The Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) runs some 17 events across the Midwest. They are not as rich as the WSOP Circuit events because the fields are smaller but the final tables of all the HPT events are televised. The buy-in for the Main Event is about the same as the WSOP Circuit at $1650 but with smaller fields, chances of winning are better.
Belterra looks like a pretty fantastic resort. It is located between Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH on the banks of the Ohio River which forms the border between Indiana and Kentucky. It started as a riverboat casino and now they have built a beautiful hotel around the boat with classy shops and restaurants and, get this, a Tom Fazio designed championship golf course. Fazio also designed Hunter's Green CC where I live and has more courses rated in the top 100 in the USA than any other architect. The weather isn't too bad here (50's and 60's) so if I get a day off, I may have to play it.
How has my week gone...?
Monday:
Pack up, pick up Barry and point the Mustang north on I-75. We headed out around 8:30 having decided that it would be better to take this trip in two easy bites rather than one long 16 or 17 hour grind. We even thought we might have time to stop in at the poker room at the Lake City Jai Alai, but when we got there around noon, they didn't look real busy so we pressed on to Chattanooga. Dinner was at O'Charley's. A couple of rib eye's accompanied by a serving of Monday Night Football in the bar followed by a night at the Chattanooga Travelodge.
Tuesday:
Taking it slow, we slept in and between enjoying the complimentary breakfast and listening to the pundits on Fox News extol the virtues of conservatism and predict election outcomes, we didn't get going until check out time at 11:00. Tennessee and Kentucky are beautiful places to drive through this time of year. We watched the fall colors of southern Tennessee fade as we sped north into the rolling hills of Kentucky.
Our home for the next 12 days or so is the Ogle Haus Hotel in Vevay, IN and my first floor room opens out to a small patio overlooking the Ohio River. Vevay is a small town. It has one single traffic light on Main Street. The featured restaurants are Moe's Steakhouse, River House Bar and Grill, AJ's Diner (Breakfast and lunch only) and Granny's Home Cookin'. Later, we actually tried to stop at Granny's but they were closed for renovations. Dinner at Moe's Steakhouse was less than impressive but acceptable.
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| The Miss Belterra, cir. 2002 |
Wednesday:
The Indiana Gaming Commission wants to make sure that they have honest and trustworthy people working in the casinos, so we had our gaming interview and license application, which costs us $200. Ouch! Followed by a drug test. They used the saliva test like they did in Florida rather than the urine test. It is tougher to falsify and I think it is quicker, easier and less costly than sending a urine sample to a lab for processing. Unless it isn't reliable, which is unlikely, I don't see why anyone would still use a urine test.
After we got processed by Human Resources, the rest of the day was free. We decided to head over to Lawrenceburg to the Hollywood Casino, the site of our previous job at the Tri-State Poker Championship. While Lawrenceburg is actually in Indiana, it really is just outside the Cincinnati suburbs about 20 miles from downtown. It really serves the Cincy market. On the way, I introduced Barry to Skyline Chili, a Cincinnati staple I discovered some 30 years ago (OMG) while on frequent AT&T training classes held there. Skyline Chili is a plate of spaghetti covered with meaty chili, beans and onions and covered with shredded cheddar cheese with a splash of Tobasco. People from the area love it and there is a healthy rivalry between Skyline and Gold Star for the best Chili that has been going on ever since probably the 1940's. Barry was unimpressed.
At Hollywood, we played PLO (Pot Limit Omaha). The game was $1-$3-$5 blinds with a buy-in minimum of $200 and a maximum of $1000. I bought in short for $300 and after an hour or so got it all in with the best hand against a small wrap straight draw and got sucked out on. I bought in again for another $300 and had a little better luck second time around. Several players had well over $1000 on the table and a player named Ray, in seat 2 had at least $3000. Ray was pretty tough. He frequently got me off my draw by raising the pot after I opened. So I changed my strategy and waited until I had a solid "made hand" and when he tried to raise me off it, I re-raised all in. After he tanked for a while he decided to call and never caught up.
An incident occurred at the table regarding the size of the pot. PLO is one of the toughest games to deal because it is the dealer's responsibility to know how much is in the pot and to determine how much a raise is when a player says, "I'll raise the Pot." I suppose that's why I like to play it and I pride myself on how well I do the math to keep up when I deal it. It is not easy. In this instance there was a raise to $20 followed by a reraise to $65 and Ray called the $65. The Blinds (1, 3 and 5) folded and the original raiser said, "Pot." Then put out a bunch of chips and obviously didn't know how much it was supposed to be and the dealer said $320. The first $65 folded and Ray questioned the amount. He said he wasn't sure of the correct amount but that $320 was wrong. Now realizing that often in PLO, the players help out the dealer, tracking the pot and doing the math, I didn't feel uncomfortable agreeing with Ray that that wasn't right and then in my head multiplying 65 times 4 and adding 10 (rounding up the blind bets) and getting $270. Barry also chimed in that it was $270 (after all, this poor guy had two PLO dealers at his table and didn't know it) but Joe the dealer stuck firm to his guns saying, "The bet is $320 and I can't change it." There was some back and forth between a bunch of players (with several other numbers being thrown out in addition to $270) and ray saying that this just wasn't right but when the voices started getting raised, Barry and I backed off - fully expecting Ray to call for a floor supervisor to settle the matter, but instead, he just folded, grumbling about how it wasn't right and how he would have called $270 but not $320. Sometimes, when it's wrong you need to step in and do something to preserve the fairness of the game, but sometimes, you need to just back off and let the players involved in the hand work it out with the dealer. It is really the player in the hand's responsibility to request a floor supervisor when they feel it is needed.
