I made it! I was starting to wonder, about 1 a.m.ish, if I could drag through the next two hours and finish my first day back in the box. I’ve been on the ‘up at 6:30 – 7 a.m. and hit the hay/tent/air mattress by 10 p.m.’ schedule for three weeks and the first week back is going to be a little bit tough since my whole sleep/wake schedule is changed and rearranged. Didn’t even drop the deck or do anything retarded that would cause a scene and end up with player or dealer despair.

A friend of mine from Florida, Ralph, was in the room playing in $8-$16 Holdem next to the table I was dead spreading, and he came over for a visit. Ralph plays anything from $8-$16, $15-$30, to $30-$60.

Freddie Deeb, (the WPT watchers know him as Kassem Deeb), was in the high limit area talking to the players on Table 7 when Ralph sat down to visit with me. Ralph said that he told his friends back home that he had played poker with ‘Deeb’ and they wouldn’t believe him. He told them he’d played poker with Scotty Nguyen also and they didn’t believe that either. He also brought up the fact that if you look around the room, at any given time, you see players that are featured on the television spotlights in the WSOP and on the WPT.

He’s right. And you do play with them in different limits. I’ve played with Scotty also in $10-$20 games at the Mirage. Some of these ‘super stars’ get broke and they play lower until things turn around. Sometimes there is no ‘high’ game in the room and they play lower for that reason. You just never know who you’re going to brush elbows with on any given day at Bellagio.

Ralph and I met about five years ago, while playing $4-$8 Holdem, and have been friends every since; swapping emails from time to time, keeping in touch with events about our lives, kids, grandkids, and life in general outside of poker. He pops in three to four times a year and it’s always a pleasure for me to see him giving me the big smiling, ‘it’s so damn good to see you look’ and wave.

I got rerouted into a $4-$8 Holdem game a few minutes later. One of the players, don’t even know his name, comes in occasionally, always drunk and semi mean mood ugly, (depends entirely on his winning and losing), usually ends up broke or having a ‘tiz’ and is forced to depart the plush surroundings of our room, was in the 2s.

He acted as if he didn’t know my name, said he’d never seen me before, as he slammed chips into the pot and won the first three to four hands he played, then stated, “Isn’t she beautiful! I’ve known her for 20 years and 15 years ago I asked her to marry me but she wouldn’t!”

Not to worry…the real world opened up and shoved him out of the twilight zone he spends most of his time in…he lost the next few hands after playing one which started with five way action, max raises pre-flop/flop, and went to heads up on the Turn. He put the other player, holding A-A, on a flush draw and they put in $56 apiece. He called the bet on the River as he still thought J-9 was good, he’d flopped a pair of Jacks. Huge pot, huge loss in that limit.

Then he threw his cards into the muck and muttered something that was akin to stating I wasn’t even human. I couldn’t distinguish what he said or I might have called the Floor Person on him. See why I didn’t marry this lunatic!!!!! 🙂

*****

On another note, I had the thought…it’s on the latest post on the Discussion Page…that it might be fun and is very feasible to see if some of us couldn’t get together in a weekly chat session. My choice is MSN Messenger because it’s so easy to conference and video conference in. Time would be the toughest part, getting a time that would work for everyone interested. If…big IF…any of you are interested, please send me an email and let me know your chat ID, and the dates/times that are best for you.