Dealing poker is like being part of the Matrix. You plug in when you walk through the door and unplug when you walk out, remembering all the time that you’re there that there really is no spoon. At times it seems bizarre to watch people walking through the door, finding a game, buying chips, settling into the table routine, relaxed and calm, laughing when they start out winning, and watching them turn into a demon from hell when they take a few beats or get low carded two or three times in 7 Card Stud.

Nothing brings out a person’s true personality like watching their money being pushed across the table to someone else…well maybe if you screw with their kids or mate but money places huge in the overall scheme of things. Other times the whole poker scene appears to be completely natural and a normal part of life. That having been said, I’m now ‘unplugged’.

~~~~~

A question that always comes to mind when a player never tips more than 50c – why in the hell don’t they just buy a roll of halves and quit with the crap of ‘chop’ when they throw out a $1?

First, it appears that they are trying to show everyone at the table that tipping 50c is cool and inflation hasn’t struck the poker room.

Second, they are slowing down the deal and the game by expecting the dealer to stop and break a buck down. Yes, I feel that it slows down my game.

Third, there are a lot of dealers that will never order halves when they take in a fill and will drop them into the rake if they are in the rack because these dealers don’t want to accept 50c for a toke. They want $1 or nothing.

I say screw these dealers but I still have to follow their arrogant asses in the line-up which means no halves in the rack. So…if you’re one of these 50c for life tippers, just order a roll of halves when you get your chips. Simplify it for the rest of us. Oh…and stop pointing out to the guy that gives $3 to $4 a hand, that he can tip us 50c. For hell’s sake, I don’t cut into your action so don’t cut into mine.

~~~~~

Several funny things at the table. Simon, a young, exuberant chase the Sheilas and smoke too many cigarettes, $4-$8 Holdem player, here for a few weeks to mess with the locals minds, was asked if he was married. He said, “No! I’m going to find a woman in her forties that I hate and buy her a house!”

Another one was a woman new to poker playing $4-$8 Holdem and several times a player at the table said, “I’ve got the nuts!”She had no idea what that meant. Someone explained it to her and a few hands later, she bet and said, “I’ve got the balls!”

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

You’ve dealt to this guy for somewhere around 10 years. He played $75-$150 7 Card Stud at the Mirage and moved up with all the limits and all the games. He even got into a fight with Sam G. at the Mirage one time and Sam G. got 86’d for a hell-uva long time over it…permanently from the Mirage and the first year Bellagio was opened.

One night at the Mirage, you’re dealing a Mixed game of Holdem and 7 Card Stud to this guy, he’s the One Seat, Howard L. the Two Seat, Stu Ungar the Four Seat, and Doyle B. the Eight Seat. It’s a brisk little $200-$400 game and lots of action. One Holdem hand in which Stu is the Big Blind, Howard the Small Blind, Stu flops a flush and Howard flops two pair. End result is that Howard makes a Full House on the River. Of course Stu wants to feed you his hole cards and throws them into your chest and leaves the room.

That was a typical Stu move. Lose a hand, throw his cards into the dealer’s body parts and jump up and leave the room to go snort, choke, gasp, or whatever it was he did. Hate when all these movies and articles glorify a player and act like they were so great. If they were/are, why the hell can’t they take a beat like a gentlemen/lady instead of acting like they’re still in the sandlot playing with ‘liddle cars and truckies and Barbie thingies’?

Stu ambles back, takes a hand, gets beat by this guy and verbal abuse begins. Stu calls him everything but a real person, insults his girlfriend calling her all these ugly infested ‘c’ words, and a few other million things.

Doyle puts his chips in a rack and Stu asks him if he’s leaving. Doyle states that he is and ‘no one wants to listen to it anymore’.

Howard puts his chips in a rack and Stu continues on his ‘fucking whore, cunt, bitch asshole, no life, never had a life, never will have a life, I’ll bust your face and your bitch’s too if I see you in the parking lot’, distasteful use of wordage and language.

