The first half of my life I listened to the old saying, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too!”

I managed to convince myself that that’s the biggest bunch of baloney anyone can listen to. You can have your cake and eat it too. The only glitch is that you can’t always choose the frosting or how thick it is. But it’s all doable.

One of the days that had a really skimpy spread of frosting and the flavor was completely different for the cake it was spread on, was spent dealing two $20-40 7 Stud games, back to back. The first game was short players. Ok…ugly…but I lived through it without a scratch or noise. I hit the second game and a few minutes later the first one was breaking down, they were drawing for seats in the game I was now dealing. No problem, right? Yeah…right!

Ray, one of our dealers, had put down chips in the weak game and went somewhere without playing a hand. That made him ineligible for the draw. He came back just in time to see the other players taking seats in my game and have his name put at the bottom of the list. There were three players ahead of him that drew for the list but didn’t get a seat. Here’s where the frosting turned into a weak, runny drizzle and left half the cake bare.

Ray came to my game and went into a run something like this, “I was ready to play! I told everyone I’d be right back.”

The 8s interjected with, “I’m leaving soon.”

Ray offered him $25 for his seat. The 8s accepted the $25 amidst noise from all of us, mostly me, that he couldn’t sell his seat, there was a waiting list. It took two to three minutes to convince the 8s that he wasn’t selling his seat because Ray was never going to get it. Ray demanded his money back. The 8s gave it back. All of this is going on while I’m still dealing the game and trying to call high card and make sure the bets are right.

The 2s said he would leave for $25. Ray gave him $25 and the 2s started to rack up. Same noise, same confusion. By now I’m screaming for a Floorman to straighten out the waiting list and convince Ray that even if both players left the game, Ray was not getting a seat. There were three people on the list in front of him.

Ray never shut up!!!! He kept standing over my game, making all kinds of noise about how he wanted to play but they wouldn’t wait for him to come back, demanding his $25 back from the 2s, on and on and on. WTF? He’s a dealer and he completely blew my game apart with noise.

The 2s and 8s both racked up and left (and Ray didn’t get a seat because of the list) but it didn’t do much for straightening out the game. The damage was already done. Three of my players were totally upset.

I wonder at times what a dealer is thinking when they do this…never mind…I might find out there’s NO icing on this cake.

*****
Shove that icing up your nose…an incident that left me marveling at the personality display I find in poker came from a $4-8 H game.

Cliff was in the 3s, lots of chips and that’s the norm for him, whether he buys them or wins them, unknown to me. Cliff is the subject of another post some time ago. He’s generally friendly, talks a lot, mainly about poker, leaves the table frequently to smoke, always has a couple of giant sized drink cups in front of him – like coffee, soda, perhaps alcohol in the mix. I’ve played against him and dealt to him for a number of months. He mentioned having been in the nightclub business from somewhere, possibly Florida, before he moved to Vegas and he talks about working on a business now.

Jim was in the 2s. He always seems to be angry. He may not be but his general countenance gives the appearance of an inner struggle and very little patience with anyone for any reason.

A hand came down with three-way action, raised pre-flop, raised on the Flop, and raised on the Turn. Cliff, the 5s, and the 10s. Cliff was facing two bets after having bet out on the Turn; he went into ‘think mode’.

Less than 40 seconds had passed when Jim demanded, “Dealer! Speed the game up!”

Cliff’s head jerked up, “You want me to hurry?”

I interjected, “He’s entitled to think about his hand.”

Jim made some comment. Cliff’s head dropped into the ‘bull seeing red’ rage as he glared at Jim. “Unless you want to see Bugsy Siegel resurrected, don’t fuck with me! You have no idea who you’re messing with here.”

They started to do a dialogue duel and I jumped into the middle of it. “Hey…come on guys, let’s just play poker.”

A brief skirmish of a few more words and I told them to, “Drop it!”

They did. The game went on.

Wow! Ease up on that icing boys. It definitely didn’t go with the flavor of the cake and the rest of the crew at the table.

*****
A $30-60 H game on down the line was just the perfect mix of cake and icing. It started when I teased the 8s about picking up the Button after I dealt the first round of cards. I told him that’s when I exposed cards…when a player started ‘button fidgeting’. If they just left the Button alone, I wouldn’t have a problem.

The 6s told the 8s I’d be writing about him in ‘the blog’.

The whole game was fun. And I made way more money in that game than I’ve made out of a $30-60 in a long time. The 3s gave $10 tips when he won a pot.

Woo hoo! Just the right flavor, just the right seasoning, and mix of cake and frosting. Eat it too? Hell…I was rolling in it.