Crazy Game

Event 18 is the No Limit, Deuce-to-7 Lowball with Re-buys event. This event is for gamblers. There is only one draw, so two rounds of betting, but the betting is No Limit so people are pushing all the chips in to put maximum pressure on their opponent. This results in a lot of bust-outs and, consequently, a lot of re-buys.

How many re-buys is a lot? There were 85 players entered into the tournament. There were 272 re-buys. The total prize pool is over $1.7 million. The winner will get over $600k. The player that just squeaks into the money in fourteenth place will pocket over $26k. On average each player invested $21k into entry/re-buy fees. That is one entry and 3.2 re-buys per player.

I wish I would have seen some of it. It started on my day off and today, as it continues, I will be in the Satellite Room dealing Single Table Satellites all evening. On my day off, I stayed away from the Rio. My housemate, Tim and I headed up to the Stratosphere for their daily 1 PM tournament.

At one point in the tournament I was down to less than 25% of my starting stack, then things started to go right. I was all in under-the-gun (first to act) with Ace-King and got two callers. I caught a King and tripled up just before having to pay the blinds. After a few timely folds and a couple of double ups I found myself at the final table along with Tim. Three times I either went all in or called an all in bet before the flop and all three times my hand held up to bust the other player. At that point, I had a pretty massive chip lead and people started talking about chopping up the prize pool. Tim said something about $250 and then the player next to him said, "Hell, I'd be happy with $200 and give the rest to the chip leader." Tim then made a case to the table that this was a good deal and we should all take it.

Now, chip leads are good things, but in No Limit Poker they can disappear as fast as they were built. Without even doing the math on it, but knowing that "the rest" would be over three times the $200 I agreed - as long as everyone else agreed to leave $10 for the dealers. After some resistance from one single player who eventually capitulated, the deal was done. My share turned out to be even more than I thought as I got $790 and left $40 for the dealers. Later, I tossed Tim one of the $100 chips for negotiating such a good deal at the final table.

We also decided that in the future, when we played tournaments together, I would "buy" half of his entry and he would "buy" half of mine. That way if we cashed, we would split the profits. Stay tuned to see how this works out.

Brent

On Sunday I was assigned for Tournaments and drew second day of the $2500 No Limit Hold'em Event #13. The event had begun on Saturday with 1397 entries. I believe they played down to the money bubble on Saturday leaving 99 players to restart Sunday evening.

As I arrived there were 9 tables of players remaining. I pushed into a table, dealt for half an hour then got pushed out and went on break, came back and pushed into the end of a row. This time I got three tables in a row to deal without a break. This deal one, break, deal one break is a nice easy pace, but I really only make money when I actually deal. Break doesn't pay much.

Surveying the field I noticed that there just weren't very many big names remaining in the event. No Phil Gordons or Phil Hellmuths. Just a few semi-familiar faces some of whom I remember dealing to earlier either in satellites or in the cash games. When I pushed into Table 47 I saw a familiar face but I couldn't place it. He was in seat four.

He looked at me and said, "Your name tag is Harrison but you go by Buz, don't you?" "...Brent, from Wysteria."

OMG. Back a few years ago when I lived in Ann Arbor I occasionally played in a game at Brent's apartment. I was just learning to play the No Limit game. We had hooked up via the A2Poker group on Yahoo! when he had sent an open invitation to the group. We played No Limit Hold'em with blinds at twenty-five and fifty cents in his dining room. Of course, Brent didn't have a dining room table, he had a poker table in his dining room. I brought the beer.

How cool was this? Here I am dealing at the WSOP and I find at one of my tables a guy I used to play Poker with for quarters.

After a few hours of the tournament, we had gotten down to four or five tables and I pushed into Brent's table. This time he was in seat seven. Play is pretty intense at this point in the tournament. Players have made the money but there is a huge difference between 36th place and the final table payouts. Tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands if a player made the top three. Antes are now $1000 per hand and the blinds are $5,000 and $10,000. Brent is first to act and he calls the $10,000. This is kind of unusual because most players are raising when they enter a pot, hoping to either win the blinds and antes without a fight or get heads up with someone and win a big pot. Also, Brent doesn't have a very large stack, so you would think that he would want to apply maximum pressure by raising, rather than just limping along. Jason Sanders in seat nine raises it to $30,000. All the other players fold and it's back to Brent to decide to fold, call or raise.

