Publicans who are pleased to see you

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 7:32 pm

To contrast with the nasty business of being barred for a flimsy reason, occasionally the publican and/or his lushes and soaks are pleased to see you. I play darts on Thursdays and it takes me to some right grotty boozers, but, at this one place near heathrow I just went to, the publican welcomed me, told his stately Alsatian to be nice and asked if he could watch while I played his machine.
I did go to his place for a warm-up before last season's away game so he must have clocked me last time.
He kept saying how nice it was to see somebody win out of the SWP. This was pretty unnerving and I chatted to him a bit about darts. This was one of those obvious freehold boozers with charm and elegance, I almost felt bad about winning a few quid but when I left, he wished me well in the match.

Great little place so I have determined to go back one evening for some pints.

Master of Games · Post by **Master of Games** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 8:08 pm

That's nice. I'm sure everyone is really pleased for you.

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:04 am

Master of Games wrote:That's nice. I'm sure everyone is really pleased for you.

post of the year.

QuizMaster · Post by **QuizMaster** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 9:02 am

It IS nice actually. I've meet some lovely gaffers over the years (sadly rarer than those who have chased me out of pubs) who have been most welcoming. One landlord in Torquay even rang his mate to leave work and come to the pub just to watch me play. There was not a shred of animosity even though i won £40 because he was so amazed at how well I could play.

I suppose some people have an in built respect for hard work and dedication, even if the job is the equivalent of master safecracking.

sir ratholer · Post by **sir ratholer** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 9:39 am

QuizMaster wrote: I suppose some people have an in built respect for hard work and dedication, even if the job is the equivalent of master safecracking.

This is, however, not apparent with people when they see a professional fruit machine player!

It's always nice when publicans are decent towards you, however sometimes they are so nice it can deter future visits for guilt reasons!

BFK · Post by **BFK** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 12:01 pm

I cant recall to many landlords/ladys being pleased when you've gone in and smashed up his machine, unless of course you gave an oscar winning performance that it was all down to luck.

But as with most films, the sequels get worse and worse!! Then you get barred!!

whiteswan · Post by **whiteswan** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 8:31 am

out of order !!

Dave

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 9:13 am

i was in a local pub the other day,
i got skill feature on cash attack from about £5, next board flashed board after a few knockouts/whatever they are

in total got £158 out of the machine from around £12-£15 in

landlord asks me if i want to change the coins up, i told him id change £80 but i wanted the rest for "if i fancied a gamble next door"

he nodded, and started counting the coins id put on the bar.

chatting away as he was sorting the coins in the till, said something along the lines of: "it winds me up sometimes when people come in,, look at the machine before they look at the bar, drinkers look for their brand of beer, gamblers look for their brand of bandit. but as long as they buy at least one drink, and have a few minutes in here i dont mind, the machines make me a percentage whatever, so even if someone takes £300 out of it, ill get some money eventually, even those that go pub to pub are welcome in here.. its my business to sell drinks and thats what i do,"

sure enough, ive been in a couple of times since, and he doesnt care what you do, obviously, if something dodgy happens, i assume he'd bar people, but for a landlord in a privately owned pub, he seemed quite clued up. which is a refreshing change, even for a "casual" machine player.... other side of town i got eyes burning in the back of my head and gritted teeth from behind the bar for getting a phones board for about £20 and a £40 cash-or-bust on a shitty dond game.

whiteswan · Post by **whiteswan** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 9:15 am

If somebody does get a BIG WIN in my pub I always ask for the coins (although our new machine does pay out notes) - it saves me money and time going to the bank for change.

Dave

The Camel · Post by **The Camel** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 3:36 pm

This thread takes me back a few years..

I went to a pub in Richmond upon Thames and their were two young ladies playing BAR QUEST.

They were completely hopeless and the machine was totally full.. you needed to answer about 12 questions to win the jackpot.

I waited, and waited and waited. These girls put about 30 quid in and didn't win one prize.

Eventually, after 3 pints I got bored waiting and moved to the machine and gave them a helping hand.

They won the jackpot first game and then one of them introduced themselves as the daughter of the landlord and she had never won a penny before.

They took their tenner and then watched me proceed to totally empty the machine, cheering me on as I answered every question.

After that day, I went in every week and the landlord gave me a drink on the house every time and either he or his daughter watched me take the cash!

Happy days!

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 4:28 pm

Welcome to the forum, Mr Camel (and hopefully we won't give you the hump :wink

. There are lots of interesting threads if you are prepared to give up ... ooh ... about the next three months reading them!

The Camel wrote:I went in every week...

Happy days!

This one part of your reminiscence is the best clue that you have indeed been around a good while - the most significant change since the old standalone days is that now the 'turnaround' period for any individual game - the time it takes to recover from a decent player's attentions - will vary from several weeks to as long as you care to name, i.e. never. If a machine takes the same weekly amounts as in the standalone days, or even if it takes substantially more, the cash gets spread across too many games for anything to recover quickly. You have to plan in a few months' gap into your return visits to pubs where the machine is the reason for visiting.