Finally the shift supervisor, Donna H. goes off shift and Walt S. takes over. Walt asks Stu to put his chips in a rack and end it. The game mercifully breaks up with the One Seat leaving and Stu putting his chips in a rack. By now you’ve made up the Set Up and the rack is locked up. Yahoo! You get to walk away from Mr. Potty Mouth.

Funny part of it is that the next night, several players approach you and ask why you didn’t call the Floor Supervisor when Stu was calling you all those names. You almost die laughing as you try to explain that he wasn’t talking to you, he was talking to One Seat.

So the story continues. You deal to the One Seat year after year. You never make a mistake in a game that he’s in yet he feels it’s necessary to interject with “Give him $2,000 change.” or “Just leave the bet in front of him and that’s what he owes.”

No shit! Often wonder what these guys think you do when they aren’t around to tell you what to do?

One night at Bellagio this player tries doing shots with the other high limit players. He can’t handle it and ends up throwing up on the table. They left him laying in it and moved to another table to continue to the game.

Then one day he finally asks his long time girl friend to marry him. A couple of the high limit players, as in Jennifer and Howard, like him so much that a few weeks before his wedding they hire a private detective to follow his betrothed around. Come to find out she’s already married. At least his friends waited until he had bought the ring and proposed, sent out all the invitations, set up the catering service and planned the honeymoon.

Is this sarcastic? Truthfully…do you want friends like that?

Well…back to poker, poker, poker. You listen to him one night as he complains that he never receives a tip from a dealer. No matter what kind of beats he takes or hard his night is, the dealer is always sitting there waiting for a tip yet the dealer never tips him.

You talk to Johnny World about this. Johnny World is in cahoots with you and when this player loses a pot, you are going to reach in your shirt pocket and throw him a couple of bucks. Johnny will back you up and say he put you up to it…but Johnny starts running across the damn USA to the East Coast and a few other places and you never get to pull it off. Damn bad beat there!

So…you go in to deal $1,000-$2,000 Mixed Games and this guy’s in the 4 seat. The game is Deuce to 7 Triple Draw. The bets are in on the first round and you burn and just as you get ready to pitch the first draw cards, this player screams, “Don’t deal the cards!”

You stop. What are you supposed to do?

This guy continues with ‘deal them down and push them’. Ok. After seven years of pitching draw cards, now, out of a clear blue sky and someone’s whim, you’re supposed to do it another way. Everything changes in high limit. One day they can chop, the next day they may chop your head off…you just never know.

A few hands later it’s the first draw in a multi-way action pot and this player wants three cards. You deal them to the table top before pushing them but one of them catches off the edge of the deck and does a little “SNAP”. It didn’t expose but instantly he’s on you.

“You’ve got to be more careful. We’re playing for real money you know!”

How many times have you heard that in your dealing career? Every time you hear it, you want to say, “No-o-o-o-! Damn I’m sorry. Thought you all got your chalk back at the end of the night.”

You respond to him, “I’m sorry.”

“Well you are going to have to pay more attention!” He pounds you like a meat tenderizing mallet on a bad steak.

You’re just dripping with a small amount of irritation and reply, “It won’t happen again. I’m trying to do the best job for you that I can.”

He explodes like The Blow Hole on Oahu, “THAT’S A LIE!”

He looks at his cards. “Well you may be trying your best but you will make the same mistake again.”

You just got Grayed…the G-Man bit a chunk out of your self contained, hard working epicenter.
The G-Man lives in a black and white world. He’s the only one that’s ever allowed a discrepancy and if it happens, he tries to kill all witnesses so they can’t tell anyone. If he’s the only one that knows of the discrepancy, he goes through extensive programming to remove all traces of it from his mind.

You have no win with him but don’t feel bad about it because neither does anyone else in the world.

