Help Mr. Wizard! It’s tax time and I’m not ready – mainly with the new corporation I started in September. My son came over a week ago and diligently sorted out a zillion different receipts, deposit slips, and other things, had them neatly stacked with a labeled paper beside them, and during the night, I opened my windows and doors. Don’t think that damn wind hasn’t been out to get me…it took me 15 minutes just to pick them up – completely unsorted – cursing all the while at what an idiot I was at not thinking that gentle breeze wouldn’t turn into an ugly tornado.
A few more hours on last Sunday, with my son, time spent poring over everything and sorting it in my thoughts, and finally my bookkeeping is beginning to shape up. I may even make it to see my tax guy on Sunday as planned. I won’t even dream of opening a window or door until then. I’ll sift through a crack, like the dust the wind picks up, to enter and leave my house.
The wind was still in tornado mode when I went to work tonight but it had slowed down by the time I left the building.
Speaking of work, I started in Fontana tonight. A bar and lounge that overlooks the water show – when it’s not too damn windy. One Super Satellite and the rest were single table satellites – cost $180 – for the tournament that will begin today while I’m asleep. It was so nice dealing in there. No cigarette or cigar smoke drifting over a rope rail. No noise other than the clank of chips and sounds of play, almost too quite and relaxing to believe that poker was going on.
My last table in Fontana was the Super Satellite. It was five handed, one seat awarded and three other players would get cash. The only player I was familiar with at the table was the 5s. I don’t know him but I do know he plays the $10-20 NLH game intermittently.
The 8 and 9s went to war on the first hand I dealt. The 9s was the BB. The 8s went all-in and the 9s called. The 9s was young and noisy.
They both had a lot of chips. The 8s turned over 9-9. The 9s turned over K-10 off.
The Flop was K – little. The 9s snorted, “I told you not to fuck with my blinds!”
The Turn was a 9.
The 8 and 9s did ‘fuck you thing’ – ‘don’t tell me not to fuck with’ and I jumped in the middle of it and told them both to stop it and play cards.
It took a few minutes to count the 8s down.
The 9s was crippled but managed to hang on. The 2s went bust and the rest of them were in the money. Before I left the game, the 9s had managed to pick up a few more chips and the 8 and 9s were now chatting and ‘over it’.
My night was almost over. I was back in the Poker Pit. My next game? $2-5 NLH with none other than Archie K. in the 4s. Sure…you know the guy that won over $30M and then gave it all back – rumor has it the only thing he bought out of that money was a car.
*****
The experienced dealer shortage and dilemma is really showing at Bellagio. One of the Floor people told me tonight that over the weekend, they had two dealers that had to be taken out of the $80-160 H games because they couldn’t deal it.
And another one that suffered the wrath of hell because he didn’t know how to deal Deuce to 7. The players asked him if he’d ever dealt it before and he said, “No!”
They punished him. They are little bitches like that. Instead of helping him become a better dealer and keeping him from making a mistake, they pick, pick, pick, until the dealer has nowhere to go.
Not sure if this dealer was taken out of the box or stayed to endure the down.
It’s going to get worse. In all the games and in all the rooms opening, there aren’t enough experienced dealers to fill the slots.
As a player, stop snapping and biting and start helping. Help the dealer to become a better dealer. If you rip into them everytime something happens, you only hurt yourself, the game of poker, and the future of the highway that you’d like to roll down with ease.