On Monday, I dealt the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha triple chance tournament. Another tourney with lammers. I actually had a difficult decision between working the tournament or single table satellites. I ended up choosing the tournament because it's more guaranteed money. I would need some nice tips after the satellites to get the kind of money that I get from 10-12 tournament downs.
On the first day of the WSOP Matt showed me a dealer dealing satellites named Carl. Carl is a really nice older man, but he is a painfully slow and imprecise dealer and it's his third year at the series! He made me feel a lot better about myself. Carl was the next dealer after me, and pushing me all day. The tournament got a little screwed up because people were getting eliminated quickly and a lot of tables were breaking. Consequently, a new player at my table tried to cash in one of his lammers and I didn't have chips to give him. I told the table that his lammer was in play for 1,500 chips and one other player's lammer was not. I passed that news on to Carl and went on break. Matt and I were cracking up, imagining Carl screwing it all up. Fortunately they found Carl some chips pretty quickly, so he didn't have to deal with the problem long.
Eric Mizrachi was the biggest name that I dealt to all day. I did a good job keeping track of the pot, but it sure gets exhausting. On my last down of the day, one player made one of the weirdest plays I have ever seen. Both players involved had a ton of chips in front of them when the hand began. The blinds were 150/300 and the first player, a young kid, raised to 900. He got called by the button before a middle aged man who lives in New York, but is from Israel, potted it from the big blind to 3,750 and the young guy called. The flop was Q♥ 4♠ 2♠ and the Israeli guy moved all-in for 8,200. I was trying to figure out if the bet was legal; I was pretty sure that it was bigger than the pot, but I was tired and nobody objected, so I let it go. The young kid said that he definitely had the worst hand, but that he thought he would win. He called and flipped over 7♦ 6♣ 3♥ 2♣ for bottom pair. What a ridiculously bad hand for him to call off most of his chips! The Israeli guy had a big hand and big draw with A♠ A♣ Q♠ 3♦. The turn was the 5♠ to make a flush for the Israeli and end it right there. He took most of the young guy's chips.
I'm a couple days behind on updates, but I need to get to bed. I'm meeting my uncle Mick for breakfast at the Rio tomorrow morning before my shift, so I need to get up early. I'll try to post tomorrow night about hanging with Paul and Amy Tuesday and the poker we played, and about my $2,500 6-handed tournament on Wednesday.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Day 17-19: EO and Pot-Limit Hold 'em
On Wednesday, I showed up to work at 9:30AM, but Amanda, the dealer coordinator, hadn't received my shift change form, so she had no idea that I was coming. She sent the other six dealers on the shift to work single table satellites, which was the assignment that I was hoping for. She didn't have any more satellite spots available, so she tried to get me onto the mega satellite that had started earlier. But they broke the table as I was going to push in, so I was sent to cash again. When I found out that I was going to cash I put my name on the EO (Early Off) list. I had a deadspread first (no players to deal to) and then moved to $5/$10 Big-O High/Low again. I actually did okay there, but I was still happy to get my EO after leaving the table.
I went home and watched "The Fighter" with my roommates Matt and Marc. Good movie. Then Marc and I went to Green Valley Ranch to play in the HORSE tournament. There were 29 players and it paid five. I bubbled in 6th, but Marc took it down! I was doing great, but on the final table I couldn't catch a break. I called a raise in Stud Hi/Low with Q♣ [6♣ 5♣] and caught the 4♥ and 2♥ to have a beautiful low draw and dangerous high draw with two cards to come. The low draw was especially nice because nobody had more than one card under my six on their board, and I hadn't seen any threes yet at all. Sixth and seventh streets came 10♦ and 9♣ to totally bust my hand, and cost me most of my stack.
Later, I had A♠ 2♥ 4♠ K♦ in Omaha High/Low and I raised. The board came 8♠ 5♦ 4♥ 2♣ on the turn, counterfeiting my great low draw, so I folded to the substantial action. The 3♦ hit the river, which would have made me the nut low, and nobody had an ace which would have quartered me. I was pissed even though I had made the right play. Someone else had 7-6 for a higher straight so I hadn't thrown away the whole pot at least. Marc busted me out on the next hand when I raised for the rest of my chips on his big blind with A♦ 4♥ 6♥ K♦, but the board came high and gave Marc a full house. He felt pretty bad about it, but I told him not to sweat it.
On Thursday, I dealt the $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold 'em event. I got a great draw, Table 7, which guaranteed that I would deal the tournament all day! Of course it happened in a Pot-Limit event, which is exhausting to deal, but I was happy anyway because I would always rather deal tournaments than cash. My first table had Antonio Esfandiari on it and he seemed like a really nice guy. A couple players at the table asked for his autograph and he granted both of their requests enthusiastically. Dean Hamrick and Steve Gee, bracelet winner at the 2010 WSOP, and the pro who came to our dealer fundraiser tournament in Sacramento, were at the table as well. Rough draw for the other six guys!
