Dealing has been a lot more fun lately…no experts that know everything telling me how to do my job…mostly people that came to play poker and aren’t trying to screw with me. There are a few that leave me shaking my head when I leave the table.
One is Ralph P. He always has to take an issue with the dealer, as if he was appointed by God to make sure that he keeps the dealers in line and shows them the folly of their ways. That folly would be becoming a dealer to begin with.
I pushed into a Mixed game, with Sammy F. (2nd place in the WSOP), Ralph, Jim, Mike, Jason (4th place in the WSOP), and Bruce. They had just finished eight hands of $100-$200 Pot Limit Omaha, with the last dealer, and I would start the 1st hand of Deuce to 7 Triple Draw Low. There were no wonderful little game plaques or clues to tell me what the limit was. Sometimes you just have to wing it…I did.
I announced, “Time pot!” Sammy was the small blind and put out $300, Jim, the big blind threw out what I thought was $600. I assumed the limit was $300-$600…silly me. I took the ‘time’ out of Sammy’s blind and dealt the hand. Everyone folded back to Sammy and he put in $200 more. I told him he owed another $100.
He didn’t say anything. Ralph jumped in informing me that the bet was right.
To Sammy, I said, “No, you need another $100.”
Ralph, then Sammy, both said, “You took $50 for time.”
I still didn’t get it. I insisted one more time that he owed another $100. Then I looked at Jim’s blind which was five chips…it dawned on me they were playing $500-$1,000. I apologized and stated, “There is no plaque to tell me what the limit is.”
Even though Ralph was not in the hand, he gave me the stern, you’re an idiot for being here, “I told you and he told you, yet you persist.”
My thought: Piss off!
It would have been so simple if someone, anyone had said, ‘the limit is $500-$1,000. Too easy. Punish the dealer by making them guess what you’re doing. Ralph was the only one it bothered…typical…he’s always trying to pull something whether it’s getting a free hand in a new game or winning one pot and leaving, he leaves a trail where ever he goes…never the trail I would like to follow.
The game broke up within a few minutes because Sammy was bored. He wanted to play only pot limit. Ralph tried his usual…pacify everyone only let’s get Sammy to stay in the game and when that didn’t work, Ralph went to another game, the trail becomes narrow and slippery here.
Everyone escaped to another game but within a few minutes, Lee S. and Sammy were playing heads up, $200-$400 Pot Limit Holdem. I dealt a few hands of it and got pushed.
*****
$30-$60 Holdem. Fairly quiet game, two strangers in the 5 and 6s, two seats open. Ritchie W. flopped a King High Straight and slammed every chip in the world into the pot and the 5s drew out on the river, making an Ace high straight.
Ritchie bet the river, got raised, raised it himself and the 5s just called with the stone nuts. Ritchie takes a beat better than anyone I know. He laughed and said he just couldn’t put the 5s on that hand. No card throwing, swearing, or terminal idiocy. Ritchie is a player’s player.
A few minutes later the action went into the ‘hit the bomb shelter, find the best evacuation route available, there’s a comet coming into Earth at 5 a.m., and every chip left in the free world has to go into the pot’.
The pot was capped with four-way action pre-flop. The flop was small, with a pair. The Turn brought a King. Vince, the 2s got the last raise in before the flop. Roger, the 4s got in every raise he could also.
Vince checked the turn.
Roger asked, “You checked?” and bet.
Vince called. On the river, Vince checked, Roger bet, and Vince called. Roger showed King’s full and Vince showed A-A before he flipped his cards into the muck.
That’s when the mumble, jumble, mutter, schmutter started. Vince made comments about Roger’s “You checked?” statement, interjected with fuck and fucking bitch. He did the fucking bitch thing several times but I still haven’t figured out if he was talking about me or Roger. 🙂
Thank God for the time clock and the hot Vegas mornings…kind of brings me back to another place and time.