Brent said, "Raise. I'm all in."

Jason Sanders has about three times the number of chips Brent has making this a big decision on his part. On the one hand he risks losing a third of his stack, on the other, he could move near the chip lead and eliminate another player if successful.

Jason shook his head saying, "That's an Aces move. It's either Aces or a small pair."

He anguished over it for a full three minutes before making up his mind saying, "All right. I call." As he flips over a pair of Queens.

All eyes on Brent as he turns over, not Aces, but a pair of Fours. He looked at me and said, "Come on Buz, you can do it."

Brent was a 4 to 1 underdog. He needed a Four. And no Queens. Unless he catches a Four, Brent would be eliminated, out of the tournament in 36th place. I burned a card and slid it under a few chips at the edge of the pot then peeled off the three flop cards, face down in front of me. I picked them up and moved them to the center of the table. As I flipped them over to spread them on the board I could see it. The Four of Spades right in the window. The first card you could see. No Queens show up. Brent doubles up and now has enough chips to work with to get to the final table.

After a few more downs dealing, players are eliminated and when there are only two tables left, they only need three dealers and it's my turn to call it a night.

Later that night, after I left, Brent caught a Five to make three-of-a-kind Fives and coasted into the final table sixth in chips out of the nine remaining players.

The next day, Brent busted out in eighth place, good for over $80,000 in his first and only appearance at the World Series of Poker.

Observations

Celebrity sightings: Shannon Elizabeth drew a big spectator crowd around her table, Gabe Kaplan not so much.

The day before last I dealt hands to "Miami" John Cernudo, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and several others that I recognized but wasn't absolutely certain who they were.

The Limit Hold'em Championship seemed to have every big name poker professional you have ever heard of entered in it. Day 1 was yesterday, but I was dealing the 7 PM Nightly No Limit Hold'em Tournament. It is a $340 buy-in tournament that, as the name suggests, runs nightly at 7 PM. No big names in that one. They were all in the "Bracelet" events, so called because the winner gets a jeweled, engraved bracelet to go along with the pile of cash.


Observation:
If I keep up the pace I had last night, I might not make expenses for this trip. We get paid a minimal hourly wage just to show up, then keep our tips from cash games we deal and when we deal tournaments, there is a percentage held back from the entry fees as well as tips left at the cashier from the winners that make up a tip pool. The pool is divided among the dealers according to how many "downs" (half hour segments) each dealer dealt. The more downs you get to deal, the more money you make. Last night I showed up at 6 PM and started the tournament at 7. I dealt two tables, i.e. two downs, then went on break and dealt two more downs and hit another break table. Back from break, the table I would have gone to had been broken (players sent to other tables to fill in where people had busted out) and that left me with no game to deal. I checked with the Dealer Coordinator and was added to the list of dealers without an assignment. He had 8 dealers on the list and it was growing despite the fact that he also was taking volunteers for "Early Out". With prospects slim for getting an assignment anytime in the next few hours I took the EO rather than hang around and try to milk the clock for $6 an hour. As I told my boss, I figure there are some dealers that are desperate for the money and I'd let them take the extra down because they need it much more than me. He thanked me for being a team player. Just two hours of work in an eight hour shift is not going to pay the room and board.

Satellites are cool!
There is a separate room at the Rio Convention Center dedicated to WSOP Satellites. What's a Satellite? It is a tournament that pays the winner(s) in seats at larger buy-in tournaments. For example: The buy-in for the WSOP Main Event NLH Tournament is $10,000. Pretty pricey for your average Joe, but Joe can enter a single table satellite for $1,060 and the winner gets a seat in the main event. The math is pretty simple. Ten players each put up $1,060, total of entry fees is $10,600. The house takes its cut to pay dealers and staff and the winner gets a certificate good for entry into the Main Event.
The Satellite room is dedicated to Single Table Satellites. Not all of them lead to the Main Event. Remember, there are 55 events in the Series and players might like to use satellites to get into any of them. WSOP management takes care of that by paying the winners of these satellites with $500 chips that were made up special just for the purpose. They are "No Cash Value" chips that can only be used to pay $500 worth of entry fees into events at the 2008 WSOP including other, bigger buy-in satellites. The chips are transferable and easily sold if its owner would rather have cash than tournament entry. Last night I could hear someone hawking satellite chips just outside the satellite room. I suppose you would sell the $500 chip for something less than $500 but why would somebody play in these satellites if they just wanted cash? I would think they would just go play in the cash games or in tournaments that pay cash rather than entry tokens. On the other hand, I suppose if someone considers themself a single table tournament specialist and is very skilled at short-handed play they might believe they could clean up in the satellite room and sell all the tokes they amass for cash.

