Almost Ready to Wrap

The second day of Day Two was my last at this year's WSOP. You may be wondering why I decided to leave Vegas before the end. First some background info...
The World Series of Poker is much more than the Main Event you see on ESPN. This is a good thing from the dealer's perspective because a dealer can only make money when there is a game to deal. The Main Event doesn't even start until WSOP has been running for six weeks. Here is a rundown of what goes on over the six weeks of the WSOP:

• 57 "Bracelet" events which are the tournaments you hear about when people say "So and so has won five bracelets." A player can win a bunch of bracelets and never get into the money at the Main Event. The events are scheduled so that one will start at Noon and another at 5:00 PM Most are 3-day events with day two starting at 2:00 PM and the final table on the third day at 2:00 PM on one of the two ESPN tables equipped with Hole Card Cameras and flying boom cameras and everything.
  


• Mega Satellites run daily at 3:00 PM and 8:00 PM. A Mega Satellite is a tournament that pays out in tournament entry dollars rather than cash. The idea is that a player could enter a Mega for $550 and win a $10,000 entry into the main event. For example if 200 people enter the 8 PM $550 Mega, the prize pool would be a little over $100,000 and the top 10 finishers would each win $10,000 in Tournament Entry Tokens (AKA Lammers - they look like chips) plus a little cash (can be used to tip the dealers!) No bonus for first place. As long as you are still alive with one chip left in tenth place, you will get the same as the chip leader.
  


• There are nightly No Limit Tournaments at 7:00 PM ($340 buy-in) and 11:00 PM ($200 buy-in) that regularly have 50 or more players. Generally, the top 10% get paid and the winner is paid about a third of the total prize pool (or a quarter if there are more than 100 entries).
  


• Single Table Satellites run all day. As soon as ten people enter, the dealing begins. On busy days there will easily be ten STS tables running at once. Buy-ins range from $125 to $1060 and winners get $500 lammers plus cash.
  


• Cash games are played in the Amazon Room on about 30 tables in the "Red" area with a wide variety of games and buy-ins running 24 hours a day.
  

A typical day in the middle of the WSOP looks like this:

• Morning: Cash games and Satellites ongoing all day. As players bust out of the tournaments, they fill in Cash and STS tables all day.
  


• 12:00 Pot Limit Omaha begins
  


• 2:00 Day 2 for Limit Hold'em and for Stud Hi-Lo plus final tables for two earlier events
  


• 3:00 $330 Mega Satellite
  


• 5:00 Seven Card Razz event begins
  


• 7:00 Nightly No Limit Tournament $340
  


• 8:00 $550 Mega Satellite
  


• 11:00 Nightly No Limit Tournament $200 buy-in.
  

As you can see there is a lot of opportunities for a dealer to work.
Once the Main Event begins, the Satellites stop running and all of the preliminary events are completed leaving only the Main Event to be dealt. Of course, that is a big event. It takes four days to get everyone started in the Main Event followed by two "Day Twos" then a day off and then Day 3 starts with the entire field playing on the same day for the first time.
With no Satellites being run and all other bracelet events completed, there will obviously be far too many dealers for the number of tables there are by day 3. With that, I decided to end my 2009 after Day 2B. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to deal enough to cover my car and room rental costs if I stayed for the day off and then dealt only a few downs on Day 3. Day 2B, however, was well worth staying for.

The MAIN EVENT has begun

Yes, the main event has begun and I have been dealing and dealing. I had gotten scheduled to deal all four days of Day 1. Huh?

This is how it works: There is not enough room, poker tables or dealers to accommodate the over 6000 expected entrants to the tournament, so Day 1 is spread over four days: 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d. Then, after about half of the entrants get knocked out on their Day 1, 1a and 1b are combined to play Day 2a and 1c and 1d are combined for Day 2b. At the end of those two day 2's, they are combined to play a Day 3, then a day four, five and six until they reach the Final Table of Nine players. Due to television, at the request of ESPN, the Final Table is postponed until November when the "November Nine" get together and play down to the winner. The Final Table will be broadcast on ESPN in "near real time" to preserve the suspense of who wins until the last possible moment.

