Day off (already)

After one day back I am scheduled for a day off. What does a rookie dealer do on his day off? Play Poker of course!

Seeing that it was Monday, I figured I wouldn't get hold of Shawn at my club and he wouldn't be able to contact the Golf Pro at the club in Vegas that I was hoping to be able to play while I was here. Monday is the traditional day off for Golf Pros.

I slept in, fixed myself breakfast (having slept through the meal provided by my B&B host), did laundry and studied another chapter on pre-flop play in the Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide - Tournament Edition. Then I decided to get some excercise by taking the 1.5 mile hike to the Stratosphere Casino.

After I got there, I thought I would drop into the Poker Room and see if I could play a little $3-$6 Hold'em but there were no cash games going on. The entire room was tournament tables. This was their Monday tournament and they were already at the third level. I checked with the desk and discovered that I could still get in but the late buy-in period would end in 10 minutes. Buy in was only $60 and there were no other games so I figured I should give it a shot.

The $60 bought me $4000 in tournament chips and I was able to play about 2 hands before the break. After we came back from the break, The blinds were $200 and $400. Hmmm. I was already short stacked and I had only seen three hands! I played by the book and just looked for good cards and when they came declared, "All In!" Soon I had doubled up and could play a more normal game of raising two to four times the size of the Big Blind when I wanted to enter a pot. Most of my raises got respect. When I was in the Big Blind, the Small Blind made a small raise, to $800. I looked down at A-J, looked at his stack which was less than half of mine and declared, "All in!" He hemmed and hawed and struggled with his decision, looked at me staring at the center of the table with my flip-up sunglasses now flipped down and asked, 'Can you beat Ace - Jack?" I just stared at the pot and didn't respond. He folded and pushed the chips toward me. "Ace - Jack, you say? That was really impressive. Take a look." I flipped my hand face up so he could see that I had precisely the Ace-Jack that he had called.

Many pundits recommend not showing an uncalled hand ever but I thought the coincidence of his calling out Ace-Jack was too special not to show. If his statement was truthful, we would have most likely split the pot with both of us holding the same hand. And I didn't mind showing the table that when I raise I have some power to back it up. I'm not just trying to steal pots by bluffing every time.

I worked my starting chips into a stack of about $50,000 by the time we got down to the final table. Because there were over ninety entrants, the tournament would pay nine places, one for every ten paid entries. After tenth place busted out there was talk of a nine way chop i.e. split the prize money nine ways, about $500 each but a few players weren't interested just yet. Ninth place busted out. Eighth place busts and now a chop would be $718 for each of us. We call the supervisor over for a review of the payouts according to the tournament sheet. The payout is very top-heavy for first place. Second place only pays $680. In order to do better than chopping the money seven ways a player would have to win the tournament outright. The last holdout finally realized that because he doesn't have a dominating chip lead, in fact he is only about third in chips, his is better off chopping. That is how it ended. A seven way chop and a nice profit for my day off.

I left a $60 tip for the dealers to split and headed back out for the mile and a half walk back to the house.

Congratulations, Mary!

My daughter graduated from high school over the weekend, so I left Vegas on Friday night, attended the graduation along with family and returned Sunday night. I am just blown away at how this little girl has grown up and is ready to go off to college this fall.

Back to the Tables

The schedule is changed again and I am on Tournaments. Today is "Day 1B" for the $1500 Buy-in No Limit Hold'em event. There were so many entries that two "Day One's" were needed. I think over 4000 players paid the entry into the tournament.

Talk about a slow start, how's this: I push (relieve the dealer) into a table at 6:55 PM. At 7 PM the players go on a 90 minute dinner break. When the players go to dinner, the dealers sit at the empty tables and guard the chips. It's kind of a strange sight. A hundred tables in a corner of this huge convention hall each with a dealer and no players. At 7:25 we push i.e. at each table as a new dealer comes in the current dealer is relieved and goes to the next table, that dealer to the next table, and to the next until they hit a "Break" table to go on break rather than pushing into the next table.

