Perhaps the show from the dealer’s box is one of the funniest and most bizarre on Earth for viewing people’s emotional levels and watching their ability to handle stress as their money is pushed in another direction. I’ve ventured back into the spotlight of directing traffic on the greenfelt, passing out tickets to people that they can use to claim the pot or….

I knew when I walked into the room and saw super freak J.C.P. seated on table 27 thatthat would be my start in the line-up. It was! No shit, Kids! It’s Murphy’s Law of dealing poker.J.C.P. has a much worse time dealing with me while I deal to him than I have dealing with him while I deal to him. He can’t stand the fact that I always do my job – even to a bag of black karma like himself – no matter what the circumstances; and in doing that, I leave him no grounds to try to torture me with his idiocy and infantile player attitude. I still get the black hate stares, even if I pass his table or as I enter the room if he looks up, he tries to glare a hole through me. Sometimes I stare back until he looks away. Sometimes I just bust out laughing and he knows that I’m laughing at his ‘going nowhere in spiritual development in this lifetime’, dead ass and he’s forced to look away…God forbid that I would be happy and he would have to witness such an event. But my attitude in the dealer’s box never changes, even if he goes on a rush and gets his jollies off by mumbling about how many blue chips he’s saving, I never slam the pot at him, nor am I rude in any manner (although I’ve lipped off to him before when he was completely out of line); I just do my job and it makes him crazy.

I slid into the box on Table 27, $30-60H, and when I announced, “Six for Time everyone,” he stood up and went in search of a rack. He was the dealer in the hand and in our room, if you’ve paid the BB, you can be dealt in the SB, and play the button without paying time, but no free hands after that. I knew that he wanted to be dealt in because it was his button. I also knew that he didn’t ask me to deal him in and I could have dealt him out and been completely right in my little dealer duties. I also know that any other dealer in the room would have dealt him out just for shits and giggles, just to piss him off and watch his eyes start to roll around in his head as he tried to conjure up black hate beams. But not me, I dealt him in. Kee-rist! I know it makes him crazy when I treat him with professional courtesy. I love it! He wants to go off on me and can’t do it. Nah-nah-nah!

He got his free hand, racked up and moved to another table about eight feet away. M.E.or Emmy (I can’t figure out which it is) was in this game. She’s like a cruel hawk,swooping down onthe field mouse’s franticstruggle across an open space as the mouse triesto escape the sound of beating wings, wings that carry the talons of death. Emmy never appears to be happy. She seldom speaks to anyone; isolated in her world of chip accumulation, her movements and actionsportray aggressionand offense. There is no visible soft side to her and the only time I believe I ever saw her in adifferent mood modewas some years ago when she appeared to have a spark withHarry Demetriou. She can be very hard on dealers. I keep my hands up when I deal to her and never get involved with any table conversations because she is waiting…the wings are ready to carry the talons into strike position…but I’m not the mouse.

She tipped me on the first pot I pushed to her. Within 20 minutes into my down, she called a raise in the SB, and went to war with an older gentleman that had raised preflop. The highest card on the flop was a Jack, she managed a check raise, got raised, put in another raise, and got called. A King peeled off on the turn. She bet and got raised. She raised and got raised again. Even I knew the gent had K-K but she paid him off and looked at it on the river. She made some crappy assed comment about tipping, it fell on deaf ears. She was in the 9s and as I dealt the next hand she was on the button. Before the 4s had time to act on his hand, her cards were doing the ‘splat dive’ from four feet off the table. The cards hit the middle of the table and slid to the 3s’s cards. But she was already gone, up and runningto the cage to get more chips…and of course she was pissed.

The 5s looked up at me and asked, “What happened?”

Me, “Temper tantrum?”

The guys started chuckling. I swear…women make themselves look so bad when they play poker. She came charging back to the table and dumped her chips out of the rack; she raced out to light a cigarette and suck down some smoke,and yelled, “Deal me in, Dealer!”

I replied, “Yes, Ma’m.”

I thought the 2s was going to fall out of his chair as he laughed and quietly said, “Ms. Dealer.”

I got pushed, but before I did, I heard J.C.P. being called for a table change. He had the option of going back to the table I was in or one that was right in front of me. I honestly believe he didn’t know which way the dealing line-up/table rotation runs and he chose the table right in front of me, another $30-60H. Woo Hoo!Heap up the double ugly, black karma and get ready. When I arrived at the next table, he was in the 5s, the 1s just opened and he moved into it, right behind the button. That means he was now sitting right beside me…please God, don’t let any of that black karma drift my way.

I managed to almost make a mistake in this game. Almost, simply because the player that had the best hand was never going to let me make the mistake. He was in the 9s and made a straight. My brain was in another time zone and even though I looked at the board – stared at it actually – I thought he had a straight and then second guessed myself and since he was paired, I went with the pair. The 10s held K-K, and I tried to muck the 9s’s hand and push the pot to the 10s. Whoa…”I have a straight…why are you pushing the pot to him?”

YIKES!

I apologized.

Jeff Pierce was in the 6s. Jeff is another poker story all by himself and he has a real hate relationship with Penny, one of our long time dealers.Jeff retorted, “Penny never apologizes for making a mistake.” *Pause* “I guess she never makes one.”

