This will probably take me a while to write up, maybe several days, maybe one day. Who knows? It all depends what this winds up being.

Some of you may know me from LLSNL or PG&C. For those of you who don't, here's a brief bio:

54
Former newspaper editor
Left job in April 2014 for a buyout and to take a shot at grinding poker.

Through ups and downs I've survived since then. I've driven for Uber and Lyft at times and recently I began working part-time as a poker dealer.

That allowed me the opportunity to deal at the World Series of Poker this year in Las Vegas. Having heard from other dealers about how much of an opportunity this was, I took it. I got a leave of absence from my part-time job, packed up and boarded a plane on Tuesday, May 23.

I went to work. I went to play. I wound up doing a lot more playing than working.

I had a few days to kill. All I had to do for the job in the first four days was get my Nevada gaming license, which took less than an hour.

That left four days to play poker before I had to attend orientation on Sunday, May 28 for a few hours.

I won't bore you with details, but I put in about 35 hours that first week and was up about $800.

I immediately thought of something a good friend of mine told me before I left: 'You'll play more than you work and you'll come home broke.'

I can't say there weren't times during the trip he was very far off.

I think I'll wrap it up there for now. More to come.

Looking forward to more.

Feel free to ask any questions you want in here and I will do my best to answer them.

Unfortunately, there won't be many pictures in here if any at all. I'll look back at what I have and see what's appropriate and what's not for the thread.

Week 2: Starting work

Sunday afternoon means waking up and sitting through orientation at the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio. As orientation goes, it wasn't awful. The performance by Tenors of Rock, however, was pretty bad. It was clear I wasn't going to see their show while I was in town.

Work didn't start until Wednesday.

I worked three days before having my first day off and things were going well. I started at 8 p.m., which I was told by friends was too late and that I should try to get earlier starts, so I requested that and the request was granted for the second week.

Starting at 8 p.m. at the WSOP meant you either dealt the daily tournament, cash games or satellites.

I did a little of each and it was pretty obvious the cash games were going to be a struggle to make money. This isn't your home casino, where you know everyone and can count on good tips.

A few people said to give satellites a try, that these are where the real money was. So I did. And the money was fine. But they were also pretty hit and miss.

If you don't know, the WSOP runs single-table satellite tournaments that range from $75 (I think that was the lowest) to $1,080 (or something like that). It's winner take all and the winner is paid mostly in lamers. Chops are allowed but the WSOP has NOTHING to do with the chop. The winner is paid and it is up to that person to pay the people he/she is chopping with.

Most of the satellites lasted about 2 hours. Sometimes, you would sit at a dead table for an hour before the tournament even got going. We got paid a base rate for each table we dealt (a whopping $17 in addition to our hourly).

Tips were what they were: They ranged from $5 to $500 (that's the highest I heard anyone got). I will share one tip story here and if you want more just ask and I will try to add another or two.

One night the first week I dealt a $125 satellite. These were the most common level to run.

Three players elected to chop the tournament. Two of the people were very nice. One of them said 'We will each tip the dealer $10.' $30 sounded good to me and I was happy to hear that's what I was going to get. When the money was paid out, two of the players tossed me a $10 bill each. The third player, however, elected to walk away and not tip. One of the players who tipped asked him why he didn't tip the agreed to $10.

His response: 'These dealers are getting paid more than enough. They're making more than we do.'

I saw him around a few times over the next few weeks. Each time I saw him sit at a table, I rooted against him because I knew the other dealers would get stiffed.

I don't want to turn this into a debate on tipping ... People are entitled to do whatever they want when it comes to tipping dealers. Please don't accuse me of feeling 'entitled' to tips. I am not. I gladly accept what I get and say thank you with a smile.

I wound up working about 36 hours the first week and playing about 29 hours. Profit at playing was about $700. Unfortunately, I was about to hit a bit of a downswing and run into some difficulties at work.

Enjoying this so far, keep it going

Well written, will follow.

Thanks for writing this OP. Enjoying it.

Great start; please keep it up. Nice teaser at the end of your last post. Ruh roh...

Hope the summer went ok for you.

Week 3: Too many hours at a poker table?

I had only been a dealer for about 6 weeks before I had the chance to go to Vegas.

I was a part-time dealer at a casino on the East Coast where I worked 3-5 days a week and usually not more than 6 hours in a day.