I think the satellites are cool. They play like final tables of the big tournaments and my tips have been pretty good. Not everyone in the dealer community shares that opinion. Sometimes the winners forget to "take care of the dealer" and that hurts. Deal a table for two hours and get stiffed on the tip and you quickly develop a bad taste for satellites.
How much do people tip? It varies widely. How much should people tip? I'm not sure what the custom around here, but as a dealer, it would be nice to be able to make twenty to thirty tip dollars an hour dealing satellites. Maybe a little more when the buy-ins and the prizes are higher. (You gotta have a goal, right?) Remember, although we have an eight hour work day, we never deal for eight hours. We have to make up for all the time spent setting up, breaking down or just waiting for an opportunity to deal a table.

My buddy Tim says, "Screw dealing, I wanna pass out water! These guys are loading up a tray with ten bottles of water (free to the players) and walking around passing them out. The players give them a buck every time they get a water. How many waters do you think you can give out in an hour?" Hmmm.

Tournaments versus Cash

I have noticed a significant difference between the atmosphere at the cash tables and that of the tournaments. They are both very intense and while the small stakes Limit games are more "low stress fun" games than any of the No Limit games, there is a noticible difference between the atmosphere of the cash games and that of the tournaments. While the intensity is high for both varieties, it is a different kind of intensity. Cash games are louder and more raw. At the middle limits where pots are often several thousand dollars each you can feel the friction between players when one gets deep into another's pocket. On the other hand, in the tournaments, the intensity is more masked. The emotions are being held in check but they are there, under the surface. Sometimes it seems they are tightly bottled up, ready to explode.

Last night I was scheduled for the Nightly No Limit Tournament, but due to the fact that they began the tournament with twenty-four dealers but only fourteen tables, my services were not immediately required. After sitting in the Dealer Break Room for a few hours I finally received an alternate assignment in the $2000 No Limit Hold'em event #7.

The event had started at noon with over 1500 players and I was pushing into a table at 9:00 PM. After nine hours of play almost 90% of the field had gone bust. The plan was to play down to the money bubble. 152 players will get paid for their play in this event. While first place is worth over half a million, a player finishing 152nd will just about double his $2000 entry fee. Finishing 153rd gets a player nothing. Nada. Goose egg. Nobody wants to go out on the bubble. Play usually tightens up considerably at this point in a poker tournament. Table #27 was no exception. It was quiet and intense.

A typical player would sit, one hand near the chip stack, one on the cards in front. Perfectly still staring intently at the center of the table or looking sidelong at other players, considering the action. Sliding cards (another fold) into the middle of the table with the flick of a single finger.

The action last night, although there were 9 or ten players at each table, was usually heads-up i.e. a direct confrontation between two players while all other folded their hands. An oft repeated scene was a single, silently confident player raising by moving a small stack of yellow thousand dollar chips toward the center of the table and being eyeballed by the player in the Big Blind who had the most to lose to this raiser. Then after deciding that the raiser actually had a winning hand the Big picks up his cards, looks at them, shakes his head and with one last sigh tosses them forward, folding his hand, admitting defeat. Hand after hand I pushed the blinds and antes to the player bold enough risk chips in that first round of betting before the flop. They call it "Stealing the Blinds" and it plays out like that more and more often as players get even more conservative approaching the money bubble.

Around midnight there were 153 players remaining at 17 tables. 152 were going to win money. The next player eliminated would get nothing. Play was "Hand for Hand". All seventeen tables would play one hand and not begin another until each table had completed that hand. Eventually, a player got broke. A big cheer went up when this was announced because all remaing players had made the money. Play was halted for the night. Players received plastic bags to store their chips in along with their official recorded chip count receipts.

Even though many other events were still going on and the cash games play 24 hours a day, my day was done. Time to punch out.

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.