The Grind

My first week as a WSOP dealer is in the books.  So, how do I feel?  Well, that runs the gamut.  On the one hand, I am so grateful to be a part of this great event.  This is such a great opportunity to learn and improve, and I have met some truly wonderful dealers who have become mentors, supporters and above all, friends.  If I take nothing else away from this experience, at least I know I have come away with more friends then I came into this with.

I also feel sore, tired, at times frustrated at my lack of experience.  Sitting at a poker table dealing for several hours at a time is grueling.  It might seem from the layperson that I just sit and toss cards at you, but just the act of sitting there, bending, twisting and for me with my lack of experience, intensely focusing on the game is draining.  Couple that with my trying to adjust to life working a job that frequently has me coming home at 3:30 in the morning and having a son that is frequently up at 8 in the morning and by day 3 I was starting to get pretty punchy.  I have a difficult time sleeping already, so when I am woken up at 7:30 or 8 in the morning, it is unlikely I'm going back to sleep so the result is about 3 or 4 hours of sleep at best.  That being said, Melissa's schedule has changed a little bit and I have made a request to my boss to switch to a morning shift because of kid issues.

So anyway, what have I been doing?  Well, day one I pushed into a NLHE event for my first ever down and after 3 hands the floorman came over and broke my table.  So my first ever down of dealing poker was quickly followed by my first ever table break.  This would become a theme.  Next I got moved into a mega-satellite event.  Three tables were set aside for it.  I sat down at the last table, set up everything and.....waited.  And waited...Tables 1 and 2 start playing poker.  I sit.  I'm starting to wonder if I've done something wrong.  Finally I get tapped out and head over to the next table and deal two downs before rolling off the end and into break.  Come back, sit down at my original last table which is now hopping and deal about 15 minutes before floor comes over and breaks my table up.  Back to setting up decks and putting stuff away, and I get shipped to satellites.  I have come to enjoy satellites.  Worked two and scraped a decent toke out of it, then got cut loose.  First day, pretty good.  Spent a lot of time getting to know the break room, but that was a good way to "ease in".

Second day I'm scheduled to show up at 5 instead of 6.  Me and about 30 of my colleagues show up to find out that well, actually the schedule is screwed up and we should have been scheduled for 6.  About a dozen of us get assignments right away and the rest of us chill in the break room until the 6 o'clock meeting.  I choose to go deal satellites and make my way over to that area.... to find a list 14 dealers deep waiting for assignment.  Oh boy.  I mill about for about an hour when the live supervisor rolls in looking for dealers.  She asks for volunteers.  The dozen of us left all sit on our hands and avoid eye contact.  Seeing she's not going to get anyone to volunteer, she points at four of us and off we go to deal live action games...

Now, a little information about live action games.  In live action, there are a few very different things.  First is, I gotta deal with cash.  Paper cash, a dealer bank, rakes.  All of these things are like land mines.  It makes an otherwise easy task of dealing a game more difficult because now you have a dozen things you can screw up, any of which will at best cost you money personally and at worst could cost you your job.  After some gnashing of teeth I push into my first live game, a 1-3 NLHE table.  Phew, at least it's a game I have some experience dealing.  I set about trying to count the well, but I can't make sense out of how the previous dealer set it up, and I've got 10 guys staring at me who want to play poker.  Shit.  Okay, one hundred, four eight, two hundred twenty, wait what are those 5 dollar chips over there... umm, 5, 7... ugh.. Starting over... one hundred, two four si,  screw it.  Shuffle, shuffle, box, shuffle.. Hope my previous dealer didn't just screw me.  Now since I'm so nervous about trying to stay ahead of things that could end my career my mechanics are breaking down.  My pitch sucks, I'm bouncing cards off chips, the button, other players hands.  Jesus, Paul, get a grip!  Oh, rake.. ummm, 4 players in, bets were 5 each, great I gotta make change. Drag a red out, start making change...  Oh, they're ready for the turn card... Tap, burn turn, call the action.  Look down and hey, what's this red chip doing here?  Oh yeah, lets see, I need two bucks, so, oh wait, the flop action!  What's the pot now?  Errr, let me think, there was a bet, a call.....  Damn, river time.  tap burn turn, screw it, red goes to the slide, hope I'm right.

