I really feel like a slacker – I didn’t even take a picture of Dennis or Mark, or any of the staff that I worked with for years when I first came to Vegas. I should have taken their picture. Perhaps they will spoil me and allow me another opportunity.

The Pan Game crew was a long time in getting back to any kind of outing together – way the hell since last year. Some of us meet for lunch on Friday’s when I’m granted the day off. And on some of those particular days, Marie and I venture out together to play poker. As of late we’ve had a few of us here, a few of us there for the lunch meeting but not much else. I say we blame it on the Holidays. From the middle of November until after the New Year, people’s lives always seem to go helter skelter for one reason or another. We all know the reasons and I would just be bruising them by throwing them into a pile here so let’s move on.

I sent out an email to the crew, even text messaged a few of them because one in particular doesn’t check email very often. I asked for a RSVP because Dennis had already told me that he would set up a game for us if we had enough players. It came down to this:

• Vivienne had been under the weather and wasn’t sure – as it turned out she had a relapse with the cough/flu and couldn’t make it.
• Marie is pretty much always a positive unless the sky is falling or the wind is blowing us off the face of the Earth (she might make it then anyway) or her family is in town.
• Carole and Gordon hardly ever show for actual casino play but will make it sometimes to a person’s private, card party, home game…they called late and couldn’t make it.
• Tami was flying in from out of town (no…not just for this event) and weather permitting she would make it.
• Amy promised she would be there and Greg would be there after he got off work at Caesar’s Palace.
• Wayne gave me a verbal reply on Friday night, “Don’t count on me.” I didn’t. He didn’t show.
• Ilia replied that he was almost 70% sure to be there. He called and couldn’t make it.
• Mark aka Kram420was in and out of chats online with me about going on the day of the event.

I knew I was going. Dan, my son, was going to meet me there too because he was already playing the $10-20H game and prefers the Mirage to other rooms in town.

The biggest down side is that it’s colder than SHIT right now in Vegas (28 the other night when I came home late from the Mirage) and I have to park out back in over sized parking. Yes, I could call a shuttle to pick me up but what difference does it make if I walk for seven to eight minutes to get into the building or stand and freeze my tush off for 15 minutes waiting for a shuttle? I say “WALK! Damnit!” That’s what I did.

On the way in, there are propane heaters on the sidewalk by bus stops with park benches. A man and woman were standing up on the park benches, warming their hands in the flame of the propane heat underneath the hood. I told them the only thing missing was a fork and marshmallows. They laughingly agreed. What the hell were they waiting for? The shuttle?

Before I left the coach I’d been in an online chat with Mark aka Kram420. He was starved. Could we eat before we played poker? Yes, Mark, we can. He said he was leaving the house to play poker. I told him to jump in a game at the Mirage and I would try to be at the Poker Room by 5 p.m. We could then eat and meet the others to play poker around 6:30. It all seemed like a plan.

I met Gary and Marie right outside the Mirage North Valet. Marie and I were ready for food; Gary went directly to a game. I found Dan and asked if he wanted to join us for food. Dan went for the food concept and I kept looking for Mark. It was now 5:15. Marie and I snagged four comps and rounded up Dan and we headed for the Deli. I called Mark after we were seated, asking where he was, he was on his way and would be there as fast as the road would take him. Yeah…right! We waited for him like one pig waits on another, we ordered and ate. Dan finished his snack and went back to his game. Marie and I took our time, finished our food, gabbed it up, and finally headed back to get on a list. It was now past 6:30…nice time commitment Mark. Yes, you’re being dogged here buddy.

Marie and I were given seats in the same game, right on the rail and the first table on the left as you enter the room. I believe it’s table 30 but I didn’t even look at the table number. The cigarette smoke from outside the room was horrible. Smokers of the world just go stuff it, that shit stinks, it’s hard on everyone and anyone that’s in a 30 foot radius from you as you’re blowing it out into the universe. Then to make it even better (puking allowed) someone was smoking a clove cigarette. Marie had been in the 9 (they only play 9 handed) and moved to the 1s. The 2s finally left and I moved over. I loved this picture of Marie:

Tami ended up in Marie’s old seat but managed to move down into the 4s later. Tami deals tournaments at Bellagio, lives somewhere strange and far off, and hopefully is moving to Vegas – date unknown. Yup! Table 30.

Amy arrived. She sat behind me and we visited about everything including the fact that she’s getting or hopes to get another pug – remember Lucy? I had Tami snap our picture, note the blondetwisting off to orangish strips in my hair…I’m rebelling against Mother Nature’s salt and pepper crap.

It’s funny, in a sick sort of way, the people that I spent eight to nine years of my life with, on a five day week basis, that some of them really couldn’t figure out that they knew me at all. And when we started talking, they prodded me to ask where they knew me from. That was two cocktail waitresses and one of the day/brush/floor people. I’m not insulted nor do I feel that they should remember me, it’s just the way poker is, people come and go. But eight years is really a long time, so where were they during those eight years? It’s very hard for me to forget or release those eight years because so much of it was stress and anger filled from the dealer’s box that it really sticks in my internal hard drive. Another part of the book.

Mark showed with his friend Anna. He was in and out and returned later to take the 9s after Tami left it. He jammed it up, one of the reasons that he always get paid off by me, and when the 3s opened, he moved. I was getting a lecture from him here. Hard to believe that he can’t even make a dinner engagement when he’s the one that’s starving, but he’s giving me a lecture.

The lecture was about the fact that I can no longer link to his blog. He was discovered/recognized by someone in a game just from them reading here and then going to his blog and they played poker with him – the Wynn I believe. Bummer! So ok. I won’t link you up.

Greg came in from work, Amy and Greg disappeared. Umnhhh!!! Naw…nothing like that, he wanted to change out of his work shirt.

A friend of Mark’s – John -got a seat in our game. I took a picture of Tami, Greg, and John. They were in the 4s-5s-6s.

We almost had a table that would play Omaha 8 or Better and Holdem, that’s what we were trying to do, but it fell apart. We had two players that nixed the whole thing.

I had a lot of fun, drank a helluva lot of wine, and managed to win $6. Mark and Anna left us. Tamidecided it was time to goand went off into the cold Vegas night. Marie was going to play her way through the downside of poker and Gary was in a high limit game so she was waiting for him too. Greg and Amy and I decided to hit the coffee shop for food. We did. I begged a ride from them to the over sized parking lot but as it turned out, they valeted off of the main entrance. I decided that rather than have them drive around, I’d just walk.

As I walked out through North Valet, I remembered all of the times I’d been in the Mirage as an employee. The whole place had changed – a lot – but then I hadn’t been in there in five years, other than the weekend before when I met my sons at the buffet for a food orgy. People were still milling in droves around the casino, registration, the night clubs and eateries, and machines and the pit.

It’s true, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Different locale, same menu, different day, different year – it all begins to taste and feel the same.