Soft Opening at the Gold Strike

I found out yesterday that I am going to be working swing shifts. I had indicated no preference on the sign-in sheet at the dealer meeting, and I learned that they needed a few more on swing than days, so that's where I ended up being assigned. I worked day shift at both the Rio and Beau, so this will be good to experience the late hour action. Generally, I think the cash games are better at night, but it is easier to pick up tourney downs during the day shifts. I am currently indifferent about the trade-off, and it turned out that my assigned roommate preferred day shift, so maybe this will keep us from bumping into each other all that much.

It has been really great reconnecting with a lot of the people that worked at the Beau Rivage last fall. I miss a couple of them, though. Gary Hebert is working over at the Grand instead, and Wade Moricle couldn't get the time off for this event and is probably focusing on far more financially rewarding endeavors back in Atlanta. Wade is my inspiration for this blog. I fully intend to catch up on some of my recollections from the Beau after completing some entries for the WSOP (in my lost episodes series), but until then you can read some very entertaining stuff on Wade's blog. I'll never be able to write like him ...

The first day is just satellites, cash games and a couple of cash tournies - no preliminary event. There are more dealers than needed, we were told working was optional (but they claim we will get plenty of work the rest of the series). I really needed to take care of some personal business, so I showed up dressed and ready, but volunteered to "early out", when it became evident that a few were going to be sent home. After getting everything squared away, I met up with Richard Benton and went over to the Grand to check out the WSOP Circuit event there. We couldn't find Gary, I think they may have worked him to death. They are short on dealers and pushing them pretty hard. They had a ton of players and lots of action. Very deep stacks and long blinds will dilute the dealers' tip share over there, but they will got lots of hours and experience. I wish I could moonlight and help them out, but I don't want to extend myself too much, endanger my relationship with my current employer, or risk future WPT opportunities.

After we got back, I decided to enter the midnight tourney here at the Gold Strike. There were about 111 entrants and it has a decent structure for the buy-in. I got pretty good cards early, but I only won the very first and very last pots of the combined four levels before the first break and didn't accumulate much in the way of chips. Both of my tables were quite entertaining and I had a blast, and there were a few other dealers in the tourney to root for each other. After the break, I made one small error that cost me some chips and then I started to bleed off into the yellow zone. I made a stand when my 9c-Tc caught a great flop of Kc 8d Qc with five players to a min-preflop raised pot. A player in front of me lead out, he was called twice and I raised enough to commit myself. Only the opener called and a small club fell on the turn. He checked and I pushed with my flush, but he called quickly and showed Ac-3c, so the Jc was my only hope. I busted out with about half the field left, better luck next time.