Epilogue

The other day, I had a friend tell me that they were reading my blog and that they were sorry that I made so many mistakes while dealing in Biloxi.

It occurred to me that I'd detailed the errors so vividly that maybe my blog looked like I was a mistake-prone mess.

I exposed a card 10 times in the 12 days of dealing. In 45,000 individual hands, that's a 99.98% success rate. Not bad for my first major tournament!

The bottom line is that my dealer coordinator really liked me, trusted me to do a professional job, and told me I would be invited back to any event he was working.

So there you go.

I am back in Atlanta and dealing the event casino nights again. It's amazing how much easier it is to deal here and how laid back these parties are. I still enjoy it though.

I miss my friends that I made in Biloxi and I hope to see them all again very soon!

Loose Ends

Now that I am back in Atlanta and catching up on my sleep, I have time to reflect on my experience.

Working at the Beau Rivage was interesting, taxing, and for the most part, fun. The Beau, as it is affectionately called in Biloxi, is a well-oiled, gambling enterprise. Employing over 4000 Biloxi residents, it offers the glitz of Las Vegas with a little Deep South charm thrown in for taste.

While I personally do not have a problem with gambling, I didn't do much of it myself. Many of the dealers did, and a few ended the two weeks without netting much money for their efforts!

I think that the general public who cannot afford to wager money in a casino, stay away from them anyway. The people I saw in the casino, as well as in the tournament itself, all had money to spend on entertainment, and spend they surely did.

I started my adventure with the thought that I wouldn't want to leave my job in Atlanta to be a full-time professional dealer, and after two weeks that thought hasn't changed.

Dealing in a casino is a pretty tough life. The hours are long, the customers can be surly, and the pressure of dealing an error-free game, with cameras watching your every move, can be stifling. While the money is good, a person would definitely have to weigh the pros and cons of this lifestyle.

Would I do it again? Yes, I would. My dealer coordinator told me I was a good dealer and that he'd gladly hire me to work any tournament for him in the future. The conditions for me would have to be right, though, as my current employer isn't going to let me take two to three weeks off just any old time.

Anyway, I made some great friends that I intend to keep up with.

I am a poker dealer. I had fun. And I'm glad it's over!


Side Pots:

- Bill Edler, of Las Vegas, won the Main Event. He's a poker professional from Las Vegas and this is his second bracelet. He took home almost $750,000. His win was particularly miraculous because on the second day (of four) he was down to his last two chips.


Bill Edler...Tightwad? Cheapskate? Mr. Pink?


A nasty rumor has spread that he stiffed the dealers. It is a common practice for the winner of a tournament to make a reasonable donation to the dealer pool for their services. Remember, tournament dealers do not receive tips during play because the chips have no monetary value.

The rumor is that Edler did not give any money to the dealers while the second and third-place players donated a combined $17,500 to be divided amongst the 120 dealers.

$17,500 seems like a lot but it actually amounts to only about $4 per hour dealt, per dealer. Since dealers work for the minimum wage, plus tips, only receiving $17,500 for an event that paid out $2.5 million is a slap in the face.

Anyway, I do not have confirmation that Edler was doing an imitation of Mr. Pink from Reservoir Dogs, but I have heard from the other dealers that the tokes from the tournament were much lower than expected.

For what it's worth, I used to think that maybe tipping a dealer was excessive. Especially since the good pros make it look very easy. But having now dealt myself, I promise that a dealer should be tipped on EVERY HAND for doing a job that is very much harder than it looks.

- Tournament Director Johnny Grooms (my boss) was interviewed during the tournament and the interview appears on YouTube. You can see it here.

- My stats from the event: I ended up dealing 62 tournament downs and 84 live table downs. This is 73 solid hours of dealing. Considering that I averaged 60 hands an hour, that is almost 4400 hands. And, with four shuffles per hand, I shuffled a deck of cards approximately 17,500 times. At 10 players per table, I dealt almost 45,000 individual hands of poker.

No wonder my hands hurt!

***********************************

I got a lot of very nice comments about my blog. I sincerely thank everyone who enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Take care.

Day 12: Light Day, Long Drive

As I kind of expected, the final day was very anticlimactic. Most of the players had gone and most of the dealers had been sent home.

We started the day with a skeleton crew of swing shift dealers and the main core of top dealers who dealt the final table of the Main Event.

For the most part, I spent much of the day waiting around to see if there would be enough players for a final second-chance tournament. I told my DC that since I wanted to drive back to Atlanta on Sunday, that he could let me go any time he wanted.

In the meantime, I shot a few more pictures:


Jim, the super dealer from Houston



Bob and Rachel



Me and Bob


By about 7:00 it was obvious there would be no tournament so I was released!

It took me six hours to drive back to Atlanta and I was frankly glad to have the tournament in my rear-view mirror.

Day 11: Maybe I Am Not as Good as I Thought

In a twist of schedule, I started my day at 11 am to deal the ladies tournament. When I arrived at the tournament hall, the room was packed! The turn-out for the event was far greater than the organizers hoped.


Women's Event


My normal DC (dealer coordinator) is Armando, but he works the night shift. So today, for the first time, I was assigned to Dave, the day shift DC. When he started the dealer meeting he pointed to me and said, "I need you to deal downstairs."

Downstairs. Meaning that he needed me to deal in the casino's actual poker room.

Several of the tournament dealers have been needed to help out in the poker room to handle the overflow of poker players in the casino. There just aren't enough live tables upstairs to handle all the visiting players, as well as the local crowd who always play on the weekends.

The thing is, the dealers asked to deal downstairs are professionals who deal in their own casinos every day and are used to all of the procedures. Since I have never dealt in a casino before, I am not privy to those procedures.

So even though I have been handling far more money upstairs all week, those games are more informal than the rigid needs of a true poker room.

As soon as I sat down at the first table, I knew I was in big, big trouble.

In addition to the all of the dealer procedures I have been mentioning during this fortnight of blogging, here are the additional things the Beau Rivage poker room dealers must account for:

- Taking a rake: which is a percentage of every pot that goes to the casino
- Taking a jackpot: which is $1 out of every $20 pot that the players can win in the event of a jackpot hand. I'd tell you what was considered a jackpot hand, but no one told me.
- Using an auto-shuffler: which is a panel in the table that, when activated, rises out of the table to take a deck of cards to count and shuffle, while also giving the dealer a fresh deck to cut and deal.
- Handing Player's Club cards: most players bring a card to the table that must be swiped into a card reader so that they can earn comp points for things such as free meals or free hotel rooms.
- Operating the table's player indicator: which is an LED panel where you log your open seats so that the poker room manager can quickly fill empty spots.
- Additional poker games: all during the tournament, I have dealt only no-limit Texas Hold'em and pot limit Omaha Hi. In the poker room, I will have to also deal limit Texas Hold'em and pot limit Omaha Hi/Lo.

All of this I had to absorb in about 10 minutes before going right in.


The Beau Rivage Poker Room (notice the card shuffler and the player's card reader at the dealer's right hand)


I immediately started having trouble with my card pitching. Having gotten used to the clean, smooth felt of the brand new tables upstairs, these well-worn tables stuck to the cards like mud. A pitched card upstairs would skim across the table like the puck in air hockey. Down stairs, the cards were stopping way short of my intended targets.

Also, there were two major obstacles I had to deal with. First, the auto shuffler sits in a large depression on the table left center of the table. If a card is pitched into it, it'll flip over. So the cards either have to be pitched around it or be air-born over the top of it.

Second, the player's club card reader rises a full 2-inches off the table. It's close enough that I can easily pitch my cards over it, but it's so tall that my pitching hand kept hitting it, knocking the card out of my hand.

Another issue I was having is that the card shuffler puts a curve in the cards over time. This means that the card will not spin flatly when pitched, but will wobble as it catches air.

Add to this all of the extra items I had to watch and you can imagine what happened.

I worked 10 tables in five hours and exposed a card five times. I had only exposed five cards total in over 100 hours of dealing upstairs. I also committed three misdeals, forgot to take the rake and/or the jackpot a few times, and accidentally took my first break a half hour too early.

I was so frazzled that I practically hugged the downstairs DC when she said that my shift was over and I could go back upstairs.

Maybe it wasn't as bad as all of that. At least none of the players really complained (well, except for the one girl who's exposed card was an ace and her other down card was, you guessed it, another ace) and I got tipped on every hand, which is not the norm in the tournament room.

When I went back to the downstairs poker room today to thank the DC for being so understanding, she begged me to go throw on a uniform and work another shift because she was short-handed (I didn't because I already had to work upstairs). I guess this means I passed inspection.

Side Pots:

- The Main Event is down to the final six players for the broadcast and none of them are the known poker pros. Those six are basically all qualifiers, locals, and unknown businessmen with money. It makes me wonder if the Travel Channel will air the final event at all, given its lack of star power.

And no, I didn't get asked to deal the final table. No big shock.

- The tenth place finisher in the ladies tournament was a 90-year old woman!

