Tomorrow is an anniversary, a time that still makes my head reel and devastates my spirit…the day that Peace died. No one has won…with that thought I close this subject with a prayer for peace, with the hope that we all learn to live together and help each other instead of destroying the Earth, and hearts and homes of our people and our children.

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High Limit last week, a rather unique circumstance found Jimmy G. talking a lot instead of playing very many hands. We’ve spent a lot of years together at the table and his conversation is normally, “Come on, Linda. We’ve got to concentrate.” Believe me I concentrate as hard as I can when I deal any game, to make sure I don’t make a mistake and the players are satisfied with my dealing.

Yes, he means ‘we’ in that I have to think ‘Jimmy’ while I deal. I really don’t mind any of his statements or his antics even though he gets a little bizarre once in awhile with things like, “Ok, scramble them clockwise, with your left hand, and in a small circle.” or “Scramble them in a big scramble, use both hands…now stop and do it the other way.”

Not long ago, when he was extremely frustrated with the game and in the 1s, when I dropped the deck and pushed the pot, he grabbed the cards and started to scramble them.

I went, “Hey! Come on, you know you can’t do that.”

He queried, “I can’t?” But he released the deck and let me deal without hassling me.

Back to the night he wanted to talk…he was in the 1s again, Shaun and Brian were battling it out, while O’Neal played an occasional hand, and Jimmy folded almost every hand.

This is not a direct quote but a general run of the conversation.

Jimmy asked me how many years I’d been dealing, I told him around 23 years. He stated that I must have seen a lot of players come and go. I said yes and he asked if a lot of them were losers. Again I said yes. He asked why I thought that was and I told him that I thought they didn’t have the discipline to play the downside. Anyone can play when the cards are hitting them in the face but being able to survive the downside, when you run bad for months, is when you have to play your best game and most people just can’t knuckle down and do it. They think they’re being cheated or it’s the deck or it’s all luck or the dealer or all of those choices put together.

We talked about the $75-$150 game that ran every day when the Mirage opened, it was the ‘big’ game. It was huge in those days, now it’s like peanuts in comparison to most of what’s really considered high limit in our room. I pointed out to him that most of the people that played every day in that game, now play $40-$80 or $30-$60 Stud. He asked me why. I told him that some of them couldn’t fade it and others just lost the desire to play high…the latter being why I think A.J. and Joe R. play the $40-$80.

Amazingly, then he asked me if I could ‘set up’ a deck if I wanted to…followed by, you probably wouldn’t tell me if you could. Funny but I could have sworn the hairs in Brian’s ears stood up, trying to hear what my answer would be.

I stated that I had never learned and had no desire to, that a few people had offered to teach me but it’s not in my nature. I just don’t lie, steal or cheat. I don’t know how to be so greedy that I would try to cheat someone out of their money.

He asked me if I knew anyone that could and I replied that over the years, I knew a few people that could. Then of course, he asked if any of them worked at Bellagio. To my knowledge, “No!” I don’t know anyone in Bellagio that can set up a deck.

By now I was getting pushed and he was talking about someone that had shown him how to cut the deck with one hand, could I do that? “No! Never learned.”

Instead of the Floor Person bringing in the new set up, the incoming Graveyard Dealer brought it with him. Jimmy picked up the old deck that I was taking out and cut it with one hand, then did it again so he could show Brian. By now the two new decks were on the table, I had one of the old decks in my hand and waited for Jimmy to hand me the deck he was cutting. He did.

I leaned over and quietly asked him why he brought all that up. He said he was just curious and that he’d heard me called “Fingers” before.

I laughed and told him that was a new one for me, that I’d been called everything but a White Woman since I became a dealer, but never “Fingers”.

He chuckled and said if I was trying to be a comedian, that I was playing to a very tough field. I walked to the Page area, left the Set-up, hit the time clock and the road.

Oh yes, once during my down, Jimmy asked me scramble the deck with only my right hand, counter clockwise, and told me when it was enough. Funny guy!