$5-10NLH, my first game of the night, Rico was in the 1s. We met at the tables about two months ago, in exactly the same role – he was playing, I was dealing. When I sat down several players were being shuffled out of the game to a main game and several more were coming in. I announced, “$6 for time please,” and chips started sailing out onto the greenfelt. Rico had $15 out and told me the change was mine. SWEET!

I asked several of the new players if they wanted to post to take a hand, some’walking’ players came back to take their blinds and get in the action, I pulled in the chips for Time, took $60 in $10 chips out of the rack, sat it on the drop slot, and looked at one of the new players with nothing in front of him, “Did I take your $10 post?”

He affirmed that he had it out there. I took a single $10 chip out of the rack, pitched it in front of him and dealt the first hand. All kinds of noise and talk was going on in the game and the only face I knew was Rico. If you ain’t playing at Bellagio, you are not up on the action around town, it’s incredible.

The second hand I dealt was when all hell broke loose and I got a lecture on how to be a poker dealer from a guy that wasn’t even in the hand. He was in the 5s though and probably felt qualified to tell me how to deal and what I should have done. I know what I should have done and knew it about 5 seconds too late.

The pot was raised pre-flop, three callers. It was a substantial raise but I’m not sure how much, like $70 or $80, initiated by the 8s on the button. The 9 and 10s called it, so did Rico in the 1s. The Flop brought a K-X-X. The 9s checked, the 10s bet $160. Rico thought about it for about a half a minute and set out one stack and an odd assortment of $5 and $10 chips. I knew he had too much money in the pot for a call and wasn’t sure about the raise. As soon as Rico’s hand left his chips, and as I was saying, “Just a minute,” the 8s announced, “All-in!”

I put the slam on everything then and said, “Time. Don’t do anything.”

I knew I had to count Rico’s chips down to see where he was – raising or calling – and as I started counting, I asked, “What did you want to do?” That was my mistake. I should have just counted him down, pushed the extra $100 back to him, andthen got ready to call for a decision. He had pushed in $260. After I asked him what he wanted to do, he said he wanted to call. I gave him back the $100, then went to the 8s who still insisted on going all-in, the 9 and 10s folded, Rico called and lost about $600 in the hand.

The 5s started telling me how I shouldn’t have asked Rico what he wanted to do because I was taking away the 8s’s opportunity to catch Rico in a raise. I said I should have called for a decision. The 5s went into a speech that would make a presidential candidate jealous, telling me that I needed to understand that I was costing the 8s action by giving Rico an option. I again stated that I should have called for a decision and the 5s informed me that he was trying to help me and that I was taking it personally.

I said I wasn’t, and he wanted to continue to tell me how the poker mind works and the ethics of poker and I said I understood what happened, he told me I needed to stop the action immediately, I told him I tried, (we were way into the next hand by now), he told me that I didn’t want to listen to what he was trying to teach me, I told him to go ahead, he rambled through that hand and then told me that we had only gotten out two hands in 10 minutes. I told him that was not true and he turned to the guy next to him and said, “She just wants to argue.”

That was it for me. I never looked at him nor said another word to him during my down. I pushed him a number of pots and got -0-, no big deal. The part that is a big deal is that the $100 additional is nota raise. In NL, the amount has to be equal to the original raise or the raiser has to say “RAISE”, there is no such thing as a half bet or more in NL, that only applies in limit. I didn’t even pursue that matter with him. And I did try to stop the action. Everything happens so fast in these games that the dealer can’t stop everyone. It’s also the player’s responsibility to be aware of what the guy in front of him did. We didn’t go into that either.

By the third hand, I also knew the rack was down $12. We don’t get penalized in our room but we must notify the floor about it. When I got pushed, I had gotten in two more new players, one wanted a seat change, all kinds of things still going on with players moving in and out of the game and after I got pushed, I turned to Truc (dealer that pushed me) and told him the rack was down $12 and the 10s wanted a seat change. The player in the 9s called me back as I walked away. He told me that he thought he had posted his $10 but he didn’t. The $10 shortage in the rack was due to him. WOW! Thanks, Steve. We got it all straightened out, I went to the floor, etc., etc., etc. But it is so nice to have someone show their side of integrity and honesty as they play the game.

When I got to one of the main games $5-10NLH about an hour later, most of the guys I had dealt to in my first game, were there. They started the conversation about the game my first game, I didn’t, and they thought the 5s was a real asshole. So what would you like to do? *LMAO*