- Players all week have been getting comped with free passes to the all-you-can-eat buffet. The funny thing is that players from MS and Louisiana pronounce it "BOO-fay"

- I am exhausted. I am having to work today because several dealers have already been sent home or they simply left on their own. I was I was going home too. One more day...

Day 10: Winding Things Down

When I went to the poker room last night, I learned that almost half of the dealers have already been sent home. Most of these dealers are from the day shift, as they have gotten way more downs than those of us on swing shift. I currently have 60 downs, but some dealers have twice that many.

What I do have, however, is way more live game downs than most other dealers. I certainly haven't made the most money in tips among the 120 dealers, but I bet I am in the top 20.

The poker room had been cordoned off with a floor-to-ceiling divider to separate the main event from the live games and the second-chance tournament. When I got there, the main event was down to 67 players, with Kathy Liebert, TJ Cloutier, and Chad Brown being the only well-known pros still in contention.

By the end of the night, that number was paired down to the final 27, with Cloutier and Brown still alive. Also still playing are many of the guys who have been playing all week in the qualifiers.

Having dealt games in both the main event and the qualifiers, I have noticed an advantage that the qualifying players have over the pros who simply pay the $10,000 to play in the one event.

The qualifying players are all used to each other.

Several times, I saw a pro give up chips to a qualifier in situations where I, as well as the other qualifiers, knew the pro should have folded based on the betting patterns we have seen for two weeks here in Biloxi.

Although the pros do not want to wear themselves out playing these all-night qualifiers, they might have gained some useful knowledge and stayed in the main event longer. Just my humble opinion.

Side Pots:

- Malady of the day: My back still aches but not as bad. I have learned how to sit to relieve some of the tension. My pinkies have developed what I can only describe as "dealer callouses". Nice.

The new problem is that my fingernails hurt on my right hand. The reason is that I cannot keep particles of green felt from getting underneath the nails every night. My left hand holds the deck and stays off the table. But my right hand sweeps chips, pushes chips, sweeps cards, counts pots, etc. and picks up the felt under the nails as a lovely bonus.

- Funniest Line of the Day: "Man, this table's looser than two out of my last three girlfriends!"

- Wildest table of the day: I dealt to a $5-$10 no-limit cash table with Chris Moneymaker, Gavin Smith, and everyone's favorite intoxicated businessman, Wade from Montgomery. Gavin was well-oiled and in rare form, keeping the table in stitches. At one point, Wade challenged the table to a quarter-tossing contest and won six straight $100 challenges.


Gavin Smith


- Best Story From the World Series of Poker: About halfway through the WSOP, several attractive women started coming to the casino to cash-in chips. Unfortunately, these were chips from the tournament that had no monetary value. In fact, it says right on the chip "No Monetary Value". Evidently, players had been taking chips with them from the tournament (which is not allowed) and using them to tip strippers.

- I have to cut the blog short today because instead of going in at 6:30 pm, I go in at 11:30 am to deal the $200 ladies-only event. To get warmed up for it, several of the ladies signed up for last night's second-chance tournament and it was a blast. The ladies are way more talkative and fun than the brooding, silent men players.

Day 9: The Main Event Begins

Despite writing consistently in this blog, it is still hard for me to convey the mental exhaustion of dealing this tournament. People who think poker dealing is an easy exercise simply have no clue just how much a dealer must account for at a live poker table.

The tournament games are actually the easiest. There is a flow to the game that allows a dealer to have a feel for the action. Every turn, the dealer must confirm button position, shuffle, collect antes, verify the blinds, deal quickly, follow and announce the betting, occasionally do a stub count, read the hands, push the pot, muck the cards, move the button, and then start over.

For me, the most difficult part is deciphering the players' actions. While there is a suggested standard for betting and raising, even the most seasoned pros have their own style and a dealer has to intuitively understand what action the player wants to take. This means that the dealer must read verbal and visual cues that are confusing at times.

However, things get notched up to a much higher level in the cash games because of one factor: the dealer's rack.





The dealer is responsible for the money in this rack. It sits in front of him and contains between $400 and $800 in chips that are used to make change for the players. It also has slots for extra cards, various buttons to indicate things such as missed blinds and reserved seats, a receipt for the chips, and lammers (plastic dividers to cordon off the chip stacks for easier counting).

I have used a dealer's rack ever since becoming a dealer. However, I have never used a live money rack. There are a whole slew of procedures that I have painfully had to learn on the fly at this tournament.

During a live down, a dealer must count the rack at least twice to confirm its total. This means counting three to five chip denominations, in addition to actual cash. What makes this so hard, as that these counts must be made WHILE THE HANDS ARE BEING PLAYED. A dealer must NOT stop to count the rack. He has to glance down to count the rack subtly in the five-second breaks in the action.

I have struggled to do this, not because the math is terribly hard, but because I am just not used to having to do it.

Additionally, the dealer must take a "time pot", meaning that every 30 minutes the players must pay a small fee (usually $6) that goes to the casino. This time pot must be collected, placed on a small slot beside the tray, and dropped into a locked box that the dealer may never access.

Another difficult aspect of the live games are all the extra allowances that do not appear in tournament games. These allowances include:

- straddle bets (meaning a player can buy the right of last action by posting twice the big blind)
- cash on the table in lieu of chips (meaning a player can plop down $100 bills into the chip stacks)
- prop bets (meaning players will gamble on additional action, such as how many times a deuce will be flopped)

The bottom line is this: while the cash games have been lucrative for me, they have also been mentally taxing because of the multitude of extra responsibilities.

****************************************

Back to the tournament...yesterday was the first day of the four-day Main Event at the Gulf Coast Championship. With 250 players entered at $10,000 a pop, the total prize pool is $2.5 million, with a little less than $800,000 going to the winner. The tournament pays out to 27 places, with the 27th finisher winning $14,000.


Barry Greenstein


And the poker luminaries are out in force. In addition to Chris Moneymaker, whom I mentioned yesterday, this event features T.J. Cloutier, Mike "the Mouth" Matusow, Barry Greenstein, Dewy Tomko, Chad Brown, Gavin Smith, Mimi Tran, David "Dragon" Pham, Antonio "the Magician" Esfandiari, Alan Kessler, Kathy Liebert, and Mark Seif.


Mike Matusow


The first table I dealt had Cloutier, Brown, and Kessler. I was petrified of making a mistake, but managed an error-free down. TJ Cloutier is a mountain of a man and was sitting directly in front of me. But he was patient and a nice fellow.


TJ Cloutier


Chad Brown was short-stacked and was sitting directly to my left. I could feel the tension from him.


Chad Brown


I worked only three downs in the tournament before returning to the cash games, but I will be working many more today. Hopefully I will perform as well as I did today.


Antonio Esfandiari


Side Pots:

- Funniest comment of the night: "I drink cognac at the table. Makes every hand look like aces!"


Kathy Liebert


- Most surreal game of the night: Around 4 am, I pushed into a cash game of amazing proportions. There was only one active table left in the room and there were two players seated there. They wanted me to deal a heads-up game and have a second dealer shuffle a back-up deck of cards to speed up the action.

The game was no-limit Texas Hold'em, with $100-$200 blinds. Each hand lasted about 20 seconds, and we roared along for an hour with thousands of dollars moving around. At the climax of the game, one player tossed a $10,000 strap of hundreds into the pot and got called. Ace-Queen beat Ace-Jack and the game was over, with one man taking $35,000 dollars from the other. Amazing and scary. In the wild West, there would have been a gunfight afterwards.


Mark Seif

Day 8: Why It's Hard to be Chris Moneymaker

Day 8 turned into another all-nighter. I ended up working from 6:30 pm to 6:30 am and slept until 3:00 this afternoon. I am a little fuzzy-headed as I write this. Hopefully it'll all come out clearly!

Wednesday night was the last night of qualifying before Thursday's Main Event. The crowds were a little larger than the previous day, but mostly the event is still gearing up for it's big finish. It doesn't cost anything to go into the room where the tournament is being held, so I expect there will be quite a few more onlookers this weekend.

From a dealing perspective, I was very steady. After almost 80 hours of continuous tournament dealing, I feel that I have mastered all of the mechanical and mathematical skills of a pro dealer. Chris Moneymaker agrees.

For those of you who do not know of him, Chris Moneymaker, an accountant from Tennessee, was the winner of the 2003 WSOP Main Event, in which he won $2.5 million.








What made him special is that because he was an Internet player who had never been in a casino, Moneymaker captured the hearts of American TV viewers during ESPN's first broadcast of the tournament. It was that coverage that launched the world-wide poker craze and made Moneymaker famous.

I dealt to Chris for about two hours last night. He was constantly bombarded with an unbelievable amount of attention. Everyone else can sit at a poker table, barely speaking, quietly making decisions about hands to play. Not Chris Moneymaker.

All night long it was, "Chris, want a drink?", "Chris, want to buy a horse?", "Chris, can I sit next to you?", "Chris, will you stake my $10,000 entry into tomorrow's tournament?", "Chris, can I have some of your chips for free?" Chris, Chris, Chris. People were talking to him literally every moment of every hand.