This goes on just like this for the rest of the down.  I am mercifully tapped out on time and jet on to the next table, which is a 1-2 NLHE table.. Phew, no big change there.  This down I'm getting a little better at this and manage to get through the five table, 2 and a half hour push without significant incident.  At the last table there's a reminder to go to table 192 (from table 270, the last table of live action).  I hop up and on my way to the break room I slide by 192 only to discover that its in the high limit area, aka the ubiquitous "snake pit".  I feel like feigning an injury.  Then I realize the table is open face Chinese poker.  Oh, good, I don't have to think.  All I do is pitch cards and collect rake.  Oh, rake?  Time rake.  Crap, what's that?  Checking with a nearby equally not busy dealer I get the skinny on how that works, and head in to the break room for chicken and a pop while I await zero hour, which comes quickly.  I shove into the table, say my greetings and away we go.  Simple.  No problems at all.  Tapout comes a few minutes late and I scoot to the next table.  Same thing, same deal.  Easy.  Only one problem.  One hand of open face Chinese poker can take a little while, so now my tapout is about 10 minutes late, which I really don't care about.  Doesn't bother me.  Move to the next table and sit down and start dealing MORE Chinese poker.  About 5 minutes later the time clerk comes by, eyeballs my table and mentions that time hasn't been taken yet.  Hmmm... That's odd.  Okay, guys.  Time.  the requisite amount of cash shows up and I rack it up.  Clerk comes by and approves it and down it goes into the black hole.  Shuffle shuffle box shuffle, pitch pitch pitch, wait....Do this for about 15 minutes and "DING DING, dealers please collect time".  I am in the middle of a hand, so I don't mention anything.  Time clerk comes by a few minutes later, asks if I've collected time.  Before I get a chance to answer the table goes ape. "No way we're paying time again, we just PAID time, we're not paying it again, go get your supervisor".  Time clerk looks at his notes and states that the last time collected was for the 1am rake, bell just went off for 1:30am, pay up.  They're having none of it.  I meanwhile just KNOW I'm about to get railroaded.  Remarkably, no one is turning their ire to me.  Floor asked if I collected time for 1 am.  "No sir, I wasn't seated here at 1, I got here at 1:10 and learned that time hadn't been collected when the time clerk mentioned it at which time I collected rake".  Back to the players; "you paid your 1am time at 1:20, this is the 1:30 time, please pay time".  Still holding their ground, so floor retreats and orders me to continue dealing, which I happily do.  After a time I get tapped out and find myself pushing into a 7 card stud hi/lo game with a table full of people who look like they've been playing poker longer then I've been alive.  I no sooner start pitching cards to this motley crew when at my previous table arrive the time clerk, two floors and a security person.  I'm half listening but gather then they went back and reviewed the tape.  Indeed, it went down like I said, they missed the 1am rake, which was paid at 1:22, then it was up again at 1:30.  Table responds by everyone leaving.  Meanwhile, I can't seem to get my head around how sloppy these guys are playing stud and mucked someone's up card that was, quite literally, in the middle of the player to his rights discards.  FLOOR!  Oh, the 1 seat was having none of that and made an attempt to dig into the muck cards to retrieve the 4 of diamonds he knew to be the up card (I knew it too, but I wasn't going to tell the table that, or they'd get even more persistent that I just dig into the muck and get the card, a maneuver that would surely see me get yanked for the table and possible my job.  I tell him that under no circumstances am I allowed to go into nor allow anyone to go into the muck.  Now, I'm left handed, so my hand is resting on the muck.  Dude in seat 1 persists, at one point attempting to physically remove my hand from the muck pile and gain access to the cards beneath.  I seriously consider backhanding him for touching me but before I complete my thought the floorman mercifully appears.  I explain what happened, the table agrees the upcard was a 4d, floor person retrieves the card and we play on.  Remarkably, the table became very friendly with me after that.  Guess it's true what the veterans said, if you take command of the table, the table won't try to run you over.  Ran the rest of that without problem, went to a couple more hold'em tables and get tapped out at the break table with instructions to go see my coordinator.  She informs me that I've got a write up about the time thing and go find the floor person.  I go and confer what exactly happened; a conversation that went remarkably easily and the floor was very understanding.  Once the story was straight we both went back to the DC and straightened it out, which still left me with a demerit, but a much less severe one.  C'est le vie.  I survived a full day of dealing live and, apparently, still had a job.  I go home after 9 and a half hours and collapse in a heap for my 4 hours of sleep.

Next day I pick tournaments and push into a NLHE event, which after about 3 hands goes on dinner break for an hour and a half, so I get to babysit an empty table.  An hour of that, off to break, back and deal two downs of actual poker.  Push into the third and immediately notice the next table I'd go do is breaking.  Uh oh.  I look at the player who just got moved to my table with 3 racks of chips and wonder how long those are going to stay out of racks.  Answer came less then 5 minutes later when I'm high carding the table break. Rack dude chuckles.  I shrug and apologize.  After setting everything out and returning the equipment I'm shoved to, you guessed it, live action.  Belly up to the bar and immediately get shipped off to a row of tables.  I arrive to find a plaque talking about 5-10 "Big-O".  Ummmm... I've only ever heard of this game.  Found a dealer, "hey, what's the deal with this "Big-O" nonsense?  Pot limit omaha hi/lo with 5 cards.  Great.  Mind you, by this time I'm so tired I can't think straight.  Now I have to deal POT LIMIT, high/low and 5 cards.  Predictably, I think I was able to read maybe 1 hand the whole thing.  Players were way ahead of me and effectively telling me how to split the pot.  All I wanted to do was get in my car and drive off a bridge drive to my nice comfy bed.  I left the room feeling like I didn't know a goddamn thing about how to deal poker.  In retrospect, I was so tired and worn out, I didn't have a chance.  Mercifully, the next day I was off.  After some conferring with some senior experienced dealers I felt a lot better about my performance.

Tuesday was great.  I dealt satellites all evening long.  Only thing that sucked was the last one I dealt took over 3 hours.  down to 3 players and it turned into a laundromat.  Shuffle-shuffle-box-shuffle, deal, raise, fold, fold, drop deck, shove, button, shuffle-shuffle-box-shuffle, rinse, repeat.  After about a half hour of this they finally decided to chop.  I'm silently thanking the Gods as about 15 minutes prior I got a cramp in my hip which was KILLING me.  Clock out, go home, sleep the sleep of the dead....

for 4 hours.

At least today I was off.  Back at it tomorrow.  In talking with the vets, it seems there a lot more work then there was last year, and far as I can tell we're already running into dealer staffing issues, as everyone is already on 6 day work weeks.  I haven't worked this hard since I was working security, running pizzas, going to school and seeing a girl in Aurora all at the same time!