12/22/06
Television is working – news at last. It saddens me to find that Donald Trump and Rosie are having a tiff. What great publicity for the two of them! I guess there’s not much real news to report with Congress in recess.
I headed into Reno to visit the social security office. Apparently I need an SS card or some kind of printout to get a drivers license here in Nevada. I found the office without too much trouble. Some of the street signs were hidden from view or non-existent. Once I arrived the whole process took about five minutes. It would have been an all-day ordeal in Southern California.
So with a whole day of spare time on my hands, I visited the casino dealer school, otherwise know as the Reno Job Training Center. Within fifteen minutes, I was signed up for blackjack and craps classes and standing at a table.
First the shuffle, then the pitch, handling the chips, learning the terminology – paper play, washing the deck, stripping the deck, turning the deck, check cutting, color up – this game is so much simpler from the other side of the table.
There were two other students present when I started my first lesson. Both were young Chinese girls. One was yappy and loud. The other one was quiet and sweet. The quiet one had a cute way of saying, “Thank you for the tip.” I’m pretty sure she’ll get a lot of tips, but she was a little slow at counting the hands.
The teacher was a veteran dealer named Vangie. I think she was Vietnamese. She told me that she could deal over five hundred hands an hour. I guess that’s pretty quick. I suppose it’s just a matter of practice for me. She also told me that she could count cards, but I ran through half a deck with her using a plus and minus system and it was obvious that she couldn’t. Vangie was patient and helpful, but she seemed to have a problem slowing down her moves so that I could see what she was doing. One of the other students had to teach me how to cut chips from a stack.
The first day went well. After a few minutes, I learned the riffle, but pitching the cards across the table with a finger flick and having them land in front of the player with the right side up was a problem.
I was a master at counting hands. I’d done that as a player for years and discovered that on the average, dealers make around five mistakes in an eight-hour period. I’d estimate that four out of five mistakes are in favor of the house.
I brought home a fresh deck of previously used casino cards to practice my pitch by tossing them into a popcorn bowl on top of an upside down wastebasket. After an hour and a half, I seemed to have it down pretty well. Having a good pitch is like having good form at the pool table. If you can’t handle the game, at least you can look good screwing up.