Later I dealt to Bradley Craig, who in 2009 was down to 400 chips on day one of the Main Event and came back to finish in 50th place. I also bad beat Nicolay Evdakov out of the tournament. He had Q-Q against A-9 and I put out a board of A-9-4-A-J. I also dealt to James Carroll and Alessio Isaia. I only knew Isaia because I saw his picture after getting home later, but he had a mountain of chips.
One funny thing happened early in the tournament. The blinds were 25/50 and three players limped in. Another player then raised to 225. Then a younger guy slid his entire stack of 4,500 chips forward, attempting to move all-in. I announced the amount of the bet as 900; remember this is Pot-Limit! The first raiser laughed and said to him, "You signed up for the wrong tournament, dude!" The table got a good laugh out of it and the young guy laughed too and said "I forgot we were playing Pot-Limit." I ended up dealing 13 downs, which was three more than my previous high! I was pretty stoked because we earn $15-$20 a down on top of our normal hourly rate. Pretty sweet day.
I'm off today, so Matt and I went to the breakfast buffet at South Point, and then to Spinnetis, which is a gaming supply store. They have tons of cards, chips, tables, and other things for pretty cheap. I'm probably just going to relax the rest of the day. It sounds like a nice change. The weekend will be busy at work. Saturday is another $1,500 No-Limit and Sunday is another $1,000 No-Limit. We should see a couple of giant fields again. Monday is $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha, which will be exhausting no doubt. I'm off Tuesday, when Paul and Amy will be out here. Paul and I are planning to crush the $75 Orleans tournament!
I went home and watched "The Fighter" with my roommates Matt and Marc. Good movie. Then Marc and I went to Green Valley Ranch to play in the HORSE tournament. There were 29 players and it paid five. I bubbled in 6th, but Marc took it down! I was doing great, but on the final table I couldn't catch a break. I called a raise in Stud Hi/Low with Q♣ [6♣ 5♣] and caught the 4♥ and 2♥ to have a beautiful low draw and dangerous high draw with two cards to come. The low draw was especially nice because nobody had more than one card under my six on their board, and I hadn't seen any threes yet at all. Sixth and seventh streets came 10♦ and 9♣ to totally bust my hand, and cost me most of my stack.
Later, I had A♠ 2♥ 4♠ K♦ in Omaha High/Low and I raised. The board came 8♠ 5♦ 4♥ 2♣ on the turn, counterfeiting my great low draw, so I folded to the substantial action. The 3♦ hit the river, which would have made me the nut low, and nobody had an ace which would have quartered me. I was pissed even though I had made the right play. Someone else had 7-6 for a higher straight so I hadn't thrown away the whole pot at least. Marc busted me out on the next hand when I raised for the rest of my chips on his big blind with A♦ 4♥ 6♥ K♦, but the board came high and gave Marc a full house. He felt pretty bad about it, but I told him not to sweat it.
On Thursday, I dealt the $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold 'em event. I got a great draw, Table 7, which guaranteed that I would deal the tournament all day! Of course it happened in a Pot-Limit event, which is exhausting to deal, but I was happy anyway because I would always rather deal tournaments than cash. My first table had Antonio Esfandiari on it and he seemed like a really nice guy. A couple players at the table asked for his autograph and he granted both of their requests enthusiastically. Dean Hamrick and Steve Gee, bracelet winner at the 2010 WSOP, and the pro who came to our dealer fundraiser tournament in Sacramento, were at the table as well. Rough draw for the other six guys!
Later I dealt to Bradley Craig, who in 2009 was down to 400 chips on day one of the Main Event and came back to finish in 50th place. I also bad beat Nicolay Evdakov out of the tournament. He had Q-Q against A-9 and I put out a board of A-9-4-A-J. I also dealt to James Carroll and Alessio Isaia. I only knew Isaia because I saw his picture after getting home later, but he had a mountain of chips.
One funny thing happened early in the tournament. The blinds were 25/50 and three players limped in. Another player then raised to 225. Then a younger guy slid his entire stack of 4,500 chips forward, attempting to move all-in. I announced the amount of the bet as 900; remember this is Pot-Limit! The first raiser laughed and said to him, "You signed up for the wrong tournament, dude!" The table got a good laugh out of it and the young guy laughed too and said "I forgot we were playing Pot-Limit." I ended up dealing 13 downs, which was three more than my previous high! I was pretty stoked because we earn $15-$20 a down on top of our normal hourly rate. Pretty sweet day.
