I got a real treat when I started to leave the room on my first break. A woman and two children, boy and girl, were standing at the entrance to the card room looking for husband/dad.

I stopped and asked if I could help them.

The woman said she was looking for her husband and I suggested that she step up to the front podium and ask the Brush person to page him…she hemmed and hawed and said that he might be winning and she didn’t want to jinx him.

I then asked what game he played and what limit because I intended to tell her which part of the room to scan.

She didn’t know. She turned to the boy, he appeared to be eight or nine years old, and asked, “Do you know what game he plays on the internet?”

We went through Texas Holdem and a few others guesses and finally I convinced her that I would stand there with the kids while she asked the Brush to page. She went.

The boy said, “My dad likes to play tournaments.”

Me, “Yeah, they’re cool.”

He went on with, “He knows what cards to keep and what to throw away. He’s a very good player but the computer is cheating.”

Honestly…I swear…I kept a straight face when I replied, “Wow! Really? That’s not good, a computer that cheats?”

Mom returned and dad wasn’t there. They left me and I chuckled over that comment all night long.

*****

The highest limit tonight was $600-$1200 Mixed. I went through the game on Table 1. The Shuffle Master was turned OFF!!! Bad beat. I love the Shuffle Master…not sure why it was out of commission. The last word I heard was that we would have them on 28 of the 30 tables. That would really be sweet.

******

While dealing $30-$60 Holdem, a sweet young thing asked for first seat change. Another player told her it went by seniority. It was funny because the conversation turned to the fact that two of the players, new to Bellagio, at first thought that it was the length of time you played at Bellagio…their play began a few days ago.

They wondered how anyone could keep track of someone that had played there since opening vs. someone that started a few months after the place opened and on down the line.

Hell no! I’m not kidding. They weren’t even blonde.

One of them said that when she first heard it, she thought she would be the last person in the room to be eligible for a seat change because she was fairly new to poker.

I cracked up!

******

Our next tournament kicks off this month on the 23rd. Visit this page for dates and schedules. Don’t be shy about calling Bellagio if you have any questions. Show up and play with us…you’ve all been watching the World Poker Tour so you know what’s going on in the real world of poker and you know Bellagio is the place to be…See you there!

Take a moment and reflect…this is not about poker, it’s about life. Mike, a Montana man, is going in tomorrow to have his leg amputated. He’s blind, diabetic, and is on dialysis for kidney failure. First he has to go through dialysis, which is brutally hard on one’s body, wait a few hours, and then have his leg amputated because gangrene has taken over his foot. Mike is 49. He’s has very few pleasures left in the world and one of them is fishing. He did go fishing when someone would take the time to take him.

Mike has lived with his mother, Patty, all his life. Patty is single, works for a living, a kind and loving, hard working mom, that’s in complete, emotional distress right now. Her son is going through something that no one can share with him. She has to watch, hope and pray for the best result for him, and whatever happens after that, she has to deal with in her own way.

I write this hoping that each and every one of you that reads it will take a moment, think of Mike and Patty, and send your strongest hopes and prayers for both of them to come through this and find peace while they are going through it. My prayer for both of them is peace, healing, spiritual and physical wellness, and if the physical existence cannot be maintained, then peace and acceptance when moving to the next step of being.

While you’re thinking of them, think of yourself and those you love. Cherish what you have and be thankful for each day you’re given with those you love.

I have absolutely no sense of humor about this post…nothing witty or enlightening or even humorous to throw in just for kicks. It’s like living in a bad marriage or working a job that you’ve absolutely despised for the last 20 years but you have to be there, the rent’s due and sleeping in a bed followed by a hot shower in the morning is a wonderful thing that you don’t want to give up.