That's not the way things work at the WSOP. You are given a time when your shift starts and not when it will end. You don't make plans for after work because you could work 8 hours or you could work 14 (fortunately, I never got stuck in a 14-hour shift).

After having a couple of well-placed days off in the first week or so, the schedule became the more normal 1 day off every 7. I wound up working 5 straight days before deciding I would call out to give my back a bit of a rest.

Dealing isn't a hard, physical labor kind of job. Don't get me wrong. But any time you make repetitive motions or actions, it can put a strain on your muscles. Constantly having to lean forward to bring in blinds and antes or push a pot to a player definitely put a strain on the lower back.

This week I concentrated on dealing the main tournaments as I had a 5 p.m. start each day. What this translated to was an awesome first two and a half hours to every shift:

5 p.m. Meeting
5:30 p.m. Sit at first table. Deal for about 15 minutes.
5:45 p.m.-7:15 p.m. Players are on dinner break. Dealers rotate through the string and then play resumes at 7:15.

You rarely got more than four tables in a row in any string before a break. For me, I always seemed to get the four, then wind up on a break at 7:30.

These tournaments wrapped up around 11 each night with the bag and tag portion of the evening, which usually meant dealers got an extra down of pay to simply take the bags of chips to an organizational area in another part of the room.

Brushes with greatness


The first pro I met was Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson.

One of the things they told us at orientation was that players were NOT allowed in the back part of the casino, but that didn't seem to stop most of them, including Ferguson. As I was walking out of work one night, he approached me and asked where the bathroom was. So I gave him directions. I wound up dealing to him another night where I don't think he played a hand in the half hour I was at his table.

I dealt the first night of the Giant and had Mike Sexton at one of my tables. He was pretty quiet. He got involved in one hand where UTG raised and he was next to act and called the raise. Pot goes heads up and the flop is QQT. It checks through. Turn is a J. UTG bets. Sexton tanks and calls. River blank. UTG bets again. Sexton tanks, gives a speech about how he misplayed the hand, and mucks KQ face up. His opponent shows AK for the straight.

A little later in the night as I was on break, Jeff Boski walked by and I said hello and that I was a fan of his vlogs. He asked if I wanted to be in one, but I declined because I wasn't sure how it would be received by my superiors since I was sitting at an active table and in uniform.

I think at one point in the whole time I was there I also dealt to Joe Cada, but ... I'm not positive. I saw other pros and celebrities around the tables as well.

Too tired to play?


Week 2 got off to a good playing start with a decent win at Bally's of $299. But after taking two days off, I was back at it at Flamingo on Friday night as a friend was in town and he was staying there.

I proceeded to go on a wicked downswing of $1,700 ... that included winning $800 in a short two-hour $2/$5 session at the Rio (not the WSOP room). It was the only $2/$5 session of the trip.

Up next: The work-ation turns into a play-cation.

More?

In and spreading the werd to the pen!!

In.

GLGL Chipper!!!!

gl

Nice start Chip

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In.

Thanks to all the subscribers. Promise an update is coming in the next day. Been battling some fatigue (jet lag a week later?).

Updateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Hopefully you turned that $1700 downswing around!!

Week 4: The end is near


Every night at work was a struggle, but none more than what turned out to be the last.

I was struggling due to the lower back pain and it looked like I was about to get to go home. Satellites were dying down and it was already about 4 a.m., reaching the 8-hour mark of the night.

Of course, at the WSOP, 8 hours is merely a guideline.

I get moved from satellites and told to ask the dealer coordinator in cash games if he needs me. So, being a good soldier this night, I do. Why, yes, you can tap into this table in 10 minutes. After all, dealers who started well before me are now on OT and deserve to go home, too, right?

Anyway, I think I dealt cash that night for about 1.5 hours. As I was standing up from the final table, my right leg wilted. I didn't quite fall to the ground, but it was obvious to the floor person who saw it that something wasn't right. He immediately told me to go home and make sure I got the back issue taken care of.

I was off the next night. I probably should have stayed home and rested, but I can do that when I'm dead. There's less stress on the back playing so I went and played.

The pain never subsided for the next few days. Even though I consider myself a writer, I can't really describe the feeling other than a very sharp pain that was accentuated every time I moved in certain ways.

