I’ve had more than one query on Howard Lederer’s new video from people wondering if it’s for real. The answer is, “YES!” I’m happy to be a part of it and my tag line at the bottom of the posts will boast that fact. It was fun. I picked some of the people for the project and they were all extremely happy to be a part of it too. I just watched the WPT yesterday and the ad for this video is running on that time slot. It was fun to see some of the people in the project and moi dealing…Howard was great to work with and so was Rick. Rick is the driving force that made it happen.

There’s a lot going on. First and strongest in my mind is the fact that I can’t lose 20 pounds of fat off my ass but I can lose a Seiko watch that I’ve had for 20 years. While it sounds funny, I’m really quite disturbed by this loss. I had gone to work out at a local club and put the watch in my jacket pocket, with my car keys, and locked everything in my locker. I must have pulled my keys out and the watch with it.

I went back the following day and checked with the club, looked in the parking lot, went to Walgreens Drug Store, where I picked up a prescription, checked their parking lot, and checked with the management hoping that someone had found it and turned it in…it just didn’t happen.

Pretty sad now, the watch had a special meaning for me as I bought it for myself for a birthday present when I was in need of something special in my life. Now I hope the new owner has a special place for it in their life, as I did in mine.

*****

On the poker front, I met Bob S. a few weeks ago. He’s a reader and very friendly, open-minded kind of guy. I get a kick out of listening to him, his poker play, and with his youth, he stays up for days at a time playing in different games.

I dealt to him in a $15-$30 Holdem game last night and he asked me the question???? Have I seen ‘A River Runs Through it”?

My answer, “Yes. If find it to be quite dark and gloomy, sad…as a lot of life is sad.”

He said he saw it again last night and every time he sees it or hears of it, he thinks of me…hey us Montana Chicks stick in your mind.

*****

One incredible hand in the $20-$40 Omaha 8 or Better with a Kill, took me three weeks to stack the chips. It was a Kill pot with seven players and max raises before the Flop and on the Flop, the Turn went to four bets losing a couple of players, the River to two/three bets with four players. One high, two lows whacked it up.

Double A was in there jamming because as he asked, “Is this your last hand, Linda? Then I have to play…”

He got ¼ of the pot and I believe he either broke even or made a few bucks on it.

*****

I dealt the $1,000-$2,000 Mixed Game on Table 1. Chau – 1s, Jennifer – 2s, Phil – 3s, Lee S. – 4s, Gus – 5s, Minh – 6s, Hamid – 7s, Renee – 8s.

A little earlier, before I pushed into the game, I walked up to Phil and told him that I was dealing Table 30…$1-$2 Blind NLH, when Phil walked into the room. My conversation to Phil went something like this, “You would’ve thought God walked into the room. All of the players were in awe that they saw you…”

He rolled his eyes…resembling boredom. At that moment, Gus walked by and slapped me on the ass, I turned to him and exclaimed, “You little smart ass,” and went back to Phil…”How can you not love that enthusiasm…that happiness with these people that are so excited that your are here?”

He smiled then…not really agreeing with me because he probably gets a lot of irritating noise and confrontation from people, but hey…that’s what happens when you’re a star.

Gus? I’ve smacked him on his cute little ass before too…hey, turn about is fair play.

*****

Then I pushed into this game. The first hand was towards the end of the Omaha 8 or Better. Lots of raising and action, Hamid flopped a set of Aces and Renee carved right through that hand with a Flush and the best low. Huge pot.

Something needs to be said here about Renee. He never raises his voice or makes any noise when he loses or wins a hand. He’s the King of Polite. Consequently the other players have toned down any attitude and are on their best behavior when he’s in the game. Me, and other dealers included, love this new poker attitude in high limit.

As the game progressed, Hamid couldn’t control his anger and frustration with the game. He is the subject of other posts. When he’s losing, he slams and smacks his chips down on the table, swears continuously, and carries on a conversation with the Poker Gods from Hell. It gets pretty ugly at times. This time was no exception.

At one point, on the River, during a 7 Card Stud 8 or Better hand, Hamid slammed, smashed, bashed his chips, swore, (I couldn’t hear what he said but I knew by the way Minh’s glance jerked to me that Hamid was swearing at me), thought, slammed some more, thought some more, and finally called although he knew he was beat…Renee waited patiently through Hamid’s fit and then called also.

At the same time, I said to Hamid, “That’s enough!”

Hamid mumbled something and I said, “Then take a walk.”

I dealt the next hand and Hamid was still swearing in a monotone grumble. I looked right at him and said, “I can’t deal if you’re swearing at me.”

Hamid jumped up and left the game. Chau and Minh both told me to call the Floorman. Minh said, “Linda, not just for you but we don’t want to listen to that while we’re playing.”

Chau told me to get the Floorman and get it stopped. Fred was the High Brush and nowhere in sight. Just before Hamid reappeared, I called Fred and told him that Hamid was swearing, slamming his chips and cards, and the players wanted it stopped. Hamid was coming back to the game and Fred stopped him, telling him something in private that would hopefully settle him down.

