On Monday, the 6th, Dave Roletto arrived to say hello – and brought me a bottle of wine. Damn these kids are nice. They arrive with smiles and wine too. Since I started my shift on a break, we had the opportunity to sit and visit before I hit the box and he went on his way. He’s young, energetic, family minded, and loves to play poker. His priorities are straight though, he’s got a three year old daughter that takes precedence over everything. I love men that love their kids…when I was growing up (Hell…I’m still trying), it was the woman’s place to handle everything related to raising kids. Visiting with Dave is a nice way to start the work day – the wine was right up there too! Thanks Dave!
Tuesday night, the 7th, Ron Robinson from TX came in to play and visit. I worked a half hour, got out to play and we sat in the same game, side by side, as I chided him for playing ‘donkey poker’. He took my ragging pretty well, and honestly, it was stated in the vein of humor with a bit of “You’re playing like crap!” thrown into the mix.
He definitely came to play and was mixing it up with almost every hand dealt to him. He had the whole table jumping into pots with him every time he raised. I was on his right…phew! At one point – he was here on a business trip and had to be up early and commit to a full session every day – he was extremely tired, it was late, and he was $20 or so winner. I told him to give it up for the night and come back tomorrow night. Nope! He was having too much fun. I called him a ‘lunitard’ once for not going when he was winner. He continually referred to himself as a lunitard after that. It’s hard not to laugh and have a good time when you play with Ron. He’s quick witted, non stop gab, and likes to play. He lost most of his buy-in and the game eventually got really weak. We were being shipped to other tables and he was calling it a night. And he does know how to play so don’t think if you take a seat with him in the game, that he’s a pushover. He prefers NLH but went with $4-8 L so he could play with me. He came back Thursday night, just after I clocked out and we visited for a few minutes. He wanted to play NLH but we looked at two of the $5-10’s from outside the room, over the rail. Scary! He mentioned that no one was even smiling. They weren’t. It looked like their last $ was on the line – although there were a helluva lot of $$$ on the tables. He opted to go to Caesar’s as he liked their game interface and the faces at Caesar’s tables better. I opted to hit the cold night air. Ron’s dad’s name is Gene. Mean Gene, your boy’s doing fine!
During the play of the game I was in with Ron, I started out a small winner and then went backwards, never overcoming the deficit nor being able to put anything together. All the players were new faces except Ron and Song. Song is one of our dealers at Bellagio. Song can put a lot of chips in the pot also. He’s very quiet, great smile, just jams it up. Every hand I raised, he climbed in, if I didn’t play a hand for an hour it didn’t matter. He called every raise I made…and won the pot. I seldom went to the Turn or the River after raising with A-K suited, or like hands, and the Flop brought all little rainbow, but Song was in there, stacking and laughing.
Song had a huge stack of chips and at least one $100 bill underneath them when I took a break. When I returned about a half hour later, he had about $20 in chips and one bill. Yes, that kid likes to jam. With Ron and him in the game, the chips were shooting out of the woodwork. When the game broke and Ron left for the night, we drew for other games, I went to Table 32, and Song went to Table 9. An hour later, Table 9 broke up and Song came to our game, two seats away from me. I raised with A-Q suited, he called, and I busted out laughing. He knew why I was laughing because earlier I had said, “Wow! No matter how long I sit without playing a hand, when I raise, you call. And the worst of it is, you win every time.” We were both chuckling over it. I finally gave up for the night, down about $60, and he was still jammin’.
This picture needs a small explanation. I’m a big fan of ‘Super Bubble’ or ‘Catch a Bubble’. I’ve made them famous by taking them to parks and gatherings, and blowing them into the air where they land on trees, bushes, people, everything, and sit for hours. My beauty queen, Kayanna, has helped me blow a few billion of them out into the air in a variety of places…thank God for grandchildren or I might have never discovered them. I still blow bubbles, sometimes on a quiet evening with a hint of a breeze, sometimes just because… It’s great for the soul…try it sometime. I’ve been packing around this tube of super bubbles and I was going to huff and puff some of them into the air when I spotted this little gnat, adrift in the mixture. Of course I used the ‘macro’ setting on the camera to capture him floating through ‘Super Bubble Land’.
Just a small poker thought here – PLAY THE GAME – don’t get suspended in the mixture like this Gnat.