Monday nights are pretty decent all around. Action’s good in all games, new faces everywhere, and even though there isn’t much in the ‘high limit’ realm, the room is a little, bustling nest of players, in all limits. I really prefer these nights. You can hear for one thing. The players appear to be more relaxed and there isn’t a lot of movement in and out of games…the games stay solid.

My night started an hour late. My air conditioner has been running non-stop during the day and it’s hotter than hell, literally, so I waited for an appointment with someone that could tell me if it was ok or if I was going to run into ‘air conditioner hell’ in the next few weeks. It’s ok by the way, thanks for asking.

I arrived at work and pushed into a table that was just starting, Nate unlocked the box, Boba brought the chips and we went into action, $30-$60 Holdem. We started with two seats open and they were filled within a few minutes, one of them was Nick. Nick has been around since my Mirage days. They built games around him for a long time and he’s the kind of player that a dealer wishes would win because he never forgets the dealer and really overdoes it if he feels he put the ‘bad beat’ on someone. He got married, moved away, and comes in infrequently now but he’s still fun. He knows he’s the action and never squirms when someone makes a rash statement about his play.

He took the 1s. He fiddled around with a few hands and didn’t connect. Then he called a raise from the 8s, none other than Karate Don. The Flop was something like J-8 of Clubs and an off card, bet and called, the Turn an 8, bet and called, the River a 9. Karate Don checked, Nick checked. Don showed A-10 of Clubs and Nick turned over 6-9 of Clubs. Nick won with a two pair. Nick flipped out a $5 chip and asked for changed and threw me $3. I thanked him, he said, “A minute ago I was saying to myself, ‘the fucking bitch couldn’t give me a club’, I’m just telling you the truth.”

I started laughing. It’s such a brutal statement but so true of so many players the only way to deal with it is to laugh or you’d go insane with all of the noise and confusion each player brings with them.

I paid for that laughter later. When I went to my next game, Karate Don transferred into it the fact that I laughed at him when he lost. He sat down in the 1s and told me that he was ‘pissed off because I laughed when he lost a pot’. “Not even”, I said to him. “Other things were going on that you were not aware of.”

He didn’t want to hear any of it and I left it at that. As I left the game, he threw me a couple of bucks and said that he was really tired and had been playing a long time so he really wasn’t pissed at me. So…that’s the way it is in Poker Land USA.

When I got to the $60-$120 Holdem game, Nick was taking a seat. Marvin was playing over the 9 seat and a big discussion started because Marvin had made a trip to Cuba. He’d left his wife home for 10 days and had a great time. I threatened to rat on him…he thought it was funny and so did I…that’s all that matters. The whole table was easy going, mostly strangers and they came to play.

Marvin went on and on about his trip and how everyone in Cuba was so happy and relaxed. A Cuban guy that was born and raised in NJ was the recipient of the conversation. He fessed up that he was born in NJ and had never been to Cuba after Marvin kept asking him about it.

Marvin still continued about the people, how they were so happy, with no worries or cares. The NJ born Cuban made a statement that went like this, “They can’t be that happy if they’re willing to jump on a plank and float into the ocean to try to get away.”

Marvin really didn’t get what was being said and he persisted…hey, I like Marvin so this isn’t a Marvin ‘rag’. He said the kids never drank sodas or had an ice cream cone, not like Americans and how fat we are, they’re all skinny.

The Cuban persisted with, “They’re starving to death, of course they never get ice cream or a soda. The tourists are given everything and the locals starve.”

The action went into ‘pop’ and ‘repop’. After the hand completed, Nick commented on, ‘I’m still trying to understand how the Cubans are happy?”

Shuen was in the 8s. Nick and Shuen almost tangoed in a hand and Nick made the comment that after he lost $41,000.00 in a game with Lenny, Jennifer and Shuen, he went home to tell his wife they were moving.

I said, “To Cuba, eh?”

He said, “Yes!”

The game was fun, the 6s lives in Vegas but I’d never dealt to him before. He never seemed to stress or ‘tiz’ over anything, win or lose, and he gave me eye contact every time a conversation started. My down ended and I moved on.

If every shift I ever put in as a dealer went like tonight, I’d yuckle-chuckle, and laugh my way through the whole damn thing…hey…they gave me money to spend time with them. Love it!