Lost Episode 16: Event #38, $1500 NL Holdem

It was yet another big field, no-limit holdem Saturday event with over 2700 players. Unlike last week, today there are not enough dealers to start the event. I don't know if a bunch of dealers have been let go, no-showed, or called in sick, but there are at least three floor persons in the box dealing in my general area. I would far rather work than sit, so it's not a big deal at all to me, but I ended up dealing five consecutive downs at the same table and ten in all before my first break. I really don't understand why the staffing doesn't seem to fit more closely to the tournament needs. I know that the exact count of players and number of tables may be hard to predict, but for these events that have been purposely scheduled (low buy-in no-limit holdem) on Saturdays to permit capacity crowds, it seems like they should easily be able to plan and schedule dealers to within plus or minus 5% of their actual needs. Instead, my experience this year has been that we are either wildly overstaffed or drastically understaffed most of the time and, inexplicably, its pretty rare that we are near what I would consider a norm.

I recognized Alexander Borteh at my early table. He won a bracelet in an earlier limit holdem event and also has some television exposure. During one of the downs, I pushed onto a table that had a very recognizable face, Lance Funston. This gentleman got a lot of television exposure when he cashed in the 2005 US Poker Championship at the Trump Plaza. Apparently, he made a lot of money as a CEO of a communications tech company and had just caught the poker bug weeks before the 2005 event. He had been coached some by Brian Halverson (who owns the company developing dealer-less automated poker tables - Boo!), but was so raw to the game that he reportedly called the floor to ask whether a straight beats a flush. During the TV coverage, he comically bets "two green chips, and four black chips" as if he is so naive as to not know their values and tangles with some table banter, busting a couple of top professional players. He seemed to play nearly every hand during my down, but he was charming and having a great time with the other players seated at the table. You could tell that his natural charisma had gotten him quite far in life and maybe he hadn't quite mastered the game of poker but was truly enjoying the experience. I had a blast just being a quiet observer while dealing this down and when I was pushed out, he stopped me, saying "James, I want to add to your retirement fund." So, I came back by his side of the table and he handed me a $20 toke, my first ever tip during a tournament event.

I just missed Erica Shoenberg, debatably the most attractive poker player alive. After my break, the table I would have pushed into had already broken and it was the last in a line, so I checked with the dealer coordinator and was sent to another area of the same tournament for four more downs. On one of these tables, I had a very attractive player who was quite active and aggressive. During a player break, I checked the registration cards in the dealer tray and found her name to be Veronica Dabul. An Internet query showed that she was a professional backgammon champion from Argentina, but has had a little poker tournament success as well.

In this area, I dealt to Rick Tocchet, a National Hockey League All-Star most often associated with the Philadelphia Flyers. He had most recently been an assistant coach with the Phoenix Coyotes, but was on suspension by the league for his being under indictment for participating in a gambling ring. Later on, the news picked up on the fact that he was participating in the WSOP, a legal venture of course, and questioned whether that was the smartest thing considering his circumstances. It was pretty high profile in the news because Janet Gretsky (who also played in the WSOP main event) was also involved.