Why was Stu so verbally hot on the G-Man? Word had it that Stu ran a poker stake up into a bit of cash and instead of divvying it up with the G-man and someone else involved, Stu blew it on the race track. When the G-man tried to collect, Stu went to SOMEONE that could hurt you. The SOMEONE called the G-man and the other someone else and Stu together and informed the G-Man and his pal that Stu didn’t owe anyone anything. The whole thing was dropped. Stu liked to punish people when he felt he had the upper hand and that’s where he was with the G-Man.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

There are a lot of topics to cover, guess I’ve just been a lazy dog and haven’t managed to find the time to accomplish everything I needed to do so I’m still coming up last in a one woman race. Dragsville!

The games are hopping. High limit’s really slow due to the big tournament in Tunica. Reports are in from some players that have been there and back. Some love it, some hate it. Isn’t that the way it is with mankind? One player stated there was nothing to do there but play poker and after waiting hours to get into a game, buying his chips taking his first hand, the supervisors closed the table because they needed it for a tournament…needless to say he was HOT!

Monday night found a lonely little $1,500-$3,000 Mixed Game up on top at Bellagio and it was four handed. Jennifer, Minh, Eli, and Doyle. Clipped and short conversations between Jennifer and Doyle. See the previous post.

Tuesday and Wednesday were really thin up in the top section but games were rocking in the real world. Real world? Where the rest of us play, silly. Three and four $30-$60 Holdem games a night and the same in $15-$30. Lots of $20-$40 and $15-$30 7 Card Stud Action. The $8-$16 and $4-$8 Holdem games are thriving and so is the $1-$5 and $4-$8 7 Card Stud. The $20-$40 Omaha 8 or Better crowd is always there and truly, I promise there will be a post that gets really in depth into the heart and soul of this group that comes together everyday to beat each other’s brains out.

Super Bowl Weekend is upon us. The room will be exploding with players. And screaming, applauding, insanity will overtake most of them as they place wagers on the game. It’s always great for poker and how convenient is it when the poker room opens right into the sports book?

There’s an incredible, beautiful sunrise coming up over Vegas right now, light gray skies being chased away by brilliant, orange clouds adorned with swirls of purple. Given this moment in time, it’s really hard to think about anything else so I leave you with a link to one of Linda’s poems and I’ll be back tomorrow, promise, promise, promise, to tell you more tales of the green felt.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

There’s a little war going on up in ‘high limit land’. Jennifer has committed the cardinal sign. There just are things you don’t do in high limit; you can’t slow roll, you can’t state your hand incorrectly, you can’t swear and carry on like a jackass in front of a man’s wife unless he’s doing it also and a few million other things that most of us take for granted when we play poker.

Taking a shot will get you shot…ok, not literally but one thing you don’t want, in ‘high limit land’, is a bad name with the only other people that can afford to play the game with you.

The war has been ongoing since last week. The game was $2,000-$4,000 Mixed and they were playing Deuce to 7 Triple Draw. Jennifer apparently bet on the River, Doyle called, Jennifer threw her hand face up and the dealer, (not this dealer), called her hand as a 7 low, when in reality, she had paired deuces. Doyle threw his hand into the muck and then realized that she had a pair. The Supervisor was called and the ruling was that Jennifer got the pot as she still had a live hand…pot size somewhere around $30,000 to $40,000.

No one even seemed to care that the dealer had miscalled the hand…in this limit why the dealer would say anything is a bit of a mystery because the only thing a dealer has to do is call the high and low card in stud games, the players take care of themselves and the dealer is never involved unless a player asks the dealer a question.

Doyle had a fit with Jennifer, something like, “you’d pick the nickels off a dead person’s eyes’ and a few other things. Jennifer had a tiz and flipped the pot at Doyle. Conjecture has it that she did give the pot to him.

