There are now so many players coming into Bellagio for live and tournament/satellite action that the room is popping at the seams. It’s as if the Card Fairies put a ‘Poker Player Pill’ on the floor and waved the magic wand. Presto, instant players! The wand is broken…it can’t be turned off and won’t stop producing.

~

High limit usually has the most bizarre extremes of all limits and tonight was no exception. Table 1, $1,500-$3,000 Mixed Games. The usual line-up. David G. 1-S, Eli 2-S, Jennifer 3-S and walking, Johnny C. 4-S, Minh 5-S, Gus 6-S, Stranger 7-S, Chau 8-S.

Dealer spreads a new deck and asks if the Winner would pay time or should the Dealer just take it. David said, “Do whatever you think is best.”

The game was Omaha 8 or Better with $500-$1,500 Blinds. The dealer elected to just take it and asked the 7 Seat to put in 5 – $100 chips instead of the single $500 chip.

David barked, “Whatever you do, just deal. I’m not in charge but I know you’re supposed to deal.”

Someone else interjected that the winner would pay the time.

The dealer said, “I asked and David told me to do what I thought was best.”

Johnny asked David what he would do if he was in charge.

The dealer said, “Jesus, I’m just doing my job.”

David said, “Yes and you’re doing just fine.”

He left Johnny’s query unanswered. David was stuck and he was ultra talkative/negative. While talkative isn’t unusual for him, the negative is.

David and Minh split a pot, David had the High, Minh the low. One odd $500 chip went to David. Minh is very hard to understand at times as his English is poor. His guttural growl came down to ‘what are you doing?’ when David got the odd chip. He was gesturing and waving at the dealer as David flipped him 2 – $100 Chips.

The dealer said, “Dam-m-m-n! I don’t know what you guys are doing.”

The whole table started mimicking Minh as they watched him while they were doing it.

Gus said to the dealer, “You can stand up and hit Minh right in the face and everyone at the table will swear it was all his fault.”

Everyone roared, including Minh as he turned a little bit red in the face.

Jennifer appeared and took her seat. Eli asked where she’d been so long, followed with ‘we thought you were jumping off a building or playing black jack.’

Jennifer said she’d had some things to do and Johnny said he heard she was giving a blow job.

Johnny was in rare form. He even said hello to the dealer, stated they were all drunk and threw the dealer a few $$ to buy a drink with. Very unusual to see him laughing and talking during a game.

Everyone was laughing. Jennifer said she was not giving a blow job and Eli said that was good enough for him, if she said she wasn’t then she wasn’t. He could barely get that out with a half way straight face.

Jennifer went all-in and lost the hand. She asked who would loan her money. She said she had it in her box. This means she had it in the lock box in the hotel and would pay back immediately.

Chau asked if she really had it. He was teasing her. He went on to say that she’d won 3 pancakes from him one night and those must be in her box too. Pancakes are $25,000 chips.

Everyone hooed and awed, “Pancakes! You mean she got all your pancakes?”

All in all, the game was pretty relaxed and funny.

~

The game on 4, $30-$60 Holdem found A-A being dealt 4 times in 20 minutes and good only once. It was almost spooky how many pocket pairs were out in that half hour. Q-Q at least 3 times, 10’s several times and other pairs. The cycles are bizarre at times, no one finds a playable hand for days and then an explosion of skill cards runs over everyone’s face.

Nope, don’t even start with the ‘cheating thing’ here. The dealer is not only reputable but doesn’t know any maneuvers and never learned or wanted to. When you take a seat in this dealer’s game you’re on your own, baby, at the mercy of the deck just like everyone else!

*****
This post by Chanzes when Linda was taking a break from the Diary.