The end of the year 2004 – total frustration, irritation, and just plain ugly. But… the Omaha 8 or Better post concludes.

A week ago, Double A and Jeff P. were in the game. Jeff happened to come up for air and looked at the board, the bets, and the hands – after everything was finished on the River and I was splitting up the pot. He made a comment that I had made a mistake and something was wrong with bet/split or whatever the hell it was. He was wrong and everyone corrected him. (Not that it made any difference to me. I would rather find out before I pushed the pot than after I pushed it if a mistake was in progress).

Double A started laughing and declared, “The only time Jeff ever tried to help and he was wrong.”

It was funny. Jeff never gets in the middle of any of it because he’s always out somewhere in a ‘nether world’ unless he’s playing a hand. I had to laugh over Double A’s observation.

A flash back to last week, the night before Christmas. The $20-$40 Omaha 8 or Better with a half kill. Double A, Jay, Jeff, and a few other regulars were in the game. The room was a screamer, noise blasting out the roof tops, people milling every where. A seat opened. I got Skip’s attention and he called the names on the list, eventually telling me I had a player on the way. A few minutes later a woman sat down in the 10s with about $120 in $5 chips. I told her the buy-in was $400. She pulled out several black chips and pushed a $100 bill towards me. I sold the ten $10 chips I had in the rack and a chip runner went for the rest of her chips.

During this time period, as I’m dealing a hand, the Ace of Spades was boxed in the deck…hell if I know – this is the second time that’s happened in my dealing career…I stated, “This card is as if it doesn’t exist,” as I gave the next card off the deck to the player that would have received the Ace of Spades if it hadn’t been boxed.

H-e-l-l-o uproar! Everyone started talking at once, including the woman that didn’t have her chips. I managed to overcome the uproar to state that house rule was the boxed card was as if it was a piece of paper and nonexistent. It was a war for a minute or so with most of the table agreeing with me but a few of them thought I should have skipped the person that would have gotten it and dealt him the last card off the deck. Not sure why they felt that would happen if the card was nonexistent. Oh well.

As soon as that got settled down and the woman in the 1s had her chips, the real player showed up for his seat. Mass confusion again as Skip came over and I had to explain the woman had sat down. She argued with me – pointing and yelling – that she had asked if the seat was open and I had told her yes. I really had not said anything to her other than it was a $400 buy-in. She argued with Skip that it was her seat and I’d told her it was open.

Skip told her that he’d told me I had a player on the way and that I would not know who the player was so when she sat down, of course I would think it was her.

The whole table was, as usual, in a state of agitation and exclamation about everything and anything as the hand progressed and bets were slammed into pot.

Jay jumped into it and said it was the dealer’s fault because I told her the seat was open. Those weren’t his exact words and he was goofing around but it didn’t come across as being funny at the time.

I looked at him, “You have a real mean streak in you!”

We had a small, bantering exchange going on while the hand finished. The real player went to get his chips, the woman took a walk and left her chips there, and the table was on brain tilt…that is if we can give them all credit for having a brain.

The real player returned, Skip had to be called again, this time he picked up the woman’s chips and was heading for the cage with them when she returned. She was having a fit with him because she was missing two $10 chips. She came to the table with Skip, rack in her hand, spewing words at 1,000 miles an hour at me on how much she bought in for and where were the other two chips, blah, blh, bl, b (words at 1,000 MPH lose something).

Tan (one of our dealers turned player) was in the game and she was right behind him. He turned around and moved one chip over in the tube in the rack and told her they were all there, she had too many chips in one tube. She disappeared.

I looked at Tan and said, “You’re hired!” Sure that’s what he wanted to hear since he just quit a few months ago.

The 3s told us the woman that just left was a host in a CA casino. Naturally – people that work in the business are sometimes the hardest to get along with.

I’ve teased Jay since about being mean. I dealt the game a few nights later and where he is usually the bright spot at the table, with a smile and some witty conversation or at least some ‘Jeff darts’ and ‘Jeff barbs’ going on, he was as somber as everyone else. The whole game was a drag to deal.

Every now and then someone new joins the fold and remains but those instances are few and far between. With a few exceptions, most of them appear to be totally miserable, like a group of vultures hissing and pecking at each other while they are waiting for a live one to walk by and die in front of them. They are talking about going to Wynn Casino when it opens…I hope they do. I’d much prefer to deal to people that can still breathe if they lose a pot…and I wouldn’t mind making a buck or two at the same time.