I'm off today, so Matt and I went to the breakfast buffet at South Point, and then to Spinnetis, which is a gaming supply store. They have tons of cards, chips, tables, and other things for pretty cheap. I'm probably just going to relax the rest of the day. It sounds like a nice change. The weekend will be busy at work. Saturday is another $1,500 No-Limit and Sunday is another $1,000 No-Limit. We should see a couple of giant fields again. Monday is $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha, which will be exhausting no doubt. I'm off Tuesday, when Paul and Amy will be out here. Paul and I are planning to crush the $75 Orleans tournament!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Day 16: Back in the Pit
Tuesday was the $1,500 buy-in Triple Chance No Limit Hold 'em tournament. Players get 1,500 chips and two lammers worth 1,500 chips each. Most players just cash the lammers in right away to start w/ 4,500 chips, but some players kept the lammers, started w/ 1,500 chips, and used the lammers after busting out.
My first table had Faraz Jaka, who was the WPT player of the year in 2010. Andrew Black was also at that table and he is a funny guy. I also dealt to James Mackey in the tournament and he looks really young. While I was on break, they broke my row of tables, so I was sent to cash again. Boooo.
Much to my chagrin, I was sent to the high limit pit again. I dealt $75/$150 Stud-8 and got stiffed again. I also dealt $25/$50 PLO w/ a $100 button straddle and $75/$150 Omaha-8 again. I also dealt $10/$25 No Limit Hold 'em. Jamie Gold and Andrew Robl were at the Hold 'em table and Gold gave me my biggest tip of the day, $5 for a fairly small pot. Needless to say, I was rooting for him to win more pots, but he only won the one pot while I was dealing. One player at the table lost all of the approximately $30,000 in front of him on a board of Q-6-4-2-7. He had 2-2 for trips, but his opponent had 5-3 offsuit for a straight.
I work at 9:30AM tomorrow instead of 11AM, because Wednesday is the day that I swapped for to get out of working last Saturday. I'll probably get stuck in cash again, but hopefully I'll be working satellites or something else instead.
My first table had Faraz Jaka, who was the WPT player of the year in 2010. Andrew Black was also at that table and he is a funny guy. I also dealt to James Mackey in the tournament and he looks really young. While I was on break, they broke my row of tables, so I was sent to cash again. Boooo.
Much to my chagrin, I was sent to the high limit pit again. I dealt $75/$150 Stud-8 and got stiffed again. I also dealt $25/$50 PLO w/ a $100 button straddle and $75/$150 Omaha-8 again. I also dealt $10/$25 No Limit Hold 'em. Jamie Gold and Andrew Robl were at the Hold 'em table and Gold gave me my biggest tip of the day, $5 for a fairly small pot. Needless to say, I was rooting for him to win more pots, but he only won the one pot while I was dealing. One player at the table lost all of the approximately $30,000 in front of him on a board of Q-6-4-2-7. He had 2-2 for trips, but his opponent had 5-3 offsuit for a straight.
I work at 9:30AM tomorrow instead of 11AM, because Wednesday is the day that I swapped for to get out of working last Saturday. I'll probably get stuck in cash again, but hopefully I'll be working satellites or something else instead.
Day 13-15: Wedding and Lots More Poker
On Saturday morning I got up at 5:00 to fly back to Sacramento for Sean and Natalie's wedding. Jessica picked me up at the airport and we drove up to Lake Tahoe. The wedding was at 3:00PM, the buffet was at 5:00, and the reception was at 7:00. We had a lot of fun, but we had to leave the reception early to drive back to Sacramento. A few hours of sleep later, I was boarding another plane to fly back to Vegas.
Matt and I had both volunteered to work Sunday, so I had just enough time to shower and eat breakfast before heading to the Rio. Sunday was Day 1B of the $1,000 No Limit Hold 'em event and the Rio was jammed with players. There were an insane number of dealers at the morning meeting, and Amy used almost everybody to open up the tournament which started at 12:00PM. Somehow my name hadn't made it onto her list (Matt's did and we were right next to each other on the sign up sheet), so I had to wait until 12:30 to push onto my first table. Amy tried to hook me up by getting me to push into an area where the tables wouldn't break for a long time. Breaking a table means the tournament coordinator shuts down the table and all the players get new seat assignments to replace eliminated players. This shrinks the number of tables in play, while keeping the tables in play as full as possible. Unfortunately, they decided to break tables in my area anyway. I had dealt six straight tables (three hours straight in the box) and was about to finally go on my break when they broke my table. So I went to Amy to get a new assignment and hopefully a break first, but she needed three dealers to go to cash immediately and sent me over to Armani, the cash game dealer coordinator.