-

Day 1a was interesting for me as I pushed into table 107 showcasing actor Jason Alexander (George Costanza of Seinfeld fame) in Seat 7 and rapper Nelly in Seat 8. During a break in the action, both were interviewed by ESPN, but I think the camera shot over my shoulder and kept me out of the picture. Jason proved that with a little luck and some good poker discipline you can do well at the Main event as he nearly tripled his $30,000 stack by the end of the day. This put him in a great position starting his Day 2a sixth in chips of the 1476 that survived 1a and 1b. When Day 2a starts, ESPN will be filming Jason along with former WSOP Champion Greg Raymer at the featured table. I may have to go watch that one to see if the incredibly skilled Raymer is able to pry chips loose from the tight fisted Jason Alexander's large stack.

-

Day 1c was notable for me because I dealt to Jeffery Lisandro (pictured above). Jeffery is special because he has won three WSOP Bracelet events this year. He won at 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo World Championship and the Razz (7 Card lowball). With the size and skill of the fields today, this is truly an historic and amazing feat. Although all of his wins were in Stud games, do not discount his skills in No Limit Hold'em. Jeffery is among the chip leaders at the end of Day 1c and I hope ESPN follows this Aussie throughout the tournament.

-

Day 1d was amazing. A tribute to procrastination while day 1b only had 873 runners, 1d was sold out. There is only 280 tables set up for WSOP, but they built tables and put them in the hallway (near Buzio's Seafood Restaurant) and converted the Rio's casino Poker Room for WSOP use. In the end we spread 301 tables and were able to seat 2809 players.* Rumor had it that because they cut off at 2809, people outside registration were offering up to $15,000 for a $10,000 seat in the Main Event. That may be an exaggeration, but at my table, Carlos Fernandez, 14 year veteran of the WSOP, told me that he was offered $12,000 cash just before they opened the doors. Obviously, he turned down the offer. Carlos is an interesting character, big strong, bald headed and imposing but nothing but a pure gentleman at the tables. He will always be courteous and considerate as he relieves you of the chips in your stack.

*I know 301 times 9 is 2709 but the official web site is reporting

2809 entries which is really interesting because they refused to

allow alternates this year for any of the 57 tournaments, so I

do not know how they seated the other 100 players.

The sold out house and the extra tables caused a rare shortage of dealers. Usually, about 20% more dealers than tables are scheduled. This way, every five tables, each dealer will be able to take a break. Typically, a dealer would "Push" the end of a five table row, get "pushed" over one table every half hour and take a break at the end of the row. That way, you work for two and a half hours, get a half hour break, then start again. On Day 1d, we stayed at the same table with no push for the first two hours, then we rotated without any breaks and dealt again. We did this all day until the 6 PM dealers came in to relieve us at 6:30. Our only bathroom breaks were during the scheduled player breaks when a few of us at a time could run out to the restroom and cut in line in front of 50 or 60 players waiting. The players were really nice about it as they could see what was going on. After I was relieved, I clocked out and headed to the Employee Dining Room to get something to eat. When I came back I found my friend Barry still at the tables. He volunteered to deal overtime and wound up dealing through the entire swing shift!

6494 players have entered the 2009 WSOP Main Event, just a few short of last year's total. First place will win $8.5 million and any player making it to the final table (the November Nine) will be paid over one million dollars. The top 10% of entries (actually only 648 places) will make the money and a player who is eliminated just inside the money bubble will more than double the $10,000 entry fee.

Yes, I played Golf!

My old poker buddy, Jim, from Michigan showed up with his son to play in one of the No Limit Hold'em tournaments in the Series. No luck as they both went deep into the tournament but couldn't last to the money.

We had dinner at Harrah's steak house on the strip called "The Range". Great restaurant, great meals overlooking the Strip.

The Venetian runs daily Poker Tournaments with modest buy-ins and regularly attracts a good field. At dinner we agreed to buy a third of each other's action so that if any of us cashed, we would all share in the profits. Turns out that the field was over 200 and while I might have won the bragging rights by lasting longest, I missed the money bubble by busting out in 28th place - some 8 places short of making the money.

We took a stroll up the Strip and stopped at Casino Royale for a little $3 Craps. Craps is fun. It is a much more "social" game than say, Blackjack or playing the slots. There is a lot more interaction between the players and certainly there is a lot more cheering as the dice roll down the table and high fives when good numbers hit and payoff.

We played golf at Bear's Best, a course where they recreate some of the best holes from golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus around the world. The course is kept in beautiful condition and is a real treat to play. Pictured above is Jim and I and also a shot of Jim and his son, Chris.