Doug Schertz stopped by the table to say he was hitting the buffet because he got a two-for-one coupon for signing up for a player's card. Doug, a math teacher in a past life, is retired and now travelling and dealing the circuit and the WSOP. He's a kindred spirit. I was about $250 ahead and decided to cash out and join him. Barry did as well. We both signed up for cards and got the buffet coupons. Our problem was what to do with them because two-for-one doesn't work very well with three.
The cashier said she wouldn't give me a half price on the third one, so I waited for another customer to arrive. I offered to share my two-fer but he said he gets it free. Must be a high roller. Then a couple came up and I offered it to them and they declined and the husband said, "We have enough points on the card to get it free, but since you're so nice to offer, we'll buy yours." So he did. Then I offered the coupon and they said, "No thanks.." But I insisted they take it and if they didn't use it in the future they could give it to somebody else who didn't have one. The wife was happy with that arrangement.
Barry's analysis, "How do you like that? Not only does he win at the PLO table, he gets his dinner for free!"
After dinner, Doug headed up to the Poker Room while Barry and I signed up for the nightly No Limit Tournament just starting in the ballroom. The tournament took care of our evening's entertainment. Barry busted out early and headed back to the Poker Room but I made a nice deep run. The field had 185 in it and with about 30 players remaining and an above average chip stack, I made a mistake and tried to get a retired Marine off his hand. He called and most of my stack was gone. It was not my best Poker play at that point in the proceedings. I nursed the small stack for a level or two and finally succumbed the ever increasing blinds and got it all in with a loser. Turns out I busted in 20th place, but they only paid the top 18 finishers. So close and yet so stupid.
Thursday:
Orientation, training, diversity sensitivity, HR pablum, tour of the facility, welcome speech by the Operations VP and they bought us lunch at their buffet. We even get paid for the day! We also found out that while we needed to pay them $200 for the gaming license, rather than it being terminated when we leave, they are converting us all to "On Call" status so that for future events, we can save the $200 and not have to go through drug testing, background checks or gaming interviews. We will be on the payroll already. The VP said that he plans to host about four events of this size every year. Hmmm. I'm an "on call" dealer with a 1600 mile round trip commute to get to work.
Friday:
We got assigned to Swing Shift. The good is that we get to deal the later parts of the tournament that I find more interesting to deal, but there is much less opportunity for overtime. In Chicago, we had 85 dealers, all on one shift, but here we have about 35 dealers on two shifts. There are only 20 tables set up for the tournament.
Getting ready to go to work and out in the lobby, I ran into Billy and Mary, a couple who travel together and both deal. They were assigned to day shift. So why were they in the lobby at 4:30? Billy tells me that there were more dealers than players at the start of the tournament. Not a good sign.
We arrived on time and ready to go and were greeted by a mostly empty tournament Poker Room. Nonetheless, we started the evening $135 tournament and with late registration we got about 50 players. I actually got to deal 5 downs before they sent me home. Apparently, there was no need to check the cash games for work. The locals had it handled.
It was kind of a slow start, but the staff was encouraged and expects the fields to improve as we progress. The Hollywood casino in Lawrenceburg decided to host a tournament series in direct competition to the HPT at Belterra. Word is that they had 28 tables and a line out the door. Thing is, having been there two nights ago, I know that there are about 40 tables ready to go in their tournament room. Sounds like they are short of dealers.
That's another mess. Last March, Barry and I dealt the Tri-State Poker Championship at Hollywood in Lawrenceburg. They used Charlie's crew of travelling dealers. Since then the Poker manager has been let go. Seems management didn't like using travelling dealers for the tournament events among other things. For this event they (Hollywood) jammed a bunch of Blackjack and Roulette dealers through a training class and ordained them Poker Dealers. Of course, they still need dealers to deal Blackjack. The result is that they appear to have Poker Tables, cards, chips and players, but not enough dealers to service the demand.
I always said that the managers wouldn't get fired for having a bunch of extra dealers hanging out in the break room collecting minimum wage, but they would get fired if they had players and tables but no dealers. We will see if that turns out to be true.
In any case, it is good news for us because if Hollywood has too few dealers and the ones they have are inexperienced, we might be able to pick up some overflow. We have an excellent dealing crew here made up of seasoned WSOP and WSOP Circuit dealers. We will have no problem manning all of our 20 tables and even several more if they set them up. I am looking forward to a much better turnout on Saturday.