I see a lot of the same people day after day, interjected with a few new ones. Almost all of the ‘same’ people are really wonderful and I’ve learned to appreciate them as people rather than putting them in the category of ‘poker players’. I’ve learned a lot about myself from watching what they do, how they behave, what causes their actions and reactions, why they’re playing poker, and what brings them to the point they are in in their lives that might be the reason for their behavior patterns. There are very few people that leave me absolutely cold, where I’ve finally reached the point that I see nothing in them that resembles a spark of humor, kindness, or warmth for anyone, including themselves.
So…the subject? Mike D., AKA Israeli Mike, the subject of many other posts over the years. I tried talking to him not long ago when he was in Sport’s Book. Sometimes it’s worthwhile to approach someone outside the room and see if I can’t resolve the differences or hard feelings and move on. It’s worked with a few other players over the years and I thought it might work here. Not so.

He’s not only in full tilt mode, he’s Super Jerk disguised as a nightmare, poker playing, asshole. I used to believe that J.C. Pearson was 10 steps below being human and now I know Mike has first place locked up in the Superstitious Lunatic, Complete Asshole of the Year Award for the next 50 years.

As I waited for the dealer in front to me to finish the hand in $40-$80, 7 Card Stud, I watched Mike throw two $10 chips to A.J. Mike was in the 2s, A.J. in the 8s. A.J. threw them back to Mike. Mike threw them back to A.J. with some comment like, ‘take them….’

A.J. threw them back to Mike and said, “No!”

Mike went into some kind of dialogue that appeared to me to be a cover up for being dissed by A.J. Mike started making comments to Lee, 4s, an Asian that plays almost any limit and game, has very broken English, and is extremely abrupt, loud, and staccato with his comments and word usage.

Mike reached across the 1s’s playing area and put his fingers on the 7 Card Stud Plague and staring at Lee, went into, “What did you think we were playing? This isn’t Omaha 8 or Better, it’s 7 Card Stud.”

His focus now was completely on Lee. Lee and Mike exchanged banter for a moment as I entered the game and announced, “Time pot.”

I shuffled up and dealt the first hand, Mike reached over, grabbed the 7 Card Stud Plague out of it’s slot and threw it towards Lee. Lee did a reflex move and knocked it down the table where it slid off onto the floor by the 7s.

I curtly demanded, “Stop it!”

The 7s picked the Plaque up off the floor and handed it back to me. I replaced it during the hand.

Mike went out to smoke or burn voodoo dolls or whatever it is that he does when he takes a walk. He came back, played and lost three to four hands in a row, flipped his cards into the rack and pot, glared at me, won the next pot, lost the next two, and won the next pot.

During all this action, Lee left the game and our empty seat was filled. The new player apparently knew the 5s from the playing together the day before. The 4s and 5s were middle aged gents, both strangers to me, and appeared to be European. They were visiting quietly while all the action was going on.

The last hand I dealt, the incoming dealer had already tapped me out, I’d called for a set-up for the next dealer, and Mary, (a dealer that’s filling in as a ‘Brush’), was standing behind me with the new decks, Mike and the 5s go to war in a hand. The pot was huge.

The 5s made a flush in 5 when Mike made open Kings. Mike made trips at this point but never filled. More chips screamed and crashed into the pot. Needless to say, Mike lost the hand. He sat with his cards in his hand, mumbling, nodding, appearing as if he was in need of a Straight Jacket to keep him from jumping out of his skin, and I knew the CARDS WERE COMING IN!

They did. He hit me right in the left breast with them. Three of them fell into the rack. I picked up two of them, had them cocked, aimed and ready to fire at his face, (almost before I knew I was doing it), when I stopped myself.

He challenged me with the needle, “Go ahead. Go ahead.”

I sincerely believe that if I had thrown the cards at him, he would’ve felt that it was ok to get up and hit me.

Instead, as I pushed the pot, in an overly loud bark, I said, “You are so rude it’s unbelievable.”

He grumbled, “I’m rude…you deal…”

I interrupted him with the same loud tone, “You are rude just because I deal the cards right off the top and you’re not winning.”

