There came a time about eight years ago when Jan Holubowicz-he's now the Normandie Casino's tournament director-took a long look at the poker business and could feel a tug of attraction.
Poker was the way to go.
And if he was going to get serious about using poker as a tool for reaching the lifestyle to which he wanted to become accustomed, then leaving his home in Colorado and making the big move to a bigger market, LA in his case, seemed like a good idea. Fort Collins, CO was his home at the time of all this decision-making. As a young man doing what felt natural, shooting some pool, playing some poker, he had not spent a lot of time looking too far ahead. He'd get to wherever he was going soon enough.
"The people I ran with ... hung out with started playing a lot of poker, more poker than pool and so we got this home game going and I did that for a while.
"I got into the casino business thinking I'd see how I liked it, whether I'd be comfortable in it, the environment and everything. Didn't know whether I'd like it but it turns out that I did."
Holubowicz, 30, discovered the skills developed during those home games were more than sufficient to handle the challenges associated with the biggest games in the poker business. As a matter of fact, his first official dealing job anywhere behind the city limits of Fort Collins was in Las Vegas at the 2001 World Series of Poker, the year Carlos Mortensen won the $10,000 no-limit championship.
"It was a lot of fun," he says with no prompting, "going from Fort Collins to all the excitement and glamour of the World Series in Las Vegas. "One of the things I always wanted to do as a dealer was to deal the final table of the main event and during the (Chris) Moneymaker year (in 2003) I was actually able to do that. And then the next year, the (Greg) Raymer year, I also got to deal some of the final table hands."
Is the pressure for a dealer any more intense during one of the big televised poker events?
"My first time at the final table during the Moneymaker year it was like, please God, don't let me make a mistake. There are people all around you, television cameras everywhere. Everything seems to be focused on what I'm doing and I'm sitting there trying to look cool, like I do this kind of stuff all the time."
He continued acquiring experience with high profile poker games as he was called on to deal for the World Poker Tour and the SuperStars of Poker.
He moved into the executive ranks of Los Angeles card clubs when he was became tournament director at Larry Flynt's Hustler Casino about four years ago. "At the Hustler, Table 55 was Larry's table, where the big games were, games as big as anyone would find anywhere. I dealt there. The amount of money on the table was sometimes, well, it was awesome. One pot might be more than a lot of people make in a couple of years."
He came to admire the intelligence and attitude of Daniel Negreanu and Barry Greenstein. They were players who projected intelligence and an attitude that made them good role models for wannabe poker pros. Former World Series of Poker director Eric Drache who is now a behind-the-cameras executive for some of the most successful TV poker shows, remembers taking note of Jan's talents as a dealer there."
"Despite his high level of skill as a dealer," Drache says, "I could see that Jan was destined to move up in the poker industry. He always had questions about rules, etc., but always asked them away from the table as he knew that talking while dealing was something many players got upset with. He's worked several times with our televised poker events."
The Hustler position was phased out early this year and he was quickly recruited by Gardena's landmark Normandie Casino to direct tournament operations. The Normandie is the only one of the original Gardena card clubs still in existence. Opened in 1940 as the Western, it later became the Normandie.
At the Normandie, Holubowicz deals with the difficult reality that has touched much of the poker business. "So many clubs in a small area, kind of like Las Vegas. You have to do something special to get people in the door."
A level of service that leaves customers feeling comfortable is always a high priority, but beyond that the Normandie is experimenting with "a number of new promotions" that have been introduced over the last few weeks.
One of his newest creations is a website, lapokerweekly. com. He sees it as a means of keeping players connected with the Normandie. There's also a "Best All-Around Player" competition that will qualify the top finishers in weekly tournaments through July 21 for slice of $15,000 in prize money.
"We're trying to give back more to the players," Holubowicz says, "because of the way the economy is now, the casinos can't be just take, take, take. So we're going with this mentality, giving back all we can while providing the environment that makes the club the place they prefer."
