Sort through the endless possibilities of thoughts that run through the average human’s mind in a five minute time span, put them together in a poker table environment, mix in poker hands and whip until volatile, throw in mass amounts of chips for effect, add one dealer (that would be me), heat with a blow torch until the mix explodes, and that’s how I felt my night went.

I’m sure that I was the problem in most of my encounters at the green felt. I had no attitude to be anywhere and everything I said or did felt scratchy and out of sync, no matter how much I tried to soften my voice or listened to myself when I spoke, it just didn’t come across well. And of course I had to throw in some idiot mistakes – by me – just to make it all better.

I started in a $60-120H game. It was up on the platform that’s semi enclosed with glass walls and it’s always hotter than hell up there as no air moves in any direction. Someone placed a fan on the floor behind the dealer on table 4 about three months ago. My start was table 4. I turned the fan on before I sat down. The 1s turned it towards the 9s; he didn’t like it blowing on his legs as he was wearing shorts. The 9s didn’t want the air blowing on him so he turned it off. Thanks guys! Welcome to hell, Linda.

This game was the main game and players were coming and going, leaving for the night, changing seats, and must move players were coming in. I had an almost headache and it took everything out of my brain just to focus on chips flying into the pot, one player throwing me a $20 chip and barking, “Give me change,” in the middle of a hand, etc., etc., etc. I multi-task pretty well but it was a huge relief to leave this table and move to table 8 for a relaxed $4-8H game and in a much cooler part of the poker room. Leaving the safety and friendliness of this little game took me to a deadspread on table 13 – back up on the high limit platform.

I had been patting myself on the back and quite pleased that my line-up was taking me into the middle of the room and if high limit started later in the night, I would miss all of it. My butt no sooner hit the chair on 13 than the shift supervisor asked the dealer on 14 who she pushed. Ruh-roh! I believe that dealer took a break out of the wrong table. I was immediately re-routed to table 29; $20-40 Stud. There were a number ofempty tablesin my line-up now and I was going to end up right back where I started before my night was over. UGH!

My next game was $2-5NLH. The dealer exiting the box told me that he hoped I’d brought my ear plugs. He was right. The 6s in this game never SHUT UP. And he must have seriously thought the whole world revolved around his poker play; they just didn’t know it yet. He immediately took off on my name tag, and the fact that I was from Missoula Montana, and how he’d been accepted at a college there, but he couldn’t go to Montana to go to college – expressed with disdain like all Montana people were slime balls and not worth his sharing oxygen with. He did the ‘hollywood’ every second of my down until he left to go eat with his friends. He went all-in three times without looking at his cards, after he chastised himself for making a bad call and losing $200 in one pot that I dealt. He went so far as to throw on his sunglasses and do his impression of Phil Hellmuth for about 10 minutes, including the ‘greatest player in the world’ thing. He was just having fun…noisy, obnoxious fun…and where else in the world can you hold the floor and attention of other people for that long without someone knocking you out? Only a poker table, Baby.

About the time I was on a break, sitting in front of the Page area, Jennifer Harman walked past me and said hello. Her hello was nice but that made my night appear even darker because a game was cranking up on Table 1 and I’d be there about 1 a.m. according to my line-up. Hate it! I’m not a fan of dealing in Bobby’s Room as has been discussed in other posts but I’m particularly not a fan of dealing in there when it’s late in my shift and I’m tired. But somehow, the whole over view appeared to fold right into how it should be, things were going progressively downhill – from bad to worse.

Marie came in to see me and I dealt to her in a $4-8H game. The 1s in her game was pissy. He kept trying to shove his cards through the felt every time he folded. The 9s in her game was the local that had a fit when the tourist won a pot with 5-3 of clubs and busted off my set of 10’s. It was not a bright, cheery game. I was on a break out of that game and Marie met me in the Sports Book for a visit. Then she was back to play and I was back in the box.

That stone tablet hidden in a dark cave on Death Mountain is still in effect.Hello, Karate Don.

