I love and hate this time of the year both at once. It can be really tough and tends to lead me to burnout mode. Some people assume that dealing is an easy job physically because you get to sit while doing it. But during each hand, you are bending over multiple times to bring in bets and this can be rather painful, especially when going for long stretches of time. Try dealing a satellite that lasts for 2.5 hours continuously where you are uncomfortably bending over from 5 to 10 times per hand (averaging about a hand every 2 minutes)...believe me, this is painful.

You are hurting and are usually sore by the end of your shift, so going and doing it all over again the same day isn't always topping the list of things to do. Tomorrow night, I start a string of 9 consecutive shifts:

Sunday 10pm
Monday 11am & 10pm
Tuesday 1pm & 10pm
Wednesday 1pm & 10pm
Thursday 1pm & 10pm

I am not excited about this.

So, who did I get to deal to in the past few weeks? I have a few names but not too many good encounters/stories.

-Shannon Elizabeth (remember her from American Pie? Even better is that she was in the 10 seat...right next to me!)
-Humberto Brenes (he was annoying as usual, but not in all-out 'shark' mode, probably because he was sitting next to Shannon and didn't want to look like a complete idiot)
-Justin Bonomo
-Eric Liu (ca$h game specialist/Cardrunners Pro)
-Chris 'The Armenian Express' Gregorian: (every dealer's nightmare...luckily for me, his table was on break for the entire 30 minutes that I was there although the players at the table even told me how bad he was already acting)

and some of my friends:
-Amit 'amak316' Mahjita
-Dan 'Wretchy' Martin
-Jon 'sketchy1' Eaton
-Chad 'lilholdem954' Batista (my roommate)

Remember I mentioned that I had the feeling someone I knew was going to win a bracelet this year? Well, it just happened. Congratulations to Jordan Smith, aka scarface_79 in the online poker world, Winner of Event 36 - $2,000 No Limit Hold'em ($586,212)! I have had some interesting conversations with Jordan. Even though we don't talk much or don't know each other very well, I do know that he's gone through a lot from the AIM conversations we have had and am very glad that he now joins his friend Matt Graham as a WSOP bracelet winner.

I am too tired to come up with more, so I'll take some notes and try and get some good stories for the next entry which will be in a few days.