It was meant as a total dig at her. Dig hell, it was meant as a blatant stab in the heart, choke you off of your chair, shovel in your throat comment at her. I didn’t go there. I simply responded that I really wished I would never makea mistake,but…

The game went on. I was on a break out of this table, and when I returned to jump back into the action, who would be sitting in my next table? J.C.P.- unfucking real. He’d moved into a $20-40 Stud game. The best part of it was that when he saw me sit down, he started the overly exaggerated action of getting racks and loading up his chips…letting me know he was leaving because I was there. YIPPEE! Score!

Ina $20-40 Stud game, something happened that I’ve never had happen before. Yup, another poker first. There were four players in the game that I knew; they’ve been around a long time – since the Mirage days. There were also four new players but not new to the game.

About the 2nd hand I dealt, I missed seeing a pair on 6th street. I had called the high pair when it hit on 5th street. When I designated the high pair as the action on 6th street – without calling the new pair also – the 3s (unknown to me) barked, “Call all the pairs!” just as someone else pointed out to me that I had missed the new pair and I was saying, “Sorry, I completely missed it,” it all happened in the same 10 second time span.

I replied to the 3s, “I do call all pairs, I already stated that I was sorry I missed the pair.”

He got really huffy, responding with something akin to the fact that I didn’t have to get upset about it. Kee-rist! I’d just managed to slide by the walking bag of black karma in three different games – back to back – how/why would I be upset over something like this? But this wasn’t the part that I’d never had happen before. It gets better.

Mac was in the 8s, he’s a long time stud player, and has developed problems with his hands, etc., over the years so he’s allowed to keep his chips in a rack. He’s very quiet. I know when he’s losing because of the way he looks and he has a tendency to play a lot more hands when he’s stuck, but one would never know he was losing because of comments or bad behavior. He was stuck when I sat down. He won a very big pot and the air around him got a little brighter.

The 5s has been around since the Mirage days but honestly I don’t know his name. He’s always unhappy if he’s losing and wants an extra scramble or has some comment to make that’s sarcastic, sometimes ugly, really aimed at no one in particular just humanity in general. D-A-M-N, I’m glad I’m not his mate and he didn’t like the last blow job I gave him…if he called me a no good, C-S-er, I might have to kill him. In general his attitude is like the black bag of karma’s attitude – except his black bag turns gray with white edges when he’s winning. He’s the one that did something I’ve never seen before in a poker game. It goes like this.

Mac won a few more pots, stacked them quietly, and played on. The game picked up speed. Mac had a Jack door card. The action went crazy with the 5s, 6s and 7s (unknowns), and Mac in the 8s. BOOM! Raise-raise-raise, either three or four betswent inon fourth street. Mac paired Jacks on 5th street and bet $40. The 5s raised, the 6s and 7s called, Mac raised, every one called.

Sixth street put a pair of 9’s on board for the 6s. Mac bet, the 5s raised, the 6s and 7s called, Mac raised, they all called.

As the action started on 7th street, I was tapped by the incoming dealer. On 7th street, the 6s tried to bet out first. We started the action where it should be…with Mac and the pair of Jacks showing. Mac bet $40, the 5s called, the 6s raised, the 7s called, Mac raised…

Here’s the part I’ve never seen before:

The 5s had already called $40. He was facing $80 to look at his opponent’s cards. I honestly don’t know what his highest card on board was, perhaps a King, his head and necksuddenly thrustabout a foot ahead of his body as he gave me a fixated hate glare and bent the last card he caught in half while he tested me with, “Now you can throw me out…” as he tossed the V-shaped deuce onto the pot.

As I looked right back at him and said, “Well…ok…”

He reached into his stack and cut off $80 and called the bet.

*I’m still clutching my sides laughing over this!*

I picked up the V-shaped deuce, pitched it back on his cards and said, “You’d better keep that then, you might need it to complete your hand.”

The dealer behind me, Ken, yelled, “Need a set-up on 29 – player didn’t like his cards.”

*fucking hysterical* It should have been a scene out of a movie…but then poker movies never tell it like it really is.

The best of it is that the 6s raised, the 7s folded, and Mac raised it. Guess what 5s…it’s $80 more to call.

The 5s did what any complete idiot would do, he twisted up another card with the brush/floor person, Skip, standing right behind me with a new set-up. Skip calmly said, “Sir, if you do that again, you will be cashed out and asked to leave for the night.”

“Fine!” was all that came out of the 5s’s mouth in reply to Skip but then he spewed, “I was rolled up…I started rolled up,” as the 6s raised one more time and Mac touched the bet up again. The 6s called. Mac showed Quads. The 6s showed Q-Q-Q-9-9. Crazy hand.

The pot was so big it took me three days to push it all to Mac, I got a ‘red bird’ from Mac and a big thank you, and the 5s mumbled on…’nice catch…two running jacks…nice one…I started rolled up…’

I wonder if his left eye has quit twitching by now.

And better yet, I wonder if a player contestedthe 5s’scrushing a card and basically mucking part of his hand before he called the bet, what the ruling would be.

It was the end of the Greatest Show on Earth for the night…I took the E/O.