A lot of changes in poker land since the day I first came across the gleaming sphere of energy and light, off in the distant and misty regions of unmapped territory. As I approached the action and prepared to embark on a tour of discovery, I had no idea I would end up where I did, and even in drifting through the memories of a million unrecorded ventures that mark my path across the land, it’s still hard to believe I am where I am with all of it.

My initial journey started in Montana, learning to play (if that’s what one could call it in those days), learning to deal, eventually managing a small room, and at other times running my own game in local bars. From those first cumbersome baby steps, I took the tournament trail for two years, dealing big tournaments in Nevada – Reno, Tahoe, and Las Vegas – and returning home to Montana, to deal and play, until the next big tournament started. I watched the poker boom in Montana fizzle down to long dreary nights when machines were legalized in the state. At that point, I knew if I was going to stay in the poker industry, I needed to make a move, it was time to go where poker was 24/7.

I helped open The Mirage in 1989, along with 5,400 other employees. The Mirage never slowed down, we had so much business that most of the other poker rooms in town closed and we just picked up steam.

In 1993, I needed a break from the Vegas lifestyle and trekked across the USA to Gulfport Mississippi. I helped open the Gulfport Grand and stayed for a year. As is always the case, the first year that gaming hits a new area, it is ‘balls to the wall’ action. I knew it would slow down because the local crowd can’t fade the day in, day out grind and keep money in their pockets (that isn’t Mississippi related, that’s world related), and if the tourist traffic isn’t at a maximum, everything slows down. And by the time I left, so many places had opened up that the casinos were like graveyards, where only the slot machines remained as headstones.

I planned to stay one year in Mississippi, I did. I returned to Las Vegas almost one year, to the date, from the time I left. Treasure Island had just closed their poker room and I was on the list (behind dealers from the TI that wanted to return to The Mirage), and I picked up a gig dealing the Gold Coast Open at night, and went to work at The Sahara during the day, while I waited. Incidentally, the Gold Coast wouldn’t hire me full time because I have a little bit of INK on the back of my neck but they loved me as a dealer and I could deal any tournament for them…woo-fucking-hoo!

By now, drug testing was part of being hired in a casino, and starting to become fashionable for a lot of Vegas jobs. I never had a problem with any of it but it’s what keeps a lot of dealers on the tournament trail…they can’t pass a drug test.

In September of 94, I was back at The Mirage. The first two years back, the room was still a screaming slammer, filled with bodies every night of the week, chips and cards slamming across the table, and mostly the ‘old school’ treatment of dealers was the main formual in all limits. By ’96 everything began changing. I got my first computer. I had no idea what I was doing but writing about the poker games I dealt seemed to be my only form of therapy (hell…in those days I didn’t even drink), and I wrote Poker Tales. Without using names, I felt I could escape the wrath of people I dealt to, and still create the atmosphere and agony of what some of it was like from the dealer’s side of the table.

Soon internet poker hit, CA could now spread games other than low ball, indian casinos were cranking up with poker, and the riverboat theme had spread to other states, New Jersey was in the limelight, and poker began dying a slow death in Vegas. When I started my night with a deadspread, I wondered if I needed to find a new profession; things were definitely slowing down.

Bellagio was under construction, some of us talked back and forth, ‘should we go?’ – ‘should we stay?’ And I knew I was going. It’s the same old routine, when a new place opens up, everything is great for the first year or two. I knew Bellagio would pick up all of the high limit and as much as I dislike high limit at times, if a place has high limit, it has all the action. In ’98, over 9,000 of us opened Bellagio. Most of the early days were/are kind of a nightmare scenario. At first there were too many dealers and we sat too many deadspreads or were offered an E/O. I opted to play through a lot of that during the first three to four months.

The high limit games were still pretty much out of a nightmare. Smoking was still in and specificially in high limit, even though the first and last seat next to the dealer were X, everyone thought they should be allowed because they were playing high limit. And more than once, when a player in the 5 or 6s lost a pot, they would inhale a huge lungful of smoke and exhale directly into the dealer’s face.

Then, once again, poker in Vegas took a slump. Not just the normal summer slump but deadly quiet at other times because other casinos in other areas were running a big tournament. Scary. Of course it’s only scary if you make a living at poker.

Hello WPT – suddenly the whole world has gone to TV and poker. Poker went huge. Everyone that I dealt to for years, some of them a major pain in the ass to deal to, suddenly became household words. The whole adventure became fun again. People laughed when they played, win or lose, the action was back to slam, bam, bash, and poker took on a major facelift.

Being part of poker for over 25 years has put me in a position that has several key points. Of course one of them is financial because I work in the industry. As a player and a dealer, I feel I’m very much affected by the financial aspect of poker. There are mega changes coming in on the next ship landing from outer space, The IRS is dispatching a fleet to take control of tip related income and is increasing its hold over all that deal tournaments and live games. One of the biggest problems I have with all of it is why is the casino allowed to hold millions of tip income dollars from dealers (pit included) and utilize the dealers money for float purposes? Shouldn’t the dealers receive interest on the new revenue gleaned from us by the casino? The IRS slipped into the pocket of tournament winners years ago and there’s no escape, even if you live in a foreign country, there are regulations and requirements that must be filed and met.

The earthquake that hit poker land recently was centralized with the government’s attempt to ban anyone in America from playing poker on the internet. Poker has already been proven – CA state – to be a game of skill and should not even be considered gambling…there shouldn’t even be a question about the difference by now. The lamest of excuses is to protect children from gambling. That is such a gigantic can of worms that I can’t even go there right now. And if more kids learned to play poker than do drugs and hang out on the streets, away from parental supervision (and more parents were aware of what parents are supposed to do), we might not have as many problems in the world as we do today. Kee-rist! That can of worms is trying to topple over.

The poker land that I first ventured into has changed dramatically. Bots are playing poker competitions now, not against humans, but against other bots (article on the way soon), the PokerDome is alive and well, dealerless poker tables are on the market, the WSOP is bigger than the whole planet, and every back alley bar seems to have a poker game in progress. While the sign of things to come may appear to change everything, most of it will stay the same. There will always be more bells and whistles but the simplicity of a game of poker prevails. Win, take the money, lose, sleep in the street *old Montana poker joke*

In the event that I make it another 25 years, I can always check back here to see where I was, what I was doing, and what was going on as I trekked across poker land. G’nite Tango.