A Feltside Perspective

Well, thats the end of that run, not the most glamourous of ends it must be said but its done nonetheless...became a poker dealer for a month and spent my "notice week" totally brought down by a bug, meaning i could deal to a world championship but not to my local's deepstack (although recent news of a second deepstack brings me great joy, i may cover this in another blog at a later date)

Overall though becoming a dealer only had one thing in mind. To gain extra experience i would have otherwise had to pay hundereds of pounds for. Instead i was paid to deal to the best and im fairly confident ive picked up some useful things about the way they went about things (well, either that or this month was a complete waste and im still a crap player)

One thing i can take from this is a new found respect for anyone that has to deal for poker players, while i used to be nothing but a player i thought the job was easy, and in some respects it is (the dealing itself is fairly easy to do so long as you maintain concentration) but the thing i never understood before, or never paid much attention to before, is the level of crap that is thrown in the dealers faces...i was lucky in that Dusk Till Dawn treats its dealers with a level of respect, because from what ive seen anywhere else you are seen merely as a number...a necessity that the casino or card room could easily do without if they had to...The players on some of the game treat the dealers like second class people, that was what sickened me the most, some of these people with the cards in their hand have been playing the game they love for years...and these players, for whatever reason...seem to think they can treat them as if they are lucky just to deal to them...

Ive got news for you, just because youve got ooodles of money in the bank and just because your playing for pots that eclipse most of the dealers monthly, sometimes yearly wages. It does NOT give you the right to be throwing some serious abuse at them just because they "didnt deal you the winning hand" or theyve "got it in for you"...trust me, in the one month i did this, i realised that if i had the power to rig the deck, so many people would bust in seconds it would make a mockery of multi day tournaments...

You quickly realise dealing (far faster than you do playing to be honest) which players are good and which are bad...and which are terrible. Because you have to concentrate on all 9 people with systematic precision (the way some people merely check needs to be inspected) you quickly gain tells on people...now while i cant reel off those tells, im fairly certian that what it does is implant a memory...one of those "hold on a second i remember that" moments...and im fairly sure that when i play the deepstacks for the first time again, i will be better prepared than before.

One last thing ive understood is that they get paid far less than they are worth, dealers have SO much on their mind with every hand, that they should easily be getting paychecks over and above what they do. another thing ive realised (and that i can actively change) is the tips the dealers recieve...dealing for the APAT for three days gave me my biggest tip haul to date, and it didnt even touch £50, now im sorry but for nearly 30 hours work, thats a pathetic amount to be getting in tips, sure youve got your wages but its only minimum wage usually, to use myself as an example...thats £4.81 per hour...what the hell?

So overall ive got my first taste of the feltside perspective, its gained immense respect for dealers, a distaste for a fair few high rolling poker players, and a disgust at the wages...not all its cracked up to be, but im aware that the experience cannot be bought on the same scale...and if you become good enough (dealers at the WSOPE get £12 per hour plus tips) then it really can become decent money...perserverance seems key to that though, and i dont know about you but im happy to play all the types of poker, i cant be arsed to learn how to deal them all though xD