Ha! I do believe in magic and I’m enjoying every second of it. I have five days off and happen to be sharing them with my oldest granddaughter, Jasmine. She’s here on Spring Break. A beauty queen that soon will be 17 years young. If you visit this page, you will see her graduating from Poker 101…where the hell did the years go?

*****

Before I escaped the Poker Room on an E/O, several points of interest. I found them to be interesting anyway. I dealt a lively $30-$60 Holdem game. Three of the gents in the game spoke the same language (yes…along with English). What this language was, I still have no idea. I’m horrible on nationalities and languages…I just assume that everyone is just like me so I never differentiate or look beyond my realm of “People”. People? Me, you, us, we…that should say it all.

The three guys were in the 3s, the 5s, and the 7s. The 7s was a hot headed, gambling, ready to explode kind of guy. The 3s was calm and chuckling over most of the show. The 5s really liked to gamble but he drifted in and out of pots without behaving as if he was going to have to go “Postal” when he lost a hand.

Karina J. was in the 6s. I have a lot of history with her. She’s been around since the early Mirage Days…even before she was old enough to be in the poker room, she was in there jamming. Her mom and dad both played a lot in those days.

Kenny was in the 3s. He was instigating action when I sat down. The previous pot was huge. He was trying to get everyone to agree to all go to “cap” before the Flop. That way they would win a pot that was well over $3,000 each hand (that was according to him).

Some of the players were up for it and some weren’t. Kenny prompted those that weren’t to get on the transfer list because there were players that wanted to play that way and would transfer into this game.

Remarkably, the 7s told Kenny that he wasn’t transferring and he didn’t want to play that way so they weren’t going to “play” Kenny’s game.

Long and short of it, the verbal arguments and coaxings went on. So did the gambling. Finally, right at the end of my down, the 5s, Karina, and the 7s went to war.

The pot was huge. The 7s Flopped Aces and Queens, the Turn brought Karina and the 5s a split pot with an Ace High Straight. All the bets and raises went in on the Turn and River.

By this time, the 5s had picked up three sweaters, they were standing behind him, watching and exclaiming…same foreign language.

When the smoke cleared and hands were shown, the 7s stood up, swearing like a lunatic logger from the North Pole, breathing fire and spewing out flaming explitives, he launched his cards at me. One hit me in the shoulder and the other hit the floor.

He never apologized or even acted like he gave a damn if one of them took my head off…he continued swearing and looking around as if he’d had a dagger shoved into his heart by the woman he’d sold his firstborn for.

I sternly exclaimed, “That’s enough! Just set your cards down,” and gave him a mini “look”. Then it was time to stack chips and stack I did…there were a lot of them.

Karina jumped on the opportunity, explaining that she was tired of the foreign language and it had been going on every since she sat down.

I used the opportunity, of splitting the pot and stacking chips, to call Kamell, the Swing Shift Superviser.

The 7s was still standing and spewing when Kamell arrived. I explained what had happened and Kamell told the 7s that he was sitting out for the next 30 minutes and told the rest of them to speak only English.

I got pushed into a $15-$30 Holdem game where sanity was lingering…ready to take over the ‘gamble, gamble, gamble’ mode. But before I left, I had to explain to the incoming dealer that the 7s was on ‘sit-out’ and could not be dealt in during her down.

It was in the next game that I met John S., a reader here. He was funny and we exchanged a few words about teenagers (his daughters) and coming to Vegas for the first time…also the awe/horror of your own teenager driving a car (his). He was light hearted and a lot of fun.

Kenny, from the previous game, managed to stick his nose into the action here and tell me that they were waiting for me to come back to their game…as in the guys that spoke the foreign language.

Sitting next to him was a gent named Garry. Garry picked right up on the fact that I had a website and wanted to know the address. Garry’s a writer also and we visited for a moment after I got pushed.

Ain’t poker incredible? You meet people that you would never meet in any other platform…and the best of it is that you stay in touch and always cross paths again.

Mark the fact that the path you’ve crossed should be filled with happiness and wonder at being alive…else you’ve trapped yourself and bluff won’t carry you over it.

*****
I was part of this project. Sweet!
Howard Lederer’s ‘Secrets of No Limit Holdem’