Armani needed me to step in immediately, and to make matters worse, I was sent to the high limit area. The dealers all call this area the pit, and the players in high limit are notoriously awful tippers. They also have a reputation for being rude and impatient with dealers. Great! They were starting a new game, so at least the $500 till was easy to count! The floor man unlocked the till and walked away. I had no idea what to do! The players were still getting chips and figuring out who was higher on the list for the game, but some looked at me impatiently and told me to get the game started. I didn't even know what game to deal! One of the players told me that it was $75/$150 Limit Omaha High/Low Split and I started dealing.
Having never dealt a high limit game, I was a little lost for a bit. New players were joining the game, and others were leaving almost every hand. Players were tabling their hands after the river and calling for the pot, or half of it, before I could even read their hand. It probably didn't help that I was pretty exhausted from not having a break in over three hours and also being short on sleep over the last couple of days. When I was finally pushed, I sat down into another table of the same game. I was getting the hang of it, so that down wasn't as bad as the last one, but I was sure happy to get my break after getting pushed again!
I dealt a $25/$50 Pot-Limit Omaha with a mandatory $100 button straddle after my break. A button straddle is a blind raise by the player on the button. Action starts with the SB (small blind) instead of the player under the gun. J.C. Tran was in the game and won quite a few of the pots. One player lost his whole stack of around $4,000 in my first hand at the table. Yikes!
I moved after that to a table where the dealer was just sitting with the deck spread in front of him. There were a few people there, but they were just talking. Turns out, one player was playing heads-up with a guy who was out smoking. I was happy that he came back though because they had missed their rake. Players in the high limit games pay somewhere between $7 and $9 every half hour for their seat. When the guy came back, his opponent slid a stack of about ten red chips worth $5 each, and told me to take $18 for the rake and keep the rest. And since the time rake was due again before my down was over, the smoker passed me another stack of reds right before my down ended and asked me to repeat the procedure. I must have made $65 on that table in tips!
From there I went to a $75/$150 Seven Card Stud Hi/Low Split table where I dealt to Karina Jett. I only got $4 on that down, which is pretty awful. Apparently, the Stud players are the worst tippers of them all. But I was still pretty happy about the previous table, so it didn't bother me much. After another Limit Omaha Hi/Low table I finally got to go home for the day.
Monday was the $1,500 6-handed No Limit Hold 'em tournament at 12:00 which had 1,920 entrants. With only six players per table, that was a lot of tables in play. The cash and satellite tables were non-existent; they needed every table in the house for the tournament! They even compacted tables after players were eliminated and started late registering players at 2:00 on the vacated tables. I was sent to the satellite section to deal, meaning that if my table were to break I would stay and deal satellites. Much better than dealing cash any day! I ended up dealing to John Duthie, Nenad Medic, Mark Seif, Tex Barch, and Scott Seiver. I gave Seiver a brutal bad beat around 4:00 to knock him out of the tournament, and the hand was actually written up on PokerNews.com. Seiver was all-in w/ A-Q and called by A-3. I ran out a board of K-5-2-Q-4 to give his opponent a straight on the river. It was pretty ugly.
A while later, my table finally broke and I got to deal my first single table satellite. I dealt out quite a few bad beats, but nothing overly ridiculous. There was a young kid playing and I knew I didn't want him to win because the internet players tip abysmally. He ended up chopping it with a lady. She threw me $20, he threw me $5. Big surprise. Oh well, at least I didn't get stiffed, which I've heard happens sometimes.
Time to hit the sack; I'm working again tomorrow. The $1,500 Triple Chance No Limit Hold 'em is tomorrow. Hopefully I get to deal it all day!
Matt and I had both volunteered to work Sunday, so I had just enough time to shower and eat breakfast before heading to the Rio. Sunday was Day 1B of the $1,000 No Limit Hold 'em event and the Rio was jammed with players. There were an insane number of dealers at the morning meeting, and Amy used almost everybody to open up the tournament which started at 12:00PM. Somehow my name hadn't made it onto her list (Matt's did and we were right next to each other on the sign up sheet), so I had to wait until 12:30 to push onto my first table. Amy tried to hook me up by getting me to push into an area where the tables wouldn't break for a long time. Breaking a table means the tournament coordinator shuts down the table and all the players get new seat assignments to replace eliminated players. This shrinks the number of tables in play, while keeping the tables in play as full as possible. Unfortunately, they decided to break tables in my area anyway. I had dealt six straight tables (three hours straight in the box) and was about to finally go on my break when they broke my table. So I went to Amy to get a new assignment and hopefully a break first, but she needed three dealers to go to cash immediately and sent me over to Armani, the cash game dealer coordinator.
