I made it. A full eight hour shift. Except for the last half hour, I was pushing Ilia and he would have the bust-out. What’s a bust-out? The final half hour of a shift is a break. He was going on 32B and when Mary pushed me out of 31, he asked her if she wanted the bust-out (he would trade tables with her). She didn’t accept, I said I would, if he would (deal the same game for the last half hour of the down), he said he would, I left. Yippee!!

My first game was $30-60H. I knew about half of the players at the table. Not to worry, the shuffle master was having an off day and managed to ‘red light’ about five minutes into my down. I popped the top open and reset the deck, I hand shuffled for the next hand, the red light came on again. I called Boba. One has to know Boba to understand his acid comments. He gave me lip – that I didn’t know how to deal now after having been gone for so long – telling me to put the cards back in the shuffle master, etc. *laughter* I did put the cards back in – the shuffle master and the start up text came on – verifying set up, blah, blah, blah.

Then it went into shuffle mode andthen it went back to verifying set up mode. I had hand shuffled four times by now (not that that bothers me, I’m damn good at it). I called Boba again, telling him that there was a serious problem, the player in the 7s said it had been going on all day. I laughingly told Boba that the players didn’t really care if it worked or not because they were paying ‘time’. That brought a dumb look from a few of them and laughter from the rest. Of course they care.

Nate arrived, I popped open the lid of the box and the ‘master’ tried to eat one of the cards. The machine was swapped out in about two minutes, taking the one from the table behind us. On with the game.

My next game was another $30-60. Svi is in town. He was D-R-I-N-K-I-N-G. Sam was in the 10s and Svi came over several times to talk to Sam. At one point, Svi stood between Sam and me, talking into my right ear although he was talking to Sam. I turned slightly and addressed him, “Would you please be quiet.”

He blustered, “Just shut up and deal. We don’t want you ear dropping on our conversation.”

He busted out laughing. Then explaining to Sam that I knew what he (Svi) was like and that he meant it in fun. I’m still chuckling over ‘ear dropping’.

The room was fairly quiet. That’s not uncommon this time of year. If we are quiet, the rest of the poker world in Vegas is dying…unless they have a big jackpot waiting to be hit.

There was some super altercation later in the night when a player put $500 on the table in the $2-5 NLH game and was waiting for chips. I didn’t get the whole story. But apparently the way it came down, only $200 of it was allowed to play – the new guy won the hand – the other guy thought all-in meant $200 instead of $500. It’s strange how everything becomes distorted and out of sync at the table at times. It’s hard to know if the dealer announced the $500 or not. That is the only game in the room that cash does not play in and it makes it very difficult to keep chips in front of players at times. Perhaps we need a larger table bank? DOH!

Most of the night was pretty uneventful…sure I remembered how to deal. I’ve been dealing almost half of my life. The only game that was really a blight on the horizon was the $20-40 Stud game. Seats 4-5-7were all old timer, grouchy as hell, grumble bug, moth eaten dust catchers.

Hassan was in the 4 – always glaring, thanking me if I gave him the low card (it happened once). But we do get along, in a sick sort of way.

Marty was in the 5 – whining as usual, creepy eyes and attitude, won the first hand I dealt -huge pot -and when he thought he was beat on sixth, the whine started, “My favorite dealer.” I wanted to comment, “Funny, you aren’t my favorite player.” but I zipped my lip and dealt. Of course he won the pot.

Frenchy was in the 5 – bitching about the dealer I pushed, and how he would ‘stiff him for the rest of his life’. Pshaw! Like Frenchie’s a ‘george’.

Then Marty had to tell Frenchy a story about a dealer that dealt him out of a $1,000 and then when Marty flipped the cards into the dealer’s hands, the dealer looked at him like he was out of line…no shit? I think he told the story to see if he could get a rise out of me…He can’t get anything out of me. He’s brain dead. It’s not hard to deal to and with people that are brain dead at the table, I just watch them bleed off their chips throughout their lifetime while they always think it’s someone else’s fault.

So wire to wire and back. In a few short weeks I’ll be heading for Aruba/UltimateBet island escape. Until then, Bellagio’s time clock awaits. Welcome home, Linda!