Bad Dealers at the WSOP

[tipperdog]

Preface: most of the dealers I encourtered were terrific. But, wow, were there ever exceptions. I swear this dialogue took place this morning, word-for-word:

Tipperdog: Dealer, we are starting hand-for-hand right away, correct?
Dealer: That's what they told us in our morning meeting, so yes.
Tipperdog: OK, just wanted to confirm.
Dealer: What does it mean when they say 'hand-for-hand?'

That's right. She had never dealt hand-for-hand. She had never heard the term before! And, she thought it would be better NOT to ask the question in the morning dealer meeting! This is a ^$@&## world championship!

[fnurt]

Awesome story. Maybe if you didn't play those piddling 10k events you'd get a better class of dealer.

[Dynasty]

Oh my God! A dealer didn't know something! Quick, go tell everybody you know about this!

[david050173]

To be fair, I bet a dealer can go a career without dealing a tournament. I can also understand not asking at the meeting, but you have to ask someone before play begins.

[housenuts]

regarding the dealers do they have some sort of roster of the most experienced, good dealers that they will ensure go on the feature table, and as the tournament gets to later stages, or is it completely random?

[TomCollins]

Through the 20 or so dealers I had, all of them were fine. If you have 500 people, of course you'll end up with a few bad apples. I was actually pleasantly surprised with the quality of dealers, given the circumstances.

[Jurollo]

Havent read the other posts here. But all of my dealers were ok... also to rip them is a little unfair, the first lady I had I got to talk to for about 10 mins as I was the first to our table before the day started and she told me they are only making $5.15/hr (min wage) and for the WSOP they have to work the whole day yet will only get paid for 10 hours, yup, 10 hours no matter how long they worked, plus no tips, plus being [censored] on by players. They deserve some respect for doing the job they are doing and essentially not being noticed too badly so far.
~Justin

[newfant]

[ QUOTE ]
And, she thought it would be better NOT to ask the question in the morning dealer meeting! This is a ^$@&## world championship!


[/ QUOTE ]

It may be a world championship for you guys, but I bet she is still only making $5 an hour.

[MicroBob]

They all meant well and most tried their best but I certainly didn't think they were that good.
Some of them were total newbie's and it showed in spite of their best efforts.
Rules-enforcement at the table and such things DID suffer imo.

Add to that the fact they didn't have auto-shufflers in the table and those mis-deals that they had really cut into the hands per hour you were getting there.


Compare to the dealers at the Bellagio and it's not even close.
Even the dealers on the PPM cruiise were NOTICEABLY better then the WSOP dealers.

This is the biggest poker event in the world and I don't think it would kill them to cut into their bottom line a little bit and try to hire a few more of the best instead of just however many newbie's they can bring in for cheap.


I played at the Mirage last night with a WSOP dealer who seemed like a decent guy.
Said it was the first time all month that he had NOT put in 10 hours or more (because there just aren't as many people around in the tourneys and side-games now).

He said he has now been invited to travel with them on the WSOP-circuit events so I told him I'll likely bump into him at the mid-summer open in Tunica in August (now a WSOP-qualifier event evidently).


Another thing some people might not realize about these break-in dealers is that they have to pay for their own travel and accomodations to get out here.
And the guy I talked to will have to pay his own way to make it from one WSOP-circuit event to another.
Sounds pretty sucky to me.


But it doesn't HAVE to be that way.
Harrah's is making a TON off of these events (not to mention the souvenir sales, etc).
As Huck Seed and Tom McEvoy discussed at my table in the July 1 $3k event:
Huck - "1000 players at $3k apiece and they're taking 5% of that for the house. You can't tell me that it costs $150,000 to run just this event."
Tom - Rolls eyes and agrees, "Yup. You are about the 487th person to tell me that."

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]

They all meant well and most tried their best

[/ QUOTE ]



I really shouldn't have even said this much....because not ALL meant that well or tried their best.

I know they were over-worked and tired....but if I'm paying money for a tournament I expect a dealer who follows the actions and isn't watching every hot waitress that walks past.
Someone folds their cards and the dealer has no freaking idea because they're staring off into space.
C'mon dude. The levels are quick enough as it is and your shuffle isn't exactly the fastest I have seen.
I would like to get in more than 8 freaking hands before the levels go up.

If they are only giving us 15 minutes per level in the single-table satellites then the least the dealers could do is try to get the hands off as quickly as they are able instead of just sitting there day-dreaming.


Yes...I'm a nit. But I don't think I'm asking too much.
I feel like Mason now!!