The only person who wasn't talking to him was me. Other than to announce his bets to the table, which is my job.

The amazing thing about him is that he's a super-nice guy. He banters with the other players and answers every question. "No, I don't dip Skoal", "No, I don't drink", "No, I don't want a horse, sir", "No, I don't think I should give you $10,000 to play poker tomorrow."

I have to say that I was impressed with his ability to deal with the suffocating notoriety that he gets when he enters a room. He really is a likable guy, and a smart fellow who enjoys the game and is very down-to-earth.

As a poker player, he's pretty good. Probably not the best in this room full of great poker players, but he'd readily admit that. Nonetheless, he can definitely hold his own.

The funny thing about having him at a table is that all of the other players attack his bets constantly. A normal player will make a $20 bet and have three or four callers. Moneymaker makes the same bet and gets eight or nine callers. Every hand.

The good news is that it makes the pots big, which are good for the game (and very good for the dealer). The bad news, for Chris anyway, is that he rarely gets to win any marginal hands and rarely gets to make a bluff stick. At least at these lower limit tables. But, he also reaps the benefits too.

Chris was playing at a $2-$5 No Limit table and pots that are normally about $100 were now around $300 to $400 per hand. One hand in particular, Chris led out with a $25 bet and got eight callers. At the flop he led out with $125 bet and got four callers. At the turn, he threw out a stack of hundreds totaling $1900. No callers this time. Sometimes, if you poke the big dog with a stick, you get bitten.





Anyway, Moneymaker is a good guy and he tipped well. He commented that I was a great dealer (perhaps it was tongue-in-cheek, but I'll choose to believe he meant it!) and played until 5 am. I truly hope he does very well in the tournament.

Side Pots:

- Worst Beat of the Night: A guy lost $2,700 in pot-limit Omaha when he had a full house beaten by the first straight flush I have dealt in the tournament.

- Funniest table: A very drunk and gregarious man was at the Moneymaker table and his name was also Wade. So for a half-hour I was freaking out because everyone was constantly saying Wade-this and Wade-that, but not talking to me. I guess people named John or Bill are used to this, but I am definitely not.

- Tipping 101: The way dealer tips work at tournaments is two-fold. In cash games, I carry a locked box with a slot in the top that hooks to the rail of the table. Players toss chips to me as a tip and I put it in the box. At the end of the night, the cage (where the money is held), opens the box and pays me for my tips, of which I keep 100%.

In the tournament, however, the chips carry no cash value. So the players will occasionally tip the dealers in cash, usually at the end of the event when the prize money is given out. These tips are divided equally amongst all of the dealers on staff and paid back out as part of the check at the end of the tournament.

Day 7: Hooray for Poker Karma

It was a lighter night in the Magnolia Room as the holiday gamblers had now gone home and the professional superstars had yet to arrive. No one left but the dealers, the locals, and the gambling addicts.

The poker room is divided into three distinct areas (tournaments, satellites, and cash games) and the personality of the players in those areas ranges greatly...

In the first section, you have the players in the main or second-chance tournaments. The main tournament usually has about 600 players and takes two days to play. The second-chance tournament starts at 7:00 pm, usually has 300 players, and ends at around 4 am in the same session.

These tournament players are wound as tight as a drum. If they can reach the final table, they can win thousands or maybe tens of thousands of dollars, so they take every hand and every chip seriously. There is no tipping of dealers (the players usually tip when they get the cash at the end and that cash is included in the downs payout at the end of the entire championship event) and the gamblers will jump down a dealer's throat over the slightest error.

In the middle section of satellite tables, the players are way more laid back. They have far less money at stake (usually a $45, $85, or $125 buy-in) enjoy the camaraderie of staying at one table for 90 minutes with the same opponents, and are not afraid to talk, joke, and generally enjoy playing poker. These games end when there are two players left, and having two winners split the winnings makes for a friendlier game.

Then you have the cash games. The cash games are like the Wild Wild West. You see all forms of poker procedure...straddle bets, Mississippi straddle bets, buying the button, buying the blinds, as well as all manner of games. The hands are very fast, much faster than the other two areas. These gamblers know their craft, can quickly evaluate their positions, and are not worried about making a mistake that would end their night in the tournaments or satellites. Here, if you lose a big pot just pull out your money roll and peel off another $1000 in hundreds.

Unless you don't have a money roll. And if you don't, you are in the wrong place, my friend. Every once in a while, you will see a player come to the table and buy-in for the table minimum. These are the guys who do not have a big money roll, and even though they may be good players, they are at a disadvantage at a table where the big fish eat the minnows. When faced with seven other chip stacks far greater than your own, you can be muscled by a strong hand on almost every pot. Just like the scene from Rounders, it doesn't take long for those players to lose their money and leave the table.

The cash game players can and will gamble on everything. Side bets are constantly flying around. "I'll bet you ten bucks that Joe is gonna show us a pair lower than nines." A young lady went to the bathroom and they bet $100 she'd say "give me some lightning on the flop!" within the next three hands she played. Sure enough, she said it on the next hand.

One gentleman commented that there seemed to be a lot of eights coming up on the board (the five community cards) and another said he was crazy and that the card distribution over time was the same. This sparked a wager where he would pay two other players $100 each for every flopped eight, while they would each pay him $100 for every seven. The next hand I flopped was 8-8-4, which drew two whoops of joy and one disgusted snort. In the end, we saw 9 eights and only 3 sevens. Maybe he was right about the eights? They made me switch decks and another eight was flopped on the very next hand. Hehe, gotta love that poker karma.

*********************************************************

Back to the tournament tables, I was witness to a very disturbing scene. I was pushing into a table just as the players were about to take a 15-minute break. A dude in a cowboy hat and Skoal in his mouth went all-in to try to buy a relatively small last pot. After hemming and hawing, a woman called his bet. He was way ahead in the hand, but she pegged runner-runner to make a straight and win the hand, leaving him with a cripplingly low number of chips.

The guy flipped out. He started cursing and berated the woman for being such a stupid player. He claimed that only an idiot would have called his bet in that spot and that she was a lucky b****. The chip leader, who was an African-American man, tried to get him to calm down. As the players left the table, and as I sat down, I heard the cowboy curse and say the N-word loudly twice. The chip leader was already out of earshot but several other people heard the remark.

During the break, the woman who'd been berated burst into tears in the hall and almost quit the tournament. The tournament director came over to ask the previous dealer and me to recount what had happened.

In tournaments, berating any player or dealer is prohibited and usually results in the guilty player losing his playing privileges for 15 minutes, during which time his blinds are posted and his chip stack dwindles. The director took the cowboy aside and I could see from the body language that the riot act was being read. Nonetheless, the cowboy was allowed to return to the table after the break, which frankly surprised me greatly.

When everyone was seated, the cowboy had the nerve to take one more passive-aggressive swat at the woman by saying, "Ma'am, I am really sorry. I guess I lost my temper over your stupid playing, and I am really sorry. It won't happen again." What a jerk.

But then, poker karma took over.

The first hand, the cowboy pushed all-in with his meager chip stack, got three callers, and managed to quadruple-up by winning the hand on the river. The second hand, the cowboy again pushed all-in and won the blinds and antes without a caller. Now he had a reasonable amount of working chips again.

But on the third hand, the insulted woman made a small bet and he happily pushed all-in for a third time, thinking she'd fold and he'd take some of her chips.

However, she smiled, called, and flipped over pocket aces against his ace-six. She won the hand and enjoyed the pleasure of taking all of her attacker's chips and knocking him out of the tournament only three spots out of the money.

Take that, buddy.

*******************************************************

Speaking of poker karma, one of my best friends amongst the dealers is a fellow I met this week named Jim. Jim had decided to play in the second-chance tournament rather than dealing in it (dealers are allowed to do this when they are not working and Jim works the day shift). So when I pushed away from the bigoted cowboy's former-table and moved to the next table in the rotation, there sat Jim with a good-sized stack of chips and a smile on his face. "Give me some good cards, dealer!" grinned Jim.

As I was dealing the first hand, I was literally praying not be the dealer who would deal the cards that would knock Jim out. "Aces...aces...aces," I silently wished. As the hand progressed, Jim was heads-up with a player who went all-in. A loss would cripple Jim and lead to his tournament ouster. "Fold, Jim, fold!" I thought.

Fortunately, Jim is a much better poker player than I am. Jim took his time, analyzed the hand, and called. His superior hand held up and Jim won a very large pot. By the time I'd left the table, Jim's chip stack was far greater than when I arrived and he went on to finish in the money!

Side Pots:

- Funniest line of the night: A young girl was at a satellite and said after a loss in a hand, "Ouch, that was painful! I mean, I like a little pain sometimes, but not like that!" To which a gentleman still in the hand folded and said, "well, you sure distracted me with THAT remark!"