Armani needed me to step in immediately, and to make matters worse, I was sent to the high limit area. The dealers all call this area the pit, and the players in high limit are notoriously awful tippers. They also have a reputation for being rude and impatient with dealers. Great! They were starting a new game, so at least the $500 till was easy to count! The floor man unlocked the till and walked away. I had no idea what to do! The players were still getting chips and figuring out who was higher on the list for the game, but some looked at me impatiently and told me to get the game started. I didn't even know what game to deal! One of the players told me that it was $75/$150 Limit Omaha High/Low Split and I started dealing.
Having never dealt a high limit game, I was a little lost for a bit. New players were joining the game, and others were leaving almost every hand. Players were tabling their hands after the river and calling for the pot, or half of it, before I could even read their hand. It probably didn't help that I was pretty exhausted from not having a break in over three hours and also being short on sleep over the last couple of days. When I was finally pushed, I sat down into another table of the same game. I was getting the hang of it, so that down wasn't as bad as the last one, but I was sure happy to get my break after getting pushed again!
I dealt a $25/$50 Pot-Limit Omaha with a mandatory $100 button straddle after my break. A button straddle is a blind raise by the player on the button. Action starts with the SB (small blind) instead of the player under the gun. J.C. Tran was in the game and won quite a few of the pots. One player lost his whole stack of around $4,000 in my first hand at the table. Yikes!
I moved after that to a table where the dealer was just sitting with the deck spread in front of him. There were a few people there, but they were just talking. Turns out, one player was playing heads-up with a guy who was out smoking. I was happy that he came back though because they had missed their rake. Players in the high limit games pay somewhere between $7 and $9 every half hour for their seat. When the guy came back, his opponent slid a stack of about ten red chips worth $5 each, and told me to take $18 for the rake and keep the rest. And since the time rake was due again before my down was over, the smoker passed me another stack of reds right before my down ended and asked me to repeat the procedure. I must have made $65 on that table in tips!
From there I went to a $75/$150 Seven Card Stud Hi/Low Split table where I dealt to Karina Jett. I only got $4 on that down, which is pretty awful. Apparently, the Stud players are the worst tippers of them all. But I was still pretty happy about the previous table, so it didn't bother me much. After another Limit Omaha Hi/Low table I finally got to go home for the day.
Monday was the $1,500 6-handed No Limit Hold 'em tournament at 12:00 which had 1,920 entrants. With only six players per table, that was a lot of tables in play. The cash and satellite tables were non-existent; they needed every table in the house for the tournament! They even compacted tables after players were eliminated and started late registering players at 2:00 on the vacated tables. I was sent to the satellite section to deal, meaning that if my table were to break I would stay and deal satellites. Much better than dealing cash any day! I ended up dealing to John Duthie, Nenad Medic, Mark Seif, Tex Barch, and Scott Seiver. I gave Seiver a brutal bad beat around 4:00 to knock him out of the tournament, and the hand was actually written up on PokerNews.com. Seiver was all-in w/ A-Q and called by A-3. I ran out a board of K-5-2-Q-4 to give his opponent a straight on the river. It was pretty ugly.
A while later, my table finally broke and I got to deal my first single table satellite. I dealt out quite a few bad beats, but nothing overly ridiculous. There was a young kid playing and I knew I didn't want him to win because the internet players tip abysmally. He ended up chopping it with a lady. She threw me $20, he threw me $5. Big surprise. Oh well, at least I didn't get stiffed, which I've heard happens sometimes.
Time to hit the sack; I'm working again tomorrow. The $1,500 Triple Chance No Limit Hold 'em is tomorrow. Hopefully I get to deal it all day!
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Day 11 and 12 - A couple of crazy days
Today I found out that I've been switched to the day shift, so my shifts are now 11AM-7PM, which is awesome! My off days were Sunday and Wednesday, but I needed Saturday off to go to Sean's wedding. I can't miss it; I'm the best man! Almost everybody is working Saturday, so finding somebody off was going to be a job in itself. The good news is that I eventually found a guy who wanted to work Saturday and needs Wednesday off, so that works perfectly. The only difference is that I work at 9:30AM on Wednesday instead of 11.
Getting that squared away took a long time and I thought I had missed the Moneymaker v. Farha matchup of the WSOP grudge matches. But when I walked up to the huge stage in the Amazon Room, which looks like a UFO by the way, it was empty. I walked outside and was walking behind a guy and his wife toward the bathroom. He turned to go into the bathroom and I saw that it was Chris Moneymaker! He was still in the bathroom when I came out so I asked his wife if Chris was playing Sammy in the UFO. She looked pretty confused for a minute, but she realized what I meant and said yes, so I went back to the UFO to wait.
I sat down behind Patrik Antonius and asked him who had won the earlier match between Chan and Hellmuth. He said that he didn't know and took a phone call right after answering me. I wonder if he was actually talking to anybody or just wanted me not to bother him.
