Some Highlights from WSOP 2014

Just a few work days left to clean up the Main Event. Probably some highlights to come, but here are some of the highlights of my WSOP experience so far:

Dealt H.O.R.S.E. Final Table in the Arena "Thunderdome" where there was prize pool over a million dollars, won by Tommy Hang.

Dealt $1500 Draw Lowball Final Table won by Steve Wolansky.

Dealt $10k Draw Lowball Final Table where Paul Volpe defeated a table of pros including Jason Mercier and Daniel Negreanu to put a cool quarter million dollars in his pocket. During play, when I dealt Daniel a winner, his rooting section starting cheering, "Go Buz! Go Buz!" Daniel remarked, "Wow! Dealer fans. Cool!"

I also dealt the Final Table of the $10k 7-Card Stud World Championship where I dealt the back to back hands that eliminated Phil Hellmuth in sixth place after starting the Final Table third in chips. Matt Grapenthien won it by overcoming Todd Brunson's huge initial chip lead in a marathon heads up battle that lasted long after the evening shift took over.

I know I represent all 1100 WSOP dealers when I do a final table, especially when it's being broadcast. I try to be smooth, precise and professional, and not look too nervous in front of the cameras. I hope I represented you well.

I want to thank the folks like Robbie and Bos who over the years have made suggestions to me on how to be a better, more professional dealer and also my friends, who among them are some of the best Poker dealers in the entire world. — feeling blessed.

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2014 WSOP Main Event starts 7/5

So far I've had a pretty productive Series.  Although some weeks were slow and some were crazy busy I got to deal a bunch of fun games. 

I dealt the Final Table of four tournaments: $10,000 2-7 Draw, $1500 HORSE (mixed games Hold'em, Omaha 8, Razz, Stud, Stud 8). $1500 2-7 Draw and the jewel, the $10,000 World Championship 7 Card Stud. Famous-wise, Daniel Negreanu was at the $10k Draw Final and Todd Brunson and Phil Hellmuth squared off at the Stud table.  I also dealt Stud to Gabe Kaplan of "Welcome Back Kotter" fame, the day before the Final. 

The final days of work here begin with the start of the Main Event on Saturday. This is where the lion's share of the money is made. Hopefully I go deep in the event and make it all even sweeter with a nice fat paycheck. 

Monster, Monster Stack

7862 Unique players. No re-buys, no re-entries. Two flights in one day and several waves added. Everybody started with a full stack. Those who began the day at either 1:00 or 5:00 PM started with the blinds at 25-25.  Later "waves" which began as late as 10:40 PM started with their 15,000 chip stack at whatever level the 5 PM flight was at. Even at level 5, the start of the last wave, the blinds were still at just 100-200 with no ante.

The $1500 entry Monster Stack Tournament at this year's WSOP generated the largest ever field of unique players for a single starting day at a poker tournament.  The prize pool of over $10 million gives $1.3 million to the winner.

Fresh Squeezed Lowball

As a dealer at the World Series of Poker, I learn new things every day about Poker and how the pros play this wonderful game. 

As you might know, the WSOP is truly a "Series" in the sense that more than just the Main Event which makes millions for its final table players, there is an entire series of championship poker tournaments. In 2014 there are 65 championship bracelets to be given to winners of tournaments across a wide spectrum of games. 

Today I had the pleasure of dealing the Deuce to Seven Single Draw No Limit World Championship Final Table. It had a buy-in of $10,000 and first prize was the world championship bracelet and over a quarter million dollars. 

When the players arrived to begin the final table of seven, there was quite a lively discussion of the cards being used. Play was going to be streamed live over the Internet and we were set to play it out on the arena stage where, in order to provide the viewing audience with player's hole cards, special cards are used with embedded RFID chips and readers built into the table. The table, however, is really set up for Hold'em, not 5 Card Draw. The RFID cards weren't going to be used to identify cards for this broadcast, but since the automatic shuffler built into the poker table was set up for these larger size cards, the staff assumed it would be fine to just use these cards. 

Interesting fact:  at the World Series of Poker, smaller Bridge size cards are used rather than the larger Poker size cards except at the final table, where this year we are using Poker size cards with jumbo indexes and the embedded RFID chips. Not only are the numbers larger on these cards, but the pips are smaller and framed in the center of the card. The RFID cards are also much thicker and stiffer than the typical cards used throughout the rest of the tournament. 

