WSOP Dealer Auditions

[Nick_Foxx]

Apologies if this is not in the correct forum.

I am going down to Vegas next month to participate in the dealer auditions for the WSOP at the Rio Training Academy. Apparently, the auditions take about 3 hours.

I was wondering if anyone on here has gone through those auditions, and what to expect? I imagine you will be tested on the various games.

Also, can someone give me the general procedures for dealing single-draw lowball, triple-draw lowball and Chinese Poker? I am familiar with dealing all the other games.

Thanks for your help

[Deorum]

Single draw lowball: There are two blinds, just like in hold 'em. The dealing before the draw works exactly as it does in hold 'em, except the players get five cards rather than two. Then the action proceeds just as it would in hold 'em. Some places force the opener to open for a raise, and some do not, so ask which rule they are using.

People will fold if they do not want to play and call/raise if they do, just like in hold 'em, and you will develop a muck. After the predraw action is complete, burn a card and ask the first player to act how many cards he/she wants (the one who will be the first to act after the draw is the one closest to the left of the button, so if the small blind is still in the hand he draws first, if the small blind is out but the big blind is still in he draws first, etc). The player will toss however many cards he/she wants face down towards you, and that is how many he/she is drawing. Do not put them in the muck yet. Slide the cards off the deck one at a time onto the table face down in a pile, just like you would for the flop in hold 'em. So if the first player is drawing three, basically do exactly the same thing you would for the flop except rather than turn the cards over as community cards, slide the pile of three cards to the player drawing them so that he can pick them up. Do not pitch the cards to the player one at a time. Place that player's discarded cards into the muck now. Then ask the next player to act how many cards he/she would like, and do the same thing (do not burn again, though). A player does not have to draw any cards if he does not wish, which is called "rapping pat" or "standing pat" and he/she will either say something like "I'm good" or "I'm pat" or will simply "knuckle" the table (the same hand motion as a check). Proceed until everybody has drawn their cards, then kill the stub by placing it in the muck, and place the burn card in the muck too. The action after the draw is complete then proceeds just as it would in hold 'em after the flop.

If you run out of cards before the draw is complete, slide down the remaining cards except for the last card (a player cannot receive the last card in the deck), then shuffle the muck (which includes all the discards so far except for the discards of the player who is currently drawing and the discards of the players who have yet to draw - although players who have yet to draw probably will not have their discards ready yet anyway), the last card of the deck, and the burn card (basically everything except for the player's discarded cards and the remaining cards which you just slid off the deck), cut the deck, burn a card, and complete the draw. So if the player wanted three cards and there were two left in the deck, you would slide the first card off, shuffle the muck + last card + burn card, cut, then slide off two more cards, push the pile of three cards to the player, and proceed with the draw.

If the lowball game is a no limit cash game which allows a kill, pause for literally about two seconds after you have completed dealing the first two cards predraw. This is to give the players a chance to quickly glance at their cards to make a straddle bet if they wish. To make a straddle, any player may toss out x amount of chips (at least twice the size of the big blind) and the game becomes 2x to open with the killer acting last. So if it were a 5-10 blind game, and the button decided to kill it, he would have to post at least 20 and the game would be 40 to go for that hand. The button would then act last before the draw (even after the blinds, so the action would go from the cutoff to the small blind, then the big blind, then the killer, then if one of those players raised, the action would go back to the person who opened. Some places make the killer act in normal turn if somebody has already raised. This paragraph probably is not that important to learn though, as you will not likely be dealing cash games with a kill. I just thought I would add it for completeness.

I have never played triple draw live, but I assume it would be basically dealt the same way except with three draws instead of one (and quite possibly multiple shuffles because more cards are being discarded). I do know that you need to burn a card before each draw though.

No idea about Chinese Poker.

I hope that explains the lowball dealing. I realize it's probably very complicated looking from the long description, but it's actually quite simple. I'll post a simplified version in a bit, sort of more like a checklist that you can use, and then refer to this post if you get confused about something. I hope this explains everything, but if not, just post other questions that you have (ie. "how does the joker work" if you want that explained).

[RR]

[ QUOTE ]
fter the predraw action is complete, burn a card and ask the first player to act how many cards he/she wants

[/ QUOTE ]

I read this far and you are already wrong. I saw this earlier and planned to come back when I ahve more time (probably Wed AM). I wil just point out this is wrong as the dealer should ask for all the draws prior to dealing any cards (including the burn). After they find out the number of cards each player wants there are some different ways to do it based on where the game is being played (a side game at the WSOP with break in dealers will not be dealt the same way as an LA top section game).

I have to go, but I will be returning to this thread to make a detailed post.

[youtalkfunny]

I've been meaning to ask a 3-draw procedural question (I've actually had to deal this game a few times recently), and since RR promises to return, I'll put it here, instead of starting another thread:

Let's say all players stand pat. Do I still burn a card, just so we can keep track of how many times we've drawn?

[bav]

[ QUOTE ]
Let's say all players stand pat. Do I still burn a card, just so we can keep track of how many times we've drawn?

[/ QUOTE ]
That's the way I've seen it done. And that means when a player asks "how many more draws are there" the whole table can all at once point at the burns and say in unison "COUNT THE BURNS!"

The draw description posted above sounds pretty close to me. There are a couple things I see in it that differ from how I've seen it done, but I imagine if you showed up at a WSOP audition and did it as described they'd be happy and just tell you the procedural differences in what you did compared to what they want. But I look forward to RR's correct version.

