It has occurred to me that I’m a slacker in the respect that when I mention someone that carries a blog, I’m not posting a link to their blog. Slacking in that respect is completely unintentional and I will try to change my ways. There are a lot of great blogs on poker. I try to keep up with reading but there are so many, it’s almost impossible for me with the limited time I have each day.

One of the great things that have developed out of blogging, from my POV, is a blogger tournament. The kids that write about the game get together to try and bust each other…heh heh. There’s one coming on the 10th of December, check Bill Rini’s site for info. Please don’t think a lot of people don’t bust their butts to make sure this works. I attended the First Annual WPBT at Sam’s Town last year. It was great. This year will be even more incredible…all those noisy, party throwing bloggers…woo hoo!

I just went to Daniel Negreanu’s site and sent him an email, asking him to come to the Blogger Event. If I see him at Bellagio in the next few days, I’m going to ask him in person. He’s a kick. I hope he accepts.

I spoke with Ron Rose, he attended last year’s event and if he’s not busy, he said he would attend if I emailed him. Help me out here…anyone…I have his email address so whom should I send it to???? Or should I just send him an email and ask him to show up as a guest speaker? Or just show up as a poker pro? Anyone out there have a suggestion? Iggy? Poker Prof? Pauly? Bill?

*****

So…I did work most of my shift. I started in $30-60 H, hit $15-30 H, then $30-60 H, and took a break before jumping into Deuce to 7 $300-600 heads-up. I’ve dealt to the 4s on several occasions and I can’t believe this kid jumps into these high limit games. I won’t even go into the slaughter that takes place…unless he happens to go on a blind rush. He was running through a giant stack of 100’s as if he printed them at home and knew they had no value. Jeff Lisandro joined the game for the last half of my down and the game ran at break neck speed until I got pushed.

$400-800 Mixed on Table 5. Yen was in this game – mentioned in a post recently. Yen is also the player that jumped under the table to see the results of a coin flip (the coin hit the edge of the table and bounced underneath) between Andy Beal and Mike Laing in the $80-160 game back some years ago. This game was eight handed and a little stress and strife kicked off between Sonny – 2s, and Yen – 5s.

Apparently Sonny felt that Yen had made fun of Sonny by talking behind his hand to Jimmy W. – 6s, and Sonny let Yen know. Yen immediately took a belligerent stand and they threw a challenge back and forth about playing a higher limit. Yen snorted, “I don’t remember ever losing to you.” He added something like, “I’ve never been beat by a donkey like you.”

I very rarely EVER get involved in high limit conversations but I climbed right in, “Hey…that’s enough.”

Sonny is such a great bonus to a game. He just comes to play. I sometimes hate that egotistical side of poker where one player has to jab/shove/poke/rip another player’s play…yet if that wasn’t in most of us (although some of us keep silent about it at the table) poker would never be what it is and how it’s meant to be played.

Another player chimed in with something about the egos involved in poker and Ali – 7s said, “Let’s just play. So we get beat, we beat each other, let’s just play.”

They finally got past it and the idea of increasing the limit took off with everyone. Not that they were going to increase the limit, but they sure talked it up. As I was getting pushed, Jimmy Warren set out his Time Collection, laughing as he held his fingers on the chips, “Don’t let anyone raise the limit until they’ve collected Time or it will go up with the limit,” as he got up for a walk.

I got rerouted at this point, off to a shorthanded $80-160 H game. Then a full $30-60 H game. The last hand I dealt, the pre-flop bets went to $90. The Flop was something like 2-3-K. All kinds of noisy chip throwing disruption went on there too. The Turn was a blank and more betting. The River brought a 5 and two players put in nine bets each. One of them turned over the 6-4 of Diamonds, the other turned over A-4 Off. Wow! One of the players made a comment about 6-4 calling three bets pre-flop. I couldn’t help but shake my head over the guy calling with A-4 and then putting in all of those raises with the second best hand. And the A-4 player is not new to the poker room. What was he thinking???

The room was winding down. It was close to midnight and all the tournaments and poker stress takes its toll at times…people just go home for the night.

My next game was $20-40 7 Card Stud game. I can barely keep a straight face most of the time when I hit this game. I tapped the dealer, as a multi-way action pot was just finishing. Allen – 7s was in the process of turning over quad Aces. He broke two players and the dealer pushed chips for five minutes before she got the whole pot over to him.

Allen had three $100 bills in the mess of chips and cash he was stacking. A few hands later, the $100’s were gone. I asked him to put them back on the table. He said he couldn’t, he’d already given them away. It turned into an ordeal. He had two good-looking dollies sweating him and why he just didn’t take them and cash out was beyond me. He argued with me. He said everyone at the table knew him and he could take $300 off the table if he wanted to.

He’s right, everyone knew him…except for two players in the game – and I’ve known him for around seven years. He’s wrong in the respect that he could take the cash off the table and he knows it.

The 5s said something to the effect that the money should stay on the table. Allen told the 5s that he would have to play a hand before he could object. The 5s was active in the game and I believe Allen was trying to needle him, implying that he was too tight to be there. And did I forget to say that Allen was drinking?

I told Allen he knew the rule and the money would have to come back on the table. He argued that he’d given it away and he couldn’t put it back on. Eddie – 3S, had $90 in front of him (Allen broke him in the hand with quads and he rebought) argued that it was ok if Allen didn’t put the money back. Allen jumped on that, “No one cares.”

I called the Floor anyway. The decision came down that Allen had to be dealt out if he didn’t put the money back. So…he left. I thought he was speaking to me when he blurted out, “I hope you’re happy.”

I said, “I’m damn happy that I do my job the way it’s supposed to be done.”

He then said, “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to him,” as he pointed to the 5s.

He was stacking and racking and left the game. Before he left, he let everyone know that the game was breaking because he was leaving. Then Eddie went bust. The game was over.

I got to hit the fresh night air and crank up that big, new truck to carry me home. Sweet!