Friday, April 15, 2005

I finally managed to find the brush strewn, rocky path up and out of the Bitchy Mode. Thank God I made it into the light after way too many glasses of wine. I managed to wake up with a hangover, no attitude for work, and a planned trip to help a friend with computer problems before work. I knew as soon as I shotgunned that first blast of coffee into my system, my body would take over where my brain left off and I would be OK!

I made it into The Poker Pit in plenty of time to sign the E/O and cruise around looking for familiar faces. I had received an email from someone asking me to have Carlos Mortenson contact them. I went in search of him or Cecelia in Fontana, the tournament area, and found Carlos in the tournament. I handed off the email and split to see where I would start in tonight’s line-up.

Lo and behold, I was starting in Fontana. God…what a wonderful thing. No noise. No need for fills or player’s chips. No smoke drifting in off the rail. No players with the request, “Deal me in,” as I scramble and they scurry away for a moment. No screaming microphones. Just total bliss.

The only downside to the night was that we failed to get pushed at one point. I ended up dealing an hour and ten minutes at the same table. It was also a break table and I really needed that small moment away from the momentum of poker. My face was ready to slide off as I kept telling myself to concentrate on the Blinds, Antes, and game play. Those guys were probably sick of me being there too.

I took my 20 minute break, which was supposed to a 30 minute break, and returned to deal two more tables before I was out. I escaped at 1:00 a.m. and was really happy with that. I would have dealt one more tournment down, taken a break, and stepped into high limit for my last two downs of the night.

There were eight Black Chip games running in The Poker Pit, along with two other high limit games, like $2,000-4,000 mixed, and a variety of other high games. Whew! Sorry you missed me…really glad I missed you.

Bob S. is in town and we visited on a break. Greg P. (dealing student/dealer at Harrahs) came in to visit while I was sitting a tournament table and it was dinner break for the players. Nice to see friendly faces.

I ran into Danny, the one that went ballistic yesterday in a $30-60 game. I passed him outside The Poker Pit and asked, “You aren’t mad at me are you, Danny?”

He exclaimed that he had been looking for me to apologize for the way he behaved towards me when I touched his hand. He said he’d been playing too much lately and too many hours and he just lost it. Thass cool – we be buds.

One thing I sometimes forget as a dealer, even though you deal to someone all the time, and they treat you well, there is a line you just cannot cross. I try to keep that in my thoughts when I watch, listen, and deal to some of these players.

Guess that B-I-T-C-H-Y thang was catching…more than one of us had it.