The worst of it is that the new players looked at Mike as if he’d turned into Demon Spawn. He’s even hard on players, not just dealers.

The 5s threw me a tip, I put in the new set-up and exited the dealer’s box.
Mike started a mumble that only parts of it were heard, “…not today…the fucking…”

Mary jumped in with, “That’s enough, Mike!”

I dealt my next two games and went on break. During the break, I wrote an incident report to ‘paper trail’ this incident. I spoke with Nate, Swing Shift Supervisor, and Pete, Graveyard Supervisor, that night, and Suzie the following night.

I’m done, finished, kaput, with ever trying to even be civil to him again. If he breathes hard in my direction and the wind moves past my head, I’m calling for a Decision.

He threatened once to make a call ‘outside’ the casino and have me taken care of. If I die, for any reason, please call 911 and have them investigate him.

He doesn’t know it but he’s already dead from self induced mind poisoning. Man that’s a horrible way to go.

Guess I’m a little startled over the comments on the Shuffle Master from a few players, both low and high limit. Seems they feel that they might not be getting the complete, real shuffle and they would feel better if they could see the machine shuffling.

How would the Shuffle Master know who it was that was supposed to lose, what seat they were sitting in, what the game would be, and to deal them off and who was supposed to win? Ok…don’t answer the question because it’s not really a question. It’s my musing, simply trying to understand the mind that always thinks they’re being cheated or set up.

Speaking of which, I recently dealt a $400-$800 7 Card Stud game. Mimi was playing over the 2s. Schlomo was in the 1s, Curtis was in the 8s, unknown player in the 4s. The action went to all the raises on the first three cards with Schlomo, Mimi, the 4s, and Curtis. Curtis’s door card was an Ace and he raised every time the action came back to him.

A lot more chip slamming developed on each street, raises, more raises, calls. Curtis was high on every street and put as many chips in the pot as he could except on the River where he turned into a ‘check and call’.

Schlomo bet, Mimi and the 4s folded, Curtis called. Schlomo said, “Straight.”

Unfortunately our poker tables have a slight indent in the dealer area so we sit a little into the table and the players in the 1st and last seat have a difficult time seeing around us. I had to lean a little forward to reach for the 4s’s hand while Schlomo was turning over his straight.

Curtis had an exasperated tiz over the fact that he couldn’t see the hand as it was being turned over. His comment went something like this, “…he needed a gut shot 8…how do I know it didn’t come from the hand next to him…I couldn’t see it being turned over.”

Curtis ended up with Aces Up and Schlomo did have the straight, 10 high. Yes, Curtis was frustrated and a little steamy. I can’t change the fact that as soon as a player folds, I have to scoop that hand into the discards which means I will be leaning forward and reaching across the table, possibly blocking someone’s view…much better that I do that than have that folded hand retrieved by it’s owner because they realized they overlooked something.

The fact that Curtis has made more than one reference to ‘being cheated’ lately makes me wonder if he’s not only jumped into the deep end but completely drowned because he always has the look of a haunted player. Definition? He’s lost in the Twilight Zone and it’s all rotating in slow motion, a floating, almost invisible wraith keeps calling every bet Curtis makes and then showing Curtis runner, runner, beating every big hand Curtis holds.

I stopped trying to guess or delve into what people think when they make the same statement and behave in the same manner, year after year. They’re stuck in a rut and no one, repeat, NO ONE will ever be able to show them the way out. They’re like the horse in the burning barn that has to be blindfolded to be led past the flames even though the doorway is right in front of them.

This is not a Curtis Roast. It’s just an example of how a player reacts when they are running bad. My thought is that when you’re in ‘the pink’, when ‘life is grand’, when ‘everything is coming up roses’, jam the hell out of it…shove the accelerator through the floor. When it turns around and you’re running barefoot up an ice hill, covered with oil, make sure you have a sled attached to your ass just in case you slip.