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"CHECK THIS!"
Bad Beats & Other Poker Fables
My first experience at a poker table, other than as a player (a rather poor one at that!), was as a shill. A shill is a person that plays for the house to help start a game or in games that are short-handed in order to help keep the game going. A shill gets a salary, (usually minimum) benefits and a meal, but plays house money and is not allowed to "gamble." On the other hand a "prop" player plays for the house with the same duties as a shill, except they are allowed to "gamble;" they also receive a salary (higher) with the biggest difference being, a prop plays their own money.
One of the players (Al Cargil) from the Razz game at the Stardust that helped put me to work (actually my bad play caused me to go to work) was about to open the card room at Circus-Circus so I asked him to give me a job as a shill dealer. A shill dealer works as shill but also learns how to deal poker.
The card room at Circus-Circus was very busy and successful and in no time after dealing in "dead spreads" (games with no "live" action) management turned me loose in a real game. It was Saturday night and the joint was packed. I was put in a 5–10 stud "snatch" game (remember from my previous columns, a "snatch game" is a game where the dealer, with the blessing of the house rakes 40 to 60% of the pot) this was the only room that I knew of that spread a $5–$10 "snatch" game. Usually, only smaller limit games (1–2, 1–3 or 1–4) were "snatch" games. As you might imagine I was quite nervous, but not only because of all the people standing around the table watching (not to mention the players themselves), but the table was placed at the foot of and along side of the ramp leading up to the arcade games, so I had more people above me watching.
About the fifth hand I dealt, a shill sitting in the 1 seat (an attractive girl named Carol who also had the equipment to knock over her chips if she bent over even a little) who was of course placed at the table to attract men to the game, showed me her hole cards; two 5s, which gave her, along with two other 5s by "fifth street" 4 FIVES. She leaned over and in a hushed tone asked, "Is this on the square?" I whispered back, "I can hardly shuffle the damn deck, let alone give you four of a kind."
My moves (snatch) went undetected for the rest of the night (four or five 40-minute shifts) and I learned my lessons well over the following days. About two weeks later I was made a regular dealer.
The room went well and I was making more money than I had ever made before, plus another "perk" was, I was like a kid in a candy store… Almost all the cocktail waitresses were a "10" (when the Circus-Circus first opened in 1969, the owner, Jay Sarno hand picked the cocktail waitresses himself). So you could imagine the fun I had, or tried to have… But all good things come to an end. After the six-month lease was up, Circus-Circus would not renew the card room lease because Al had on two occasions gotten into an altercation with a pit boss while playing craps. Why, with all the joints in town did he have to play and get into a beef in the place where he worked? Oh well…
About this time I "discovered" hold-em. I thought hold-em was a better game than stud or razz. More action, bigger pots, faster… More on my hold-em experiences in later columns.
After my Circus-Circus experience I went to work downtown at the Mint. The Mint stood next door to the Horseshoe where the Horseshoe card room, sport book and parking garage stand today. After several months at the Mint I put in for a transfer to the Sahara which was owned by the same company (Del Webb Corp.) and was about to open their first card room.
One afternoon while playing razz at the Stardust, into the card room along with a troop of security guards marched Lefty Rosenthal (yes the very one, of "the boys" fame). They began (literally) yanking players and dealers out of various games. About 8 or 10 in all (one of the many scandals that plagued the card room at the Stardust thru the years). They were all (literally) thrown out of the joint and asked (told) not to ever come back. I was later told they were placed in the casino "Black Book."
The card room manager Davy D., finding himself in a fix and knowing I was between jobs, asked me to come to work at the 'Dust. I protested by telling him I was going to work at the Sahara in a couple of weeks. He asked me to deal there just until then and that he could speed up the work card process and have me "in the box" by that evening. I rather grudgingly accepted and I did start that night, dealing to the very players that "sent" me to work in the first place. I dealt, I might add (in those days at the 'Dust you dealt the same table all shift, unless you were the break dealer) $15–$30 RAZZ the whole shift. What a twist of fate. Now instead of sympathizing with the dealer I incurred the animals wrath…what a "bad beat."
I became a good dealer (my wife says I was one of the best in the state) so I did not have many encounters with the many "bad actors" in poker. I guess they respected me or at least my dealing ability. In my next column I'll relate the few encounters I had with those bad actors (i.e.; Davey S______, P____y P_____n, S__ U__ , S___e remember the names have been changed, or at least altered, to protect the guilty) and a few others.
Good luck at the tables, I'd rather be lucky then good anytime. FM
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