Along into this week, the war is still in full force. Jennifer wants to explain to everyone that she didn’t realize she paired deuces and no one, especially Doyle, wants to continue going over it and since she has a tendency to get a bit moody and mouthy, she’s fighting with everyone. Hey, it’s hell when there’s only a handful of players that can afford that limit because you’re going to look at them every time you want to play. Beating them is one thing, pulling a shot or antagonizing is another. Maybe you’d have to be there….

~~~~~~

There’s more going on in a poker game than meets the eye at times and some of them are a lot of fun. Take John for example. He plays $15-$30 and $20-$40 7 Card Stud. He’s been a regular at Bellagio since opening and he’s buffed out and great to look at…of course he’s married and when he comes in to play poker that’s exactly what he does although he likes to tease and play ‘the game’.

He’s always teasing you about the ‘leather room’ and ‘red spike heels’ and ‘whips’ and on and on and on. You play the game better than the average player so any time John makes a comment, a return comment is instantly forthcoming.

Bill, another regular, is fairly quiet, likes to fish, (literally in a lake not just at the table), and comes in after 9 or 10 p.m. each night to join the game.

You push into a $15-$30 Stud game in which John’s in the One Seat and Bill’s in the Four Seat. A stranger in the Two Seat loses about the 3rd or 4th hand you deal and has a little tiz, flips his cards in the air, grabs the remainder of his chips and leaves.

Bill looks at John and says, “Guess he can’t stand a beating. Acts like you do, John.”

John is pumping chips into the next hand, looks at you and says, “I never act like that do I? Not even when I’m in the Leather Room?”

You just smile and say, “No but when I slap the handcuffs on you, you do start to scream.”

Bill’s mouth drops open and he gasps, “You guys are turning me on.”

Your smile widens and you continue, “But you really go crazy when I bring out the Red, Velvet Rope.”

Bill reaches in his pocket and digs out a handful of bills, extends his hand across the table to you and says, “Here! These are yours.”

Another stranger at the table pipes in, “Oh you’re going to need a lot more than that. Better go to the ATM or get your credit cards out.”

The whole table collapses into a howling melee and you just keep on dealing….

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

Last week found us dealing to Larry Flynt. To some of you ‘youngies’ that may not mean anything other than the fact that he owns the Hustler Casino in California. To some of us ‘oldies’ it means that the first time we picked up his Hustler magazine some 25 odd years ago, we were shocked by the graphic illustrations and statements he published for the whole world to see.

He’s got quite a history and you can read a little of it here.

You knew he was in the room and in your line-up. Sure enough, you walk up to deal to Chip R., Jennifer, Eric D. (original opener and ex-manager of the Mirage Card Room), Danny R., Larry F. in the Five Seat, Johnny C., Eli, and Doyle.

You sit down in the Dealer’s Chair and try to adjust the height because it’s way too low to even let you get your elbows above the table. It won’t budge and you have no choice but to sit down and deal. While you’re shuffling, with the table in your arm pits, you realize that it’s been raised to accommodate Larry’s chair.

Larry is seated right across from you and has two wood dividers on the table in front of him…they extend like a partition in a roll top desk only they are about an inch and half thick, six inches high and 15 to 16 inches long. They’re dark wood and have an ‘H’ engraved in them. His left arm lays between the two petitions and his right arm lays on the outside of them where his chips are stacked. He’s in a conversation with everyone at the table, or so it seems, and you reach over and touch his hand and wait until he gives you eye contact. When he does, you ask, “Where would you like your cards dealt?”

He taps his left hand on the table and you’re off and running, spread the new deck, announce ‘time pot’ and shuffle up and deal. The game is $2,000-$4,000 7 Card Stud.

Larry wins the first hand and you ask him for $80 in Time. He gives you the $80 plus $5 for you and three players get up to go start a mixed $2,000-$4,000 game. The game only lasts another 15 or 20 minutes. Larry’s tired and the talk is that it will resume on the following day.

Your pretty sure that Eric, Danny, and Johnny were all playing Larry’s money, not that anyone gives a damn one way or the other. The game breaks up, Larry sends you all of his $5 chips and tells you they are for you, followed up with a smile. And you say, “It’s really nice to meet you.”

