Day 20-21: Weekend Warrior

On most weekends, the WSOP is having one $1,500 and one $1,000 buy-in tournament.  They call it their "Weekend Warrior" schedule, and they put these tournaments on weekends because they are the most popular with the masses.

On Saturday, I dealt the $1,500 No-Limit Hold 'em tournament.  They didn't have enough dealers for pushing early on so I dealt at my first table for the first 90 minutes of the tournament until the 1PM shift had started.  Neil Channing was at my first table.  I had heard his name and knew he was British, but I had no idea what he looked like, and I only knew it was him from his ID and tournament ticket.  Anyway, the guy was hilarious.  He had the whole table cracking up the whole time I was dealing there.

I actually didn't get a break until 3:30, which was fine with me since the game is so easy to deal.  At about 4:45 Jimmy, who is one of the dealer coordinators, started asking everyone if they wanted to stay or leave.  The place was absolutely packed; they had been moving other tournaments around and delaying the starts, so I naturally thought he was asking if I wanted to stay late.  I would have, but I drove Matt to work and he can't drive manual.  So I figured that I couldn't stay late and told Jimmy that I'd leave.  Apparently, they had so many dealers working Saturday that some of them needed work, so Jimmy was asking who wanted to leave early.  So that sucked.  Instead of thirteen downs I had to settle for ten.  It ended up being okay.  I was so tired I went to bed at 9:00 and slept for eleven hours!

Sunday was the $1,000 No-Limit Hold 'em and I got to work hoping for another 10-13 down shift.  Unfortunately, Amy started giving out assignments with dealers whose last names start with C, so I was right at the bottom of the list.  I didn't get a starting table, and had to wait around until the first push at 12:30.  To make matters worse, Amy sent me to a table in the cash section.  I dealt the tournament for a whole ten minutes before they broke my table, and told me to stay there because they were starting a cash game at my table.  So I spent the day dealing $1/$3 and $2/$5 No-Limit Hold 'em cash, which is better than the pit, but sucks a lot more than dealing tournaments.  There is a lot more tension and pressure in cash, and a lot more to keep track of.  I ended by dealing $20/$40 Limit Omaha High/Low, $5/$10 Pot-Limit Omaha with a mandatory $25 button straddle, and $5/$5 Pot-Limit Omaha.  Lousy way to close the day, but I can honestly say that I am much more comfortable dealing cash than I was at the start of the series!

Tomorrow's tournament is a Pot-Limit Omaha tournament.  I haven't made up my mind yet whether I want to do the tournament or try to deal satellites.  I'm near the top of tomorrow's alphabet, so I might actually have a choice.