My third table of guarding chips is a break table. After sitting at tables doing essentially nothing for 90 minutes I get to go on break. Things change when I get back from break.

My first tournament table with players includes one of the most recognizable poker celeberties at the Series, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson is pleasant, soft spoken and for the half hour I dealt, very tight. "Tight" in the poker sense that he folds often and only plays premium hands. I am not sure if I can remember him voluntarily putting money in the pot the entire time I was at the table. He may have raised once and got no action, winning the blinds and antes.

At my next table, Daniel Alaei is in seat 5. I have seen Dan play on TV on "High Stakes Poker". Daniel seems to run the table. I get a feeling he is a former dealer. He is into every hand, every situation where change is needed, checking every ante. A more experienced dealer my have bristed at the involvement, but I didn't mind. It was actually nice to have someone at the table that was dependably paying attention whether he was in the hand or folded. If something went horribly wrong I would have a witness that was all over every detail. On the other hand, it added some pressure like the feeling I would have if I were dealing a table that one of my former instructers were sitting at. Every little fumble of chips or messy shuffle was worth a knowing glance from Dan Alaei. Most other players are in their own little world. Alaei is wired into the entire table. Predictably, he was chip leader at the table, played many hands and took every opportunity to steal pots. I think all the players at the table felt a constant sense of pressure coming from seat 5. Any weakness was going to be pounced upon.

After another break I return to find a table in the process being broken i.e. its players are being assigned seats at other tables to fill in the empty seats where previous players busted out. It leaves me with a need for reassignment. We have more than enough dealers and with no new action beginning for the rest of the evening, my services are no longer needed.

Day One

I'll never have a chance again to deal the first hand of my career as a professional poker dealer, so here it is:

My assignment is "Live Action" as opposed to "Tournaments" or "Satellites". That means that I am to deal a regular cash game. Not a tournament with a prize pool or chips with $1000 written on them but worth nothing, but a true cash game where players use casino chips and hundred dollar bills and may join the game or leave it at any time. True poker. Table stakes, meaning that a player has at risk the amount of money they put on the table at the start of the hand. A player can buy more chips or add cash to his stack between hands but not during a hand.

The game is No Limit Texas Hold'em and the blinds are $2 and $5. There are nine seats at the table for players and this table is full.

My first hand:

The dealer button (which indicates the player last to act throughout the betting rounds for this hand) is at the #9 seat on my immediate right. Seat #1 on my left puts out the $2 small blind and Seat #2 places a $5 chip for the big blind. As I shuffle and deal the first two down cards, seat #9 puts two $5 chips on the button. This is known as a "Mississippi Straddle". It is an optional bet, considered a raise, available to the player on the button. Play then begins at the small blind. Seat #1 calls. The big blind calls. Three others call the $10 bet and it is back to the straddler who has the option to raise. As I am about to say, "Option." Seat #9 (I was told his name was Mike Hirschensohn) says, "Raise! Seventy!" And he tosses another $60 in red $5 chips out in front of his position. In turn, each player looks at their cards again, shakes their head and tosses them into the middle, folding their hand and giving up on their $10 earlier calls. I gather up the orphaned bets and slide them over to Mike who wins the hand without even seeing a flop. Mike tosses me a dollar tip and folds his hand face up showing everyone that was holding the two black Jacks.

That's it! My first hand as a professional poker dealer. It contained a "Straddle on the button," a big pot sized raise and it was over before the flop. I guess I will have to save that chip.

The Rookie Arrives

"Welcome to the 2008 World Series of Poker!"

We are to greet every player coming to the table with a smile and a rousing, "Welcome to the 2008 World Series of Poker!"

For most of the players, the dealer at their first World Series of Poker event will be part of a lasting memory. For many it will be the only time they ever play in the Series and their dealer will be, for them, the face of the 2008 World Series of Poker.

Here it is. Here is your lasting memory:

Back in Vegas

I got into Vegas yesterday afternoon. It was a blessedly uneventful flight. Southwest even served snacks that didn't include peanuts! My peanut allergy thanks Southwest Airlines for switching to Cheeze-It snacks, at least for this trip.

