Who the heck is Bobby Baldwin?

Catching up – our room was slow on Wednesday and Thursday but picked up on Friday to 29 games. Very good.

The high limit is always there…no berry patch for the dealers. I’ve played enough poker that I do understand why players are hostile towards dealers. I’ve seen more than enough bad dealers in my years of playing/dealer/management poker experiences. The attitude of some of the dealers is really pitiful. They act like they are SUPPOSED to get a tip just because they push a pot…if they don’t, some of them bristle and huff through the next few hands. Sad because poker is a customer service job. A good attitude and efficiency make the whole atmosphere better for all of us on both sides of the table.

I dealt an $8-$16 limit holdem game on Friday that was rocking and rolling with a few youngsters in it. One of them sat next to me and questioned what the high limit was like, the tips, the biggest game I ever dealt, etc., etc. It was a lot of fun. He thought T. J. Cloutier and Lee Jones played $3,000-$6,000 on a daily basis, (wrong), but he’d never heard of Bobby Baldwin. Funny because not only is Bobby Baldwin the President of Bellagio, he’s been involved in poker for years…a good friend of Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese, his name runs with high limit and no limit throughout the poker world, he won the WSOP Championship in 1978.

My friends, Jim AKA The Monkey and Glen, from Colorado, hit town for the weekend. From the sounds of things, Jim did his share to promote the economy in Vegas. Jim is hysterically funny…wish he lived here so I could laugh more often when I go in to work. I’ve known him since the Mirage days. Jim and I had a dinner scheduled for Saturday night and he stood me up…due to being STUCK! Oh well, poker does that and I understand it so another time.

I dealt a $80-$160 limit 1/2 Omaha 8 or Better and 1/2 Holdem game which John Esposito played in…funny how a player thinks they know all of the rules in the room. While stacking the chips during the hand, in the Omaha 8 or Better as the play of the game progressed, John informed me that I was making a mistake stacking the chips. Right, John, this is my 1st day after all and I appreciate any tips you give me.

“At $200-$400 limit and higher,we are not supposed to stack the chips but at any lower limit we are supposed to stack them to speed the game play. However, if you’d rather I didn’t, I won’t.” I softened my statement with the last sentence because he’s John.

“I’d rather you didn’t stack them.”

He sort of looked pleased with himself so I left it at that. He’d lost the last few hands and I’m sure if he’d won, he wouldn’t have minded my stacking the chips at all.

It’s difficult getting around all of the personalities that must be dealt with while dealing poker. Not to say that I have to kiss butt or put up with a bunch of garbage from anyone but if I want to survive financially and mentally, I have let a lot of it roll past me and never take it personally, and show some deference on simple things. Fortunately I’ve been in the business long enough and understand the ‘poker mentality’ so I do survive it quite well.

I haven’t played in 2 weeks. No reports on playing from my side of it. Maybe someone reading this will send me a ‘play/game report’ from somewhere in the world and I will start a new column called “Player’s Diary”. Any takers out there?