I’m working on a book. Time is the most valuable element of my life right now. Writing for Tango or the book forces a priority and, of course, work always gets in the way but it beats the hell out of sleeping in the street. Where have I been? The book…where else?

My little girlfriend, beauty queen, and light in my life, Kayanna, had a birthday yesterday. I left a singing voice message for her on the answering machine and managed to catch her this evening after she’d been out being a kid all day. She was so e-x-c-I-t-e-d, a skating party with friends and family celebrated her seventh year of life.

We should all be that happy and easy to please. But where the hell did the years go? One day she was learning to walk and talk and now she’s in school. The next thing you know, she’ll be buying poker chips and kicking butt in a poker game…go girl!

******

With an hour left of my shift, one night last week, I hit Table 1. The usual suspects were Gus H., Johnny C., Sam F., Chau, and Minh. They were playing $2,000-$4,000 Omaha 8 or Better and $500-$1,000 Pot Limit Omaha. They included me in their conversation off and on, and even though they were gambling like today was the last day on Earth to play, they were pretty easy going and sensible.

While Gus remained silent, the others joked and laughed, making fun of each other and pestered each other about who had the most girlfriends and was incorrigible with women. They even asked Minh how old he was the first time he had sex. They were goofy. I laughed through most of the down.

At one point, I shuffled the deck – completely forgetting the Shuffle Master. Johnny asked me if I had just shuffled. I apologized and said I’d done it automatically. He said it was ok; just use the deck in the machine. I did.

I made it through the down with no hair-raising screamers and got pushed by a new dealer that was hired for the Tournament. He asked me how to take time out of the game and I explained as I moved to Table 2.

Before my butt hit the chair on Table 2, the dealer on 1 was already calling for a decision. All of the players, except Gus, were jumping down the dealer’s throat. Sam was almost leaning across the table giving him hell.

Tony, the Graveyard Brush, was saying to the dealer, “Just take your time. Tell me what happened.”

I have a lot of sympathy for new dealers coming into any room that spreads high limit games. The ‘norm’ is that they are not given a refresher course, by management, on rules and room procedures. They are shoved into the line-up and left to the rise and fall of the tides hoping they miss the coral reefs and find safe harbor on friendly shores…hardly ever works that way in high limit.

As I slipped into the box, I was thanking my lucky stars that I’ve finally reached a point, with most of the players in the Poker World, that I don’t have to go through all that commotion and noise just to deal a game.