Lakers Win in OT

NBA Finals. LA Lakers versus the Orlando Magic, game 4 in Orlando. You think Jerry Buss, the owner of the Lakers, was in Orlando? Nope. He was right here in the Rio's Brasilia room for Day One of the WSOP 7 Card Stud / Omaha 8 Hi-Lo Poker Tournament on Table 230 Seat 7.

I pushed into Table 230 just as the last quarter of the basketball game was winding down. Jerry was to my right and to my left was a big screen TV monitor silently showing the game. Just after Fisher made the three pointer to tie it up the screen went blank. It came back on, then when it went into overtime the screen went blank again, but returned after a few minutes. Jerry was getting pretty excited. At one point he even said that sometimes being there live was just too much to take because of getting so wrapped up in the game.

Sorry to say that my shift ended at that table during the overtime so I had to leave and miss Jerry's reaction to the Lakers winning the game.

Ladies' World Championship!

In an effort to broaden the appeal of Poker to the gentler gender the World Series of Poker holds a Ladies only tournament every year. Word on the street is that the Amazon Room smells so much better during the ladies' event.

The event lasted three days. Day three is the final table of nine players.

I started work at 1:00, the ladies' final table was scheduled for 2:00. Along with some twenty other dealers I didn't catch a table assignment immediately and had to sit and see what opened up. Half an hour later our Dealer Coordinator was heading toward the Dealer Break room and spotted my friend Barry and I. When she mentioned the ladies' final table Barry jumped right on it, "Let me and Buz do it!" The DC needed one more volunteer and Rusty put his hand up.

Final tables for the larger events are played out either on the ESPN Stage or the Featured Table Stage. This one was on the Featured Table Stage. No ESPN tournament coverage and the players were not set up with microphones but there were a lot of cameras and the hand held ESPN camera did shoot some background footage. Also, a video shot looking down at the table shows the crowd the board, the chips and the dealer's hands on four big screen monitors above. Was I nervous when I got in the box with cheering crowds in the bleachers all around me and every move of my hands displayed on the big screens? You betcha!

Stressful? Yes. Nerve wracking? Yes, but pretty cool have been in the middle of it all as a dealer at the 2009 Ladies' No Limit Hold'em World Championship!

Some final tables last well into the night. This one was exceptional for its brevity. The hands that were dealt out were just amazing. Kim Rios looked like she was going to run over the table when Barry dealt her pocket Aces on the last hand of his down. I replaced him and dealt her pocket Aces on the very next hand! After that, with Lisa Parsons all in, she caught the case nine on the last card to make a larger Full House and eliminate Lisa. It seemed that every few hands not only were the players all in but the hands were huge. Sets of Kings, Full Houses, Nut Flushes. Hand after hand huge pots and huge stacks of chips moving from one player to another.

When it got down to heads up Lisa Hamilton and Lori Bender were playing for the bracelet and the $75,000 difference between first and second place money. It lasted exactly two hands when Lori Bender's pair of eights with a nine was outkicked by Lisa Hamilton's eights with a queen kicker. The heads up session was so quick that it played out while I was escorting Mari Lou Morelli, the third place finisher, to the payout clerk. By the time I returned, just a few minutes later, all the chips were in the middle and the last card was being dealt. Less than three and a half hours and it was all over. My first final table.

Daniel's comeback

After being nearly eliminated from the tournament at my table, Daniel Negreanu placed fourth when it was all over. He received over $130,000 for his efforts. Another Daniel, Daniel Alaei won this Omaha 8 event and was paid $445,898 in cash plus the elusive gold and diamond bracelet.

Omaha

The World Championship of Limit Omaha High - Low 8 or Better, day two played out yesterday. 179 players put up the $10,000 entry fee. For any unfamiliar with the game, each player is dealt four cards, there is a flop/turn/river for five community cards and the winner(s) must use exactly two cards from their hand and three from the board to make winning hands. The perfect low is A-2-3-4-5 because straights and flushes do not count on the low side. The "8 or Better" rule makes things interesting in that in order to qualify to win the low half of the split pot the player must make at least an 8 low or better, otherwise, the entire pot goes to the high hand.