[RR]

I don't have as much time as I would like so I will try to be brief. First if everyone raps pat in triple draw go ahead and burn a card.
Most (probably all) draw games you run into these days will be played with a button and blinds. Draw high is generally played with a button and antes, but I haven't seen that spread in many years. Pass the cards out to the players. If the game is being played with a kill option pause for maybe 2 seconds after dealing the second card so anyone that want to kill can post the kill. I have only seen this sort of kill in regular lowball (single draw). After looking at two cards a player can choose to post a kill double the size of the biggest blind.
I have seen the most problems and disagreements come to the drawing process. The first procedure I will describe is what I would prefer, but I have only seen it in high limit games in LA. The dealer will ask for the draws. The players will now indicate their draws by discarding and generally announcing how many they are taking in turn, starting after the button. The dealer should now announce the draw (example 3, pat, and 2). The dealer should now muck the draws, burn a card, and pitch out the draw.
What is common in other places is for each player to discard in turn. The dealer will now take that number of cards off the deck and slide them to the player and then take their discards and muck them. And then move to the next player. Note that even doing it this way all players must declare their draw before any cards are dealt off the deck. The main problem with this method is despite being slower it is less secure than the method outlined above. Taking a card off the deck and then sliding it makes it more likely to be exposed, not less (dealers pitch cards off the deck all day long, now you want them to do it in a different manner for this one game). The dealer should not be mucking cards and the returning to the top of the deck. If a card happens to be marked sliding it slowly across the table gives everyone a chance to see it, if it is pitched it is still bad to have a marked card, but at least it isn't sitting out in the center of the table for everyone to see.

As far as running out of cards I have only dealt single draw short handed running out of cards was not an issue. In triple draw I have seen a couple difernt ways to do it. I would prefer that the discards from the current draw be kept seperate from the muck and shuffle the muck (along with the bottom card of the stub, the dealer cannot deal the bottom card fo the stub).

I have left out a number of details, but I am quite pressed for time. I am expecting a number of post saying the cards should be slid etc. I think this is an area where people aren't concerned about security of the game and just do it the way they like (I have had a number of players that should know better tell me it is better to slide the cards).

This is not a game I have played and is the game I by far have the least expereince in. I do not like supervising the game as I am unaware of all the the little angles players can run, so I am pretty much reduced to following the letter of the rules rather have a really good understanding of the spirit of the rules. As far as dealing the game, in live games (generally it was a white chip game which was pretty big in LA in 2002) they pitched as outlined above. In tournaments (which used bottom section dealers and had less experienced players) they slid the cards. I hope this helps.

PS: A white chip in LA is worth $100 if anyone wondered, the lowball games were typically $300-$600, but once in a while there would be a NL 2-7 game.

[MicroBob]

Am I the only one who has a hunch that it might not even be a part of the audition to deal these games?

Heard stories from last year of the players having to tell the dealers how to deal such games.
I'm guessing they are more interested in just getting any able-body who can actually deal a game and arrange a side-pot.

Of course, it probably wouldn't hurt to be able to deal those games either.

[RR]

[ QUOTE ]
Am I the only one who has a hunch that it might not even be a part of the audition to deal these games?

Heard stories from last year of the players having to tell the dealers how to deal such games.
I'm guessing they are more interested in just getting any able-body who can actually deal a game and arrange a side-pot.

Of course, it probably wouldn't hurt to be able to deal those games either.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would be suprised if they have them deal those games, but I have no idea what they are doing. I know procedures are just not important to the WSOP people for two reasons. (1) They need dealers so anyone that is "close enough" will do. (2) They are employed by Harrah's so for the most part they don't really know what the correct procedures are. There are some good people that work for Harrah's (it is a large corporation), but as far as I know none of those people were hired by Harrah's but were working there before Harrah's tok over. I think Harrah's can be summed up by a quote from one of their poker room managers "I can teach anyone to deal, what we are looking for are people that smile a lot."

[psandman]

In the past this was not part of the audition, but I have been hearing that they are going to be using a tiered grading system this year so that they will have "A" dealers, "B" dealers, and "C" dealers and assign them differently. If this is the case it would make some sense to see who can deal the different games even those that are not common (I never had to deal a draw game last year though I made no effort to avoid them - yeah BOT was going butI just never hit one)

[bav]

RR's description of pitching vs sliding sounds eerily like a discussion at the Rio mix game a few weeks ago. It's mostly played by the Rio dealers so they often chatter about how to deal it. There was discussion and debate as to whether pitching or sliding was "correct" and "better". The Rio poker room slides. But I think they were claiming the WSOP wanted pitching (not sure I remember that part right... SOMEbody wanted 'em to pitch the draws rather than slide 'em).

Yeah, keep the last round of discards separate from the muck. When you need to shuffle, shuffle the previous discards, but none from the current round. In the original description posted only the last discard is kept separate but that's not the way I've seen it done.

Oh... if you have too many players, like if you're playing with 7 or 8 in a mix game, first one or two sitout. You can't play 3draw rationally with 8 players taking cards--the dealer will go mad shuffling the discards every round.

As for dealing chinese poker... it's basically like dealing bridge. Deal out 4 stacks of 13 cards and the dealer's job is about done. I suppose the dealer should be able to assist with reading hands and computing points, but only the big boys play chinese poker at WSOP and they'll be very happy with the dealer just keeping out of it.