I knew a dealer that always counted his quarters to make sure he didn't have any odd to give the cage when they cashed him out.

He must have been great fun to work with.

He was kind of fun to work with. Once I caught him wearing headphones in the box because he wanted to listen to his golf instructional tapes. Later he became a prop and ended up quitting because one of the regulars raised too often.

I had to put my quarters in rolls to cash them out.

the poker palace dealing gig is now 2 hours a day. They have a single tourney. No cash game except friday night. $2 blind nl with a $40 buyin. I live in the area and occasionally play the tournament when I'm boored.

interestingly YTF's dream job is my nightmare. All my dealing has been in Vegas (and NLV). I have worked small rooms, big rooms, locals joints, tourist joints and every combination thereof.

The worst jobs for me are small locals rooms where there is 1 or two games. The problem is that I tend to hate the routine of dealing hour after hour day after day to the same people sitting in the same seats saying the same stupid ****.

In a large room I see the player for 30 minutes a day. I can tolerate just about anyone for 30 minutes.

The best job I had was a 10 table room constantly busy .... had lots of business. I knew the playes as they were all regulars .... but still had enough players that I didn't have to deal all day to the same exact players. Management was laid back and most of the players were too. All the dealers were making mney so every one was happy (its amazing how when business started to go bad and the money was drying up how the dealers start to change)

Yikes. We always just took them to the cage to run them. Of course I still know that a rake will hold one quarter short of a roll.

Speaking of quarters, I was locked in, dealing 1-5 stud heads up to 2 drunks (one of whom was the dealer coming in the morning to relieve me). They both ran out of chips at the same time, but they both had a slot bucket full of quarters on the table. So they dumped out their buckets, ands I was now dealing heads up 1-5 stud, being played with quarters, counted out by drunks.

Our room manager walked up to 3 or 4 of us chatting one day and said he was asking for approval to spread 7 stud with a 10 cent ante. I knew he was joking but no one else got it right away. Finally he expalined it would put silver in the dealer banks and it dawned on the others how bad an idea that was.

At 6 PM on Monday nights, I was tasked with phoning Mickey at home, to tell him what side we needed in the Monday Night Football game that was about to kick off. We had the following conversation each week:

MICKEY: Hello?

ME: Hey Mickey, it's Bobby.

MICKEY: So, who we need?

ME: Same as every week, Mick. If it comes "favorite and over", we lose a lot. If it comes anything else, we win a little.

MICKEY: What? How can that be? (remember, this would surprise him every single week). Didn't you move the line?

ME: I've got the highest spread and the highest total in town, by a full point each. But I can't stop them from parlaying "favorite and over".

MICKEY: Look, there are four possible outcomes. Fav/over, fav/under, dog/over, dog/under. Now, there should be two of those that win for us, and two that lose for us.

ME: I don't know how you come up with that, Mick. Ideally, we should win on all four, and if you just look at our straight bets, we would! But parlays just aren't as manageable, you can't balance parlays when everyone is predisposed to bet fav/over.

MICKEY: (sees the game starting on his tv) OK, I've got to go, but we'll talk about this later!

ME: (thinking, "I took this ultra-low-paying job to learn this business, and *I'm* teaching *them* more than they're teaching me!") OK, have a good night, sir.

Finally, about halfway through the season, two juggernaut teams met on MNF, I forget who, but it was a huge marquee matchup, the line was pick-em, and the total was 42.

MICKEY: Hello?

ME: Hey, Mick.

MICKEY: (reluctantly, knowing we're about to argue again) Who do we need?

ME: We're perfectly balanced. No matter how it turns out, we win about $X.

MICKEY: (stunned) Really???

ME: That's what I've been trying to tell you all season. This game had no favorite, so the parlays stayed in line.

MICKEY: (still shocked) OK, great, I guess.

After that, he never argued about this with me again.

It could have been worse. My old boss Jay Kornegay's first year running the IP Race/Sportsbook was 1998, the year the Yankees won about 115 games, the Astros and Braves won over 100 each, the Padres almost did too with 98 wins...and if that isn't bad enough, the fire-sale Marlins lost 108 games, and the Diamondbacks, Tigers, and Devil Rays each came close to losing 100 (97, 97, and 99, respectively).

