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| The Venue at The Horseshoe |
This is the largest WSOP "Circuit" event of the 17 stops on tour that runs from September 2011 to May 2012. It is held in "The Venue" which is the Horseshoe Casino's theatre, cleared of theatre seats replaced by 99 poker tables. There are 12 tournaments that will award WSOP Circuit rings to the winner in addition to prize money as well as daily satellite tournaments and nightly non-ring tournaments.
Event #1 was $350 entry fee with $500,000 guaranteed prize pool with day 1 of the tournament spread over two days to accommodate all of the entries. There was a fantastic turnout with 1392 entries on the first "Day 1" and an additional 1609 on "Day 1B" for a total of 3001 entries, the largest field ever at a WSOP Circuit event. Something like 500 of the entries on 1B were people who busted out 1A and were allowed to re-enter as a new player on 1B. The place was packed. 86 Circuit dealers were augmented by local "House" dealers to fill all of the tables in The Venue plus a share of tables set up in Horseshoe's Poker room.
For dealers looking for work, this is the place to be. There are daily tournaments at noon, five and seven along with Mega-satellites and single table satellites running throughout the days. Many of the tournaments are two day events with the first and last being three and four days. We are scheduled to work every day of the event with no days off. One shift. Start at 11 each day and work until no longer needed, generally getting cut between 9 pm and 2 am. One day I worked until 5:30 am.
It will be interesting to see how the pay works out. Dealers are paid minimum wage plus dealer tokes. The toke rate is determined by the number of tournament entries. 3% of each prize pool is held out for dealers and other tournament staff. The dealer share, plus any tips left by winners, is divided by the dealers according to how many hours were worked. We should do quite well because the pool of funds is being shared by a small group of dealers working ten, twelve or more hours a day rather than spreading it out over a larger group working more standard eight hour days. The total number of hours it takes to deal a tournament will be the same, but at this event, those hours are being worked by fewer dealers than I have seen in the past. This is a good thing. Nearly all of the dealers are here from out of town and have little else to do but work. May as well make money instead of reading a book in the hotel room.
More later...
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