Just when you think the situation couldn’t get any more ridiculous…

Karate Don and Marty C. in the same game, $40-$80 Stud. Don in the 1s and Marty in the 8s. Primal Scream….arghhhhaieeeeee!!! Stereo, it hurts in two places at once.

Marty raises the first hand and wins the pot. Immediate dealer orientation begins, “The curse is off, Linda, five hands before and this one. What’s going on? The curse is off!”

The conversation in my right ear never stops, it’s a ‘walk through, talk through’ every hand and it’s directed at me, as if I’m now important and a very integral part of the game and not the ‘curse, the witch, and sometimes bitch’.

The action goes crazy between the 2s, 6s, and Marty. Marty wins a huge, huge, huge pot with trip 8’s. He drew out…ok, nothing stated here about drawing out, it happens all the time. But he was so damn glad he won the pot that he went on and on and on and on, commenting and gloating until Karate Don jumped on him about ‘shutting up’.

Marty jumped down Don’s throat, sliding around his wind pipe two or three times before he came back up, and informed Don that Don had been 86’d, six or seven times, and that he, Marty, had never been 86’d, just talked to by management, and therefore Don should, “Shut UP!”

Don rebelled and argued back and forth with Marty about Marty’s behavior when he won a pot and how Marty never shut up. And out of nowhere, as if a silent alarm had gone off, Kamell, the Swing Supervisor, tapped Marty on the shoulder and told him he wanted to talk to Marty away from the table and told me to put a button in front of Marty and deal him out.

Everyone was in shock. What had Marty done that was so out of the ordinary this time? The players all queried back and forth to each other, wondering what Marty was being called on the carpet for, but they were also agreeing with each other that Don was right in telling Marty to shut up.

Found out later it was a comment he’d made to the cocktail waitress and Marty was forced to apologize to her or he was leaving the room for the night. She’s Vietnamese and he’d said something intelligent like, “We had to kill 200,000 of your kind so you could come to America!” That’s not a direct quote…but it’s close. He thought he was being funny.

He kept telling me that he wasn’t crazy and that he wasn’t all bad, it’s just that I never dealt him a winner for five years, repeat, repeat, repeat…

Let me have one more primal scream…

*****

Heard one I loved: Save your breath, buddy! You’re going to need it to blow up your date.
Umhhnnn! Maybe I should lay that one on some of the Neanderthals.

August 26, 03. A little twist to Deuce to 7…I didn’t know the answer but then neither did the Brush, Tony…most play of the high limit games happens with very little stress, the players know what wins and the dealer never has to get involved. At the end of my down, after raise-raise-raise on every draw, three players checked on the River. Fernando turned over a wheel, A-2-3-4-5, Mike W. and Jimmy G. were going back and forth with something like, “How big is your pair?” and shuffling their cards before turning them in.

Lee, in the 7s, yelled, “That’s a straight! He’s got a straight!” pointing to Hernando’s hand. “He can’t win!”

Mike threw his hand away and Jimmy turned his up, showing a pair of 7’s, and questioned, “Is that right? Then I win.”

I sat there like a dumb box of rocks, not sure what the hell was right or wrong until Mike W. rescued me, “Come on…the best hand has to win the money and the Ace is high. He doesn’t have a straight.”

I scooped up Jimmy’s hand and mucked it and as I was pushing the pot, Tony was being questioned by Jimmy about the order of the hand. Jimmy never had a fit when I took his hand so I’m sure he knew Mike was 100% with his statement. Lee kept spouting, “He’s got a straight!” and Tony went to check with the Shift Supervisor just to make sure.

I stopped briefly by Mike and thanked him for the help as I was leaving the game. Mike told me he had Jimmy beat and would’ve turned his hand over if Hernando had a straight.

And yes, the bells and whistles went off in my head as soon as Mike stated that the Ace is always high. Nothing like a little excitement towards the end of the night.

*****

But back to the beginning of my shift…Chip R. and Eli E. were playing heads up when I came into the room. I sat down beside Chip for a minute to say ‘hello’. He’s always got a big smile and ‘hello’ for me which I truly appreciate.

It had been about two months since I’d seen him and I knew he’d made the annual trip up to Flathead Lake in Montana, not far from where I used to live. He looked great…tanned and relaxed.

I asked about the trip and he said it was fantastic, there were over 100 of them up there and they had Wolf Gang Puck cooking for them. The over ‘100 crew’ means the High Limit Usual Suspects and their family and friends. They go to play golf, probably some poker, and hang out where there are a million stars in the sky and the air is clean and quiet and life is laid back and stress free. Hey, maybe they’ll invite me some day. 🙂