- Mr. Muscle Award: I was dealing a cash table where one player with a bunch of chips was slumped over and receiving a chair massage during play. He'd been folding all of his hands and looked disinterested. A new player came in that I'd recognized from earlier in the tournament as a very aggressive cash player who likes to bully others out of pots. The pots had all been in the $100 range but on the first hand, he raised the pot behind four limpers (players who try to only pay the minimum bet) to a hefty $500, the biggest bet in a long time.

The slumped-over player glanced at his cards and nonchalantly tossed a pair of $5000 chips into the pot! In the entire week, the biggest chip I had seen on any table was a $1000 chip. Faced with losing a ALL of his money on the first hand, the formerly aggressive player blinked twice and folded. Lesson learned, kids...know where the real juice is at a cash table before being aggressive.

Day 6: Poker Fight!

Having worked a 15-hour shift the day before, and getting back to the hotel at 8:30 am, I pretty much slept all day until it was time to get up and go back to the Beau.

The days are starting to run together in a tiring routine.

Despite being so weary, I was focused on being a better dealer than I was the previous night. A few quick bolts of caffeine, some ibuprofen for my ailing back, and I was ready to go!

Hey, focusing works! I was nearly flawless for most of the night, especially in the first eight tables I dealt. No exposed cards, no misdeals, no player complaints. Everything seemed to be going pretty well until...

The fight!

It wasn't really a fight, but it did involve my table. I was dealing a 10-25, mandatory Mississippi Straddle to $50, Pot-Limit Omaha HI game. This is the highest stakes game in the casino, with each pot averaging well over $500.

One guy at my table, a well-known Indian man who owns several night clubs, was talking on his cell phone in a conversation that lasted over 20 minutes. Although it is against the rules to talk on a cell during the tournament, at cash games you can talk all you want, even though it is still very bad etiquette.

All of his incessant talking really angered the player sitting to his right (and to my immediate left). First he started telling the guy to get off the phone. Then he asked me to call a floor person.

Calling the floor is a dealer's way of settling disputes at the table. Most of the time, a floor call is because of a dealer error. I have been lucky, in that I haven't made a single floor call this entire tournament.

The director of the cash game area came over and ended up telling the man that the Indian fellow could talk all he wants. This did not make the man any happier. Only one hand later, the cell-phone user hung up and immediately a war of words started. Insults, profanity, and finally, a challenge to duke it out. They both stood up, chest-to-chest and I immediately called out, "FLOOR!"

Back came the the floor manager who ended up sitting between the two combatants while they grumpily bet thousands of dollars into the pot, each trying to take the others' money. And there I was, wordlessly dealing while the war of words hung over the entire silent table like a fog. All you could hear was my shuffling. It was quite surreal.

About a half-hour later I moved to a tournament game that had blinds and antes. The purpose of both is to make the game end faster. I was starting to gather the antes and noticed one player hadn't posted his. I asked for the chip but he started swearing that he had already done so and that a player across from him hadn't posted. So I had to call the floor now a THIRD time, who admonished the player for lying and then admonished me for not watching them.

Then, a half-hour later a fellow at another one of my tables dumped an entire white russian right on the felt. So I had to make my FOURTH floor call of the night so that my entire table could be moved away from the now disabled one.

And of course, all this excitement was a distraction and my dealing became shoddy right at the end. I begged not to have to deal any overtime and they granted my request, allowing me to get back to the hotel by 4:00 for some much-needed sleep.

Side Pots:

- Oddly enough, I still have not dealt in any of the biggest tournament events that involve bracelets. There are ten events at this WPT event and each of the ten winners will receive a bejeweled poker bracelet. They are quite the goal of tournament poker players.

Anyway, these events are started during the day shift and are usually winding down in the evening. I have dealt plenty of downs in the second-chance tournaments and in tournament satellites. No worries though, I will get plenty of tournament time in the 4-day main event, which starts Thursday.

- Best tipper of the night: A little old lady at one of my cash tables gave me a handsome $5 tip for a winning hand (I usually get $1 or $2 per hand). She leaned over to me and she said, "Let's make a deal, you keep giving me winning hands and I will keep giving you $5 each." Interestingly enough, she won four more hands during my down! Funny how that poker karma is.

- Physical Malady Du Jour: I have recuperated my fingers but now my major concern is my back. It aches so much. The pain is from the lousy chairs they have us using. There is no lower back support at all. I think I will start buying ibuprofen by the gross. Every night, one of the floor men says in the microphone, "Massage therapists are in the room and can be hired for $25 per half hour. Who wants a litte rubby rubby?" To which I want to cry, "ME!"

- Funniest Line of the Night: "Oops, I better mover over. I am practically in the dealer's lap. No matter how much I drink, he aint never gonna be THAT cute." - from a male player talking about me. Hey! I'm cute!

- Bad Beat of the Night: $9000 pot in the pot limit Omaha where one fellow had fives full of sixes and was beaten by sixes full of fives.

- Anatomy of a check: The proper way to check your cards in poker (to stay in the hand and not bet) is to either say "check!" or to lightly tap the table twice with your hand. However, here at this tournament, everyone has their own, sometimes crazy, checking style. This makes it VERY difficult on a dealer to control the action. So far, I have seen:

1. the two-finger tap
2. the one-finger tap
3. the palm tap
4. the back of the hand tap
5. the little pinkie tap
6. a head nod
7. a head point to the next player
8. a ZZ-Top-esque finger twirl to the next player
9. a palm-down finger flick in my direction
10. a metronomic finger wag
11. the black jack symbol for "stay"
12. a thunderous, chip-rattling, table pound
13. an eye point
14. an eyebrow point
15. a unibrow point
16. the word(s) "check"
17. the word(s) "next"
18. the word(s) "I'm good" or "I'm fine" or "I'm ok"
19. the word(s) "on him"
20. the word(s) "shooby dooby"
21. the word(s) "please don't raise"
22. the word(s) "lets play a friendly" or "family pot!"
23. the word(s) "I hate this game"
24. the word(s) "why am I checking?"
25. the word(s) "I'm checking the best hand" or "I'm checking the worst hand" (which is always the opposite)
26. the word(s) "dealer, you are killing me"

And then of course, I have heard a LOT of "What are you looking at? I checked!"

Day 5: The All-Nighter

Despite having the best sleep since starting the dealing rotation, I arrived at the poker hall already worn out from the previous four days of dealing. Since I do not do this for a living, I have not conditioned myself to be able to relax and still concentrate. This means that I am probably exerting more energy than the seasoned dealers.

And, all of my self-praise from Day 4 went right out the window on Day 5.

Why? Because I was LOUSY last night! My concentration simply wasn't up to par. I am sure it's because I am tired but I made several mistakes. I exposed a card a couple of times, had three misdeals where I accidentally dealt past someone at the end of the table, and was generally slow with my card pitching all night.

My tokes reflected this decreasing accuracy too. By 3:00 am, I'd made $50 less than the previous night, despite working two additional cash tables. So, when I came off a break table at 3:30 am (meaning that when done dealing the table I could take a break), I went to the DC (dealer coordinator) certain that he'd send my sorry butt off to bed.

"No, Wade, I need you to stay."

Uh-oh.

Turns out, I am not the only dealer who is feeling quite run-down. In casinos, they have what is called an "EO List" (early-off) and people who just don't feel like staying late will sign up on this list so that the DC can plan how many dealers to keep late.

But being so green, I'd never heard of it. So when I went up at my normal end of shift, more dealers than normal were already gone. And the degenerate gamblers were out in force, wanting to keep several cash tables open.

So, I ended up not being able to clock-out until.....8:00 am this morning. That's right, I dealt for thirteen and a half hours!

The good news, though, is that I actually caught my second-wind and started dealing better. Plus, the gamblers who stayed all night were high rollers and the tips were much better. So in the end, I made the equivalent of two days worth of tips.

*******************************************

More of the pros are in town now. There were several faces at the tables that I recognized, but couldn't quite attach with a name. These fellows are not the Phil Iveys, Doyle Brunsons, or Daniel Negreanus of the world. But they are men who have appeared at various final tables at the WSOP.

It is hard to relate to the amount of money they wager. A guy named Mike sat down right next to me while I was in the box (dealing) and pulled out three stacks of $100 bills wrapped in $10,000 bank wrappers. These players bet with chips only at the beginning of a hand and then as the pot grows they only bet with hundred dollar bills. I have grown adept at quickly counting out thousands of dollars while holding a deck of cards in my hand.

These men own businesses, night clubs, golf courses. Some of them are former pro athletes looking to gamble their fortunes. And some of them are regular guys who have scored a big win in one of the big tournaments and now have a free ride to gamble. One jovial fellow in a tee-shirt and baseball cap told me that he'd won $530,000 by winning a tournament in Tunica, MS and that he'd quit his job and become a professional gambler.

Anyway, I am hoping to have better concentration when I deal tonight.

Side Pots:

- Best tournament hand of the night: I had three players go all-in and when they flipped over their cards, one had pocket rockets (aces), one had pocket cowboys (kings), and one had big slick (ace-king). Normally, the guy with the aces would dominate this hand but the person with big slick caught a queen on the flop, a jack on the turn, and spiked a ten on the river to win the hand with a miracle straight.

