In all the years past, that I’ve dealt in Vegas, the week between Christmas to New Years has rocked with visitors in the casino and in the poker rooms, with the exception of 2001. There is no reason to explain 2001, everyone knows the sick horror that gripped us all as we watched history carve a hole in our thoughts and hearts. This year is another little history maker but in a different respect. Yes, there is a lot of activity in the casinos and Bellagio’s poker room is busy, but with empty tables.

I ventured in last night, doing the normal gig of signing the EO/Play list, and dealt for the first hour. My first table started as a dead spread but a $15-30H game developed about 10 minutes later. My next table was $30-60H, full, and apparently there were two of these running. Nothing was happening in Bobby’s Room and there were several games in the high limit area, but most of the activity was in the low section of the room.

I jumped into a game on Table 21 – $4-8H. This game ended up breaking within a short time, mainly because people just got up and moved to other $4-8 games that they wanted to play in without approval from the brush. It was like watching a waltz played out to the tune of the noise of conversation, chip clatter, body motion, and all the elements that make a poker room work. As luck would have it, there were seats for all of us in other games when there were five of us left. I was sent to table 8 where the person transferring from that game to table 22, told me that the 1, 2, 3s were all playing partners – and they spoke a different language. The transferee just wanted to let me know they were cheating, that’s why he was moving. Well…OK!

Let’s go briefly to the subject of cheating. There’s a comment on this post about cheating. Honestly, if you feel you are in a game with a cheater/s go directly to the supervisor, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go RAT them out so they can be dealt with in the manner that all cheaters should have to face – if in fact, they are cheating. And don’t forget to read this just to give you a little ammo if you are fairly new to the casino environment.

After sitting in the game for a few minutes, it was obvious that the 1, 2, 3 seats were just gambling and trying to beat each other, with or without a real hand. The 3s had a male sweater stuffed in between him and the 4s. As the game wore on, the 2s’s wife appeared, he left with her; about an hour later the 1s left and the 3s was still there when I left at 1:00 a.m. The 3s played almost every hand, spoke only to his sweater, watched everyone, and gambled like a maniac…if that’s cheating, send them on…send more cheaters.

I managed to slowly build up a nice win and then I did the idiot thang. The law of diminishing returns got me…and my own dipshit/diptard want to stay and play. A player that plays higher limits took a seat next to his friend – next to me. He blind raised and straddled every chance he got. The game went ‘whacko’ with chips rolling out of the corners of the room and flying from the vents in the ceiling and jumping out of everyone’s stacks until it was $20 to go preflop in every hand. Yikes! Great game, Ma, send money! It took me four hours to bleed off my win and most of my buy-in. I finally said goodnight and headed for the cold night air.

Of course I watched a dealer put the entire flop down at one point, and then at the end of another hand, he picked up the burn cards and turned them up in front of him; one of them was an Ace and there was an Ace on the board, he exclaimed, “I’ve got a pair of Aces!”

WTF!!! Yup the comedians and entertainers are off the stages and in the dealer’s box – appearing live in a poker room near you!

The End

My sis took this picture, for my ‘The End’ series of pictures, on her long haul, truck driving trip up through Ayer Massachusettes.