Card Player's Interns Make It All WorkThese Guys Have Kept Track of Everything |
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Fans of poker who have been following the World Series of Poker secretly from office computers the last few months have CardPlayer.com's interns to thank for making the Rio's Amazon Room their second home this summer.
Card Player hired 17 interns from colleges all around the country and they were responsible for keeping track of the thousands and thousands of hands and chip counts that took place at this year's WSOP. Every post, except most of the hand-to-hand posts of the final tables, was done by our team of interns. Click here to view the live updates.
Broken into two shifts, they roam the floor with notebooks, keeping track of chip counts, of players being knocked out, of big hands, pots won and lost, and anything else they could catch.
Inside the Amazon Room, a long table is set up where some of the interns sit behind a row of laptop computers connected to CardPlayer.com's administration servers. Other interns are assigned quadrants that contain 45 tables in each. They know where the professional players sit, they know who the chip leaders are, and they know about and track all the major goings-on in their sections.
Whenever something big happens, say a Phil Hellmuth bust, the interns get all the information - what the board reads, the betting action, the result - and write it down. After the hand is over, they run over to the bank of computers to share the details. Minutes later, the hands appear on computer screens around the world.
"You've got to be quick on your feet," said Julio Rodriguez, from the University of Florida.
Each intern working the floor also wears a headset and carries a walkie-talkie. Communication is key, and the teamwork involved is staggering to ensure that little is missed.
More than 300 people applied to become interns this year. The top 50 were interviewed. Out of that, Card Player hired 17. They have been in Vegas since the end of June and will stay until Aug. 11, which is the day after the WSOP main event ends.
Card Player put them up in condos minutes away from the Strip and hired a driver to ferry them to the Rio and back.
Shifts can be long, as the swing shift of interns need to stay until play ends for the night, unless it's a final table. The final table is done by Card Player staff. Some of the tournaments have gone past sunrise and the interns have been troopers and stayed for all if it.
Erik Fast of Occidental College just turned 21 and has been a poker fan for years. He figured why not come to Vegas for the summer, see and meet some of the players he has watched on television, play poker, and make a few bucks? So he applied and was choosen.
"This is getting so huge, I thought it would be a crazy phenomenon," Fast said.
He's right. It's so crazy that celebrities from all walks of entertainment have been spotted on nearly a daily basis. So many that Rodriguez says they don't faze him anymore.
"I'm completely desensitized to celebrities and professionals now," he said.
Card Player expects to hire even more interns for next year's WSOP. Keep an eye on CardPlayer.com and Card Player College Magazine to catch next year's details.
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