- Worst loss of the night: In one of the late cash games, a young guy who was a former pro wrestler lost $11,000 on a single hand of poker when another gentleman played pocket sevens and got a flop of seven-five-five to give him a full house. When the cards were turned over, the wrestler looked physically ill. He murmured something and left the table, penniless. One of the other players whispered that the wrestler's total losses for the night were nearly $20,000. I truly hope he's ok.

- War Eagle Table: I sat at a table where three of the players were Auburn grads. I mentioned that I was one too, and then, ironically, each of them won a big pot on the next three turns. One of the other players said we were obviously cheating.

- Best indicator that I need more sleep: Three guys were left in a one-table tournament and decided to quit playing and split up their winnings to match their chip percentages. So they turned to me and said, "ok, we have to split up $1100 three ways, and I have 7700 in chips, he has 6400, and he has 5500. How does that divide out?" I blinked twice and said, "ya got me." They ended up splitting it $425, $375, $300 but I have no idea if that's right. (looking at it now, I can see that it's probably close enough...oh well...shame on them for asking me to do any higher math when I haven't slept).

Day 4: Big Tokes, Big Mistake, and What's the Score of the Auburn Game?

Each day of the tournament has gotten bigger and bigger and last night was no exception, with the gaming hall teeming with new players. It's only been four days and I am sure organizers think this is a massive success. I have heard many comments from experienced poker players saying this is the best set-up for a tournament that they have ever seen.

As for me, I continue to improve as a dealer. Last night was my first complete night of dealing without exposing a card. This has been my goal and now that my pitching of cards is reaching full professional caliber, I am starting to see a second benefit...bigger tokes!

Each night I have taken home more than the previous night in tokes. For me, this is truly an odd thing, because I still feel mistake-prone. But it appears that my personality really connects with the players and because I call my games in a concise, clear voice, I've received a few complements from the gamblers.

The most difficult game in the room to deal is still that Omaha Hi, Pot Limit, 10-25, Mississippi Straddle-to-the-50 game. Other dealers hate it but evidently the DC (dealer coordinator) knows I like it because he has put me on it seven times now. With the size of the pots in that game averaging about $2000 per hand, the subsequent tokes have been very good.

Dealers are taught not to shill for tokes. Meaning, that I am not supposed to mention them, not supposed to compliment players on big pots won, not supposed to pause after pushing the pot as if coaxing the player into tossing me a chip or two. I have been extremely careful to avoid this and run my games as fast as I possibly can.

I am still not getting as many downs as most dealers, which means that my check at the end of the event is going to be less than most. Nonetheless, I am enjoying the event and learning a lot, so I am pleased with whatever I get.

Ok, now on to the big mistake I made...

The absolute worst thing a dealer can have happen is to deal a "fouled deck". A fouled deck is when there are too many or too few cards in the deck. We are required to do a "stub count" every down. A stub count is where a dealer silently and subtly counts the remaining cards in his hand after all the cards are out on the table and the players are making their final betting decisions.

If a table has 10 players, then the 20 down cards, plus the 5 board cards, plus the 3 burn cards, should leave exactly 24 cards in a dealer's hand. This is the easy way of verifying that the deck has the right number of cards without having to count all 52.

Last night, I was dealing the first table of 260-person tournament. So it was early, the pots were tiny, the players were cautious, and it was a pretty typical start. Then, disaster struck.

In the rack below my hands sits a second deck of cards, sorted, out of its box, and ready to be used if my current deck is too damp, gets fouled, etc. I was pushing a pot from left to right to a player on my immediate right and when I was done I looked down and saw a single card sitting on the table underneath my hands. I figured I'd dropped one somehow, pushed it into the muck (the discards from the game) and shuffled.

What had happened, unbeknownst to me at first, is that when I made that left to right motion, the bottom of my left hand caught the face of my backup deck and had pulled out the top card! What is that top card, you ask? Well, it was the ace of spades.

So I dealt the next hand, not knowing that now there were 53 cards in my deck...and two aces of spades. The next hand ended without a problem. And the next. And a third.

But on the third hand, as players were mucking their cards I glanced down and saw that I had a card in the muck pile that had a different colored back than the others! The difference between the two decks is very subtle, but I noticed it in a millisecond.

A cold sweat hit my brow. Like lightning, I palmed the card, noticed it was the ace, and tossed it into the backup deck. How no one noticed this motion is a mystery to me.

Moreover, how the player who held it for a hand didn't notice his ace of spades was from a different deck amazes me. Had he noticed, he could have raised an enormous ruckus, claiming that all of the hands dealt were erroneous and that he wanted all of his money back. All ten players could have quit the tournament and the event would have lost almost $2000.

But he didn't notice, I'd corrected the error without being seen, and might have gotten away scot-free. Only problem was, now I had my deck, but I couldn't say for certain that it was unfouled. What if I had caught two extra cards instead of one? My brain was screaming at me to do a stub count as fast as possible.

Problem was, you cannot do a stub count until a hand reaches fifth street (the final card to be shown before final betting). And my luck was failing as the next three hands were folded before the board was full.

In a desperate attempt to confirm my decks, I tried to do something incorrect: do a stub count before fifth street on the next hand. The bettors reached fourth street and were mulling their options, so I did a soft, quick count. Just as I finished, a female player across from me yelled, "What are you doing, dealer?!?" I replied, that, sorry ma'am, I was doing a stub count and got ahead of myself.

Luckily, I'd just been tapped out to leave the table and could walk away from the situation knowing that the decks were good. I heard her still grousing about the stupid dealer doing a stub count too early as I left the table. Hehe, thank goodness she didn't know the REAL story.


Side Pots:

- My hands ache, but the problems I described yesterday seem to be getting better. Perhaps my form is improving. I am also adjusting to my new sleep pattern and got the best night of sleep last night that I have had since the tournament started.

- I mentioned an incorrect ruling yesterday. If a dealer exposes a card in the first two pitches of a hand, it is considered a misdeal and the hand is started over. I'd said that the player would receive the next card after all the cards are out to replace his exposed one. But this only happens if the exposed card is after the first two. Confusing, no?

- Worst beat of the night: A player lost a $7000 pot in the Omaha game when his king-high flush was beaten by an ace-high flush.

- Funniest line of the night: "Folks, we don't talk about titties at the poker table. They are called 'boobies'." - from a player in response to a statement that women poker players are always wearing low-cut shirts to distract their competitors.

- Second-funniest line of the night: "Why can't I get any action?" - from an attractive female player who would make bets and would not get called. Amid the laughter came a few comments from the male players that they'd oblige her with all the action she wanted.

As you might have noticed, male poker players are simply pigs when it comes to the female players. They do not respect the ladies' skills as gamblers and shamelessly flirt, harass, and insult the women. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be female poker players. Unless you also give them thick skins.

- I saw my dealing mentor, Roger, in the poker room last night. Roger taught me how to deal like a pro and it was great to see him. Unfortunately, he was in a game and I couldn't chat. Hopefully, I will see him again tonight.

- I was sick about missing the Auburn / Kansas State football game.




And, to make it worse, the game was being shown in the poker room on a huge TV, but too far away for me to catch much of the action or even the score. During one of my little ten-minute breaks, I called four different guys I knew were watching the game and NONE OF THEM ANSWERED THE PHONE! So I called my dad only to find out that he was watching Tennessee / Cal with my Tennessee Vol sister and was TAPING the Auburn game. Dad! How does that help me?? Hahaha!

- There is a really cool Gulf Coast Poker Championship hat that I have my eye on. They sell it at a kiosk just outside of the poker room. A kiosk selling poker stuff is like crack. You don't need it, but you are compelled to buy it anyway.

No, mom, I have never bought crack. It's just a joke.

Day 3: The Nightmare Table

As I took the floor for the evening shift of Day 3, I could see that the room is starting to fill up nicely. Almost all 65 tables were full of players and with the weekend looming, it looks like a good start for the dealers.

The thing I am learning about these folks is that they work very hard for their money. Players who do not tip dealers just do not understand how difficult it is to maintain the intense concentration of dealing a tournament-level poker game. Your attention to every move of the ten players at your table can be as nerve-wracking as any job I have ever had. Add to that the fact that players who are losing their money often take out their frustrations on the dealer, and you can imagine how tough it can be.

What I didn't expect was the physical toll. Aside from being weary from a lack of sleep, my hands are already getting beaten up. After only three of the twelve days of dealing, I have dealt 56 "downs" of poker. Since a down is 30 minutes, I am averaging about a hand every 90 seconds, and each hand requires four shuffles, I estimate that I have shuffled the cards over 4,500 times.

As a result, both of my left pinkies are bruised and my right thumb has a piece of felt under the nail. On one pinky finger, the skin is actually pulling away from the nail bed. This may not seem like much but let me tell you it HURTS! Time for a band-aid, I think.

********************************************************

After three days of steadily improving my skills, I finally had a bad down at a table. I was already flustered because I'd mistakenly taken a break when I wasn't supposed to and it caused a dealer to have to take back-to-back downs on the same table, which is a no-no.

