Another day, another reason to want to punch some high-profile poker-pros in the face.

All American Dave is down. I’ve never been to Vegas, but I have for some years been battered with social media posts about the culinary legend that is All American Dave.

Early on, I wondered about the lad’s branding choices, because as a European, “All American” food means burgers, fries, fizzy-pop and desserts in portion sizes that would floor an adult rhino, with a re-fill station close enough I don’t have to get out of my mobility scooter.
Turns out, All American Dave is a health food outlet; he understood his market and built a loyal following.

Branding isn’t what took his business down.
Covid did.

The effects of the pandemic on businesses around the world are still unfolding, but a US Small Business Roundtable survey and data from Harvard University suggested that in June 2021 around a third of US small businesses were in a state of temporary or permanent shutdown. The second worst affected sector during the pandemic is recorded as hotels and restaurants (airlines were the worst).

One might assume that a food-outlet entirely dependent on footfall driven by poker events that were no longer happening might have a worse time than, say, a McDonalds on a high-street where loads of UberEats drivers can easily shelter from the rain. However, the food industry is not my industry, and I’m not a pro-poker player, so I won’t pipe up with opinions on a business I don’t understand.

Poker is my industry and has been for a long time. Maybe too long. Maybe it’s time for me to fuck off and live in an abandoned cave on a distant hill, lick some frogs and/or cacti and shrink away from the poker world, because sometimes, I cannot believe my eyes and my ears and I am ashamed.

All American Dave spent years serving the WSOP players, apparently coming up with innovative food solutions and generally impressing everyone for a long time, AAD (already bored of typing it) then had the audacity to lose his business to Covid. What a selfish cunt.

AAD posted a heartfelt expression of regret at closing his business. This lad served food, from a truck, for six years; then he had a shit year, and still fought to bring his truck back in 2021.
We aren’t dealing with an entrepreneur of world class quality here, I don’t mean to be disrespectful to Dave, making any kind of success is worthy of respect and something to be proud of; but all the “business experts” watching a guy serve food from a truck for six years and actually expecting some of the business outcomes they describe in Twitter @replies is, at best, incongruous and, at worst, stupid as fuck.

Matt Vaughan – Confused Multi-Accounter

This isn’t Jeff Bezozzzzz. It’s a guy with some lettuce in a truck.

Just fifteen minutes after AAD posted his admission that his business had failed, Matt Vaughan, a pro-poker player with pathetic previous RE: not having a fucking clue about terms and conditions, asks what will happen to his food-truck $balance.

Fifteen minutes.
You couldn’t wait a day?

Or ask the question before you hand $1k to the guy in the food truck? Did you “seriously consider” the sense of prepaying a mobile food outlet in a global pandemic? Did you wonder then, as you paid $1k for a rocket bap? Or was the wonder window only open in the first fifteen minutes after the guy publicly admits his failure?

Matt Vaughan, apologise for how absolutely stinking your timing is and go on a course to learn how to be a human.

As well as a queue of relentless no-marks piling in without even having a penny-owed to them by anyone, there are other known pro-players with a dizzying array of shit business takes.

My personal highlight was Matt “The Businessy Business Owner” Berkey not knowing the difference between a Ponzi Scheme and an Exit Scam and then not deleting a tweet accusing AAD of the former once the explanation of the difference had been painted in crayons for him.

If we take the timing out of it, it could be a fair question, “I paid for $1k of carrot at once a year in advance and now where is my carrot?”, of course, we must ignore the idiocy of the consumer, because that is the American way.

In no respect can we ever point a finger at the person who handed over large sums of money to a guy in a food truck for an extended discount meal plan over several months in the middle of a global pandemic. It must be AAD being a thief with no integrity, because the other option is “I shouldn’t have left $$$ in the bank of a small food business owner when the sector is struggling to open its doors”. Nobody wants to admit they called too light on the river.

I don’t know where I’d get the data, but I’d love to see the Venn diagram of people who won’t invest in crypto because “it’s a scam” but think a 12-month roll-over of $1k+ with a food-truck vendor in Vegas is solid cash-flow management.

I feel like AAD being at WSOP for six years in a row is already proof of integrity, because I reckon I’d have scammed the lot of yous in the first year and never come back if that’s how easy you’ll throw money at folk for a 25% discount on cucumber butties.

I don’t know if AAD is a scammer. Right now, if I had to bet my roll on it, I’d say he’s a not too smart business guy who got fucked by circumstance and didn’t know when to quit.

I don’t see him being on holiday as an immediate indicator he’s on the blag. If he’s used parts of government loans to pay his wage through his business and everything is auditable, this may seem unfair to some people, but it’s what those loans were for, and it’s legal.

I also know that you can look wealthier than you are. My family went bankrupt in the 90s recession, and it takes a little longer for the reality to catch up with the money. My father would have been on holiday with us, a holiday booked months before it became apparent it was financially game over, wondering where we would live a few weeks after we got back.
The bank could take the house, they couldn’t take the booked holiday.

Maybe it turns out AAD is a big scammer and all this was meticulously planned; after 6 years of returning to WSOP to serve you food, AAD had decided that 2021 was the year to pull off the big heist. If it turns out to be the case, then maybe he’s now getting what he deserves.

However, if it turns out he’s just another small business owner casualty of the economic aftereffects of the Covid response, then the poker community is kicking a normal guy when he’s down, and I seriously hate to see it.

You may or may not get your funds back, and there is, as yet, no evidence he’s a scammer. Give the man a few days to breathe, looks from the limited T+Cs you signed up to, you weren’t entitled to claim your value till WSOP 2022 anyway.

We say he’s one of us, but we go for the throat within 15 mins. Shame.

Main Takeaways:

  1. Way more pro-poker players own a business than understand business
  2. AAD really cracked it with the demographic branding and offer, employ him in marketing dept, but don’t let him do the accounts
  3. Don’t give $1k to a guy in a truck full of radish wraps