Vegas Bound Again

Back in February I was contacted by one of the dealer supervisors from the WSOP and asked about my interest to return this year.  After a couple of phone interviews, I received an email with the following ..

Hello,

Congratulations on being chosen to work with World Series of Poker 2008!

To make the New Hire process smooth and easy, we suggest ...

I knew of several very good dealers who were interested in duplicating my experience from last year, so I filled them in on who to contact and that open auditions were to start in mid-March.  I also contacted a few of my dealer friends to see who was returning this year.  I learned that of the 800 or so dealers that were to be hired for 2008, about 500 or so would be returning, so I should see plenty of familiar faces, and get a chance to renew and strengthen some of the dealer friendships I have made.  

Unfortunately, I had about five irons in the fire towards living arrangements, and I blew most of them.  One of my best dealing buds didn't pass his audition (he will next year, it was just first time nerves), another flew out for his appointment, but was told that all positions had already been filled (he didn't even get a chance to show his skills).  My friends from Chattanooga, Dusty and Heather, waffled back and forth a few times and then finally decided to go - in fact they are already in town and I look forward to seeing them this week.    A friend from New Orleans got a real job and had to back out, but his intended roommates extended an invitation to me and I failed them because I couldn't commit to anything, nor come up with a huge pre-payment for rent.  It would have been a sweet deal, nice vacation home already furnished and linens and everything, pool, parking, secluded country club atmosphere.  What was I thinking?  Thank goodness for my San Diego dealing friend, Bob!  He's working a little bit in Mesquite and wants to split costs with someone.  

That's the plan for now.  Gonna fly out in the morning and do my human resources and payroll paperwork at the Rio tomorrow, then visit my friend Tim for a few days.  There is some mandatory dealer training and orientation next week, and I'm going to go back to dealer school as much as I can and practice, practice, practice.  The WSOP poker room will be open and running satellites on the 28th and the first event will be the next day.  I am very curious to see the improvements and find out just how big the fields will be this year.  The economy has been down and some of the events this past year had smaller than average turnout.  Poker has been exploding in Europe, and with their own tour now, I wonder just how many will come across the pond this time around.  There are also a ton of other events going on concurrently that will compete for players.  The Venetian is having another deep stack series, which they run about 3 or 4 times a year, and it always gets rave reviews from players.  Binions will be running another series in which each days event will preceded the WSOP events, same structure, quicker blinds and 10% of the buy-in.  The new convention space at the Golden Nugget has space for 70+ tables and they will be holding the first Grand Poker Series (seen the movie?) this year.  Both Ceasars and The Orleans will have poker tournament series that start a little later.  Lots of opportunities for the tourney players.

You may notice quite a few more labels on my posts.  I decided to add the names of any known professionals that I deal to as a way of cross-referencing my blog and allowing my friends, as well as myself, go back and find entries specific to those players.  It allows me to easily list them in a column on the right as well.  It may seem a bit trivial, and I may change my mind and take them back out later, as I am not certain its an appropriate thing to do.  My blog is open to the public, but its actual viewership is so limited - just family and friends - that it might be ok for now.  At any rate, I intend to be more active and try and blog everyday and start including some links and references to interesting poker content.