Hey, did you ever think when you read the Hustler Magazine a million or so years ago that you would ever deal a hand of poker to him? You didn’t even know how to play poker then, let alone think it.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

Linda G. is pretty damned unhappy about my laxness in writing and keeping up the updates about the real world of poker so I’ve vowed to get started, in earnest, and keep the lines and tales from the green felt flowing.

In retrospect to the last post about Dino and Sammy, nope…not the Rat Pack, let’s get back to the Dino thread that was kind of hinting about more to come. Dino’s big claim to fame is that he once held down a job for 6 hours. He hated working. He makes fun of people that are happy in their jobs – especially poker dealers.

It goes something like this, he puts on a stupid grin and then makes sure that no one talks louder than he does, which means he has no volume control, because he wants to be the only person heard and off he goes. “Ohhhhh! I’m so happy I have a mortgage. I’m so stupid that I’m happy I have a job. Ohhhhhhh, I get to come to work every night. I’m so glad that I’m here.”

Drip about 5 gallons of sarcasm all over the statement and the look on his face and you’ll get the picture.

He dresses very well, no jeans and slouchy shirts or run down shoes for this guy, his clothes for the evening might cost more than the average person makes in two weeks. He’s not stupid by any means and he’s very witty, coupled with bitterness and alcohol and a few other drugs over the years…he will tell you this himself so it’s not idle gossip. Yet he’s sitting in the Sport’s Book at 2 a.m. with a girl that looks like she needs a life transfusion, (yeah as in get one), trying to sleep on his arm and he looks at you with alcohol stressed eyes that refuse to focus, and asks if you’re going to the Stardust. So in other words he needs a ride.

He’s always playing low limit, hanging in the Sport’s Book, drunk, slithering around the slots, and security has asked him to leave more than once but he feels he’s got the best of the game. Guess that’s the important part, how he feels about himself.

So back to the game the other night. He comes in after missing his blind and posting, never shuts up, starts a hell of a ruckus with you and you try to side step and slide around all the obstacles he throws in your path because only one other player in the $4-$8 Holdem game is a regular. There’s a few young, new players and you want them to have fun. You don’t want them to get initiated in to how to be an asshole at the poker table in one easy lesson.

After Dino rants at you for longer than God could stand, you just look at him and smile, “Hey, it’s hard to match wits with an unarmed man.”

The kid in the 10 seat busts out laughing. Dino goes a little crazy and wants to know what you said. You just keep dealing. This makes Dino even nosier. He does say something that’s pretty funny though: “If you keep it up, I’m going to have to call someone and have myself thrown out of here.”

That one brought the house down. They all laughed.

At the same time, there’s a sultry beauty in the Four Seat. Of course Dino went after her. She ignored him and parried with a few curt sentences from time to time and finally he made the big mistake of getting really mean.

She had mentioned that her husband played higher limits while conversing with the Three Seat. Dino just couldn’t let it go and stated that he would also play higher limits if he was married to her…followed with, “So I wouldn’t have to be around you.”

The beauty looked like someone slapped her in the face and turned away from him in disgust.

You knew it was too much and he crossed the line so when he started to say something else to her, you interjected with, “Leave her alone. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Dino shut up for a few seconds and then started on you again. You get pushed and tell the dealer coming in that Dino has been totally rude to the Four Seat and she doesn’t want to talk to him.

You then go to the Floor Person and tell them that Dino is borderline for being ballistic and he’s hassling the Four Seat. You’re about five minutes in your next down and Dino’s chips are racked and he’s leaving. Well, you mess with the bull you get the horn, Buddy. Who was the beauty? Todd Brunson’s wife, Doyle’s daughter-in-law.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

Dino and Sammy…all in one night? Sammy’s a derelict railbird, nowhere to go, no life, (no happy thought unless it’s watching someone else be miserable), demanding, hateful, mooch, mooch, mooch…oh yeah, and those are his good points. What does he do with the rest of his life when he’s not hanging out on the rail? Who would even bother to find out?

Condescending? You damn right! When you’re the brunt of someone trying to boss you around when they aren’t even a customer and are mooching off of the customers…hell, nothing more needs to even be said about it.