The sportsbooks were getting KILLED at a rate that no one had ever seen before. We were paying out six-teamers like we were giving out candy. Day after day after day, we'd get absolutely demolished by parlay play (the deadliest kind when they hit), and there was nothing we could do about it. Maddux should be -210 today, we'll make him -240 because we know he's going to be on every parlay ticket we write, but it doesn't stop anybody.

(Besides the teams I mentioned, I should add that Clemens won 20 for Toronto that year; Pedro won 19 for BOS, and Aaron Sele threw in 19 more for TEX)

I don't mean it went on for a week or two, I'm talking MONTHS. And it doesn't happen once a week, like football, it happens every single day. Like the Poker Palace, the IP was privately owned by one guy, and Jay was the one who had to upstairs and explain to the owner why the sportsbook was a gushing hemorrhage of money that summer. You've never seen body language behind the counter like you did that summer.


That saddens me for some reason.

Then again, it was 1993 when I worked there, all those regular players I knew are probably dead now.

^^^Two good LOLs there.

The first time I played stud in a casino was in Reno, $1-3 spread limit stud/8 with a 10-cent ante. 1992.

Agree completely. I quit one of those gigs because the monotony was just mindnumbing (and the money kept getting worse).

Coming in every day and starting up a 20 dollar "tournament" for the same collection of 12 people.

Push into the cash game (3/6 all day every day naturally) and deal to the same old nits nitting it up like nits can nit (Some because they've been thrown out of every other casino).

Awmahgod shoot me.



Really been enjoying YTF's sportsbook stories btw.

The first time I played stud was in the Peppermill in Reno in 1991. 1 to 4 spread with a quarter ante.

Thanks.

For anyone who hasn't seen it (or cares to), here's my Magnum Opus of sportsbook stories, my Q&A session in 2+2's Sports Betting forum, from 2007. It's a long, long thread.

http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...fpart=all&vc=1

Has anyone ever met a poker player who didn't think they know more about running the board, what games to start, and how to to seat players than the poker staff?

LOL, I absolutely love dealing small rooms, and for exactly the same reason

In a big room, I can never really get to know my players, but in a small room they're literally like family to me. But by the same token, everyone has a few family members they could do without on occasion, too


q/q

This is absolutely hilarious.

Have any of you as poker dealers ever dealt to the upper echelon of poker pro's ? I am not really referring to the WSOP tourney .Outside of that tourney, have you had the fortune / misfortune to deal with that elite group of players in a regular ring game ?
Do they come across the same way in person as we see them on TV ?

I've met Greg Raymer several times, he knows my "true identity" FWIW. He's a very nice person. He had a couple of boxes of his T shirts left over after the last River tournament at WInStar and he gave them to the dealers.

I met Gavin Smith and he was pleasant but I didn't deal to him.

I dealt to Michael Mizrachi and felted him in a tournament when his small flush met a boat. He shrugged it off and headed to the cash games. he didn't whine or bemoan his fate, he took it like an adult.

These players are like everyne else. Most are good people, others not so nice.

Although not regular cash games, I've dealt to them in "celebrity" tournaments for charity where the amount of money at stake isn't the point and all I have ever dealt to have conducted themselves in a positive manner.

I did manage to make Seidel laugh when I told him that I didn't want to make him nervous but I did have him in a 5 dollar last longer bet against Jesus.

"That's a bad bet. You should try and sell that off."