So I sat down, shuffled the cards, turned to pitch the very first card off the deck and SPLAT!, it flipped over. And, of course, it was the ace of spades. In tournament play, aces are like gold. So for the player to lose one is literally like taking money out of his pocket.

The procedure here is to leave that card exposed and continue pitching them around the table and then give him a second card at the end. However, he caught the next card out because I dealt it too close to him and he looked at it, meaning that the entire hand was misdealt and I would have to start over. The caused a huge groan because the next guy also had an ace.

Then, about 5 minutes later, I made my worst error of the tournament at the same table. Two players were involved in a hand and when they flipped the cards over a third player said, "Nice straight!" and pointed to one of the players. I was still flustered from the earlier mistake, so I just pushed the pot to him without stopping to read the hands and "mucked" all the cards (threw them into a pile with all the discards).

Suddenly, the other player yells "He didn't have a straight!" and two other players agreed. But we couldn't look because the cards were already irretrievable! He sneered, "Dealer, are you going to just let other players call the hands??" Luckily the original player admitted he had no straight and pushed the pot to the right guy. My embarrassment lasted until the end of my down when I could leave these testy players and slink away. Sigh

The good news is that that was the one low-light of the night. I have become proficient at dealing the cash games, where I make a lot more money, and the pit bosses have seen this, giving me extra work in that area.

Side Pots:

- Worst bad beat of the night: A fellow made a huge bet when he flopped an ace-high flush, and his opponent got runner-runner tens for a full house. Then, two hands later, the same poor guy bet all-in on three-of-a-kind aces only to see his tournament life end when his opponent got runner-runner for a straight. (runner-runner means that a player got exactly the cards he needed on both the turn and the river)

- Funniest drunk of the night: A rather drunk and very loud player was pretending to be drunker than he really was by faking a fall to the floor as he went to the bathroom. He did it again when he returned. However, a Beau Rivage official not affiliated with the tournament saw this and demanded that the player be removed from the facility. The player then turned to the man and slurred, "Sir, how much can I bribe you to let me keep playing?"

- Funniest quote of the night: I had an Omaha Pot Limit table that was breaking up and the chiprunner came over and asked if the players needed racks for their chips. These players all had huge stacks of hundred-dollar bills and were hardly using their chips, so I retorted, "No, they need money clips", which brought out laughter from the entire group.

Day 2: Just What IS a Mississippi Straddle?

What a night! Thursday night was the end of the first full day of tournament activity and I am wiped out! I didn't get back to my hotel room until 5:30 AM!!

Now that the full events have started, more and more players are filling the Magnolia Room here at the Beau Rivage. Yesterday, we had 750 players in the room at noon, with many more expected as the tournament progresses. This weekend will be enormous, with well over 1000 players.

After the first night of dealing, I was feeling very good about my skills and went into last night with a lot of confidence. I began the night by dealing a few tournament tables of Texas Hold'em, but pretty soon I was moved to the cash tables.

The cash tables! This was my first chance to work them. These are where the real professional gamblers reside. They are men who carry wads of hundreds to the table to bet with. The players themselves dictate what games will be played. They play Texas Hold'em for sure, but they also play many other games as well and the casino happily obliges them by having dealers ready to deal any game they ask for.

For a dealer, the difference in dealing these games versus the tournament games is this:

- The dealer has a rack with chips that represent real money. These are the official chips of the Beau Rivage casino and you can turn them in at the cage (literally a caged-in area where the money is held) for real cash. The dealer is totally responsible for this rack and any shortcomings will come out of his paycheck.

- The dealer is allowed to keep any tokes (tips) that he receives. This is important because the dealer does NOT get credit for downs while dealing these games. Remember that "downs" are a percentage of the tournament dealer payouts. Every "down" a dealer works is $10 to $25 dollars, depending on the overall tournament take. Since a dealer is basically working cash games without being paid, the tips are his ONLY source of income.

So I sat down at my first live table, which was Texas Hold'em 2-5 No Limit. This means that the players' blinds are $2 and $5 and there is no limit to the amount they can bet. It is customary that after each hand, the winning player will toss a
chip or two to the dealer as a toke (a tip). Dealers on the cash games carry a locked box with a slot in the top. This box holds the tips, hangs readily off of a rail on the table, and is opened and cashed-out at the end of the night.

The Hold'em table went well, as I am used to dealing this game and I got some good tokes. After 30 minutes, I was tapped out (touched on the shoulder by the next dealer assigned to the table) and I went to the next cash table in the row.

I tapped the dealer, she stood up, and whispered to me, "This table is Omaha, HI, Pot Limit, $10-$25, with a Mississippi Straddle to the $50. Good luck."

Yikes! I know how to deal the game of Omaha, which is a more complicated, 4-down-card version of Texas Hold'em. I know how to deal pot limit, which is far more mathematically challenging than No Limit. But a "Mississippi Straddle"? I had no idea what that was. And 10-25 meant that this was a table for high rollers. But, no time to worry, boy, gotta sit down and deal!

So of course, I royally screwed up the first hand. The first two players posted bets of $10 and $25 and I started dealing out the cards and of course only gave them all two cards each. "Um, this is Omaha." So it is! Hehe. I gave them each two more cards. So I turn to the third player to get his bet and suddenly the $10 and $25 players pull their chips back and throw out $50 chips. Huh? Turns out that "Mississippi Straddle" means that each player must make a minimum bet of $50, even though they might have already posted their small and big blinds. Therefore, the action begins with player number one who is in the small blind of $10. Confused yet? So was I.

But I managed. I quickly got used to the game and off we went. Omaha players are amazing. Omaha is generally considered a game for "real" poker players because there is a lot more strategy involved and reading the best five-card hand out of nine cards instead of seven is vastly more complicated. These fellows were reading the hands faster than I ever could. Basically, they read the hands while I just dealt cards and handled chips.

This level of poker brought me to a new world of gambler. The minimum buy-in for this table was $1000. These men were sitting at the table with 6-inch stacks of $100 bills. There were individual pots of $4000, $8000, sometimes $16,000. They hardly bothered with the cumbersome chips as whole stacks of hundreds flew into the pot. As a rough estimate, I'd guess there was $75,000 in cash on the table. I was in awe.


The rest of the night was pretty much the same. I dealt 6 cash games and 8 tournament downs (approximately 7 full hours of dealing). I also got to deal the final round of a 260-person tournament. The last 8 players had been playing for 8 hours and they were exhausted. Rather than spending another two hours to determine a winner, they chopped the pot eight ways. "Chopping a pot" means the players divide the total winnings amongst themselves. Each player took home almost $5000 for a $125 entry fee.

I got back to my bed at 5:30 am. Two days down. Ten more days to go.


Side Pots:

- On my very first hand of the night, two players went all-in in the $125 Second Chance tournament I mentioned above. One had pocket queens, the other had pocket kings. So the gal with queens lost and was out of the tournament and her $125 in exactly 45 seconds. She was the first player out of the tournament.

- Lucky Dealer: I dealt quads (four-of-a-kind) five times last night.

- Biloxi weather: It is excruciatingly hot and humid here. I thought Atlanta was hot, but Biloxi is a sauna. Yesterday, however, we had big rain storms. Cool things off? Well, only while it rained! Back to the sauna again today.

- Cushion Revisited: On the very first table I dealt with my new cushion, I stood up and left it behind. I took about 30 steps and remembered it. I went back and the next dealer was already into a hand. Did I let him keep the cushion? Heck no! I made him stand up and give it to me. Hahahaha

- Oddest hand of the night: during the Omaha HI pot limit game, the players asked me to "run it twice", which meant dealing two cards each for fourth and fifth street. Basically, it was a way for the players to hedge their bets, similarly to splitting pairs in black jack. However, the same guy won BOTH runs and raked in a $16,000 pot. And gave me a $5 tip...thanks.

- Oddest question of the night: "Dealer, what was spread on the LSU game?" Yeah, I did know it and yes, LSU covered by a mile.

Day 1: What Have I Done?

I arrived last night in the poker room at 6:30 pm and Armando, our coordinator, had a list of the dealers next to table assignments. I was sent to Table 76, which was one of several tables for a $125 satellite tournament, with the winners getting seats in Thursday's $300 first WPT event.

The room is divided into three sections. There are about 25 tables for the tournament play, 20 tables for Sit N Gos, and 20 tables for live, cash games. Once a dealer is assigned to a table, he deals that table for 30 minutes (one "down"), signs the down card (a list of all the dealers who deal at that table each night) and then "pushes" to the next table offered. Pushing is when you tap a dealer on the shoulder to tell him his down is over and it's time for you to sit in his spot.

If the table you push to has a little red sticker on the dealer rack, that means that as soon as your 30 minutes is up, you get a thirty minute break. So, the general pattern is for a dealer to deal two or three "downs" and then take a break.

Anyway, back to Table 76. I was given a rack of chips, cards, a cut card, seat cards, and my down card. Taking my cushion, I set up in my chair and waited for my players to arrive.