Anyway, he left soon afterwards to stand with Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan, and Bobby Baldwin as they announced that the 2012 WSOP will contain a $1,000,000 buy-in event that they are planning to play in. Apparently Tony G, Daniel Negreanu, and Andy Beal are all playing in it as well. Crazy that anybody can risk that much money playing in a poker tournament!
A few minutes later, after I had moved into the front row, a middle aged man sat down on my left. Turns out, he is a longtime buddy of Sam Farha. We struck up a conversation about Farha. His buddy said that Sammy had a complete disregard for money, which makes sense at the stakes he plays. Sammy has been a multi-millionaire, broke, and back up again at least twenty times. Also, I knew that Chris Moneymaker had offered to split the money before their heads-up match commenced in 2003 and that Sammy turned it down. His buddy told me that Sammy turned it down partly because he was $1.2M down at blackjack and he wanted a larger profit.
I was fairly indifferent to who won the first match of the 2-out-of-3, but I was pulling a bit for Moneymaker since he started with the chip lead. I thought that if Sammy won the first match, it might be a landslide. Sammy got all-in in the first match with A-10 against Chris' A-8, but Chris hit an 8 on the turn to win it. I walked out to go to the bathroom and ended up walking with Farha. He seemed pretty put out (obviously). I told him that he played it perfectly, Chris got lucky, and since he had the chiplead for Round 2, this round was his. Sammy replied that he was happy with his play so far, then turned to me with a smile and said thanks.
Sammy outplayed Chris badly in Round 2, but lost the chiplead when Chris called his all-in w/ A-J on a K-6-6 flop. Sammy had 9-4 for a bare flush draw and missed, but the call was pretty bad. Sammy came over and told his buddy, "Eight years later and he still plays bad! He's so smart, he says he put me on a flush draw. If I have two live cards and a flush draw, I'm a favorite." He was pretty irritated and his buddy and I told him to keep outplaying Chris and the cards will turn around. Sammy took the chiplead back and ended up shoving A-7 on a 7-6-6 flop against Chris' 8-8. He hit an A on the river to win round two and finally get lucky against Chris.
In round three they started with equal stacks and Sammy took a significant chiplead again. He simply was winning the big pots and losing the more frequent, but much smaller pots. Then they got all-in on a flop of J-10-2. Sammy had J-10 and Chris had J-2 for an inferior two pair. Unbelievably, a 2 hit the river to double Chris into a large chiplead. Chris took it down a while later and Sammy came over again and said that he was happy because he'd played well. So that whole experience was pretty surreal.
Today I dealt the $1,500 Limit Hold 'em tournament and I dealt to Daniel Negreanu, Ted Forrest, Jennifer Harman, 'Minneapolis' Jim Meehan, and a couple of other players that I've seen before, but couldn't name. I was feeling a lot more confident and only made a couple of small, inconsequential mistakes all day. At Daniel's table, he was talking to Jim Meehan about golf courses in the area and Meehan told him about a course that he likes. Daniel replied that it was too windy. Jim said that he liked that because it was usually about ten degrees cooler there. Daniel said that he doesn't like the cold. I couldn't resist it and said, "I thought you were from Canada." Daniel looked up at me and said, "That's why I left!" It was pretty funny.
I'm flying home in a few hours to go to my buddy Sean's wedding with Jess so I better get some sleep.
Getting that squared away took a long time and I thought I had missed the Moneymaker v. Farha matchup of the WSOP grudge matches. But when I walked up to the huge stage in the Amazon Room, which looks like a UFO by the way, it was empty. I walked outside and was walking behind a guy and his wife toward the bathroom. He turned to go into the bathroom and I saw that it was Chris Moneymaker! He was still in the bathroom when I came out so I asked his wife if Chris was playing Sammy in the UFO. She looked pretty confused for a minute, but she realized what I meant and said yes, so I went back to the UFO to wait.
I sat down behind Patrik Antonius and asked him who had won the earlier match between Chan and Hellmuth. He said that he didn't know and took a phone call right after answering me. I wonder if he was actually talking to anybody or just wanted me not to bother him.
Anyway, he left soon afterwards to stand with Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan, and Bobby Baldwin as they announced that the 2012 WSOP will contain a $1,000,000 buy-in event that they are planning to play in. Apparently Tony G, Daniel Negreanu, and Andy Beal are all playing in it as well. Crazy that anybody can risk that much money playing in a poker tournament!
A few minutes later, after I had moved into the front row, a middle aged man sat down on my left. Turns out, he is a longtime buddy of Sam Farha. We struck up a conversation about Farha. His buddy said that Sammy had a complete disregard for money, which makes sense at the stakes he plays. Sammy has been a multi-millionaire, broke, and back up again at least twenty times. Also, I knew that Chris Moneymaker had offered to split the money before their heads-up match commenced in 2003 and that Sammy turned it down. His buddy told me that Sammy turned it down partly because he was $1.2M down at blackjack and he wanted a larger profit.