A Sammy background: Fahlah and Ray D. both play $15-$30 Holdem while they wait for $30-$60 seats. They both come in to play poker and are serious players and easy to get along with. Ray was a cop in NY years ago and he has a sense for strange people and a touch for the ‘people of the street’ which gives him a feel/sense for Sammy. Fahlah is Middle Eastern and that gives him a background or familiarity with Sammy because Sammy’s Lebanese.

Sammy sits behind either of them, as a sweater, whenever they are in the room playing. He’s drunk, mumbling, and makes really rude, terrible comments about everyone in the game and the dealer.

One night when you’re dealing $30-$60 Holdem, Sammy sits behind Fahlah, who’s in the One Seat and that puts Sammy right behind you Mumbling through his alcohol induced state of hatred, he’s jabbing and prodding Fahlah’s arm to get his attention, speaking in another language, and you turn to Sammy and state, “No conversation during the hand, please.”

Sammy glares at you as if you don’t know your place and expects you to crawl into a hole.
Fahlah laughs with you when you deal. He asks you what you call Sammy…you say, “Jerk!”

Fahlah finds that to be very humorous. He says that Sammy is ‘nasty’ not just mean but ‘nasty’.

Well one night when you’re dealing to both Ray and Fahlah and Sammy is sitting behind Fahlah, Ray looks at Sammy and asks, “You cheating on me?”

Maybe you would have to be there but it is funny! Sammy is a low life, ass kissing creep and he goes with whomever will tolerate and stroke him. So on to tonight.

Ray is waiting for a seat in $15-$30 Holdem at 2 a.m. as the $30-$60 looks horrible and Ray is playing $4-$8 Holdem while he waits. Who found him? Who comes to sit behind him? Creep Breath the Jerk, of course.

Ray gets called for $30-$60 Holdem and Sammy asks Ray to leave his chips and let him play if Ray takes the seat in $30-$60. You look at Ray and say, “No! Take him with you if you go.”

Gus a player/dealer, in the seat next to Ray, agrees that Ray should take Sammy with him. Ray laughs…”You guys are mean!”

Sammy is so drunk that he misses all of the innuendos and conversation around and about him. He keeps telling Ray to raise and bet although he’s never seen Ray’s cards and has no idea what the play of the hand has been.

Ray is on his 2nd buy-in without winning a hand and he tosses his cards with a shrug and gives you the ‘what the hell is going on look’ and you nod at Sammy and mouth, “Jonah!”

Ray starts laughing. Hey, it’s all worth it in the long run!

Moving on! Dino? He’s definitely convinced that he’s the hottest thing since crunchy peanut butter and has a mouth to back it up. He is a player though and can be very funny when he’s semi-sober. Tonight he wasn’t even close to the semi part of it but he was a great straight man for all the jokes that went right over his head…of course, they were aimed at him. But more on him later.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

Sometimes it’s extremely difficult to keep a straight face when you’re dealing a game and a player is going ballistic because they think you’re doing something to them. You’ve never seen them before, and after this session you hope you never see them again, but they are totally convinced that you, the damn dealer, are doing it to THEM.

You slide into the dealer’s box in a lively little, $4-$8 Holdem game that’s rocking and rolling with chips, laughter, and poker, poker, poker…everyone except the Two Seat. He’s European, fairly small in stature and sort of resembles Santa Claus without the beard. He’s got a jaunty little green felt fedora perched to one side and instead of a serene gaze, he’s got glare devils shooting out of his eyes. Especially at you, the dealer, each time he looks at his hole cards. He pelts his cards at your fingers more than once but you deftly avoid any collision with flying objects so he’s not getting any satisfaction there either.

He goes all-in and pulls out a $50 bill. You reach for it because the only cash that plays is $100 bills. He yanks it back and demands $40 in chips and $10 in cash. You just smile and say, “Ok!” and call for a soft break.

He gets his chips and keeps giving you glare looks while the rest of the table is chirping, laughing, and gambling. He’s now the Small Blind and the player under the gun, puts a straddle on it, making it $8 to go.

Everyone’s having a great time and they’re noisy so at least three times, you announce very loudly, “Live eight!” as you shuffle the deck and start to deal.

One player calls, everyone folds to the Two Seat and the Two Seat throws in $2 more for a total of $4. The worst of it happens because the player in the Big Blind throws their hand away which now obligates the Two Seat to either leave in the additional $2 and throw his hand away or call $6 more and playing the hand.