I got pushed and explained to the incoming dealer that Hamid had been cautioned. Call the Floorman if he erupted over anything.

****

When I dealt the $10-$20 NLH game, it was kind of funny, in a strange sort of way. Two seats were open when I sat down, more seats opened, more players came in…it took at least 10 minutes to get everything organized and in order with players posting, taking time, deal him out, deal him in…

Jimmy T. took a seat in this game. He’s the Table Captain of all games, likes to count down the player’s bet, (even when he’s not in a hand), tell the dealer what to do, and make demanding accusations to players and dealers about the action and what’s ‘happening/not happening’ at the table. If he was always right, it would be ok…unfortunately he’s very seldom ever right.

One new player switched seats several times and had never post the blind and had never been dealt in. This was during all the confusion of players leaving and new players taking a seat. When the new player moved to a new seat, and I dealt him out, Jimmy demanded, “Why didn’t you deal him a hand?”

I replied, “He’s never posted and never been dealt in.”

Still Jimmy acted as if I was out of line. The players in the one and three seat are fairly new faces in the room and I exclaimed, “Jimmy’s the dealer, he runs all games I deal.”

They cracked up. I couldn’t help but laugh too.

Hey that’s the way it is in poker land, if you can’t laugh you’d have to have a jug of wine and bottle of Valium to get through the night.

I dealt to Max in the Fridays at Five NLH Tournament last week. A player questioned me when he called a raise from the BB and he thought I didn’t give him the right change for a $500 chip. Max said, “She never makes a mistake and I can attest to that.”

I did a, “Wow!” kind of thing. I was really surprised to hear Max jump so readily to my defense. It was nice. Yes…Max was one of my posts last month.

*****

Barry Schulman played over 9s in the $1-$2 NLH game tonight. He posted and won the first pot. A few minutes later, one of his friends came by to visit. I listened to Barry tell his friend about Eric Drache (used to manage the Mirage card room and was playing $30-$60 Holdem), Suzie Lederer. (Swing shift supervisor after she walked by our table), and then he stated, “The dealer is Linda. She’s the best dealer in the world. She’s got a goofy website…”

I started laughing as I caught his eye. I got pushed about the same time. As I stepped out of the Dealer’s Chair behind Barry, he continued with, “She looks like she could be a member of Hell’s Angels. Show him your stuff, Linda.”

I put my hands out in front of me and acted like I was cranking the throttle on a Harley and went, “Vroom, Vroom!”

His friend went something like this, “How did you do that?”

I turned my back to him, lifted my hair, and said, “He’s talking about this,” exposing the tattoo on the back of neck.

Then I looked at the friend intently and said, “I got it done when I was old enough to know I really wanted one,” and walked off.

*****

I couldn’t wake up through most of my shift. I felt as if I were asleep and wrapped in cotton, placed in a bag, floating in water…no gravity, no reality, no sound, no thoughts…I made it through the shift without missing a beat which was a miracle in itself.

Table 1 was Chau, Gus, Shaun, Jimmy, and Eli. $1,000-$2,000 Mixed Games…a slice of pie. NLH $10-$20 Blind on Table 3, pretty boring and not a lot of action. The funny game was when I hit the four handed, $20-$40 Omaha 8 or better on Table 6.

Double A won a pot and ordered a Heineken (Kenny was sitting behind him and they were having a beer). I have never witnessed Double A drinking anything other than Green Tea and water. I chided him with the fact that he was drinking a beer and he said that for every pot he won, he would order a beer. He won three of them and I told him again that was a lot of beer to drink…he said he would.

Kenny always seems to be much happier when he’s sitting on the side lines than he does when he’s in a game. Poker can be a brutal mistress. He was having fun, watching Double A play, and asked me if the format for Table Tango was going to stay this way. I said, “Yes.”

He said it was better before because now he had to scroll all the time. I’m trying to work with the template a bit to see if I can stretch it a little but in the long run, this format is much better, archives can be accessed by month rather than the previous mess.

Asian Lee got in the game. He’s always nonstop talk and has a following…this time the following was Ming and Ritchie. At one point Ming was standing behind the 6s, gabbing it up and Ritchie was standing behind the 9s, gabbing it up. Of course it was a foreign language.

The 6s looked around and said, “It’s in surround sound.”

He’s right. They take off in Chinese or Vietnamese or whatever the hell it is and it’s staccato doink, doink, doink, until you want to rip your ears off just to get rid of it.

A few nights ago I thought I’d laugh my ass off when when Ming, Ritchie, and Lee were in the same game and Ming was teasing them and trying to get them to gamble. He said to Ritchie, “Don’t be a Chinese Chicken!”

Back to the Omaha game. Lee lost a few pots with me and did his usual, “Hehhhh-hennnum. Favorite dealer….repeat, repeat, repeat…” then take a walk. I got pushed.

I still love Double A the mostest!!!! If you knew him, you would too.

Howard Lederer’s new video/dvd is available here: Secrets of No Limit Holdem

Hey…I’m the dealer. Check it out and improve your game before the big tournaments begin at Bellagio and the WSOP.