PLOs at the IPO

One thing that came out of the IPO for me: I have gone off Pot Limit Omaha!!!

It's the worse game in the poker world to deal for, especially when one is dog-tired! It doesn't help when every second player is shouting POT either when your brain is totally mush after almost 35 hours of dealing over 3 days!

I had already agreed to work for Stephen & Jeff at the IPO; expecting to do some of the main event, a couple of side games, with the plan of getting Sunday off to join Susie Woosie in the ladies event with a few cash games. Alas no! A 'rule' was put in place that if you dealt, you couldn't play too: "deal or play only or stay away" - but over the weekend I noticed some of the dealers got exemptions from this rule.... Grrrr!!!

I could hardly stay away could I? Not when it was the 1st anniversary of my first ever 'proper' dealing stint - it felt wrong not to pass up an opportunity to show last year's critics that one of the 'bad dealers' from IPO'07 has improved big time!

The 2008 IPO was a huge improvement from 2007... better venue, better deal for the dealers (fairer breaks and unlimited refreshments, especially the Red Bull!), great choice of games/side events and several 'famous' names sitting down to play with the ordinary Joes. Kudos to Stephen for all his hard work... To Ciaran & his Boylepoker staff for the glamours show they put on! Well done guys!

The atmosphere was electric for the entire weekend! I even got to see Marty Smyth's WSOP's bracelet!


Day 1: Arrived at 2:30pm straight from work, had a good lunch, before reporting to the Dealer Manager. The place was buzzing with familiar faces everywhere. Andy Black was giving a workshop in the main hall, the PA system was booming all over the place, I could barely make out what Andy was saying (or any other announcer for that reason!) but he had the crowd hanging on to his word that he must have been good!



First impression of Danni the Dealer manager was scary! She was a real dominatrix: barking orders and really putting people on the spot for being a minute late back from breaks; not a woman you want to cross. It was thanks to her that the dealer arrangement, changes and placements ran smoothly for the entire IPO... By the end of the weekend I had a LOT of respect for that woman.

The main event was very squashed, and the room was boiling hot! The standard of play was ultra-tight on most tables with very few flops being seen.

4 hours into the main event, I was asked to report to Charlie on the cash tables... And stayed there for rest of the evening right into the next day. Charlie had no time for tardiness and not bringing in the right rake! The rake was a whopping €10 ppph on tables €100 or less; €16 on the €250 tables. I felt awful raping each pot for rake at this level! It was difficult to meet the rake on some of the €1/2 tables... There were times I barely took enough, and I used my tips to make up the shortfall. Some tables were under-raked practically all evening: the pots were either too small or had big stacked players frequently taking breaks for 30 mins or more. One such table, I had to ask each player to throw the extra €2 each to make up the difference, after that I thought it easier to ask each player to throw in €5 per half hour then I left their pots alone. The higher staked tables €2/5 and PLO €250 were so much easier to rake...

I left at 4:30am got home by 5am and couldn't sleep!!! My mind was still buzzing from all the Red Bull(!) I finally drifted off at 6am... setting my alarm for 10am.

Day2: My wee princess woke me up at 11:30am.... eeeeek! I barely made it for 1pm having to drop her to my mum's en route. The 'look' I got from Danni told me there was no point making excuses-just took the ticking on the chin and get on with it!

The second starting day went much better, the tables were better spaced out and the air con was on full blast... which was great to start with but soon all the players had their jackets back on and I was regretting my short-sleeved top! There was less dealer changes, due to less dealers working than Friday, but Dani managed to juggle it amazingly well.

I went over to the cash tables after dinner and stayed there dealing well into the night. At 2am I was dealing to several mad French players (didn't tip a penny all night), such charmers! They would deliberately call 'pot' in an accent that sounded exactly like 'check' to me... To much laughter! At the very end, when Floor Manager called out for the last 3 hands to be played at 4am, I allowed myself to be persuaded to deal them a fourth... then did a fifth while they were claiming it was 'only' the 4th... I 'promised' a 4th(!) Then got rewarded with generous parting tips from each player. Merci beaucoup monsieurs!

Day 3: Having finished at 4:30am, before I left I asked Danni for a late start on Sunday - she allow me til 3pm. I found it tough dragging myself out of bed at 1pm to meet Susie for lunch! Before anyone shakes their head and point out that the other dealers managed to do it; sure, but the other dealers don't have a full-time job and kids to think about, do they?!

Susie Woosie was playing in the Ladies Side event with Ciara (another decent player from Clonsilla Inn; I was in heads-up with her 2 weeks ago... she turned my 3-1 chiplead into 2nd place!) I was so envious, was really in the mood to play now! 55 women, including JCB, the Shudda Girl, Dame Vera were all playing too... I kept railing them during my breaks. The standard of play was atrocious at best - a lot of limpers in each hand, raises and re-raises getting called by 3 or more players with any two... AA's; JJs and KKs were no good and JCB, Vera and the other good players went to the rails early. Susie Woosie ended up playing a short-stack game for most of it; she played a uber-tight nit game folding A10, AQs and small/middle pairs to raises, with no regrets. Susie Woosie hung on til 12th place... Commiserations and well done girl!