The field had begun with 179 players and by late afternoon there were about 70 players left. I pushed into a table that included Daniel Negreanu (pictured). Daniel was quite short stacked. He played a few hands I dealt but having missed his draw, he had to fold leaving him with just $4700 in chips when the average at that point was over $70,000. Everyone had begun the tournament with $30,000 in tournament chips. Next hand, with all of his chips in the middle, Daniel won three quarters of a four way pot by winning the high hand and splitting (tying) the low half. This gave him $17,000, a better position but still very low. The money starts when 18 players remain and Daniel was very much at risk of busting out way short of the money.

By the end of the night, Daniel had scooped several large pots, quadroupling up his stack twice along the way and with only 17 players left in the field Daniel survived with over $100,000 and made the money.

The remaining 17 players will reconvene after a night's sleep to decide a winner. Making the money in this event is worth $26,921 (for 16th, 17th or 18th place) and the winner gets the gold bracelet along with $445,898.

Me and Mike

Mike Matusow signs his book for me.

Rather than a "How to play Poker" book, his is an autobiography and an interesting look at life as a Poker pro - a hard way to make an easy living.

It's gonna be big!

So many players entered the $1000 No Limit Hold'em tournament that two days were needed to hold a "Day One". By the end of day 1b something like 6012 players had entered the tournament. That means that the prize pool was $5.4 million and the winner got some $770,000.

Despite the seemingly easy pickings with so many amateurs in the field, not many recognizable names were in the field. It seems that the big name pros prefer the higher buy-in events because the starting chip stacks are so much larger. This provides a lot more "play" and postpones the "All In before the flop" races to much later in the proceedings. The larger chip stacks mean that decisions will need to be made on every betting round and the more decisions that are forced, the more the results are dependant on skill rather than luck. Obviously, that will favor the pros over the weekend players.

Although not many pros were in this event, they can be seen all around and in other events such as the special 40th Anniversary tournament that had a $40,000 buy-in and the Champions Invitational that provided a restored classic 1970 Corvette to the winner.

Mike Matusow wrote a book and set up a booth to sell autograph copies. I couldn't resist.

Tournament Play

When Barry called and told me to meet him at the Eastside Cannery Casino I expected to see something right out of a Steinbeck novel. Opening in August just last year, the modern architecture put that image to rest. Once inside, the decor does lean toward nostalgic Americana and the music is constant oldies, but not swing. Of course, everything is new and really nice and much less expensive than on The Strip. The value needs to be there to draw tourists six miles to the east. Two reasons for coming: The lunch buffet was on special for $5.99 and the Poker Room was holding a $27 buy-in No Limit Hold 'em tournament.

There were twenty players in the tournament. Two tables. I decided to try my hand at a wild and aggressive style that could either build a huge stack or bust me out early. Whenever an opponent showed weakness I was right there with a raise to apply the pressure. As you would expect, eventually somebody would catch on and try to trap me. All the money goes into the middle and I catch a straight on the river to bust a big pocket pair out of the tournament. It is early enough in the proceedings that he buys in again at the desk and gets a new starting stack. I kept the pressure on and had another player all in when I held two spades including an ace and sent him down the river having caught the unbeatable nut flush on the last card.

Enough players busted out that we combined to one final table. We were now playing 200-400 blinds and I had a stack of over 8000, double the average. First hand, I was in the Big Blind. After a couple of players fold a lady with a smallish stack calls. I am thinking she must be weak or have a drawing hand. Two players behind her also call. With all this weakness showing I started thinking that a big raise might get everyone to fold. There was 1800 in the pot, so it would be a very nice pot to steal. I peak at my cards and verify that the only way I can win this juicy pot is to steal it. I had a seven-deuce off suit, mathematically the worst possible starting hand. I announced, "All in!" The lady calls me and the others fold. She showed ace-ten both spades. I sheepishly showed my cards and the table erupted with guffaws and cries of "Oh my God" and "Unbelievable!" The dealer put out the flop. It came out all red with a seven to pair me up. No help for her on the Turn or the River and my lowly 7-2 takes the pot. She stormed out of the poker room mumbling to herself.

Winning this pot is not as outrageous as it first seems. If you run a simulation pitting 7-2 against A-10 it comes out that the 7-2 is just a little worse than a 60-40 underdog. Maybe 65-35 because the A-10 were the same suit and can make the flush about 5% of the time. Besides that, I was thoroughly convinced that I was not going to get a call.

