I knew when I first checked in that we were going to get a lot of work because Ashley in HR told me that she was only able to hire 24 dealers rather than the 30 that Jeremy (HPT Tournament Director) had asked for.
Turns out we did better than expected in terms of turnout. We had the largest Main Event field of any HPT stop outside of Colorado. Apparently, poker starved Colorado has by far the largest turnout of any HPT sites.
I found that remarkable because Ameristar East Chicago closed its Poker Room and converted it to Baccarat last summer. They compete with a small poker room at The Majestic and also the Horseshoe Hammond and they have a beautiful Poker room with a large local following. So even without a poker room Ameristar EC had record breaking turnout and no cash games on the side. We heard complaints from players, but it didn't stop them from coming. Seems that if they wanted to play a cash game they just drove over to the Majestic or to the Shoe.
At HPT stops they usually staff the final table on Monday with local dealers and let the travellers go but no poker room, it was staffed from the temporary crew. I saw this coming and bought by return plane flight for Tuesday in case I got the chance to deal the final TV table - and that is the way it worked out.
The old geezers did the early shift and the ladies took it the rest of the way to the winner.
HPT produces a television show of each tournament and airs the shows on cable channels across the country. Cox cable, here in Arizona doesn't carry it, but I still will be able to see it when it becomes available on the watch.hptpoker.com web site.
I probably won't get on camera too much because most of the time I was dealing there was a camera right over my shoulder focused on the players. In all it was great fun knowing that we were making a TV show "in front of a live studio audience!"