I wake up Monday and things are no better. I pick up the phone and call the dealer callout number. I leave a message, asking for a return phone call. I never hear back.

Tuesday is a repeat. I call, leave the message, ask to get a call back. They don't call.

At this point, I am pretty sure I have reached the max of 5 points ... except that they have only acknowledged 1 point so far. Being new to the business I wasn't exactly sure how things worked. I had signed a piece of paper when I got my first point.

Wednesday, since no one has called me back I get dressed and go to work. I will sign the E.O. (early out) list and pray that I only have to work a few hours. I get to work and sit in the nightly meeting. I ask for satellites and get them. That's good because I can basically work as hard as I want to - I can actually just sit there for 8 hours and not deal a hand if I really wanted to. After my request, the dealer coordinator says 'see me.' I know this is about the points but am hopeful that I still have a job.

Unfortunately, when I go to see her she says: 'You know you have been terminated, right?' Well, no. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have shown up for work and then sat through the meeting if I knew I was no longer employed. So I sign the papers and walk out the door.

I actually sat in the hallway for about an hour trying to decide what to do next. When I left Philadelphia, I didn't book a return flight. I had thought about renting a car and driving from Vegas to Philly. I would have stopped in Denver to see a baseball game and then crossed Wrigley Field off the bucket list.

I had originally planned to use the WSOP as my personal bankroll builder. The estimates of making $12K plus in 6-7 weeks meant I thought I could save about $4K and get back to playing more than working when I returned home.

I wasn't anywhere close to that number. And now I wasn't going to be.

Someone suggested making a call to Planet Hollywood and Venetian to see if I could jump in there with their tournament series going on. With the way my back was feeling, I knew there was no way I could just jump right in to either of those job.

So I decided I would stay in Vegas through Monday and see how playing went. If the back felt better, I would call Planet Hollywood on Monday. Same for Venetian.

I wound up speaking to a few people over the next few days. The back didn't feel much better by Monday. I contacted PH and could probably have gotten hired there to at least make some money. When I crunched the numbers, I decided that even though I might make more there than I could playing, the upside to playing and the downside to dealing and going through the back pain I decided to play.

I just hoped I would run good.

Back to the felt

Things didn't get better quickly after the $1,700ish downswing. I booked two OK wins, then lost about $100 more than I won in those two sessions at the Bellagio.

I booked a very small $24 win at Planet Hollywood, lost a little at Bally's, won at PH. It was up and down as it often is for stretches of time.

My friend and roommate was in town for his annual excursion. He was playing at the Excalibur and I went and met up with him there. I lost again playing $1/$2, then decided to play some $2/$6 spread limit just for the hell of it. That was a lot of fun (and profitable).

He likes to shoot craps so we went to the craps table and I watched him do that for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, people smoke like chimneys at table games. I hate smoke with a passion. Spending too much time almost always makes me sick and this was no different.

The next night was the EPIC Live Low Stakes in Vegas $1/$1 meetup game at the MGM, which featured tons of drinking. We made it a dealer's choice game and allowed each dealer who sat down to deal whatever game they chose. It was a variety of turbo NLHE (I think our clock was 5 seconds IIRC), crazy pineapple and PLO. Since I was in the 1 seat, even though I was getting drunk I spent most of the PLO half hours helping the dealers calculate the pot.

After the night of poker a few of us - Feel Wrath, BiteMeFish, BigSkip, Lapidator and Lapidatrix - decided to get something to eat and headed to Hash House at the Linc.

http://imgur.com/1ZjNJBU


That was my burger and fries. The burger included mashed potatoes. I somehow finished it.

http://imgur.com/n6lEAoQ

Feel Wrath's pancakes were massive as well.

All in all a great night of fun and probably exactly what I needed to head into the grind portion of our trip.

P.S. Not sure why the images didn't show up so I posted them as links. If anyone knows how to get the imgur images in the thread, I will use them in the future.

I also have a couple of videos that I could possibly post in here when they are appropriate if anyone knows how. They are on my phone so I have to figure out how to get them to my computer as well.

There's your pics





You could either upload to youtube or twitter (if short) then embed here, or upload to facebook and link out

Wait is your name Chipper? My name is Chipper.

No. His old screen name used to be ibelieveinchipkelly so people call him Chip.

I enjoyed the trip report! Very detailed. More pictures and video would be appreciated.