Lately I’ve been on the brain dead side of life and have gone into work every night and signed up to play instead of deal, (the EO/play trick). Some think this is wonderful because you get paid minimum wage while you’re playing. It is if you win. If not, you’re thinking of the night’s wages that you gave up in tokes only to lose playing and it’s not a pretty sight.

While I haven’t lost a lot, win some times, lose sometimes, I’m still not beating the game enough to make it worthwhile and it’s time to go back to dealing all of my shift.

Tonight I was given the perfect reason to go back to dealing. I’ve been struggling for the last three months with poker, lots of non-playable hands for hours on end (9-4, 6-3, 8-3, off suit) and then when I pick up AA, KK, QQ, even if I flop a set, I can’t win the hand. I know…we all go thru that…now that that’s out of the way, on with the story.

I help start an $8-16 holdem game, I’m in the 8 seat. A young woman sits down on my left (9 seat) and she’s complaining that she’s so glad she’s out of the game she came from because ‘such&such’ a player never shut up or quit complaining.

Our game takes off, new players come, seats get filled. The young one on my right has a boyfriend that plays and he’s at the other end of the table from us. I believe that I’m the only one that knew he was her boyfriend.

The girl and her guy both get involved in a hand with one other player and on the turn, her guy bets, she raises, the other player folds and now it’s just her and her guy…they both turned the nut straight but he has a flush draw with his hand and makes it. She wasn’t happy.

A few minutes later, I pick up two red Aces, her guy is the small blind, I’m three out of the blind, I raise and everyone behind me folds, he calls $12.00, the big blind calls and one player in between us calls also. The flop is three hearts. The short of it is that I have Aces with the Ace of Hearts and he flopped a small flush, 6-4 of hearts. I think he’s desperate to play when he calls a raise in that position with no other callers in between but what do I know? He wins the pot.

A few minutes later I’m in the big blind with 9-7 and the pot’s raised, the boy friend calls, three other players come in and I call $8 more.

Flop is J-9 little, check to the boyfriend, he fires, two people call, so do I. I turn a 7 giving me two pair. Boyfriend has J-9 off and wins with two bigger pair.

A few minutes later, the guy who sat down in the 10 seat and originally wanted to play 7-Card stud, left his hand out in the playing field after he called a raise. I reached over and pushed his hand back, and trying to be helpful, said, “Put something on your cards and protect your hand.”

The girlfriend, out of nowhere, said to me, “You are so irritating! Honestly, stop acting like you’re dealing the game.”

I was stunned. I looked at her and she failed to give me eye contact. I would have liked to have said, “Get a fly swatter, Honey, it’s going to get a lot worse!”

But of course, I work there. I’m loosing, her beau snapped off AA for me and I’m “irritating” because I tried to help another player.

I got a rack and put my chips in it and went home. So the Vegas community was deprived of my action because I couldn’t handle the stupid remarks that people make. If I opened my mouth, it would’ve made matters worse.

I’m indignant when people think that just because I’m playing, even though I bought my own chips, that I have to shut up and am not allowed to say anything. To all of you that feel that way, shove it, stow it, cram it and try not to be irritating while you’re doing all of that…the rest of us would like to play poker.