Saturday, July 22, 2006

Overtime

Apparently when you piss off enough employees it eventually comes back to haunt you. They originally hired about 900 dealers for the World Series of Poker and are down to 550 after the most recent round of walk-outs and firings.

Yesterday was the 2000 dollar buy-in event which had "only" 2050 players.. However, they had about 20 dealers call-in sick and didn't have enough to start with, so we ended up with Chip Runners and Managers dealing for the first 2 hours with no breaks. Of course, as soon as the 12 PM tournnament started breaking down they had live cash games starting, satellite's, a 3 PM tournament, a 5 PM tournament, a 7 PM tournament, a dinner break, etc. So I ended up dealing 6 straight hours (as did almost everyone else) without a break and worked 11 hours with only 2 short 15 minute breaks. I didn't realize how tired I could get dealing poker... now I do!

Lucky for me I have Saturday off so I can recover. A good nights sleep and now I am off to look for a real job after the series if over. I have a few leads on some... I just hope one pans out.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Quick Update

Sorry for the long delay in updates... It has been hectic crazy lately. The world series is... well going. Highlights so far.

- first paycheck was less than half what everyone expected, so huge uproar from the dealers.
- second paycheck was even worse... So a bunch quit.
- Another 100 or so walked out in the middle of the shift and demanded to see the boss.
- A decision that paying everyone by hours worked, while being unable to control what everyone did or where they did it at, encouraged people to clock in and hide for 8 hours. So the hourly pay was scrapped, and it went back to paying you for how much you worked (novel concept I know)

So that has been quite the excitement... the money isn't as good as expected. However, $30 an hour or so isn't exactly slave wages. If I had to pay travel expenses, etc I might be a little more upset.

I have been playing some no-limit in my spare time. I am discovering that unlike limit when I do something stupid it is VERY expensive. I have to work on my decision making process and thinking through everything. It has been a painful learning experience to say the least, but I am learning and growing in that... it will also help my tournament play.

It is very nice to be able to relax and know the paychecks are coming in to pay the bills... Not to mention as of the 17th the house is officially sold! So that makes life much more relaxed.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Welcome to the club

It has been just over a week at the World Series of Poker and I feel like I am officially in the "club". The first few days were really easy.. 4/8, 2/5 no-limit, 225 dollar buy-in 200 person tourneys. Nothing special at all. The last 3 days however... they were something else. It definately stepped up to a new level. Saturday I was in the $2500 buy-in 6 handed no-limit tournament and had just about everyone at my tables. Gavin Smith, Daniel Negreanu, Kathy Liebert, Reigning world champion Joe Hachem, and many more. Sunday I was in the live section and got the row of Pot-limit Omaha from 5/10 to 25/50 PLO and a couple of Chinese Poker tables. Monday I figured it couldn't get any worse... PLO Hi/Low is about as tough as it gets, pots getting up to 4000-5000 dollars and pot, repot...ick. Monday started out well. 2/5 No-limit, 5/10 no-limit, chinese poker, a break. I come back from break and the idiot Dealer Coordinator has sent someone who just came in to my table! So I go talk to him and he says "oh, go on break and then push 162 at 5 till the hour". Well I just came OFF break, but whatever... then I look and 162 is 400/800 mixed with 2-7 triple draw, Badugi, and Omaha Hi/Lo. Oh shit... followed by 75/150 Omaha Hi/Lo, and then 50/100 Stud Hi/Lo for 2 tables and finishing with 50/100 limit!

I got to find out just how good I really was... Angry players, playing for thousands of dollars, and me with my few weeks of experience. It turned out to be really smooth, all the players treated me well (even though I heard they were NOT so nice to other players... so maybe I am doing more right than I expected). Then, to top it off with this murder's row... I push into the first table and the cash box is $100 down. So I have to call the floor over which starts a chain reaction of people coming by going "Really?" All of the chips should add up to a static $800 in the hi-limit section and this one was exactly 700. I think the poor guy who was there before me got fired for it... I am really glad I counted that box over his shoulder and did everything exactly right. It would be a really bad time to get lazy (which is what I think he did) and not count it.