All the company finally went back where it came from and my home away from home has settled down. It’s back to normal. In other words…Tournament Time is over! Everyone seems to be in tournament mode. Not just the players, but every casino in the world offers them. I wonder how long the pockets of the players can handle all the money that goes into tournaments and never returns to live play. Color me stupid here but how can all those millions in satellites, tournament buy-ins, etc., just keep being pushed into one big pot and split up between 20 or 30 players and still leave any gristle for the daily grinders? Sure they’re exciting if you win but how many can you afford to slam money into without taking a beating on your daily expenses and bankroll? Ok…’nuff said on that subject.

One $4,000-8,000 Mixed game on table 1 with all the usual suspects and a few other high limit games on ‘top’ but luckily for me, it wasn’t in my line-up. I started in the part of the room that’s just grin and giggle, no frills, no chills, and away I went. Lots of ‘friendlies’. No glares, no cards flying at my fingers, no one knew the house rule better than me, no one said a harsh word…wow! Love it!

*****
I dealt four $2-5 blind NLH games tonight. In the second game, a discussion started about a young, blonde woman that played and talked the action through every hand. One of the players told me I would know her if I saw her. I couldn’t put a face on any particular blonde that I’d dealt to in NLH. Sure enough, in the fourth one I dealt, she was in my game. The person that had started the conversation earlier, looked over from the table next to me and motioned that ‘this was the one’. I didn’t know her. But I definitely won’t forget her.

She wasn’t a ‘hottie’, by Vegas standards, but she definitely had her own arrogant charm. She also had some kind of war going on with most of the table because (in her absence) I was told if the 9s busted her, a player from the game behind us would give him an additional $50 and I would get 10% of that. I said I’d just deal and leave that alone.

She had a special war going on with the 4s. I’ve dealt to him before but he’s not a regular. He appears to fancy himself as being a great player and in control of the action at all times. They ended up heads-up in one hand. Truthfully I can’t remember how the action went because it was just another poker hand to me…the end of it was what set it apart. I believe he bet $25 and she raised him a $100 or so. He thought about it for quite some time, never looking at her, just staring at the board and then down the table. He finally folded with something like, “You think you’re some kind of Ivy Leaguer.”

She calmly replied, “I think you can blow me.”

I almost spit. The 7s couldn’t stop laughing. When the table started to twitter, I said, “Come on kids. Let’s just play poker.”

They did.

I sailed out the door to the escape hatch a few hours later without hitting a snag on a hidden coral reef. Sweet! There’s no place like home.