Whew! It seems forever in getting here – yet none of it has really sunk in yet. Perhaps about the middle of next week, when I haven’t had to be up, showered, presentable, and out the door by 5:50ish P.M., it will start to register…I’m free of the time clock for two months. Kee-rist! Wouldn’t it be wonderfully, delightfully too sweet if it became a lifetime reality? Yummy! So far I’m still sleep starved and trying to figure out what I need to do first and how to do it. Part of my head is saying, “Don’t do anything. Kick back and relax for a few days.” Another part of me is saying, “Get in gear. How much do you think you’re going to get done by laying around, Dolt Brain.” Well…I’d like to buy a gallon of wine and drift into ‘be the wine’, but I’m not drinking and haven’t been for quite some time so I must pass for now.

At this moment there are hundreds of poker players throwing chips across the green felt in this city and I have to go out soon and jump into the foray. I can’t let this year’s WSOP go by without giving myself a chance to play in some of the tournaments. Just hanging out in the noise and confusion of the chip wars is exhausting at times, but it’s a sacrifice I must make. *chuckling* Of course I want to be there!

Big news coming to PokerWorks soon. You’ll just have to stay tuned to find out what it is. And please don’t be bashful about joining the forum and sharing your poker thoughts, blog address (there’s a thread just for blog addresses), bad beats, and theory discussions. Keep your damn spam to yourself though.

Wouldn’t you know it! I played on shift on Wednesday night. I played most of Thursday night, dealing an hour. And Friday night, being first on the E/O list – I dealt until almost 2 a.m. It sucked. The room was so hot I thought I’d die. I did get out to play at 9 p.m. – changed my shirt, got on the list, walked out of the poker room to make a phone call, walked back in and had to go to Table 1. Bobby’s Room was calling my name. *primal scream* I gave up my spot in the line-up, which was in the lower limit section of the room, by jumping out to play and then to make it all super ugly, not only did I not play, I started in high limit and was moving into a part of the room where I swear the air conditioner DOES NOT WORK! And I’m not the only one that feels that way. Everyone is ready to explode from the heat in that area.

The game I started was a rousing little round of Chinese Poker, Phil Ivey and David Oppenheim cranked it off. Phil was waiting for change for a bunch of Pancakes ($25,000) chips – that were being brought to him by the shift supervisor (Pete Popovich) – and David put some of his chips off in another seat for David Benyamine. I ran the decks through the shuffle master and dealt Chinese, giving both of them two hands. Do I know how to play Chinese? Umnnhhh! I get the general run of it but I don’t understand their points at all and I never try. I never even look at their hands because I’m not required to read any of it. The funny part of it was that twice, when David looked as his cards, he asked me if I was using ‘the machine’ to shuffle the deck. Yup. I have no idea what that was all about. Then David Benyamine appeared, with a lovely young lady, and took the seat next to David O., Jeff Lisandro showed and took the 8s, and I dealt two more hands of Chinese and got pushed.

My next table was one of the few remaining tables of the daily tournament. I’d dealt one of these earlier, at 7:30, when I first came in and this one was about two hours later. The antes were $500, the blinds $1,500-3000 when I first sat down. The gamble was on. About 10 minutes into my down, a player raised to $6,000 – another player called – the 1s went all-in, somewhere around 30K – and the 2s went all-in also. After a slight amount of deliberation, the blinds and the other two players folded. The 1s turned over Q-Q and the 2s turned over J-J. The Queens held up and the 2s got about $1,500 in change. The 4s made a comment that he knew the 1s had a big hand before he even moved his chips in, it had something to do with the way the 1s looked at the 4s’s chips, etc. The 2s went off on a spouting spiel, spitting out all kinds of anger…of course he’d just lost a hand. But it wasn’t like he took a bad beat, he never had the best hand.

The 2s was biting at everything the 4s said, challenging the 4s as to what he thoughts the 2s had and since he knew everything, he challenged the 4s as to whether he would have folded J-J in that position. The 4s was fairly quiet and just let most of it roll over his head. But I got some of the crap from the 2s. He went all-in on the next hand, stating that he would try to keep the cards on the table…meaning he was going to try and keep from throwing them in the air if he didn’t win the hand. Of course he didn’t win the hand. And who wanted him to? He was acting like a turbo charged asshole. So he stood up, cards in hand and threw them, one of them hit me in the side of the head and fell onto the floor, the other landed over past the flop.

There were only 8,000 bodies in a room that can only handle about 200, the tournament director for the night, Lynn Loomis, was not more than 10 feet away from me but there is so much confusion and noise going on – and H-E-A-T – that she missed all of it. She stepped forward when the 2s stepped around me to get to her because he finished in the money. I called her over and explained that he had thrown a card into the side of my head and that it was on the floor behind me. I continued to deal. Lynn came up to me a bit later and explained that there was nothing she could do now – I don’t really want to go there because if I was handing out his cash… Anyway, she said if he played the tournament the following day, she would start him with a 20 minute ‘sit-out’ penalty. Ok.

So I spent my last night in the box for two months by having someone throw cards at me. Stellar performance. Good job, Butt Boy! Get that turbo charged elsewhere – you won’t be able to do it with me giving you a jumpstart for two whole months.

On another front, I’m embarrassed over this. I dealt a $2-5 NLH game, my 2nd table, and the 1s was so gracious and great to deal to, tipping me because he knew who I was and I had blogged about his friend Matt and Matt had been in just about a year ago this time and played in a game I dealt. The reason I’m feeling slightly like a retard, I asked the 1s his name, he told me, and I’m off in space with it. He was so damn gracious and nice, that he followed me to the next table and handed me money. So…Mr. Great Smile and Attitude, please send me your name in an email so I can post it here. geenen -a- pokerworks.com

I feel the need to splash a few pictures here. I got this one, heading towards the Strip from Decatur, on the side of The Palms Playboy building that’s going up. The picture changes but not for a damn long time. I wanted to take more shots of others but after waiting about 10 minutes, I gave up and headed for home:

I had thought that I would have a picture of Craig and me to add here. Craig writes for PokerWorks.com and carries a great blog. He’s been here reporting on the WSOP and is heading home today. He played the 2K event yesterday and busted out with Aces vs. A-Q. Ugly. He will have a report on it soon. His next trip in – for sure – the picture of me and him will be here somewhere.

While I was playing on Thursday night, Nicholas in the 3s came in to play cards with me. We even managed to sit together in a game, and he stayed true to form, moving into the 3s when it opened. He was his usual, fun, entertaining self. Add several tons of ego, confidence and control to his posture and you have this:

The picture really doesn’t do him justice – he’s a cutie – but I took it in ‘nightshot’ and he looks evil. Is he? Umnhhh! Perhaps he will tell all in his blog.

While traveling down Tropicana, I was at the stop light on Las Vegas Blvd. and couldn’t resist this picture in the night. Love it!

I’m running on empty. It’s been a strange week, the heat in Vegas is brutal, bringing about showers of lightning and a heavy feeling in the air but no rain. I’m still on the quest of having the jacks on the coach replaced, possibly this week, which is a big ordeal. Unhook everything, hitch up, drive out to Wheeler (about 20 miles from here) leave the coach for the day (and now my home’s in lock-up and I have nowhere to go), pick it up when it’s done, come back, level up, hook everything up, unhitch, and all while the thermometer is running off the charts. Kee-rist! Nothing major. But damn – it would be so nice to have it taken care of so when the whim hits me to leave town, I can just go. Thinking about it makes me tired. I’m going to sleep.