Poker

Learn to deal Stud Poker, Hold’em, Omaha Hi/Low, and Tournament Play.

POKER: 4 weeks - 80 Hours

In this class you will learn to deal Stud Poker, Hold’em, Omaha Hi/Low, and Tournament Play in every variation, and at a high level of proficiency. Students who graduate this class will have the skills necessary to audition and deal in any major casino.

This is a course outline of what you will learn in our Poker class:

• Rules, dealing procedures and terminology for Stud Poker, Hold’em and Omaha Hi/Low Poker as played in the casinos. This includes Tournament Play.
• Rank of cards and hands.
• Mechanical skills: scrambling, shuffling the cards, cutting the deck, holding the deck, pitching cards, burning a card, spreading the flop, check handling, cutting checks (chips).
• Table stakes, player buys-in, how to handle cash and make change.
• Betting structures and limits, raises, string bets and string raises, completing the bet.
• Calling out the action, announcing bets and raises, “option” to the blind, number of players, “last card”.
• Dealer’s bank organization, counting the bank, getting a set-up, getting a fill, use of lammers
• Tracking the total money in the pot, taking the rake at 5% and 10%, Jackpot rake and procedures.
• Pot appearance, gathering the antes.
• Game protection, protecting the pot, protecting the players.
• Oversize chips, changing cash, soft breaks, when quarters play, folded hands, All-In bets, one side pot, multiple side pots, splitting the pot, raking the side pot.
• Straddles, missed blinds, dead button, dead blind, dead money.
• Counting down the stub.
• Playing behind, betting “on the piece”.
• Changing dealers, table line-up, break tables.
• Controlling the game, pacing the game, when to call a floorperson.
• Going for a job interview and audition, getting started on the job.
• Characteristics of a Professional Poker Dealer.

Poker classes are taught Monday through Thursday from 10am-4pm.
Friday hours are 9am-3pm.

The total cost of the course is $799.00

Thuan “Scotty” Nguyen, world champion poker player, visits Nick at Casino Gaming School. Nguyen is one of only 5 people to have won titles in both the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour.

Nick’s Notes on Poker

Why is Poker $799? You get what you pay for. We do a great job of teaching Poker. We have two instructors in Poker all the time and a full size Poker room with four tables in it. We teach Stud, Hold’em, Omaha Hi/Low Poker and Tournament Play in every variation, so when you get your first dealing job there will be no surprises. Lots of casinos audition Poker dealers on Omaha Hi/Low Split because it’s a brutally tough game compared to Texas Hold’em. The casinos know that if you can deal Omaha Hi/Low Split then you can deal anything. If you can’t pass the Omaha Hi/Low audition, then they don’t want you. When you finish our class you’ll be able to deal all the poker games.

At one time, Poker wasn’t that popular in the casinos. But then Chris Moneymaker came along. Chris won a $39 satellite tournament and found himself with a free ticket to the World Series of Poker and amazingly, he won it. Everything changed from that point on. Now the casinos welcome Poker players because they spend a lot of money while they’re waiting for their tournaments to begin.

If you go back five years you would never have recognized the names of the guys who made it to the final table. Of course, now they’re all famous. A lot of new young players from the .com’s come into the game and do well because the other players can’t “read” them.

Today’s typical Poker players are the young “gunslingers” — the young guns. They are players from about 18-25 years old. Most of the winners in the last few years are from this age range. The other interesting fact is that the majority of big winners were Poker dealers. They learned more about the game as a dealer than as a player. For example, if a player folds and the hand ends, the dealer can peek at the next card to see what would have happened. No one else gets to see the card. Only the dealer knows how the hand would have played out.

The parents of one of my students sent the money in advance for him to become a Poker dealer, but before he even started the class he won a roll-in to the World Series of Poker. He made it to the tenth seat and won $597,000. He sent $500,000 back home, pocketed the rest and still hasn’t shown up at my school.

Poker is going strong and there are new casinos under construction in Las Vegas all the time. You can walk into a big casino at 10:00 am and see some dead Blackjack tables but even at this early hour the Poker room is already jammed. As a dealer, this means you can make money on any shift. Many casinos run tournaments seven days a week.

Let’s talk about some of the Poker variations that the casinos offer. Texas Hold’em is the most popular Poker game. That’s what you see played at the World Poker Tour (WPT) and the World Series of Poker (WSOP). In this game you get two cards and five community cards are dealt in the middle. Each player makes the best possible hand using his two cards and any three of the community cards.

Omaha High/Low means that you can win with a high hand or a low hand or you can with both. For example, you might win the high hand with a A-2-3-4-5 straight but also win the low hand because those are lowest possible five cards. People love this game because it’s got a split pot most of the time, so they figure with two winners for each hand they’ve got twice the chance at winning money.

Tournament Play works like this. You put up an amount like $20 and it’s like Freeze-Out. You play until you get blown off the table and then you’re out. But, if you win that table you move to the next table, and then to the next table, and you eventually go to the final table. That’s how the World Series of Poker grew and became popular.

Stud Poker is one of the oldest Poker games, and is usually played in 5-Card and 7-Card versions. Almost everyone knows how to play this game.

We prepare you to deal all these Poker games and variations so you can pass your casino audition and feel comfortable from the first time you deal in a live game.

Since the only money that Poker makes for the house is called the “rake” or the “drop”, Poker dealers must be efficient, quick and smooth. The casinos want you to deal a large number of hands per hour so they can make money. Of course, the dealers must also be friendly to their customers. This is very important because as a Poker dealer you keep your own tokes (tips). You have to hustle and be friendly to make a living as a Poker dealer.

Two things must happen for you to be successful Poker dealer. You must have players in the seats and you must get out hands. You need to do both of these things to make money — and keep your job.

You’ll have to decide for yourself whether you want to deal Poker or Blackjack. Before I sign someone up for our class, I often ask them why they want to become a Poker dealer, especially since I’m going to charge you about two and half times more for Poker than Blackjack. If you’re thinking of becoming a casino dealer and you ask me whether you should learn Blackjack or Poker, I’ll tell you if you want the shortest, most direct route, then you should learn Blackjack. You can learn Blackjack in less than two weeks but you can’t shortcut Poker. It’s five weeks bare minimum for Poker and that’s if you attend classes every day.

So what are the advantages to dealing Poker? You get to sit down, you get to keep your own tips and you get to work in non-smoking Poker rooms. Also, Poker students usually get their first jobs in better casinos than beginning Blackjack dealers. That’s because most of the smaller casinos don’t have Poker rooms. And once you get a full time Poker dealing job in a major casino, you can make more money than the equivalent Blackjack dealer in the same house.

To be a top Poker dealer you must deal a smooth, tight game. We teach you how to deal Poker at this high level of proficiency. We teach you everything you need to know.