Friday found me with a slight sinus headache and a minor amount of coughing going on so I decided it was time to put on my glad rags and venture back into the poker room…sure I miss those guys and gals – just like I miss a toothache. Just kidding! I really do miss the hub-bub and noise, the people, the action, and home! I’d been hidden away in my cave for the last three days and was starting to feel like a social outcast – not that anyone in society wanted me around them in the state I was in.
So…showered, dressed, and out the door into the rain of a gloomy Las Vegas night by 5:45. Why is it raining so much in Vegas? That’s my fault. It’s the terminal back yard project. Every time the weather clears up and I tell my son it’s time to pour the concrete for my patio areas, it starts raining the next day. Hmnnnhhh! The traffic was brutal – I opted to take Charleston instead of the freeway and made it into Employee Parking by 6:20.
The room was a screamer. I scurried to sign the E/O list. Well hell, it was my Friday. The whole high limit section was full and the Friday’s at 5 Tournament had 98 entrants. Add the normal lines for lists and people milling everywhere and BINGO, a fire marshall’s nightmare alive well in a poker room.
I started on Table 26. Tournament Time. Before I got the deck scrambled, the clock ran out and they were on a 15 minute break. As I did the set up, I can distinctly remember asking myself how I could become a better emissary for poker. This is my livlihood and it’s important in more ways than one that I represent my profession as a player/dealer in a wholesome, informative manner. My train of thought was interrupted by a couple on the rail. They came into the room to visit with me about the tournament; the players returned; the cards were in the air.
Table 27, tournament. The 5s was absent. About the third hand I dealt, antes were in the pot, I cut the deck, ready to deal, the 4s reached into the pot and took out four $25 chips, placed them in front of the 5s and took a $100 chip from the 5s’s stack and threw it into the pot.
It happened so fast – or there’s still too much fluid in my brain – I may have sounded a little harsh when I said, “Don’t make change out of the pot.”
He spread his hand and defiantly stated, “There’s $250 in the pot. It’s right.”
I replied, “Don’t make change out of the pot. I make the change.”
He sarcastly snapped, “Don’t try to be in control.”
I’m not sure if I gargled or coughed out a, “Humphhh!”
Not one player at the table took my side. Dumb butts! How can you want players reaching into the pot to make change – under any circumstances?
The deal went on. At least he didn’t make any more change for anyone, including himself when he didn’t have color for the ante. He made quad Aces a few hands later and busted out another player; lucky for me it was a tournament down because he might have just given me the big Goose Egg if it had been live play – he had the attitude and look. Yeah…just for doing my job right!!!! That’s the way it works sometimes.
The 3s was the star of this show – in his own mind anyway. He swore. I cautioned him. He pulled me into his dismal bad card run and kept telling me, “Come on, Linda, I only have enough to make it to the next blind. Give me a hand,” then looking at his cards like he was facing a firing squad without a blind fold, he managed a cynical laugh.
Each hand dealt, he had a comment for me and had to show his cards to the players next to him if they had folded. Finally he was all in on the Blind and before the rest of the table had acted, he picked up his hole cards, leaned back in his chair and almost put them behind his head to show someone at the table behind him.
I did a, “Hey, you can’t take your cards off the table.”
He said it didn’t matter, he was all in anyway. Perhaps I should have called the Floor, instead I asked, “Whose rules are we playing by anyway?”
His hand? He turned up 2-3 off facing A-8 off. He lost and left in the midst of some shuffle and noise.
Emissary my ass! This table managed to erase all those warm, cuddly thoughts I had a half an hour ago. I was thinking the dealer should have a control panel in the rack that has seat ejection buttons on it.
I hit a break, dealt one more game, and yippee-skippee, Friday E/O.
Today? I’m on the mend. The junk that someone coughed/sneezed into my face a week or so ago is on the wane. I feel so much better. I may even build a fire under those Emissary Thoughts and warm them up again when I go back to work on Monday.