You are also right about the games' increased difficulty, although there are still one or two things out there that you might enjoy.

Anyway, welcome aboard!

The Camel · Post by **The Camel** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 4:46 pm

Nil Satis wrote:Welcome to the forum, Mr Camel (and hopefully we won't give you the hump :wink . There are lots of interesting threads if you are prepared to give up ... ooh ... about the next three months reading them!

The Camel wrote:I went in every week...

Happy days!
This one part of your reminiscence is the best clue that you have indeed been around a good while - the most significant change since the old standalone days is that now the 'turnaround' period for any individual game - the time it takes to recover from a decent player's attentions - will vary from several weeks to as long as you care to name, i.e. never. If a machine takes the same weekly amounts as in the standalone days, or even if it takes substantially more, the cash gets spread across too many games for anything to recover quickly. You have to plan in a few months' gap into your return visits to pubs where the machine is the reason for visiting.

You are also right about the games' increased difficulty, although there are still one or two things out there that you might enjoy.

Anyway, welcome aboard!

Thanks for the welcome!

There was a large pub I used to go in near some big, high tech offices in Slough.

They had 2 quiz machines and I could literally go in 3 times a week and take £40 - £60 out of each machine every visit.

The pub used to be heaving. so there was almost no chance of ever getting banned, literally no one noticed me making a good weekly wage from there every week!

Any idea how many pro quiz machine players there are these days?

I know in my day there were a good handful working in London, but my area in those days (West of London, Berkshire, Surrey and Bucks), just me and one friend had the whole area pretty much to ourselves.

I would average about £1500 per week at my peak, and I wasn't even very good. My friend used to make twice that.

I only really concentrated on maybe 4 machines (Ten Quid Grid, Bar Quest, Give us a Break and my favourite - Question of Sport), while he was an expert at virtually everything (he made the final of 15 to 1 on tv, his general knowledge was awesome).

Going to go quite deep in the archives - if it's ok I'll bump any threads where I can contribute something.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 5:47 pm

The last time I can recall a machine with anything like that sort of 'refillability' (get the OED on the line, I think I've just invented a new word!

) was maybe about 8 or 9 years ago when there was a standalone Who Wants to be a Millionaire game in Bar Med in Reading, which had a JP that started at £40 and went upwards. It used to get back to £80 or £90 no more than a week after I'd won on it, but sadly something that good couldn't last and it was soon replaced, as (eventually) was Bar Med itself.

As for how many pros are around, I'd say it depended on what you'd call a pro. I'd say there were three main categories:

- (A) full time players who earn a proper living, i.e. something roughly equivalent to what they could earn in a 'real' job given their skillset

- (B) full time players who scrape by, possibly supplementing what they win with one or two other forms of income

- (C) less regular players who can play some of the games to a standard that varies from reasonable to very good depending on the actual game (and other factors such as spare time etc)

My best guess is that the number in category A is tiny - in single figures across the UK. I don't really know anyone in category B personally but I have been assured that there are guys like this around, who basically couldn't hold down a real job and for whom the fact that pubs also serve alcohol is a not inconsiderable factor...

I'm in category C, as are a few more of the contributors on here, certainly the ones I know personally. In each case there are certain games (or types of game - there are many word-based games for example) where we have been able to specialise and do well for a certain length of time but all of us have full time jobs, and in most cases other interests in the broader area of quizzing.

As for Slough, the fact that it has now has one of the very few Wetherspoon's pubs without a quiz machine probably tells you all you need to know...

QuizMaster · Post by **QuizMaster** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 6:09 pm

Nil Satis wrote:The last time I can recall a machine with anything like that sort of 'refillability' (get the OED on the line, I think I've just invented a new word! ) was maybe about 8 or 9 years ago when there was a standalone Who Wants to be a Millionaire game in Bar Med in Reading, which had a JP that started at £40 and went upwards. It used to get back to £80 or £90 no more than a week after I'd won on it, but sadly something that good couldn't last and it was soon replaced, as (eventually) was Bar Med itself.

Inquizitor - New Street Station for about 3 years. Unbelievable amounts of punt from commuters who couldn't string 4 answers together.

Topical2009 · Post by **Topical2009** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 6:35 pm

I know in my day there were a good handful working in London, but my area in those days (West of London, Berkshire, Surrey and Bucks), just me and one friend had the whole area pretty much to ourselves.

Those machines must have been even fuller than you thought, as my oppo and I had some nice earners on that patch which we regarded as "ours"; I guess we just never ran into each other! I was doing machines full time, so I was all over the place, but he worked in Maidenhead, and used to invent afternoon meetings which meant we could have regular expeditions which started at lunchtime and took us all round the Home Counties. We were especially fond of the exciting new Harvester chain, which was well represented round those parts, and seemed to have an Every Second Counts or Bar Quest which was full of cash in every outlet.