Damn it! I completely missed the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker. This year the prizes were worth fighting for – a seat in the ‘big one’, and lots more. Don’t worry, I wasn’t there, even though I was registered and had planned all week long to take that day and play that tournament. I can only say that these two kids had my attention:

We had plans to have breakfast together. We did. They arrived at the Coach and we walked over to Denny’s Restaurant. It was brutally hot. Perhaps I should blame missing the tournament on heat stroke? Oh well, get over it Linda! After breakfast, we ended up back at the coach and put on some toons for Riot, that didn’t last long because he’s hooked on Harry Potter. He screams, “Hurry!” for Harry, and has to have some kind of wand to cast spells with…but watch out; he’s dangerous with that wand. After they left, late in the afternoon, I received a call from Dan, my oldest son, in CA. As we were talking, I told him I was going to play in the Blogger’s Tournament and explained there were over 2000 players registered when I last checked.

As we gabbed, I logged onto PokerStars. Kee-rist! I was out; it had started two and a half hours before I logged on. OUCH! Damn time zones anyway. But I wouldn’t have passed up the time I spent with my son and grandson so it makes no difference at this point.
But add the fact that my sis, the truck driving queen, was on a run through Vegas and stopped for the better part of the day. We had to go blow off some coins in the keno machines. All in all, Father’s day turned out to be a family day for me and I really enjoyed it. I even hung up my keyboard fingers for the night around 9ish and watched a movie and proceeded to get tanked…yes, I was ‘being the wine’. It was great fun.

There’s another free roll shot at ‘the big one’ coming this Sunday on TitanPoker, if I don’t make this one, I seriously need to figure out what the hell is going on with me and poker.

Speaking of poker, even though Bellagio is running 20 games or more when I stroll in on swing shift, it appears to be totally dead. It’s got to be brutal everywhere in town. Everyone’s waiting for the WSOP to revive the poker life line in Vegas. It will. When it hits, everyone that’s in the biz will be gasping for air as the tidal wave rages over the city. In the meantime, we sit around like dry desert rats, waiting…

But! Huge ‘but’ here! Don’t think the games aren’t good. They are pretty damn unbelievable. And I’m only speaking for Bellagio on that one because that’s the only place I’ve been of late. The Pan Game is out of sync and some of them are out of town so I haven’t been out and about. Add the fact that I’ve had allergies from hell and caught something from someone that appeared to be a cold but was after my lungs and sinuses and never really manifested as a cold. All of that keeps me housebound.

I’ve been reminiscing the first year I hit Vegas to deal tournaments. After dealing several big tournaments, I couldn’t stand the thought of dealing to all of the pros at the ’88 WSOP but I wanted to deal during the tournament. I was hired to deal the room at The Golden Nugget. Eric Drache was the card room manager of the Nugget, in those days, and he was going to help run the tournament at the Shoe. Frank Cutrona was Eric’s assistant and in charge when Eric wasn’t there. The only thing I clearly remember about the Nugget dealing these side games, (this was nothing like my first tournament in Vegas which was held at the Nugget), was the $2-4 Omaha games. There were at least two of them every night on swing and it looked like a retirement home had bussed all the players in for the evening. I swear there was never a person under 60 in those games. And the $20-40 game that ran around the clock with $40 rubber banded together was the most unbelievable game I’d ever dealt. I needed a bulldozer to push those pots. The winner of the pot had to put out the ‘lump’, no matter what their position. It was an ‘auto’ raise and opened the door for more action. The pots were giganticous, the action was crazy, and everyone played every hand.

One incident I remember in particular, during a $1-5 7-card stud game, a gent had a rack on the table, several napkins, and a glass or two. Somewhere into the middle of my down, when he moved a napkin, there was a card underneath it. Another gent accused him of cheating and holding out the card. Who knows how long that damn card had been there? It wasn’t even from our deck and that seemed to make it worse as the accuser was convinced this guy was a cheat. The accused was an elderly gentleman that almost fell over when he saw the card. Well come to think of it, they were all elderly. The whole incident calmed down and the game went on.

I dealt to Stu Ungar for the first time. I hated it. He’d been forced to take ‘sit-outs’ during the day. I escaped without any mishaps but I wasn’t happy that I had to deal to him. And I was never happy that a player was allowed to do the things they did and get away with it. It’s nice that things have finally evolved. I still have my ‘twilight zone’ memories of some of those days and they aren’t pretty.

A journey back in time makes me happy to be where I am. G’nite world!