Having been a dealer for a few years now, I am familiar with all of the procedures for running a tournament poker game. The one thing that separates me from the dealers who do this for a living is that they have learned through repetition how to pitch cards. Pitching cards is something I have been practicing in preparation for this tournament, but honestly have not yet perfected.

To pitch a card, a dealer holds the deck in his left hand, pushes the top card to the right with his thumb, then uses his three fingers on his right hand to toss the card to the correct spot on the table. If done correctly, the card will quickly spin clockwise as it travels to the player, staying airborne about half of the distance, and will be level when it reaches his hands. Also, the dealer's hands will stay close to his body and his wrists will hardly move at all.

This is a tough skill to master and one for which I am improving, but frankly have not mastered enough for my comfort level. If a card is not pitched level, it will flip over, exposing the card, and greatly angering the players.

So, I was so worried about my pitch that I made my only big error of the night in the first 5 minutes of dealing! In tournament poker, if a player is not at his seat, he still must pay the antes. A dealer will pull chips off of his stack and put them in the pot for other players to win until he returns.

When I started my table, I dealt about 8 hands of poker and forgot to "blind in" the chips of my one absent player. None of other players noticed it because I had that person's chips in my rack. Then the tournament director, a cool fellow from MS named Johnny Grooms, came over and said, "Why are there chips in your rack? You have to blind those in."

Oops. So not only did I make a mistake, but the tournament director caught it! Johnny is famous in poker circles. He ran the 2005 World Series of Poker and is generally respected as one of the best directors in the country. Johnny is also very direct and if you are out of line, whether you are a player or a dealer, he will let you know.

Still, Johnny has a reputation as a guy who backs up his dealers, never hammers them in front of the players, and is a stand-up guy if you treat him with respect.

So, once past that mistake, I fumbled around with my pitch for the rest of the down and luckily got to take a 30-minute break, which I seriously needed because my nerves were gangled.

As a dealer on Table 76, my card pitching was poor. I hadn't exposed any cards, but my cards were travelling too slowly for my taste and I was having to do too much pushing with my arms and back, rather than cooly sitting back and expertly flipping the cards around the table.

I took my break in the EDR (employee dining room) and sat with other dealers. Our main topic of conversation was the color of these Beau Rivage poker shirts. I originally called them gold. One description of the color was to imagine you'd left banana pudding out for an hour. Our final consensus is that the shirts are butterscotch. And no, I will not be bringing one home to wear around Atlanta!

Here's a photo of the shirt:


The Shirt

Back in the Magnolia Room, I started at a new table. Armando had asked me to push into a Sit N Go with only about 6 players at the table. This was perfect! The table was more open than my inital table full of ten players, so I could really work on my pitch. I shuffled, cut the cards, pitched three cards and then (BLAP!) EXPOSED A CARD! My heart skipped a beat.

Luckily, it was a deuce (a two). The players all laughed and said, "Hey Bill, you didn't want that deuce anyway!" Bill was not terribly happy to get a new card from me, but there was nothing he could do. The procedure here is that the exposed card is turned up for all to see, then burned (placed under the stack of chips and out of play).

However, the new card Bill got turned out to be a second king that matched his other card and he won a very large pot. So now Bill was quite happy about the exposed card! "Gee Bill, hthe dealer needs to expose your dueces more often," came one retort.

Once I had exposed my first card, it seemed to calm me down. I managed to go the rest of the night without exposing any more cards and over time, my pitch improved.

I worked 10 downs (about 5 hours of dealing) and with breaks, I finished at about 1:30 am. I also received $60 in tips, however those go into the dealer pot to be divided among everyone at the end of the tournament. The only tips I get to keep are from the live, cash games, which I have yet to deal.

All in all, my preparations seem to have paid off. When it came to reading hands, shuffling, and dealing with the chips, I was as fast as any dealer in the room. The players all seemed quite happy with my skills and the poker was quick and fun. Hopefully my pitch will continue to improve. It appears that I may deal in the neighborhood of 175 HOURS of poker between now and next Sunday, so it better!

Side Pots:

- Best hand of the night: I turned over three aces on the flop and a fellow took out another player who made a large stab at the pot when he already had the fourth ace. Quad aces is nearly unbeatable and he went on to win the satellite.

- Oddest question of the night: "Dealer, I want your honest opinion, am I fatter than that gentleman who is calling me 'Slim'?" I told him it was too hard to tell.

- Most famous person at my table: None, the star players are not in town yet. These are all locals and unknown gamblers from around the deep south.

- Biggest distraction of the night: Three players at my table got into a rousing discussion about SEC football. Can you imagine how hard it was for me to hold my tongue?

Game Time!

Today is the day! The first day of the tournament. I must say that although I am still a bit nervous, I am also definitely ready to deal. I have been in Biloxi for three nights and four days and have yet to pitch a card to anyone.

I went to the Magnolia Room, where the event is being held, to check things out for this morning's Day Shift. The room is now finished and it looks magnificent. I overheard several dealers and players saying it was one of the best big tournament set-ups they'd seen.

Here are a few shots from the room:








This morning, there were only a smattering of players because the first real event doesn't begin until Thursday. Today, the players are warming up with a little cash game called a Sit N Go. These games are quick, usually no longer than 90 minutes.

Because the players are still arriving, there were a lot more dealers than needed this morning. I noticed that all the dealers looked very expectantly for their chance to be in the box (dealing at a table). But in the meantime, there was a large mass of them sitting around and waiting. To be honest, it's an odd sight seeing so many folks standing around dressed in gold casino shirts. Almost looks like a convention of Motown backup singers.

After checking out the room, I got lunch and then went to the hotel for a nap before reporting back tonight. The anticipation is killing me!

Notes:

- I got a roommate! His name is Bob and we met the first day I was in town. We've become fast friends and when his roommate didn't show up either, they put us together. Bob is a unique fellow. He's tall, tan, and has dark hair. But he was born and raised in Scotland and has quite the accent. For you movie fans, he sounds exactly like Robert Shaw's Quint character from the movie Jaws. Kinda looks like him too.

Bob's been trying to teach me to speak what he calls the "Queen's English." You don't say "hey, buddy" you say "see YOU, Jimmy!" Anyway, the more I am around him, the more I am starting to sound like him.

Here is a photo of Bob dealing at the World Series of Poker to the legendary Doyle Brunson.


Doyle Brunson and Bob


- CUSHIONS! One of the big problems the dealers are having to manage is that the tournament did not provide special chairs for the dealers. This means that the dealers are sitting at the same level as the players at the table. The problem with this is that a dealer must be raised above the table so that they can pitch the cards over various objects and be able to reach for chips and cards.

Therefore, as soon as yesterday's orientation meeting finished, the dealers all ran out to Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Big Lots, etc. to find black cushions to sit on and raise ourselves higher. Only problem is that there isn't much available. Most of the cushions we found are too thin to do the job, so dealers are buying multiple cushions and using tape, velcro, or string to tie them together.

It is quite the sight seeing people walk around with big cushions under their arms. It's a cumbersome problem.

As for me, I found a very thick, but way too large black throw pillow. The thickness is good so I grabbed the yellow pages and found a local seamstress. She managed to cut ten inches of fabric off two sides and when I got it this morning it was perfect!

Questions Answered

Today was the big day: orientation. This was when we found out our schedules and got answers to all the questions.

It began with an introduction to the staff. There is an army of folks needed to put on a tournament of this size and I was surprised at how many support folks were on staff.

The first speaker was the event director and he gave a rousing speech about the tournament. Some of his points were:

- This is the first major poker tournament ever held in Mississippi

- The start of the tournament was scheduled to coincide with the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. As a result, there will be large media attention. Don't be surprised to hear about it on CNN.

- The location and/or weather have not scared away any players. The Beau Rivage held a block of 400 rooms for the event and they filled those rooms two months ago without any significant cancellations. Organizers expect every event to have 600+ entrants and the final main event should attract over 1000 players.

- The Beau Rivage spent $50 million on its property since the hurricane and this event is the culmination of that incredible effort and dedication.

- There are 120 dealers, that will be working two shifts: the Day Shift, which will generally go from 11 am to 8 pm and the Swing Shift, which is from 7 to whenever. There is no Grave Yard shift, so the Swing dealers will pick up the slack and sometimes deal until 5 am. I was hoping to be on the Day shift, but instead I am on Swing. This means I will be sleeping during the day and working most of the nights. Good thing my bed is comfortable.

- I received my MS Gaming Card, my employee badge, my tournament rules and regulations packet today. It appears that as long as I don't get drunk and act crazy, I will be fine. Will not be a problem for me!

To be honest, I am a bit nervous. I am fairly confident that I am a good dealer, but the tournament is going to be extremely taxing, with possibly 16-hour days, and mostly at night. Also, because I am working late, I will be closing up tournaments, rather than starting them. The players will be cranky and belligerent if their chance to win gets derailed by a lousy dealer.

The reason for the long shifts is that despite 120 dealers, we are about 40 short of what we needed for the event. More money for us, but also less sleep!

