.