Checked into the Chapman B&B. Nice place, almost overly decorated. If there is a space on a wall where a picture could be hung, there is a picture there. Van Gogh prints in the bedroom, European travel posters in the bathroom. There also must be fifty Lladro statuettes on display in the living room. Apparently, it's the collection of the mother of the man that owns the place and she spends her winters here. The flowery prints on the sofas reminiscent of grandma's house. I think it will be a comfortable, quiet respite from the glitz of the Las Vegas Strip.

The biggest immediate challenge is the time change. You wouldn't think 3 hours would be that much but it is also the expected working hours: 6 PM to 3 AM. I'm used to going to bed at 10 or 11 EST and getting up at 5 or 6. I will be going to work at 6 PM which is 9 PM EST so I'm going to be going to work when I am used to just settling in for the evening back in Tampa. To help get acclimated, I figured I needed to stay up late and sleep in.

I took a walk to the Sahara Casino on the north end of the Strip. It is about a 2 mile walk through a pretty nice residential area. They have a Poker Tournament with a $45 buy-in. I played in it. Busted a guy by catching a deuce and also two others when I was well ahead but ultimately went down when I was out kicked with Top Pair having put too much faith in a king that paired the board. I got back to the room about two o'clock but only slept until six. It's a start. We'll try to make some more progress on it tonight.

Orientation Training is today. I start a new job .

Processing - Getting Started

All dealers planning to work the 2008 WSOP need to be processed by the Rio HR department by May 22, according to the memo I received. With some 900 dealers needing to be processed, it seemed to me that it was going to be a zoo at HR on May 21st. Also, according to the schedule, the first WSOP tournament doesn't start until May 30th but I see that satellite tournaments begin on May 28th. This means that there will be a lot of dealers in Vegas with nothing to do for a week. I suppose that is okay if you live there, but paying for a hotel for an extra week is going to be expensive. Not to mention that a week in Vegas with nothing to do could be a very expensive proposition, expecially for a Poker hobbyist.



I needed to be in Chicago to visit my daughter in April. I thought it would make sense to just make a three legged trip and stop by HR and get processed early. Not only would I avoid the crush but I would be able to check out some places to live. I don't want to blow everything I earn on a hotel room. Off to Vegas I go.



I have a map how to get to Rio HR. It's like, "Through the double doors, down the stairs, around the corner and past the vending machines." A room with the expected cubicle style desks around the outside and a few computer terminals set up to access the HR system. In the corner, hung from the ceiling is a television playing an instructional video of how to deal a poker hand. Hmm.



I sign in and the HR manager has me fill out a bunch of the expected paperwork such as my application for a Nevada Gaming license and I am directed to get fingerprinted at a station set up for the purpose. I can't remember the last time I was fingerprinted, but I bet it was twenty years ago and the process involved an ink pad and putting the images on paper. That is all gone now. Just put your hand on a little mini scanner and the image of the prints shows up on the computer monitor. (I am later informed that this "new" technology has been around since before the turn of the century.) I review a few things like payroll deductions and direct deposit and that's it. I am now an employee of Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.



Now to find a place to live. There are some places in walking distance to the Rio, but I don't know if I want to be walking around in this area at three in the morning with a pocket full of tip money. One of the places, an inexpensive all-suite hotel a few blocks away recently made the news. Apparently, one of their long term residents was found attempting to manufacture Ricin nerve gas in his hotel room. It must be just the kind of a place to call home.

Some folks are planning to share a house and some condos are available, but the most interesting is the idea of a bed-n-beakfast. My prospective roommate, Tim suggested I check one out, The Chapman. It seems to be an inexpensive option and the B&B crowd is usually not the hell raiser type, so we can expect a nice quiet place to relax and get a little away from the casino environment.

When I headed over to the Chapman, I found a nice house in a residential area a mile or so east of the strip with seven bedrooms, each with it's own private bathroom and shower. Cool. There was a pool out back and even a little old lady who, I assume, will be fixing breakfasts. I like it. We will see if it works out.