I will also be dealing more of what they call "live games", where the chips represent real money instead of tournament chips. The players all play these live games whenever they get knocked out of the tournament events. these live games are short, usually lasting about 90 minutues.

Anyway, I am off to take a nap and start getting ready for tomorrow.


A few last notes:

- "mspokerdealer" means Mississippi Poker Dealer, not Miss Poker Dealer. Sorry for the confusion, although everyone I sent this link to understands that I am a guy. Hello.

- I was encouraged to buy a fanny pack to keep tokes (tips) in while I deal. I have always kidded people for wearing these in the past, so now I guess I'll be buying a minivan and start wearing black knee socks with my shorts!

Uniforms, badges, library cards

There is not a computer room in the hotel, and cell phone reception is spotty at best. So, in order for me to continue this blog, I have done the next best thing...I got a library card! The Harrison County library system was also hit very hard by the storm, destroying four of its six libraries. But, two remain and two more have sprung back to life in the form of air-conditioned, internet-ready trailers.

There will be reading in this town or else!

This morning was the first official bit of business of getting my setup to be a temporary casino employee. Here are a few quick notes:

- My roommate still has not shown up and it is possible that he has cancelled. I heard that the World Series of Poker is in direct competition with the World Poker Tour (they are operated by two separate casino groups) and that dealers at the WSOP were strongly encouraged NOT to participate in this event. Instead, many of them signed up but then switched to the WSOP satellite tournament that is currently going on in Tunica. This could be good news, though. Less dealers means more work for me!

- I have learned that dealers are given certain shifts to work. The Day Shift is 10:30 am to 6:30 pm and likely pays the least. The Swing Shift is from 6:30 pm to 2:30 am and likely pays the most. The Grave Shift is from 2:30 am to 10:30 am and I would likely die. Most of the more experienced dealers will get the Swing shift, so I am worried about where I will be assigned tomorrow.

- I got my gaming card, my casino badge (I look goofy, as usual), and my uniform. The uniform system is very slick. They give you three gold, silk shirts and you can check them out from an automated holding facility any time of day or night. So, I do not have to leave the casino with my work shirts and they are automatically cleaned for me every few days.

- Late last night I went to the poker room and donated a little to the local economy in a negative way. Although "bad beat" stories are boring, boring, boring, my one bad beat of the night was when I had pocket cowboys (kings) cracked (beaten) by a fellow who walked up to the table and was dealt bullets (pocket aces) on his first hand. I guess that's a reminder of why I am a dealer and not a gambler!


Tonight there is a 5:00 impromptu dealer meeting. So far, the dealers I have met have been very nice, coming from all over the US, mostly from Las Vegas, to deal this event. Why would casino employees leave their jobs temporarily to work a tournament in MS? Because tournaments can be VERY lucrative for a dealer!

Biloxi Blues

Now, that I am at the tournament, I would be remiss if I did not mention the state of post-Katrina Biloxi.


Biloxi Damage

I have been to New Orleans since the hurricane and although the devastation of the Ninth Ward is still starkly evident, at least the Big Easy itself seems well on the way to recovery. Truly, walking around downtown Nawlins at night hardly seems different than before.

But Biloxi is decades from reaching it's pre-hurricane prosperity. Over a year later, and the recovery, although evident, still seems hopelessly slow. As you drive down the coastline, you are met with miles of empty foundations of the stately antebellum homes that were swept away by the storm.

There are signs of the destruction everywhere...hotels, casinos, restaurants, churches, all gutted by the wind and water. If you stand in the front drive of the Beau Rivage itself, you can see the terrible reminders. There are piers that are unusable, covered only by resting seabirds. And there are the warnings, spray-painted on the sides of shattered buildings, a testament to the desperate hours after the calamity, that say, "We are home. Will shoot. Don't loot" or "Will shoot to kill."






But Biloxi is creeping back to life. There are signs of construction everywhere, mostly from out-of-state entities looking to take advantage of the lowered property values. The gleaming, newly-refurbished casinos are beautiful and they are pumping an increasing stream of revenue into this horrifically impoverished area.

What once was a moral eye-sore in Mississippi is now the only beacon of hope for this coastal town. Biloxi already features seven big casinos: The Beau Rivage, the Grand, the Isle of Capris, the Hard Rock, the Palace, the IP, and Boomtown.


The Beau Rivage

Some people may disagree with having a poker tournament in a brand-new casino with so much debris of the tragedy still lying everywhere. But, working this tournament makes me feel good about my contribution to the local economy. This Gulf Coast Championship is the first major poker tournament for Biloxi since the terrible storm.

It is a symbol of what people can overcome.

The Schedule

I will be driving to Biloxi on Sunday and my first task will be to find a roommate. The Beau Rivage is putting all of the dealers up in a Best Western that is directly across the street from the Casino. So, for two weeks I'll be sharing a room with another out-of-town dealer.

Hopefully he'll be clean!

On Monday, I will be getting photographed for my employee badge, will meet with the Mississippi Gaming Commission to get my dealer's card, and will be fitted with my dealer's uniform (likely a silk, short-sleeved poker shirt).

On Tuesday, we have the dealer orientation, where we should learn all of the specifics for the tournament, such as blinds schedule, number of raises per round, blinds rules, stub count frequency, down length, etc.

Here is a schedule of events:

World Poker Tour “Gulf Coast Poker Championship”

August 29, 2007 - September 9, 2007

$500+40 Mega Satellites for Championship Event every day at 4pm

$175+25 Second Chance Tournaments Every Night 7pm

Aug. 29 Wednesday 12noon Satellites begin
Aug. 30 Thursday 12noon No-Limit Hold-em $300 + $30
Aug. 31 Friday 12noon No-Limit Hold-em $500 + $40
Sept. 1 Saturday 12noon No-Limit Hold-em $500 + $50
Sept. 2 Sunday 12noon No-Limit Hold-em $500 + $50
Sept. 3 Monday 12noon No-Limit Hold-em $300 + $40
Sept. 4 Tuesday 12noon No-Limit Hold-em $300 + $40
Sept. 5 Wednesday 12noon Mega Satellite $1000 + $60
Sept. 5 Wednesday 4pm Mega Satellite $500 + $40
Sept. 5 Wednesday 7pm Mega Satellite $1000 + $60
Sept. 6 Thursday 2pm WPT No-Limit Hold-em Championship $9,700 + $300
Sept. 7 Friday 12noon Day two Championship Event
Sept. 8 Saturday 11am Ladies No-Limit Hold-em $200 + $30
Sept. 8 Saturday 12noon Day three of Championship Event
Sept. 9 Sunday WPT Filming Final Day of Championship Event

Note: $500 + $50 means that a player pays $550 to play, with no rebuys, and that $500 goes into the prize pool, while $50 goes to the casino (and ostensibly a little to me!)

By the way, the final day of the event is only one table with six players. Although I think it'd be a blast to deal this table, I am certain I will not. I am one of 150 dealers and only 4 or 5 get to deal the championship table on Sunday.

The tournament homepage can be found here.

The Background

"Shuffle up and deal."

Those are the words that tug on the heart-strings of the degenerate gambler.

Like "Play ball!", "Gentlemen, start your engines!", and "Let's get ready to rumble!", the words at the start of a poker tournament fill players and dealers alike with anticipation, excitement, and fear.

That will be MY world during the next two weeks.

I am a poker dealer. And I will be dealing for a World Poker Tour event in Biloxi, MS called the Gulf Coast Poker Championship. It will be held at the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino and will feature ten events with entry fees ranging from $300 to $10,000 per entrant.

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I became a croupier about three years ago in Atlanta, GA. True, there is no legal gambling in the bible-thumping state of Georgia, but that doesn't stop the daily enterprise of corporate casino nights, charity poker tournaments, and the inimitable home game.

I have dealt cards all over. I've dealt in a church with an open bar (gotta love those Catholics), for a bar mitzvah full of kids so hopped-up on sugar that they tried to steal my cards, in the tent-covered, insect-filled grass of a college campus, in a garage next to an oil-dripping car engine on saw-horses, at a strip-club employee party where the strippers brought their families, and in the penthouse of the most expensive hotel in Atlanta.

I have dealt to students, movie stars, pro-athletes, church-ladies, cops, rappers, firemen, lawyers, swingers, doctors, fraternities, sororities, and even my grandmother.

What I have NOT done is dealt in a real casino. Until now.

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Dealing cards is basically a fun past-time for me. I have a regular job as a technical writer and office manager at the corporate headquarters of a mega-transportation company in Atlanta. I do not have aspirations of moving to some casino town and being a full-time dealer. But I am a perfectionist and I wanted to see if I could muster up to the challenge of dealing to the highest level of poker players.

After sending out a few feelers, I was invited to deal for the 2007 World Series of Poker. However, the dealers are required to spend TWO MONTHS in Las Vegas and my day job simply wouldn't allow it. So this is the next best thing.

Over the next few weeks I am going to attempt to tell this tale here. I say "attempt" as I am not sure if I will have the time or energy to make daily posts.

But we'll just see, won't we?