This whole game felt out of sync to me. There was no flow, no continuity, no general poker play, just run those fingers against the nap on a velvet background. The 8s was the table captain, or thought he was. Don was in the 4s. The 10s was busy – not sure at what but I had to tell him three to four times each time it was his blind because even though he sat right next to me, he couldn’t hear me or chose not to. The 2s is a card pegger and always angry, he had a sweater and was busy chatting with that person while he was pegging cards at the flop, the pot, my hands if they got in the way, and upon occasion helicoptering them in. Once he helicoptered them so high that I just turned them face up when they landed and said, “These cards are exposed.”

But the best part of the game happened when Don placed a bet, meaning to put out eight $10 chips, he slung them out in a line and only seven of them crossed the betting line. I pushed the straggler back and said, “$70.”

Don pushed the straggler back across the line.

I pushed it back, “All chips have to land on or cross the line or say what you want to bet,” as I went to the next player with cards.

Don took off. “Only ‘she’ would do that. ‘She’s’ the only dealer that would do that.”

Another player informed me that I was the only dealer that would ever do that – and he didn’t say it as if he appreciated my dealing skills.

I bluntly replied, “Yup! I’m the ONLY one.”

Don lost that hand, I don’t believe he even called a bet on the turn. The 9s opened and Don was moving ‘back’ to it. He made it a point to push a $1 chip to the 10s and ask him to lock the seat up for him. LMAO.

I called seat open andwe got a new player immediately and Don was involved in a hand with the 10s now. The new player arrived with a rack of $5 chips and I looked up to tell him his seat would be the 4s and he would need to change his chips up or I could get a chip runner for him. At the same time, Don had bet $100 and the 10s called.

Don pounced on me, “YOU need to pay attention to this hand.”

I did a mock salute with my right hand and said, “Yes, Sir!”

He couldn’t leave it alone – must have been because I agreed with him and he didn’t expect that. “You need to finish this hand and pay attention to what’s going on.”

I repeated, “Yes, SIR!” as I gave the 10s back one chip because he’d put 11 $10 chips in for his call, and I burned and turned. Don lost that pot and made the move to the 10s.

As I called for player’s chips for the new player, Dave (brush person) came over and the table captain asked Dave what the ruling was if a player placed a bet and one of his chips rolled back out from going over the line (horse shit! That’s not even what happened with Don’s bet. Nothing rolled when he tried to bet $80).

Dave informed the table captain that all chips had to go across the line or they could say what they wanted to bet. Nah – nah – nah – nah, table captain! Table captain couldn’t stand it, following with, “Even if you meant to bet more?”

Dave had already walked away so there was no reply. I would have liked to reply, “Yes, dealers always know what players meant to do. It’s our job to know. That’s why we are so highly trained and specialized in our field. And since we do know what a player meant to do, even before the player knew they wanted to do it, we intercept and don’t allow them to do it.”

So Don moved down to the 9s and continued to play during the rest of my down. He chatted it up with the 10s about some big plan he’s got to make a zillion $$$. I hope he does. Perhaps he will host his own private game then and I will never see him again. Oh…but wait! If that happened, that stone tablet in the dark cave might break. Nice! I’ll keep visualizing.

My next game was another $2-5NLH game. And once again another regular threw out five $5 chips for a bet of $25 but only four of them crossed the line. It was a $20 bet. OUCH! I had to hear it again, and again, and again, that I was the only dealer in the room that did that. I agreed, I was. WTF! No sense arguing with these people, they know it all. One of them even started to goad me with, “I bet there isn’t one dealer in this room that enforces that…”

I said, “You’re on.”

Then he conceded there was at least one because I enforced it. I told him there were a lot more and we left it at that as the action went crazy.

My next game would have been a deadspread but a game started there about 15 minutes before I got pushed. It was another $2-5NLH game. The 9s had just busted off some kind of hand for the 1s. She was a little, fiery beauty with a vivid full sleeve (tattoo for all of you that don’t get it) and it was very attractive on her. Her mouth wasn’t very attractive. She was being mean and condescending because she got beat. She took a walk just after I sat down.

The 9s was about my age and had around $1,000 in chips in front of him. Since they start with a max of $500 let’s assume he snappedthe 1soff for $500. We got a new player in the 3s and I asked him if he wanted to post $5 between the button and the blind and be dealt right in. The 2s informed me that he couldn’t be dealt in between the button and the blind. I was polite, “Yes, in this house he can.”