The more unlikely hand came on the very next deal. Now I was in the Small Blind. Gun shy, the table folded around to me. I have A-8 and raise to 2000. The man in the big blind had been playing very tight and aggressive and had 4200 chips left. "This should be a no brainer," he announced and after a few seconds of thought pushed all his chips forward. It would cost me 2200 more to try to win the 6200 already in the pot and this time my hand is a lot better than seven-deuce. I called. I was getting almost 3 to 1 on a call. His raise was a no brainer because he had a pocket pair of queens. Flop-Turn-River and the board showed 5-6-7-9-10. Another amazing come from behind victory with a lot of comments around the table. We shook hands and shook heads and smiled and shrugged, "That's Poker!"

I tried to tighten up after that but after another orbit I saw queen-ten and re-raised, the raiser went all in and I had to call. That raiser was the same guy that had bought back into the tournament earlier and had built a sizeable chip stack since then. I lost a big chunk of my stack to his ace-king, making him the new chip leader. I guess I was simply steaming because the next hand when that same player just limped with a call and I had another queen-ten I pushed all-in. He called and showed pocket Aces. Oops. I quickly went from second place with an excellent chance to win a few hundred dollars to busted.

Hopefully, I learned something about tournament strategy from this experience. The lesson was not free.

A Soft Opening Day

"Welcome to the 2009 World Series of Poker!" I say as I greet each player that comes to take a seat at Table 4 of the $330 Buy-in Mega Satellite Tournament, the first official tournament of the 2009 World Series of Poker. The prize for winning this tournament is a seat in the "Main Event", the $10,000 Buy-in tournament that gets television coverage and begins July 3rd. There were about 60 entries, so total prize money would be about $18,000 meaning that first place would win entry to the "Main Event" and second place would get $8,000 cash. When we get closer to July 3rd, this kind of tournament will get much more popular. Some days we could have 500 entries. That would mean that places 1 through 15 would each win the $10,000 entry into the main event.

WSOP uses a soft opening. They save the brass bands and fireworks for the opening of the Main Event and use these preliminaries to test systems and functions and also to complete setting up all the tables, registration booths and cashier's cages.

There will be 57 tournaments this year where the winner gets a gold bracelet in addition to the prize money. The first "Bracelet Event" is the Casino Employees No Limit Hold 'em Tournament. It has the smallest buy-in of all the bracelet events, only $500 and is a very popular tournament among the poker dealers in town. Last year first prize was over $80,000 plus the bracelet. Usually about 10% of the field "makes the money" and the smallest payout is typically double the entry fee.

Things went pretty smoothly for me on day one. My back hurts from reaching across the table for chips all day. Thankfully this year Jack Effel, WSOP Tournament Director, negotiated a deal with a furniture supply company to provide dealer's chairs with adjustable height mechanisms. You can't believe how much better it is to deal when sitting at the proper height. Last year dealers carried around multiple cushions or stacked chairs trying to get to the right position. Many thanks from 1000 dealers to Jack for getting us good chairs this year!

I'm baaaack!

No longer a rookie, but probably a little rusty. When I left last year I figured that having had the experience, I wouldn't want to return. Things change. I wasn't able to leverage my WSOP experience into a regular job back in Tampa. I dealt a few charity tournaments, but couldn't catch on to anything regular. When the WSOP invited me to deal this year, the thinking was that if I wanted to deal in the future, I should probably keep my hand in it and keep my experience relevant. The toughest part is being away from Lillian and home for six or seven weeks.

This year I again have some very nice acommodations, but in a different place. The Chapman BnB is no longer taking guests, so this year I am staying on the south side. The couple that owns the house lives in the master suite on the main floor while they rent out the three bedrooms upstaires. The place is neat, clean and located in a nice middle class kind of neighborhood. According to Google Maps it should take me 11 minutes to get to work. How? My friend and fellow dealer Barry put me in touch with the person he rented a car from last year. Barry drove from Tampa this year and didn't need to rent a car. So now I bop around Vegas in a 15 year old beat up Miata at about half the cost of the cheapest rental I could find at the airport. It runs. Tires are good and the A/C works. It has a tiny little oil leak but I think it will get me through the series.

Work starts today, May 26, 2009. Opening day. Only satellite tournaments and Live Action cash games today. The $500 Casino Employee Poker Tournament starts tomorrow to kick off the World Series of Poker. I decided to work rather than play in it. Maybe next year.