Sure enough, as the luck of the draw would have it, I ended up on Table 1 again – late in the night. $2,000-4,000 Mixed – eight handed. Just one small stress fracture here…actually more a curiousity point to me than anything else. Tom – 1s – plays infrequently in the room is an integral part of this curiosity. He always tries to run the Dealer’s Box from the player’s seat while he’s involved in the game. It’s quite perlexing at times – almost throws a wrench in the smooth flow of the game.

The rack only held $1,000 – the norm is $500 – but usually in this size of game it’s increased to $1,500 so change can be made for a $500 chip. Yup, break it right on down to four Blacks, three greens, four reds, and five blues. The game was 7 stud 8 or better – Time pot. I broke down a $500 chip to take time. The pot ended up being heads-up and split. I had taken time. One $500 chip, four $100 chips, and four $5 chips remained after the big chips were split and pushed.

I simply asked, “How do I do this?”

First, let me state, that I know Time Pots are broken completely down to the smallest chip when a pot is split. But I had no more change in the rack to break it down and I had already looked around the table at the player’s stacks and no one seemed to have any $100 chips.

Tom informed me that it was split all the way down. DOH! I replied, “I know, I just don’t have any more change.”

He demanded that I push it all to him, the other players agreed, I did. He broke it down and gave them their half. Ok. This doesn’t bother me. He was the Table Captain for the night.

In a four way action pot, four raises, I tried to pull the bets in before he had called the last raise. He stopped me. Yes…I’m glad! But later, in a split pot between Minh and Chau, with a $5,000 chip and lots of singles, when I picked up five $1,000 chips and did a fan on the table to show it as five and had the $5,000 chip obviously loose at the edge of my other hand, he did a “Wait…!!!” as if I’d make a mistake. Double clutch…stop!

Me, “What?”

“Oh…I didn’t see the $5,000 chip.”

Well ok…

The major curiosity part of the whole thing. Jim -4s, Minh -5s, and Ralph -6s, were at war in a split game. Minh was in the hand until the last bet. Each betting round, I pulled in the chips – until it became heads-up on the River and Minh released his hand. $4,000 in front of Jim, $4,000 in front of Ralph. It was a split pot.

Ralph immediately took his last bet back. Tom told Jim to take his last bet back as I stacked the pot. Jim did and Ralph wanted to know how many times Jim was going to take back $4,000. I try not to die laughing here but for God’s sake, if anyone paid attention, they’d know.

Tom told Ralph that Jim had taken only his last $4,000 back. Ralph demanded, “You were watching, Tom?”

Tom restated. Ralph thanked Tom. Jim thanked Tom. At no time did anyone even bother to think that the dealer might have been paying attention. Guess if Tom hadn’t been watching we would have to have the cameras ran back because I must not be a credible witness here.

*****

My last down was $10-20 NLH and quite entertaining. Sam G. was in the 8s and trying to give the boys his usual Dialogue Dance. All of his fancy steps were being parried by the non-stop noisy chatter. Sam was pretty damn funny. He asked them if they ever shut up and told them the noise level was pretty bad when they out talked him. I roared.

Security rolled around to drop the boxes and the game completely stopped for a few minutes. I had moved over as far as I could to my left – the player in the 9s moved over to his right, and security consisted of two females that both took turns, getting down on their knees and monkeying with the key, trying to get the lock to release the box.

Sam said, “If you women would get out from in under the table, we could get on with the game.”

I laughed, “You mean you want them to get off their knees?” *laughter*

After a minute and a half or so, I went ahead and dealt the next hand although they were still fiddling with the box. We got into the third hand before they gave up and went to find someone else to take care of it.

Sam got involved in a couple of hands with the 5s and didn’t fare well on any of them. He had several wads of cash in his hand (that he’d pulled out of his pockets) and was counting through them when I dealt the next hand. When the action came to him, he tossed three $1,000 chips onto the table before he looked at his cards.

Mitch – 3s, said, “That doesn’t play in this hand.”

Thank you, Mitch! You just said what I would have had to say and you’re going to take the heat for it.

Sam, “What did he say?” looking at me.

“He said those chips won’t play in this hand.”

A little war starts between Sam and Mitch, a few of the other players tag in so I called Carmen. I explained, she said, “No! Once the cards are dealt, money coming out doesn’t play.”

Sam jumped on her, he can be so sarcastic and smart mouthed, she just took it like a trooper and gave him her best Airline Stewardess rebuttal.

A new security person appeared with a new kind of key and opened the box, dropped it, and they were away.

Sam made the comment that the boys would be humming and cuming…changed it to the boys would be humming, he would be cuming, then threw in, “Are those women still under the table?”

Another player asked, “Yes, can’t you feel anything?”

I was laughing my butt off. It was completely off the cuff and better than any comedy show around.

I got pushed. When I hit the Time Clock, Carmen was talking to the Grave Yard Supervisor, apparently the dealer following me had dropped Sam’s $20 Blind for time.

Holy Shit! I wish I was still up there so I could hear Sam’s Dialogue Dance on that one…it must have been a whopper added on to everything else that was going on.