I'v dealt to Neil Channing and Vicky Coren. I'v played against Willie Tann and Roland De Wolfe, all were awesome, Roland + Neil had hilarious stories

Never.
How about answering the phone and getting tourney questions:

Caller: You have tourneys?
Me: We do. At noon, three and seven o'clock, they are all $60 buy ins.
C: Noon huh? What's the buy in?
Me: $60
C: What about the 3:00?
Me: All of our tournaments are $60.
C: Really? Ok. What time does the 3:00 tourney start?
Me: Right at 3:00. We start on time.
C: How many players will there be?
Me: It depends but we'll usually have XXX players tonight.
C: What if I'm late?
Me: Well, we may have seats left but I can't guarantee that.
C: But I'll only be a little late, can you hold me a seat?
Me: Sorry, but we can't do that.
C: Pleeeeeeas...
Me: I'm sorry...
C: What will the payouts be?
Me: It will depend on how many players there are. More players, more prize pool.
C: OK, so the noon tournament, how much is that?
Me: $60
C: So...how many chips you get?
Me: 10,000
C: How long are the blinds?
Me: 20 minutes
C: So if you get 4 tables, what does 1st place get?
Me: 45% of the prize pool.
C: How much is that?
Me: I don't know yet because the tournament starts is 4 hours and I have no idea how many players will be in it. Figure about $xxxx
C: So you don't know how much the prize pool is?

BOOOM! Head explodes all over podium at 8:00AM.

I think i've dealt to everyone you can think of from all the known TV pros....ones that stand out that are/were especially awesome/nice/friendly/funny : barry g, johnny chan, viffer, eli elezra, mimi, elky, mike & rob miz, cindy violette, jeff lisrando, jamie gold, ted forrest, greg m, even men the master..... others come off better than they do on tv which always makes me laugh that some posters "hate" some players of have such strong opinions based on their persona that they have seen on a few shows when they have never met them....but others like you can imagine, are real nasty pieces of **** not nice to name names though.

[QUOTE=juanez;26904602]Never.
How about answering the phone and getting tourney questions:

Caller: You have tourneys?
Me: We do. At noon, three and seven o'clock, they are all $60 buy ins.
C: Noon huh? What's the buy in?
Me: $60
C: What about the 3:00?
Me: All of our tournaments are $60.
C: Really? Ok. What time does the 3:00 tourney start?
Me: Right at 3:00. We start on time.
C: How many players will there be?
Me: It depends but we'll usually have XXX players tonight.
C: What if I'm late?
Me: Well, we may have seats left but I can't guarantee that.
C: But I'll only be a little late, can you hold me a seat?
Me: Sorry, but we can't do that.
C: Pleeeeeeas...
Me: I'm sorry...
C: What will the payouts be?
Me: It will depend on how many players there are. More players, more prize pool.
C: OK, so the noon tournament, how much is that?
Me: $60
C: So...how many chips you get?
Me: 10,000
C: How long are the blinds?
Me: 20 minutes
C: So if you get 4 tables, what does 1st place get?
Me: 45% of the prize pool.
C: How much is that?
Me: I don't know yet because the tournament starts is 4 hours and I have no idea how many players will be in it. Figure about $xxxx
C: So you don't know how much the prize pool is?
ME: I know someone who can answer all these questions for you, Hold on..
Howard Camping: welcome to open forum.......

FYP

"How many chips do you get?"

I love that one. TEN MILLION!

Good thing they didn't ask that the blinds start at 4Million-8Million...

"How many chips do you get?"
"The same as all the other players, I assure you."

I answered the phone once. Guy asked if we would be spreading 10/20 limit that evening.

"yes, if we get enough players to open the table."

"How many is enough?"

"It's up to the players, if they want to play heads up and we have a table and dealer, we'll spread the game."

Several more questions concerning the possibility of spreading the game which were all answered the same way. "If we have enough players, we'll spread the game."

Finally, the guy said "So what you're saying is, you won't spread the game tonight, right?"

i giggle a lot when i check in at my cardroom and the guy at the podium is on the phone for a long time. i only get his side of the convo, but i'm pretty sure i can fill in the other side.

good evening, poker room.
yes we have 1/2...
2 tables...
about 15 names on the list...
i don't know. depends on when players leave...
yes we have 3/6...
3 tables...
about 10 names...
i don't know...
yes we have 2/4...
2 tables...
about 10 names...
i don't know...
ok, John F for 1/2, 3/6, and 4/8. see you in an hour.

admittedly tho, tournament questions are even worse