User:Kaziuko muge/Linda Geenen

Linda Geenen is a well known poker dealer that has been involved in the poker industry of poker, as a dealer, card room manager, and player for over 30 years. Born on May 3, 1947, in Ogallala, Nebraska, she was fourth of eight children born to Arla May and Elmer James Downard. Linda grew up in the western half of the United States as her mother followed her father’s wandering trail of drifting from state to state and never settling down to a job. She went to 14 different schools in almost as many different states before graduating from high school in Troy, Montana in 1966.

Linda didn’t learn to play poker until she was 30 years old, when she moved from Honolulu, Hawaii to Missoula, Montana, and while looking for work, her sister Vickie said she should become a poker dealer. In 1979 she began dealing $1-2 Limit 5 Card Stud at the Oxford. From that beginning, she learned how to deal and play all the poker games and moved on to dealing at The Palace, and running a game at the Stockman’s Bar for a year before stepping into managing the poker game at the Oxford and working with all aspects of poker—including teaching people to deal.

In 1987 Linda made the trip to Las Vegas to inquire about dealing the last Grand Prix Tournament held at the Golden Nugget. That was her first step into dealing high limit poker as she learned the ropes the hard way dealing to Johnny Moss, Sarge, Stu Ungar, Puggy Pearson, Eric Drache, Mike Sexton, Chip Reese, and other players that were regulars in the big tournament circuit.

Linda spent the next two years traveling to Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe to deal big poker tournaments and returned to her home in Montana after each trip. She also ran a poker game at The Trails West during this time in Montana.

In 1989 The Mirage (in Las Vegas) received over 50,000 applications for job positions that would be available on opening, Linda was one of the 6,000 employees that were hired and helped open The Mirage Poker Room in November of 1989. She worked under Donna Harris as her shift supervisor and Eric Drache, the card room manager.

1993 found Linda on her way to the Gulf Coast to help open the Gulf Coast Grand in Gulfport, Mississippi under Tony Collins poker room management. A year later, 1994, Linda returned to Las Vegas and worked the Gold Coast Open at the Gold Coast Casino while she waited through the hiring list at The Mirage.

While at The Mirage, Linda was one of the driving forces against smoking in the first and last seat and submitted a petition that gained over 150 signatures from smoking and non-smoking players alike. The petition was submitted to Eric Drache and Frank Cutrona (assistant card room manager), and eventually the smoking ban took effect after trying it at a few small limit tables first. Today, smoking is banned in almost all Las Vegas card rooms.

When Bellagio opened in 1998, Linda moved to the new poker room, along with the majority of the high stakes players and cash games and fellow dealers. Linda has dealt to almost everyone, that is anyone, and a million or so unknowns since her dealing career began, including the Big Game with Andy Beal, the banker from Texas. This game was the basis for the book, The Professor, The Banker, and The Suicide King by Michael Craig.

Linda has also been a TV dealer on the World Poker Tour (WPT) during two of the Ultimate Bet Aruba events in 2003 and 2005 – Freddie Deeb and Erick Lindgren won those two events. And Linda is also the dealer in most of Howard Lederer’s poker training videos and DVDs.

Linda registered the .com name PokerWorks in 1997 and began writing about her dealing adventures in a blog, in first the Poker Tales that are still carried on PokerWorks, and later Dear Diary, which eventually evolved into Table Tango. She is also one of the first poker bloggers to begin posting on the internet. Through her blog she also was instrumental in: bringing Howard Lederer in contact with the person that started Howard’s ‘Professor’ career through DVDs and Poker Boot Camps; Michael Craig’s research and book The Professor, The Banker, and The Suicide King; putting Megan Gelstein, producer of the History Channel, in touch with Archie Karras for hosting a series on gambling.

Linda also carries a construction pictorial of Project City Center on her blog which has photos from the beginning of the project to 2007.

In 2007, Linda gave notice at Bellagio and left the adventures of the adventures of the green felt to become the full-time editor at PokerWorks.com which is now owned by iBus Media Limited.

Linda plays poker daily at PokerStars and also plays in Las Vegas Casinos from time to time.