Try explaining this to someone that’s already mad as hell and shoots skin shredding, laser beams at you every few minutes. But of course you do and it works out just like you thought it would. The Two Seat has a fit because he didn’t know it was raised.

In a gentle voice, you explain that you stated it was a live $8 as you shuffled the deck…not just once but three times. And that the action passed him after he called and what his options are.

He’s got a wild look in his eyes, like they might explode right out of his head.

The live $8 Player waves his hand at the Two Seat and says, “Throw your hand away.”

The Two Seat hesitates and finally does pitch his hand. You quickly scoop his $4 into the pot and put up the Flop. The Two Seat keeps glaring and starts mumbling. He zings out a demand, “Call the Floor Man.”

You’ve really had it with his little, mean ass and you look him right in the eye and in a very controlled voice, you state, “I don’t want to because if I do, you might have to leave the game.”

The Two Seat. “I want the know the rules.”

Three players chimed in at the same time, “That is the rule.”

You continue with, “I want you to relax and play poker. Have a good time.” You say it with a smile and just keep on dealing. Hell, that was more fun than getting on his case for being a jerk anyway.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

It’s here. The New Year has drawn out on the old year and everyone’s still playing.

First an issue that has to be addressed. You’re probably wondering what Linda and Chanzes have in common.

1) We both hate whiners. Get the hell up, look life in the face and address the issue. It’s not the world that has a problem, it’s you.

2) Poker is a common denominator using chips and cards and the basic structure of the game being played. Everything else is the whimsy of mankind and how they relate to it.

3) People make poker what it is; the game, the wins/losses, the structure, it’s all relative.

4) If you can’t handle the heat or the beat, go home and turn on the TV…there’s probably some lifeless melodrama there waiting to bore you to death.

5) Men are great. The stronger the face, the tighter the ass, the more ‘yahoo’ that goes into rattling their cage when they play poker. How do their wives relate to that? Who cares! She can learn to play poker too if she wonders what he’s doing with all those hours away from home. There’s more than one game being played at the table.

6) We both hate the same things in players and dealers. Lots of dealers just can’t figure it out. Perhaps there’s a school for dealers that sit in the dealer’s box and are still lost…in other words, they can’t figure out what their job entails. But they would flunk out of this school anyway. If they can’t figure out what the job requirements are, like “paying attention”, “shut up and deal”, “customer service”, how in the hell could they graduate from the school? Yet they are everywhere, in all poker rooms, filling up the dealer’s chairs with their stupidity and bad dealing attitude and they are tolerated by management and players. Players? Well most players are doing what they are supposed to do.

7) We are both slightly crazy and mentally ill with life so certain factors that you might find to be offensive just crack us up because we look at the overview. We admit that we are mingling with the mind mix of the lost and delusional, stirred with a few cups of self torment, and tossed with shredded loser. We are entertained by the whole picture. Maybe you would have to be there….

Time to move on or a quagmire, black hole, spiral effect may occur. Blackouts are known to occur when there is no rhyme or reason for certain actions and effects.

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A couple of notables from the year 2002. Andrew, a Brit, that plays the $15-$30 Holdem at Bellagio and used to play $10-$20 at the Mirage, (although he plays no limit and pot limit tournaments), put in a raise on Christmas Eve.

He phrased it this way, “A Christmas Raise. A gift!”

It was extremely cute and appropriate. Oh yeah, he won the pot so it really was none of he above but it sounded so cool.

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Layne F. while playing in a No Limit Holdem Satellite – down to Layne and his opponent. Facing a raise, Layne raised. The opponent stated, “You’re going against the odds!”

Layne replied, “I’ve already beat them. I made it to 30.”

Love that guy! How can you not love that daring smile, the devilish light in those eyes and the constant chatter that always makes his opponent believe that he can never win even when Layne has the worst of it?

More on Layne at another time.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.