Industry Hall

Industries Hall has little left to show of its past and the factory that used to operate here. Big doors along each side - the type you’d see in aircraft hangers revealing a blimp or the space shuttle - are one of a few tell tale signs of what used to be. That’s all behind it now, a world of exhibitions, horse trials and the like are its main preoccupation now.

And of course poker.

In that case Industry Hall is not alone in diversifying. Poker players have varied backgrounds too, for example Luca Pagano used to run a disco. And he taught people to use computers - “A lifetime ago... maybe two or three lifetimes ago...”

What about everyone else?

EPT winner Pascal Perrault -- pharmacist
Hendon Mobster Barny Boatman -- journalist
Team PokerStars pro Noah Boeken -- door-to-door salesman
PokerStars qualifier Phidias Georgiou -- civil engineer
Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier -- um, Starcraft player
Dave Colclough -- inland revenue
WPT and EPT winner Roland De Wolfe -- journalist
Team PokerStars Pro Katja Thater -- horse breeder
EPT Dortmund Champ Andreas Hoivold -- cartoon collector
Norwegian pro Age Spets -- real estate
EPT Baden winner Julian Thew -- draughtsman
Andreas Hagen -- school teacher
Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri – Magic player
Tony Cascarino -- international footballer
Christiano Blanco -- sports journalist
Patrick Bruel -- actor and singer

Proof finally that you don’t need to have to be a maths genius (Thor Hansen excluded) or have just left college to make it in this game – although statistically that may help. It also pays to be good at poker, which is the running theme among all of the above.

Now of course their labour is poker, where the average player will work 12 hours a day with an hour break with no pension or health care provision, and an hourly rate than can vary between “I’d rather not say” and “can you carry that big check for me?” Hmm. The old job wasn’t so bad after all.