The Amazon Room is a large convention hall and maybe the largest room in the Rio's Convention Center. It is divided into four sections and color coded Orange, Green, Blue and Red. Each section has about 50 poker tables except green which has some outer tables and houses the ESPN Final Table stadium complete with bleachers, overhead video monitors and camera booms.
In addition to the 55 tournaments that are being held for the WSOP, there is also a lot of other Poker action. Every night there is a Mega-Satellite where people can win their way into the Main Event and a nightly No Limit tournament paying cash which usually attracts a few hundred participants. There is even a Satellite Room as large as most casinos' poker rooms dedicated to running single table satellite tournaments. Prizes are $500 Tournament entry tokens. They look like $500 chips but they can only be used for entry into satellites and tournaments at the 2008 WSOP. That is a lot of tournament action.
Tournament action isn't everything. There is also "Live Action". The Red section of the Amazon Room is cordoned off with some four foot high barriers to provide a little separation between players and spectators. Note: it is not all that effective. There is also a group of four tables in the middle sectioned off for the "High Limit" games. "Live Action" is the euphemism for cash games. Most tables are variations of Hold'em and Omaha, but 7 Card Stud is spread as well as some of the more esoteric games like Triple Draw Lowball or Badugi. Consequently, this is the toughest area to be a dealer in.
As a dealer, you have to really be on your toes in Live Action. Dealers rotate or "Push" tables every half hour. This means that every half hour a dealer is replaced by a new dealer and moves to the next table in the row. The next table will usually have a different game and/or a different limit structure. Dealers need to know the structure of each game, Limit or No Limit or Pot Limit and be able to adjust immediately. We are also responsible for the Well, the chips used to make change. Shortages are made up out of your tips and can lead to reprimands or termination if you can't keep it right. Live action dealers also have to take the rake, the casino's cut of each pot. It's either 10% of each pot up to four dollars or a time rake, which is a simpler eight dollars per player per half hour. There is also the need to communicate with the Floor Staff to keep seats filled and get the attention of chip runners and cocktail waitresses to meet the needs of the players. Players constantly drift in and out sometimes with chips, sometimes not. Compare all this responsibility to dealing a tournament. In tournaments, you deal one game with one set of rules over and over. Players only leave if they bust out. There is no rake to take and no well to worry about. Tournaments are a lot easier to deal than live action.
Our compensation system doesn't align well with the work required resulting in a lot of disgruntled dealers. It seems we make about twice as much per hour dealing tournaments than we make dealing live action. Seeing that there is a lot more work dealing live action you would think that management would find a way to adjust for this. Funny how this business is no different from other businesses: The compensation structure drives behavior. I hear the supervisors complaining that dealers who need a day off or call in sick always seem to need those days on the days they are scheduled to deal live action. Hmmm. If they figured out a way to compensate dealers for the greater challenge of dealing live action they wouldn't have that problem. They would also have a more positively motivated dealer staff.
Just think if WSOP management decided to "sweeten the pot" for the live action dealers by tossing in an extra $$ toke for every table a dealer worked - or simply increased the hourly base for live action assignments. Dealers would be excited to meet the challenges of these, the toughest tables. They would be competing to get Live Action assignments. The scuttlebutt around the break room would run toward how they handled a situation rather than concentrating on how some player won pot worth thousands and stiffed them on the tip. In my opinion, in any workforce management situation, the compensation system need to be structured so that the workforce can see that they are compensated best for those things requiring the most skill and/or the greatest effort. To do otherwise, it has been seen over and over, leads to a disgruntled workforce that operates at a far lower than optimal level of efficiency. Perhaps, this should be the subject of a strongly worded email to the WSOP management. Think? Okay, maybe they'll read my blog instead.
What has motivated me to write this? The last two days I was assigned to deal in Live Action both days. First thought: Who did I piss off?
In the High Limit area Mimi Tran was throwing a fit. The game was a mixed game that included Deuce to Seven Triple Draw Lowball, Razz and Badugi. Apparently, the dealer was arguing with Mimi about how the game should be dealt, Mimi was upset and the supervisor had to step in and start dealing. The dealer coordinator asked me to go "rescue" the supervisor. Oops. Wrong place, wrong time for the rookie.
As I approached the table, the supervisor was getting a lesson on how to deal Triple Draw. I sat in, replacing the supervisor at the end of the hand. As soon as I touched the cards I was being given instructions on what to do and all I could do was say, "Whatever you want, just let me know." One of the problems was that they wanted it dealt differently than how we were taught in regard to handling the discards. Next, to count how many hands of each game are dealt, chips are used. For each hand that is dealt, a chip is moved from one pile to another so a count is kept. After eight hands, the game changes to the next game. So at the end of the hand I moved a chip. All hell broke loose. "No! You don't do that! Move the chip when you cut! Only when you cut! Because you stop and then everybody sees it." Next hand I shuffle, shuffle, box, shuffle and set the cards for the cut. Then I reached over and picked up a counting chip, held it high in the air for everyone to see and place it ritualistically on the count pile. Laughter erupted from the table. The tension was broken. The game continued but the mood of the table was considerably lighter than it had been. Then we changed to Badugi. I messed up. I dealt to the button first instead of last or something resulting in a misdeal. I was getting upset with myself and our lighter mood was fading. I needed to collect the time rake of $5 per player. I could feel the attitude when I told the table I needed $5 from each of them. One player tossed me a $25 chip and when no one else moved I started to make change. "No no no no no! That's for everybody. Just deal. Just deal!" Oh. Five person table. $25 chip. One player paying for the table. Cool. I wish I would have known that a few seconds earlier. A new dealer then came over to push me out and I was saved any further embarrassments. Whew! Too bad I couldn't just stay at the table for a while. Just after I started dealing things the way they wanted they get a new dealer that was going to try to deal things the way were trained. I didn't stick around to see what happened. It was late and time for me to call it a night.
2 comments:
Hey Buz: curious - in this old post, your first point where you said the players wanted you to handle discards differently than how you were taught, what did they want you to do exactly?
Honesty, I don't recall what Ms. Tran wanted. We were taught that in draw games you make three piles of dead cards at each draw: the Muck under dealer's left hand, the Burn cards under the back of the pot, and the discards under the front of the pot. When the Draw is complete the discards are moved to the Muck. I'm sure she wanted some subtle variation of that.
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