I was fairly indifferent to who won the first match of the 2-out-of-3, but I was pulling a bit for Moneymaker since he started with the chip lead. I thought that if Sammy won the first match, it might be a landslide. Sammy got all-in in the first match with A-10 against Chris' A-8, but Chris hit an 8 on the turn to win it. I walked out to go to the bathroom and ended up walking with Farha. He seemed pretty put out (obviously). I told him that he played it perfectly, Chris got lucky, and since he had the chiplead for Round 2, this round was his. Sammy replied that he was happy with his play so far, then turned to me with a smile and said thanks.
Sammy outplayed Chris badly in Round 2, but lost the chiplead when Chris called his all-in w/ A-J on a K-6-6 flop. Sammy had 9-4 for a bare flush draw and missed, but the call was pretty bad. Sammy came over and told his buddy, "Eight years later and he still plays bad! He's so smart, he says he put me on a flush draw. If I have two live cards and a flush draw, I'm a favorite." He was pretty irritated and his buddy and I told him to keep outplaying Chris and the cards will turn around. Sammy took the chiplead back and ended up shoving A-7 on a 7-6-6 flop against Chris' 8-8. He hit an A on the river to win round two and finally get lucky against Chris.
In round three they started with equal stacks and Sammy took a significant chiplead again. He simply was winning the big pots and losing the more frequent, but much smaller pots. Then they got all-in on a flop of J-10-2. Sammy had J-10 and Chris had J-2 for an inferior two pair. Unbelievably, a 2 hit the river to double Chris into a large chiplead. Chris took it down a while later and Sammy came over again and said that he was happy because he'd played well. So that whole experience was pretty surreal.
Today I dealt the $1,500 Limit Hold 'em tournament and I dealt to Daniel Negreanu, Ted Forrest, Jennifer Harman, 'Minneapolis' Jim Meehan, and a couple of other players that I've seen before, but couldn't name. I was feeling a lot more confident and only made a couple of small, inconsequential mistakes all day. At Daniel's table, he was talking to Jim Meehan about golf courses in the area and Meehan told him about a course that he likes. Daniel replied that it was too windy. Jim said that he liked that because it was usually about ten degrees cooler there. Daniel said that he doesn't like the cold. I couldn't resist it and said, "I thought you were from Canada." Daniel looked up at me and said, "That's why I left!" It was pretty funny.
I'm flying home in a few hours to go to my buddy Sean's wedding with Jess so I better get some sleep.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Day 9 &10
I was really exhausted Tuesday morning and I slept until almost 2PM! I went into work again at 4 and there were a TON of dealers starting at 4! Monica read off 64 handpicked dealers to deal the $25K Heads-up tournament, so I didn't get to deal that. She also filled up all the available single table satellite and live action (cash game) spots, and we had 60-70 dealers still left over! I went down to HR and managed to get an ID badge and nametag while I waited, so I can finally prove that I'm an employee.
When I walked back into the break room, Monica was already calling out names and giving out more assignments. I was sent to deal in Event #1 of the WSOP, the $500 entry Casino Employee No Limit Hold 'em Event. I had no idea what the blinds were when I sat down at 6:00 to deal, but a quick look around the table told me that the blinds were already 150/300 with a 25 ante. My first down (downs are 30 minute dealing shifts) was pretty uneventful. Dealers are told to count the stub (the stub is the cards left over after dealing the river card and tells the dealer if there are any cards missing) at least once per down, and when I counted it, the players remarked that I was the first dealer to count it all day. That's pretty bad, considering that the tournament had been running for six hours already!
Overall I was in the box (the box is the term for the dealer's seat at the table) for five downs, but I only dealt for two and a half of those downs. The players were on dinner break for the other two and a half, but I still get paid for these babysitting downs, so that was pretty sweet. I was sent home at 9:00 because they needed to get the 6:00 and 8:00 dealers some downs as well, so I went to rail for my roommate Matt, who was playing in the event.
The event started with 850 players and was down to 120 or so players left when I started watching. Matt had an average 18K stack and was pretty much staying out of the way of the action. Seeing as the tournament paid only 81 players, it's tough to argue with his strategy. When they were down to 100 or so, an older gentleman raised to 3,200 at the 500/1000/100 level. Matt quickly moved all-in. He had been acting methodically all day, and I took this quick action to mean that he was excited about his hand. His opponent called with a shorter stack and Matt showed K-K, which was was ahead of his opponent's 10-10. Unfortunately, there was a 10 on the flop and another 10 on the turn to give the older man four of a kind. To pour a little salt in the wound, a K hit the river. With 92 players left, Matt was in the BB, against the SB and button. The flop came 10-6-3 and the SB bet. Matt shoved his 9K w/ 10-2 and the SB called with Q-10. The turn and river were blanks and Matt was eliminated. Nice run, but a bummer to miss the money for sure.