Dealing on Sunday was tougher - didn't help that the Red Bull had ran out! And I was listed to deal the Double Chance Pot Limit Omaha €150 side event that started at 6pm, in what must have been the hottest area of the room! The play was limited to 64 players (8-max tables) due to limited chips available... and the amount of grumpy players who didn't get a ticket was amazing. It was a great measure to Poker Ireland's success having nearly all the weekend side events booked out!

For the non-poker players: calling 'pot' in a pot limit game means the maximum the player can bet is the total of what is already on the table. If a previous player has already bet during that turn, then the 'pot' is the last bet plus the total chips on the table. E.g. there's 250 on the of the table at the flop... player 1 bets 100... player 2 raises to 200... player 3 calls 'POT' and the dealer has to announce what the pot amount is. Here player 3 has to pay 950 (200 x 3 plus 100 plus 250). Sounds straight forward... til player 5 says POT too! Ahhhh! Doing the constant math is tiring! Naturally there will be a few mistakes....

Ohhhhhhh before I forget... I have a wee confession to make. I am crap at spreading the cards out on the table pre-game. All weekend I was trying, trying and trying... they still wouldn't spread right! I was constantly asking other dealers, it was pathetic! As I set up the Omaha table, I picked up the cards, looked around for the nearest dealer... no one *sigh* ah feck it... here goes. And whaaaayyyyy! I did it! A nice perfect even spread! Was so proud of myself I even took a picture with my phone! LOL!



On my first table, I had two of the French Charmers from the night before, as they sat down they started braying with laughter pointing at me... so I made a point to teach them the signs for pot/check/raise and "English only spoken please!" They behaved much better this time... phew! I dealt that table without any cock-ups, until the next table 2 hours later.

Then I dealt a series of gaffs. Blinds were 200/400, UTG+1 called for 400; action folded to DCB in CO (yes... the famous troublemaker from Boards.ie!) who announced POT. I quickly said 1400, Button folded and SB (Red Faced Aggro-Bluffer RFAB) said 'call' as he was counting out the chips. Another player pointed out that the Pot should have been 1800 - I did a quick count and yeah... he was correct. RFAB objected to this saying that he was willing to pay 1200 more not 1600. I called floor manager for a ruling - he ruled that the 1400 should stand... Poor DCB got 3 callers for that pot! On the flop action checked back to DCB who shouted POT again... this time I had the figure ready: 6200 and everyone folded. DCB was very quiet but played a good game... guess he had to, with the biggest Bluffer you ever met (RFAB) on the table; plus JCB and the Big City Banker!

In one hand we had 2 players all in... I sorted their chips and pushed them into the centre then burned the top card and dealt the flop, burnt the second card as RFAB (who was not in the hand) interrupted me: "Wait now... they need to show dem first!" pointing out that the players cards must be face up for the showdown. As the players sorted their cards I burnt another card and exposed the wrong card super fast... only noticed what I had done when I was about to burn the 3rd card that there were 3 burn cards there already (DOH!) RFAB saw the mistake and quickly leaned over the table picking up the burn cards and scrambling the turn card muttering "here, here... thats de way it shub be..." to the effect that I hadn't a clue which card was which... or what he had actually done! There was an uproar, I told him to leave it and called the Floor Manager over for a ruling. The ruling was given that the burn cards, exposed cards and the remaining deck had to be shuffled three times and re-burnt/re-dealt. Leading to a better board for one player... and an short-stack-early-exit for JCB. Sorry JCB... :-/

I was mortified after that, paying extra attention to the game and dealt slower to ensure no more mistakes. When I was relieved I headed back to deal cash for couple more hours but the tiredness meant I kept making stupid mistakes - forgetting to deal one player, raking a split pot without thinking, sweeping up another players hand. I asked Charlie if I could go early and she agreed...

I signed out, got my bag and was about to leave when a group of dealers announced they were having a Dealer Tournament! And was I interested.... oooohhhh tempting! When I pointed out I didn't have enough cash on me to play (a deliberate tactic I had to ensure I didn't get tempted to play!) Two other dealers offered to sub me for "of a % of your win!" LOL I was flattered! I agreed telling myself that playing is easier than dealing, sure a game would be good. As I put my money on the table it was tactfully pointed out by one of the Floor managers that the other cash/Omaha dealers were not allowed to play this tournament, it wouldn't be fair if I played, considering I asked to leave early due to 'tiredness'. Feeling very guilty, I returned the money, thanked them all, wished the other players luck and said my farewells.

It was a good weekend... I still haven't fully recovered from it! Am so glad I don't deal full time...

Next year... sorry guv but I wanna play!