Max. The name alone teases the mind. Max what? MAXimum self destruct is what comes to my thoughts when I see him and deal to him. My introduction to Max happened years ago at the Mirage. His main game is 7 Card Stud, $15-$30 and $20-$40, although he flirts with Holdem on occasion.

He’s intelligent and dances around most people without them even knowing the fiddler is striking a reel.

He used to be entertaining, never charming, but he gradually lost the art of the dance. It began when he started insulting players, mostly tourists, that beat him in a hand.

He would pick an ally, some local with a grouchy disposition, and make his stinging comments to them as if they were alone and no one else was privy to the conversation.

His comments didn’t imply, they flat out screamed that the tourist was an idiot for even being able to sit at the table and purchase chips…of course he managed to drag the dealer into his misery laden conversation.

When Bellagio opened, he stayed at the Mirage, moving over later and dragging all of his bad beat baggage with him.

He sits immersed in a bowl of wine, intermittently watered down with coffee, and armed with his own yellow button…the button is pushed in front of him when he feels the dealer is beating him and he wants to be dealt out.

At times he may be trying to give me a compliment. His statement to the table, “She’s a beauty. I wanted her for my own…”

That questionable compliment is sprinkled in between his throwing cards at my hands and the rack. It’s a deliberate move by him. He knows that he won’t hit me because my hands are never laid on the table. A few times I’ve picked them up and thrown them back at him. He usually laughs when I do.

He’s told the table that I’m not like the rest of the dealers…please do not think that he holds me in high esteem…he knows that I do not fold under the pressure he lays on the rest of the dealers. And when he throws me $.50 for a $400 pot, I just rap it lightly and say, “Thank you.”

He can’t ‘get to me’ so of course I’m not like the rest of the dealers.

A few weeks ago he was in rare form, kibitzing, talking, interjecting a laugh after he cut someone to the bone with a sarcastic slash, and I pushed him a pot. He threw out some $1 chips and demanded, “Give me change.”

I asked if he would like a roll of halves.

He said, “No. I want you to suffer with halves in the rack.”

I didn’t play his game, I gave him the silver change.

He couldn’t stand it. “Before long, the ‘new place’ will be opening. I’m going but you’ll be stuck here.”

I replied, “I’m not stuck. And you’re going to be stuck no matter where you go.”

He agreed with me. It’s true. He can never go back and he can’t move forward.

There is no life preserver in that bowl of wine and the edge is slippery and as out of reach as another lifetime.