The game went on, the 5s had me in stitches. He had one of those wonderful throaty laughs that just make you want to laugh because he laughed. He was cranking because he really wanted a beer and I was on the lookout for our cocktail waitress for him.

We got a new player in the 7s and I asked him if he wanted to post between the button and the blind and now the 9s informed me that he couldn’t do that. I responded, “Yes he can.”

The 9s interrupted me and told me the new player had to wait for the button to go by. I simply said, “I work here.”

The 5s busted out laughing. He couldn’t stop laughing. “That’s pretty funny, you deal here and he’s trying to tell you how to do your job and what the rules are.”

I wanted to laugh too – not only because the 5s’slaughter made me want to laugh but also because I can’t help but think how ridiculous it is that people think you don’t know jack even though you’re the one handling the deck and their moneyand havea name badge attached to your shirt.

I kept a straight face when I addressed the 9s and told him that in some houses that was true, but here it was not true.A new playercould post between the button and the blind or buy the button.

The 9s apologized. I still kept trying to keep a straight face and I think I did it fairly well but the 5s just kept laughing out loud, exclaiming, “That’s so funny…”

A $15-30H game and I was on break before hitting Bobby’s Room. I survived the down in there but when we went to thethird hand of NL single draw deuce, I dealt six cards to each player. It was a misdeal. Kee-rist! Eli Elezra, David Benyamine, Patrick (hell if I know his last name), Chau Giang, and Jennifer Harman. It was strange in a way, the guys were all more on the left end of the table and she was alone on the right end of the table.

My next game was the same one I started on, Table 4, $60-120H and it was still hot and the air was stifling. I had a brief glimmer of hope that I would be dealing the $4-8H game on table 8 as my last down and then have the bust out. It just wasn’t to be. A mixed game started on Table 5.

They were playing two rounds of Chinese Poker – one deuce to seven in the middle – one round of omaha 8 and one round of Deuce to 7. There was quite a bit of confusion because the shuffle master had read ‘missing a card’ and when the previous dealer in front of me counted down the deck, it really was missing a card. The shift supervisor was called, the floor, rail, everything was searched looking for the card. From the group at the table, we can all assume that none of them had anything to do with it but who knows what actually happened. The shuffle master was even peered into more than once to see if the card had lodged somewhere in it. No card. New set-up before I got there.

Long and short of it, I tried to make a mistake in dealing out a draw card in the deuce to 7 but they didn’t let me. Phew!

So my last game was the $4-8H game on table 8. It was short handed, they were all laughing and having fun. One of the dealers that goes to Aruba in our group was playing in the game; John. One of the players that had been there when I went through hours before was still there. There was a woman in the 6s that is a dealer but I’ve never met her before. She did what a lot of other dealers do, she tried to run the game from the player’s seat. I have no problem with it most of the time as long as they are right.

We got three new players just as I was getting ready to deal the last hand. The new players had chips on the way and all posted. The pot was raised by one of the new players. I marked what she owed the pot by setting chips in front of her for each bet (as I did with the other new players). On the last card, the raiser owed $16 to the pot and it was heads-up between her and the BB. The BB bet $8 and the raiser’s chips arrived.

I told her she owed $16 to the pot and it was $8 on top of that to call. She dumped her chips out of the rack and started counting out chips but she pushed the chips she counted out with the $16 I had marked up in front of her.

The 6s ‘informed’ me that the raiser had too much money in the pot. I counted down the chipsthe raiserhad pushed forward and she was short $3, to which I replied, “No, she’s short.”

The raiser had no problem with any of it. I wonder about the dealer though, what was she thinking? In the end, the raiser had Q-Q and lost to a board that had an Ace on it.

One of the other players said they couldn’t even begin to figure out how dealers kept track of everything and as I was being tapped out, they asked me if a dealer’s nightmare was having five side pots at once or what. I laughed and told them it was the game on table 5, mixed game with chinese poker and some players were dealt in and others were sitting out.

Sometimes my biggest nightmare is just heading across the valley to go to work. I’d rather be heading across the country in the Silver Steed, towing the coach instead of knowing that stone tablet is still in one piece and the curse is still in effect.