The air is dancing. The Gods have met. Their pleasured touch brings fiery, shooting streaks that shatter the early morning sky. Their sighs reverberate and rolling bursts of pleasure fill the senses. Their union sends tears to the Earth, tears that drift and explode, carried across the wind. To the rest of the World, it’s a storm…

Guess it’s time to get back to poker. I was dealing $60-$120 Omaha 8 or Better with a 1/4 Kill. The 9s was a tourist, Randall, comes into town occasionally. I said ‘hello’ to him when I entered the game. Somewhere around half way through my down, Randall took a walk.

In $60-$120 and higher, the player is dealt in every hand until they miss their blind.

I dealt him in each time, and when his blind came, someone sat down in the seat and posted…I say someone because Randall has a tendency to sit back, away from the table, and so did this person.

I never looked over at him as he was out of my line of vision. After I dealt the hand and he checked the big blind option, I looked at him.

My first thought was, Shit! This isn’t the guy that was sitting there before.

I asked, “Are you playing his chips or was he playing your chips?”

“I’m playing his chips.”

I should have stopped right there and called for a decision. I fell into the ‘idiot dealer mode’ and just continued to deal him in. I listened to him, after he raised and re-raised, more than once, expound on how he didn’t care because the chips weren’t his.

As soon as I got pushed, I talked to Fred, High Limit Brush, and to Nate, Swing Shift Supervisor, about the potential problem developing on table 3. Believe me, I knew I’d made a mistake. I just couldn’t seem to find the right time to correct it.

Nate talked to Randall and the 9s. I got really lucky with this one. They were good friends. The 9s was next on the list and Randall was letting him take his seat because Randall would take the next seat when it opened. But that doesn’t excuse me…slap, hit, kick! I know better so I beat myself up over it…think I’ll go back to the storm.

*****

A few months ago, Lisa was dealing an $80-$160 Holdem game. When she sat down, a player was absent. A few minutes later, Young sat down in the seat. She dealt him in.

How was she to know that he was sitting down to someone else’s chips?

Young raised, Melissa and Mickey were in the hand and all the raises went in pre-flop…along with comments like, ‘if it’s ok with Eric, it’s ok with me’ and ‘does he know you’re playing his chips?’ type of thing.

At this point, Lisa realized that Young was not the owner of the chips. Long and short of it was that Young won the hand and he was playing Eric’s chips.

The crying began. The floor person was called because Young was playing Eric’s chips and no one knew if Eric knew it. The decision was that Young/Eric would keep the chips because the conversation during the hand was that no one really cared if he played Eric’s chips.

The beef came after Young won the hand…in other words, if Young lost, no one would have said a word.

Funny, huh! Lose…we don’t care, win…we’ll rip your liver out and sell it on the black market.

These incidents were posted to show the difference in whether a player wins or loses when they are playing someone else’s chips. In any event, we are not supposed to deal someone in on someone else’s chips unless the owner of the chips has informed the dealer that it’s ok.