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.
