I hurry-scurried to make it to work before time to draw the Line. HA! What the hell is that? In poker dealer lingo, it has to do with E/O’s and Plays…in other words the E/O-Play List.

Since I work Swing Shift and the time I’m supposed to be in the room to report in is 6:45, that is also the time the Line is drawn. Signing up before the Line is drawn is the only way to go if you want priority for playing or taking an E/O.

Sign before the line and your day of the week designates the first choice of the draw. The Fridays draw, then Thursdays, etc. If you sign after the Line is drawn, all the Fridays, Thursdays, Wednesdays, Tuesdays, Mondays, have preference over you no matter what day of the week you are on.

I made it!

It was actually my Wednesday but my Happy Four Day Weekend was looming on the horizon and the sooner I escaped the “time clock grind” the better. I had a lot of people coming to my home to play the Clan Jam Poker Tournament and I had buy and prepare food for a BBQ for about 30 people. Some of them I had never met before so the whole affair was a little exciting and a little nerve racking.

I raced into the Poker Pit, signed the E/O and got ready to deal. The Poker Pit was a screamer. The Wednesdays NLH Tournament was winding down and people were everywhere – some already on lists, some waiting to get on lists, and others watching the Tournament outside a velvet rope baricade.

Time to go to work.

I cruised through several $2-5 NLH games and hit the last table of the tournament. The finalists were discussing a deal and all I had to do was sit and wait. I made up the set-ups and waited. Deal made, the chips were all pushed in to me and I started racking them up. Eventually a $4-8 Holdem game cranked up in place of the tournament.

All of the games were S-M-O-O-T-H, easy to deal, no headaches or bumps and before I knew it, it was 1:00 a.m. Right at the time that I was sure I would get an E/O, the Poker Pit was still too busy and I was pushing into the ‘big game’. The Shuffle Master had been wired in and was working, a bent card meant an unhappy player, a new set-up on the way, I sat down and handed off the old decks to the Supervisor. Just as I prepared to spread the new decks, another dealer tapped me out and told me Kamell wanted to see me. (Somewhere, somehow, lightning struck in the outer realm of the universe and I was not only getting an E/O, but escaping just after my butt hit the seat in the ‘big game’. Damn!)

I did not walk nor run nor pass go…I JUMPED out of the Dealer’s Box to find Kamell. As I skirted the players on the ‘big game’, I walked past Ely. His face was carved in stone and extremely unhappy. I knew without asking that he was the one that bent the card. He grumbled, “Good dealing job, Linda.”

I grabbed his shoulder as I went by, “How’d I do? Ok on the deal right?”

I was out of there before he could reply. I helped lock up the box on a dead table and hit the Time Clock. Woo-de-hoo!!!!

But before I leave the Poker Pit for the Clan Jam and a four day weekend – earlier in the week I waited for an $80-160H game to kick off – along with three players. One of the Players was T. D. He related an interesting Razz tale. An hour before, he’d jumped into a $30-60 Razz game thinking it was 7 Card Stud.

He made sixes and nines on sixth street with an open ended straight draw. He also faced every bet possible from a long time Razz player named Steve. T. D. caught a ‘3’ on the River.

The dealer announced that the other player (Steve) had a ’10’ and tried to pull T. D.’s hand from him. T. D. held onto his cards, declaring, “I’ve got two pair,” even when the dealer tried to take them.

Finally another player asked what T. D. had and it was discovered that T. D. had made a ‘9’. T. D. won the pot. He left immediately – after stacking the chips.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss but don’t make a habit of it…especially in poker!