I also spent some time watching the $25K Heads-up. I watched Gus Hansen, David Benyamine, Tom Dwan, Antonio Esfandiari, Jonathan Duhamel, Justin Bonomo, John Juanda, and Daniel Alaei. I saw Alaei bust Bonomo extremely quickly. I have no idea how the betting went down, but Alaei had K-Q on a board of J-9-3-2-10 to beat Bonomo's 2-2. I also saw Matt Affleck walking around. I'd like to see him have a good series; he received a brutal beat in last year's Main Event when he got all-in on the turn w/ A-A on a board of 10-9-7-Q. Duhamel called for most of his chips w/ J-J and hit an 8 on the river for a straight to knock Affleck out in 15th place.
Not much really happened on Wednesday. Matt and I ran a couple of errands and I played in the $45 HORSE at Green Valley Ranch again. The force was with me not, as I couldn't make a hand to save my life and busted in a little over an hour. Oh well, I was due for a lousy tournament.
Matt and I are both off tomorrow as well, so we're going to watch the WSOP grudge matches in person. Moneymaker vs. Farha should be pretty awesome! We're also hoping to rail the Hellmuth vs. Chan match and cheer obnoxiously for Hellmuth. Maybe we'll get some TV time out of it, since it's being filmed for ESPN!
When I walked back into the break room, Monica was already calling out names and giving out more assignments. I was sent to deal in Event #1 of the WSOP, the $500 entry Casino Employee No Limit Hold 'em Event. I had no idea what the blinds were when I sat down at 6:00 to deal, but a quick look around the table told me that the blinds were already 150/300 with a 25 ante. My first down (downs are 30 minute dealing shifts) was pretty uneventful. Dealers are told to count the stub (the stub is the cards left over after dealing the river card and tells the dealer if there are any cards missing) at least once per down, and when I counted it, the players remarked that I was the first dealer to count it all day. That's pretty bad, considering that the tournament had been running for six hours already!
Overall I was in the box (the box is the term for the dealer's seat at the table) for five downs, but I only dealt for two and a half of those downs. The players were on dinner break for the other two and a half, but I still get paid for these babysitting downs, so that was pretty sweet. I was sent home at 9:00 because they needed to get the 6:00 and 8:00 dealers some downs as well, so I went to rail for my roommate Matt, who was playing in the event.
The event started with 850 players and was down to 120 or so players left when I started watching. Matt had an average 18K stack and was pretty much staying out of the way of the action. Seeing as the tournament paid only 81 players, it's tough to argue with his strategy. When they were down to 100 or so, an older gentleman raised to 3,200 at the 500/1000/100 level. Matt quickly moved all-in. He had been acting methodically all day, and I took this quick action to mean that he was excited about his hand. His opponent called with a shorter stack and Matt showed K-K, which was was ahead of his opponent's 10-10. Unfortunately, there was a 10 on the flop and another 10 on the turn to give the older man four of a kind. To pour a little salt in the wound, a K hit the river. With 92 players left, Matt was in the BB, against the SB and button. The flop came 10-6-3 and the SB bet. Matt shoved his 9K w/ 10-2 and the SB called with Q-10. The turn and river were blanks and Matt was eliminated. Nice run, but a bummer to miss the money for sure.
I also spent some time watching the $25K Heads-up. I watched Gus Hansen, David Benyamine, Tom Dwan, Antonio Esfandiari, Jonathan Duhamel, Justin Bonomo, John Juanda, and Daniel Alaei. I saw Alaei bust Bonomo extremely quickly. I have no idea how the betting went down, but Alaei had K-Q on a board of J-9-3-2-10 to beat Bonomo's 2-2. I also saw Matt Affleck walking around. I'd like to see him have a good series; he received a brutal beat in last year's Main Event when he got all-in on the turn w/ A-A on a board of 10-9-7-Q. Duhamel called for most of his chips w/ J-J and hit an 8 on the river for a straight to knock Affleck out in 15th place.
Not much really happened on Wednesday. Matt and I ran a couple of errands and I played in the $45 HORSE at Green Valley Ranch again. The force was with me not, as I couldn't make a hand to save my life and busted in a little over an hour. Oh well, I was due for a lousy tournament.
Matt and I are both off tomorrow as well, so we're going to watch the WSOP grudge matches in person. Moneymaker vs. Farha should be pretty awesome! We're also hoping to rail the Hellmuth vs. Chan match and cheer obnoxiously for Hellmuth. Maybe we'll get some TV time out of it, since it's being filmed for ESPN!
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