From the Dealer's Box: My First Job and Holidays

by xxrod17xx on 12/26/07

Catch-Up!

First off, I want to apologize for not keeping you guys up to date during basically the most important time of my poker dealing career. During the tournament I was so tired I just went to sleep when I got home. During the Holidays I went home to my parent’s house and forgot my wireless adapter and I didn't have the internet for over a week I almost died lol. I finally can browse the interwebs so here it goes...

I left everyone off with me being 100% sure I was failing my Borgata drug test and I got the "on-call" dealing position at the Showboat. Things ended up turning out very differently than I had expected. About a day or two after I finished dealing the WSOP at Harrah's (I will get to that in a bit) I got a call from the Borgata asking when I wanted to go in for orientation and what hours I can work. Really?! Shhhhhweeeeetttt! Then I went in to get processed for the Showboat which essentially is filling out a bunch of bullshit paper work, taking a pick for your I.D. and a drug test, it takes like 10 minutes. I go in and the lady sits me down and tells me she doesn't have my paperwork so I can't get processed. WTF! I call the Showboat and after a few minutes we realize that I was just taken out of dealer's school and went to this audition I never applied for it. I applied online right away and that takes a few days (which goes into the holiday) and I expect a call from them to go in and get processed within a day or so.

WSOP Circuit at Harrah's

All I knew going into this job was to be there at 11:30 and where I was suppose to go, that is it. When I got there it was madness. The first event was a $300+40 with over 900 players including alternates. There were people everywhere, dealers didn't know what to do and we didn't get pushed for over an hour (normally dealers should move tables every 30 minutes). That was essentially the theme of the day: madness.

I didn't make any mistakes besides flipping over a few cards during the pitch, but I saw and heard the floor being called all over the place. It seemed often times it was because dealers were burning and turning before the action was complete. This is probably one of the bigger mistakes that a dealer can make because you change the cards up a bit. This could really piss the players off.

Oops!

A few days in everything was going really smoothly and I was loving my job then I did the worst thing a dealer can do. A player moved in UTG. His cards were in front of his chips and he pushed his chips in which pushed his cards in really far. Everyone folded super fast so I had like 8 cards to scoop up behind him and I accidentally mucked his cards as well. He goes, "Where the fuck are my cards?" I didn’t even realize I grabbed his cards. Essentially, since nobody called his bet yet all he had to do was call the BB and his hand is dead...he got the rest back. I know he has to protect his hand, but I have to pay attention.

Good Tables vs. Bad Tables

I know I don't have much experience dealing yet but I have a good idea of how this job is going to be. There are some tables that all the people are fun and you can converse and just have a good time and your 30 minutes fly by and I can't think of a better thing I could be doing. Then there are the bad tables. Nobody talks, they criticize everything I did and made me feel like a piece of crap. This is when I can't think of any job that is worse that I could be doing. That comes with working with the public though, oh well. I just don't know the exact procedures I need to do for every situation and people didn't like it, fuck them..lol!

The best table I had was with these two kids who clearly played a lot on Stars. One of you guys finished 3rd in the 2nd 1k event so holla at me if you read this. They were just joking around and they were cool with me talking at the table and stuff it was a good time. I had a number of tables like this, but a lot of the fun people were much older than me I felt like I related to these kids a bit more.

All in all this was an awesome experience and hopefully a lucrative one. I go for my first paycheck today. First thing I am buying is a TV that is actually bigger than my computer monitor lol!

Holidays

I hope everyone had a great holiday. I have to say this was probably the best Christmas I have had in years. Minus the fact that my Grandmother passed away and was not there my entire family was. It was the first time we all got together in a long time and it was just fun. The coolest thing I got for Christmas was an Xbox 360, but just a few days before my little brothers 360 fried out and I left it at home so he can use it until Microsoft replaces his. Basically he is one of the best Guitar Hero players in the world so he has to keep up with his scores and stuff and he just sent out his PS2 to get modded so he can play custom Guitar Hero songs on that (if you guys understand all that).

Professionalism

In my last blog I talked about how much better the Borgata is than all the other casinos in Atlantic City. This will be more of the same. We are about 3 weeks outside the Winter Poker Open and they had all the dealers come for orientation. I learned everything I need to know today...not when I got to the tourney, not three days in, I learned everything in advance. This tournament will be better run than the WSOP at Harrah's I guarantee! There will still be brand new "break in" dealers but the tournaments will be ran better overall. So be patient with new dealers and help them out be making them feel comfortable because most of the mistakes they will be making is because of nerves.

New Year's Resolutions

Here are mine:

Shorter showers
Less procrastination (thus finding more time to play poker)
Make lots of monies
Get benefits at work

As for poker:

Be playing 200NL by this time next year
Be playing somewhere around 6-8 tables as a norm
Supplement my income playing poker
Continue sticking with good BR management

And just as a joke because these pics are my ID pics from Harrahs and the Borgata I will post them. They are so bad I look like I was on “To Catch a Predator” and EdmondDantes insisted I post them for the LOL factor. I will probably post a normal picture of myself in the future or just make it my avatar I don’t know.

I guess you could tell who I am by those pics, so if you are playing the Borgata events holla at me. Happy Holidays and have a great New Year!

6 Comments

Comments

Chris Hansen (Anonymous) says

What is going through your mind, xxrodxx17? Did you think cutting your hair, putting on a bow tie and getting a job in a casino would make it all okay? Well, you're free to go now, but the local authorities may be contacting you...

12/26/07