Sorry to disappoint...It's not like I had any earth-shattering news to share, it's just that I've been so damn busy this past week and so many good things have been happening, that's all. The problem, however, is as much as I'd love to share all the details with everyone, I still have to maintain some semblance of privacy--and not only for myself, but for others, too.
Anyhow, like I said in the earlier comments, I went from having no jobs to suddenly having two of them. After my first audition, and offer, on Tuesday, I got another call out of the blue from a casino I never thought I'd hear from, and they wanted me to come in on Thursday for an audition, too. No problem! It sounded like a good opportunity to me.
Well, I got to the audition on Thursday, and saw that there was a group of people ahead of me just finishing up, and that I was part of a group of ten more dealers they were bringing in. Not only that, but one of my friends had also gotten a call to come in for the same audition that day. It wasn't looking good--it seems that every dealing job in town has a couple hundred applicants, and it's a buyer's market right now. Competition is pretty stiff.
Anyhow, I had a glimmer of hope for my prospects when we got underway, as the main guy in charge of all the poker rooms for this particular company was somebody I'd met socially in the past and talked to at length. Not that we were close friends, but certainly better than acquaintances--we knew a lot of the same people and actually had a beer or two together back in the day.
But then, after the introductions were made (and I found out that maybe only five or six of us had any actual poker dealing experience), they broke us up into two separate groups to do our auditions, and my 'patron' went with the other group. No help there... But my audition went pretty well--I didn't screw anything up and it went fine, although there was one goofball in the group who decided it was his job to throw curveballs at the rest of us while we were 'in the box', making difficult bets or calling his hand incorrectly at the showdown (kinda like the jerkoffs at dealers school who would place $31 high-low bets on the dice table). Of course, when he sat down for his own audition, he was awful, and was the first person dismissed. (Karma's a bitch, ain't it?)
As it turns out, I was offered a job on the spot, along with a couple of the other people in my group, and was told to return the next day. The strange thing about it was that I was offered a job at a completely different casino--one that I'd never applied at and that was never even on my radar. (It's a big company, and they own a few poker rooms on the Strip). Of course I accepted.
Now, here's the caveat--it's a contract job that lasts until a month after the World Series is over. Not permanent, but then again, nothing in this town is... It seems that there is quite a spillover during the WSOP and all the rooms down on the Strip are busier than hell for about six or seven weeks, and then as soon as the Series ends, all the players leave, and all the full-timer dealers in town go on vacation. So my job is to pick up the slack for the next two months and stick around until August or so. Will it lead to a permanent position? Possibly, but I highly doubt it. On the other hand, it'll be nice to be working again.
So on Friday morning, I found myself deep in the bowels of the corporate offices, doing my new-hire processing. And besides myself and a handful of other poker dealers, they'd also picked up about a dozen new cocktail waitresses at the same time, so my first hour or so of paperwork was quite enjoyable, as there was a lot of hurry-up and wait time while we took turns at the desk getting our documentation packets done. I also walked all over creation that day, getting re-registered with the NGC and getting fingerprinted again, too (Seriously--did my fingerprints change in the past five years?).
Once I got cut loose from there, I went over to my new poker room to find out about scheduling, but all they said was to come in this Tuesday (tomorrow) for orientation. I'm hoping that I don't start until Sunday or Monday, because that way I can play in the casino employees WSOP tournament which starts on Friday. I've wanted to play in that thing every year since I've been here, but each year I either a) didn't have the money, b) didn't have the time off, or c) had to sit around and wait for the cable guy to come and wire my living room. This year, however, I have the $500 entry fee and proof that I work in a casino (I didn't have any casino ID until Friday), and maybe I have the time off, too. We'll find out for sure within the next day or two.
On the other hand, that first offer I got seems to have stagnated. I never heard anything back all week. When I was in there on Tuesday, they made it sound like they wanted me to start ASAP, but then, I never got a call back telling me to come back and do all my paperwork. I was getting worried about that, because that job was the one I *really* wanted and it could lead to a permanent position--well, at least there's a better chance of it. So I called them back this morning and the manager said not to worry--I should be getting a call back within the next day or two. With all the new hires for the WSOP and the other rooms around town, there is a bottleneck on background checks and gaming registrations, so it's taking longer than usual. I hope that's the case and that I'm not lost in the shuffle somewhere.
So I'm free today, but I think I'm gonna get a lot busier starting tomorrow. And if that first job offer comes through, starting next week, I'm gonna be busier than hell for the next two months--probably working 70-80 hours per week. We shall see.
Personally, I'd just like to get going...
So that's what's going on as far as the work front goes. On the 'play' front, I've been doing fairly well, too. I made a small fortune playing Omaha the other night, and I have to admit, I like Omaha a lot more than hold-em. I've played it twice in the past couple of months, and both times I kicked ass. This last session was especially tasty, because there was one complete douchebag in the game that I just loved pounding on.
He used to come in and play on graveyard at Sunset occasionally when I was working, and I just never liked the guy--some people just rub you the wrong way, and he was one of them. I like him even less now, but he brought about $600 to the table the other night, and he spent the next four hours giving it all away, mostly to me and another guy. It was especially fun because he's one of these dorks that wears the two-years-too-late Ed Hardy shirts and the most ridiculous oversize sunglasses when he plays, and he thinks he's some kind of poker pro. He's not a bad no-limit player, but man, does he ever suck at Omaha. It was a thing of beauty to not only watch, but participate, in the beatdown.
There was another guy in the game, who's probably the best non-pro no limit player I know. I like playing with him, but he's one guy I'm afraid of in the no limit game because you never know what he's gonna turn over at the showdown--he's the kind of guy that will raise $30 pre-flop with 6-3 offsuit and still have the nuts when it's all over. Anyhow, he was in the Omaha game too, and tried to run over it, raising constantly. He was directly on my left, so after the first half hour or so, I changed seats to put him on my right, so that he'd have to act before me instead of raising me constantly.
That helped me quite a bit, having him in front of me, and whenever I had a monster, he would build the pot for me. Anyhow, he also had a big stack in front of him early on, but he ended up 'raising himself broke', as I like to call it.
**We interrupt this update to post another update** The phone just rang--it was job #1 calling to tell me to come in first thing on Wednesday morning to get processed. Here we go... **End update**
Anyhow, I ended up staying until the game broke that night, and me and one other guy had most of the chips on the table. So yeah, I love me some Omaha. Unfortunately, it's hard to find a decent game on a regular basis unless I go out to Boulder Station (unless I fight traffic on the Strip--I think the Venetian has a decent game, and maybe the Bellagio, but I haven't played at either place in months).
I played some no-limit on Saturday night, but it was a stiff game, no action at all. My old boss was in the game for a while, and as soon as I sat down I won a small pot off of her but not much else. I ended up getting Aces cracked twice and getting stuck a hundred bucks before the game broke a couple hours later. I had to go play 4-8 to get my money back--it took two hours to make a hundred bucks, and then I called it a night, breaking even, less a few bucks to the cocktail waitress.
Anyhow, I'm gonna wrap it up for now--I've got a few things to take care of now that I know I've got two jobs starting tomorrow morning. I'll post again soon, I promise.
Mikey
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