Before play began, one of the players, Brian Rast, asked about the cards saying that he didn't think they would work very well. Daniel Negreanu added that you couldn't squeeze them. "Squeezing" in poker parlance is looking at the card by bending the long edge up with thumb over the index and first seeing how many pips are in the row before revealing the value of the card. Both the 4 and 5 have 2 pips across, 6 and 7 have 3 and 8, 9 and 10 have 4. Squeezing adds suspense to looking at your hole cards. When I asked for more detail he explained:

"Squeezing is a very important part of this particular game. Let's say I'm drawing one card and I know I need a 4 but a 5 would pair me up and be a very bad card. If I squeeze my card, and I see that it is two across, I know that it's 50-50 that I have the four I need. I can go ahead and bet as if I have it even though there's a 50% chance I'm bluffing. How is my opponent going to be able to tell if I'm bluffing or not when even I don't know if I'm making a value bet or bluffing?"

After that passionate explanation, our Floor Supervisor delayed the start of the tournament so that he could replace the RFID cards with standard WSOP cards from the tournament cage. We hand shuffled the decks for the first 2 levels.  During the player break the auto-shuffler in the table was replaced to accommodate the standard WSOP deck.  Play was pretty normal for a final table after that rocky start. 

Daniel Negreanu took second place behind the eventual winner, Paul Volpe. 

Poker Timeline

1855 Draw Poker

1945 Stud Poker, 5 card evolves into 7-card 

1965 Hold em

1970 first WSOP

1997 On line poker born

2006 USA bans online poker with UIGEA

2011 USA shuts down poker sites, seizes $$. 

2013 States begin legalizing online poker. First NV, then NJ, soon more. 

The Queen City Classic

Cincinnati, Ohio is known as the Queen City and beginning on March 12th and continuing for the next 12 days, the Horseshoe Cincinnati will be hosting the Queen City Classic Poker Tournament. I don't really know what makes it a classic, but the tournaments are in the format and style of those held at the World Series of Poker.

The view from day one looks like it will be fairly well attended, although primarily by the Midwestern players and not the bigger names from WSOP or even many of the circuit grinders.

I am looking forward to getting out of the weather in Scottsdale for a while. I've been having some of the worst hay fever allergies I can remember.  Hopefully, this will be a brief seasonal thing and things will be better when I return.

Need to Vent. KK vs AA

Sometimes when you play poker, the cards just don't go your way.  Yes, it's a game of skill and you need to think of the "long run" and the odds and the law of large numbers and all that but when the cards go against you in the short run, it sucks.

Recently I was in a tournament and had been running nicely, taking a few pots here and there and building up my stack losing only a few small pots.  Then I was dealt a pocket pair of kings.  KK. Cowboys. The second best starting hand you can have.  You only get pocket kings about once in 220 hands, so when you get them, you want to cash in on them.  The best way is to get an opponent heads-up and as long as he doesn't have pocket aces, you are about a 4 to 1 favorite or better, like 9 to 1.  Of course, if he does have AA in the hole, your kings are about a 4 to 1 underdog, but that doesn't happen very often. Well, at least not to most Texas Hold'em poker players.  Unless, of course, you are me.

Of course, the player in the Small Blind looks at his cards and raises.  I re-raise all in and he calls, showing me his two aces.

So I do the numbers.  It turns out that at a table with 9 players, if you are holding KK, the probability that any one of your opponents is holding AA is about 3.5%.  About 1 out of every 28 or 29 times you have KK you should expect to run into AA.

I had KK three times over the last 6 hours or so that I have played Texas Hold'em.  That in itself is something.  In 6 hours I probably was dealt around 180 hands.  Seeing that you only expect to get KK once every 221 hands, it is a bit unusual to get KK three times in 180 hands.  What is astounding is that 2 of the three times I had KK, I wound up facing an opponent holding AA.  Simply astounding.  To make matters worse, the final time I had KK I improved to three of a kind and was ahead until an ace showed up and my kings were a very strong second place finish - the worst place to be in a poker game.

Hopefully, things will turn around for me.  I hope its in a big money game!!!