Thursday, January 24, 2008

Tournament Poker Dealers

Working the major poker tournaments has allowed me to come in contact with a wide variety of personalities and make friends with dealers from all over the country. A few of the dealers from last years WSOP worked both the WPT events that I did, there are several that tour the country working event after event. Many more just work the more local events. Several of the acquaintances that I made at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi last fall are here at the Gold Strike in Tunica. It is basically the same management team and their is a cohesiveness among this group that I didn't see at the WSOP. I just left the event this morning, and it occurred to me that it may be awhile before I see some of these people again. I fully intend to work at the Beau and Gold Strike next year, unless something much more steady and lucrative comes along before then.

Bob Smith, at right in the photo above, is a strong, experienced dealer with a great blue collar sort of heads-down, get the job done attitude in the box. He lives near San Diego right now, but is looking for a change in life and is talking about relocating to Florida and catching the poker boom that is happening there with the state allowing no-limit games and several new casinos opening up.

I really missed Wade Moricle, on the left in the photo above, the past few weeks at the Gold Strike because I thought he might be there and we became fast friends in Biloxi. He is a great writer who inspired me to take another shot at blogging, and I intend to repost a few of his thoughts here. He is from Atlanta and has a full time job that prevents him from taking enough time off for the longer events. You should read his blog entries from the Gulf Coast Poker Championship about the trials and tribulations of a break-in tournament dealer, essentially the same wide-eyed enthusiasm that I would love to be able to portray. I relate to many of his commentaries because his dealing experiences seem to mirror that of my own.

Dusty and Heather Ohlman from Chattanooga were familiar faces from all three major events that I have worked and have fast become my closest remote dealer buddies. We shared the excitement at the start of a new event and the disappointments as it wound down over meals in the employee dining room during dealer breaks, trips to the coin-op laundry, and runs to local markets for the necessities. I am sorry that I didn't get to spend some time throwing the bones with Dusty before I left, but we did enter a couple of tourneys together and I can tell that he is a great tourney player that just might break out at an event someday soon and gain some notoriety from the other side of the box. He and Heather are both great dealers and have recently been featured in Rounders magazine, a glossy poker periodical that covers the southeast poker scene. I know that I will be making a trip to Chattanooga soon to visit them and I hope they decide to work the WSOP this summer and possibly share a 'mature dealers' rental residence, as planned.

My roommate on this trip was randomly selected, but I was definitely dealt a strong pocket pair in Luke Grotano, from southern California. He is a football nut, and we shared similar outlooks on life, poker, and many other things. I look forward to working for him someday soon and hope he keeps in touch.

I really enjoyed the little amount of time I got to hang with Richard Benton and Gary Hebert, both part-time dealers with wide interests in real estate, music, and other occupations that I hope don't keep them from working future events that I might be at.

While I haven't yet developed personal relationships with the management staff, I look forward to working again someday soon for Heather, Armando, Troy, Chris, the fabulous Beverly, Jessica, Scott, Shawn, and indirectly, Johnny Grooms and Ken Lambert. They run a very nice poker tournament, and I have learned a lot from all of them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hey jim, nice work. saw your pa this weekend , he mentioned you might be coming to wildhorse in pendleton, if so let me know if ya want to have a beer
jz
jerryzielinski@hotmail.com