It seems like Monday started a year or so ago. Every down feels like it’s eight weeks long. There are a few half hour sessions that seem to speed by – why is that? The ones that are fun and action packed move right along, the rest of them blend into a never ending skull session of facts and figures, body heat, room noise, people bumping into the back of my chair, and la-tee-da.

One of the fun downs was a $2-5NLH game where I met Joe and Tom. Joe (7s) immediately spoke up and brought up the ‘b’ subject. No, not bitch, you dummy. The BLOG. He was fun and we visited as the game went on. I even invited him to attend the 5th annual World Series of Barbecue with me, hosted by Suzie, Howard, and Steve Z. But alas, he won’t be in town when that shindig goes down. Joe is from Atlanta and when I asked about poker games in that area, he said they only had private ones and possibly I’d read about the police bust on a home game that went down recently. Sure.

Then Tom (2s) got into the conversation, he’s a reader here too. Tom is from Seattle and climbs rocks – probably not for a living but Red Rock was mentioned and he carries a photo blog. I hope he sends me the link because he took my picture while I was dealing and said I’d be on the web in 20 seconds. Truthfully, I’d like to see some of his rock climbing experiences, it’s along the lines of my hiking ventures except I’m sure he’s much more adventurous and daring than I am.

They were both a lot of fun and so was the game. The down side is that when I left the game I was on a break and had a small pocket camera with me. I had each of them take a picture of the other, without flash, and the pictures didn’t turn out worth a diddly poo. Sorry, guys, next time. Thanks for making my table experience great and for saying ‘hi’. Ship me an email to: geenen-at-pokerworks.com

*****

Another $5-10NLH game that has to be mentioned was a few tables down the line. We havean Asian player named Michael that deals poker in Vegas – Caesars I believe. I don’t think he’s been dealing for more than a few years but I’ve had ‘table history’ with him for a long time, around six or seven years at least. I had a run with him a long time ago in $15-30H,where he got upset with me because he was losing and verbally stated that he wouldn’t tip me and kept talking about tipping. He went on a rush. Every timeMichael won a pot, the player in the 1s tipped me $2 to $3 and said, “That’s from him,” motioning to Michael. It was hysterical and a pretty damn good down for me. Michael drifted out of view for about three years. Let’s assume that he went bust since he was nowhere in sight and his play designated that he would go bust.

Now Michael’s a low limit, no limit holdem player and a dealer. Good on ya, Michael. Except that his manners and some poker thoughts are way out of line for a playing dealer. An incident about a month ago in which he was in a $2-5NLh game, in the 8s, with four players in the hand, three of them were the 7s, 8s, and 9s, the other one was in the 2s and happened to show his hand to the 3s as he threw his hand away when facing a bet, gives an indication of Michael’s poker knowledge. Michael had three cows and two calves because I was supposed to show the 2s’s hand. WTF? I did not. He told me I was completely wrong, it was a show one, show all rule. Yeah…right, Sunshine. The only time that hand would be shown while action was going on, would be if another player in the hand saw it. I may have to play when Michael’s dealing just to see what kind of nightmare poker game he runs from the dealer’s box.

Back to the present game, this $5-10NLH game was a must move. We had players coming in and going out, like Light has party animals on a Friday night. When I pushed into this game, Michael was in the 9s and bitching about the outgoing dealer, telling her that she needed to take a long vacation and move on. He’s such a soft spoken, wonderful work of art.

I took Time, and was trying to find out the status of the 4s, the playerwasn’t there but three $5 chips were in the seat, “was he a new player, been playing, etc.” and for some reason Michael took off on me. He said something, and I didn’t catch all of it, but he was going to fire me. I told him he couldn’t fire me because I’d already quit. He told me I should quit, I’d been dealing about 20 years. (He’s short by abouteight years but I didn’t argue with him, I clammed up).

About 10 minutes into my down, three players got called to a main game, then we got new players, then two more players got called, I kept calling for player’s chips, it was a mess. Then Michael and another player were called to move and I dealt both of them in – they get one hand to rack up and then they have to move. The other player left immediately. Michael had his chips in a rack and sat through the hand, it took some time because there was a lot of action. As I pushed the pot and pulled the deck together, Michael sat there ready to take another hand. I told him he had to move and he wasn’t going to get another hand.

He insisted, “One more.”

I told him no, he had to go.

He left the table, “You’re being mean. I’ll remember you. Don’t worry, I’ll remember you.”

I said, “Don’t worry, Sweetie, I’ve always remembered you.”

I couldn’t help myself. To the table I said, “Wow! For a playing dealer, he’s definitely got attitude.”

The 10s asked what that meant. I told him Michael was a dealer and played poker and his attitude from the player’s side should be a little lighter because he sat in the dealer’s box.

The 10s had a fighting beta sitting on the table under his arm. Yup, a fish, in a small clear plastic tub of water. He said he was going to take his fish and go find Michael’s game and when Michael dealt to him, he was going to put his fish right out into the pot and make all kinds of noise and create problems for Michael. I laughed. What else can you do? On the other side of the coin, he was definitely in earshot of everything Michael would mumble or say and maybe the 10s had heard way more than he wanted to hear. When the 10s got called to a main game, I asked him if he took the fish with him every time he played poker. “Yes!”

*****

I did sign the E/O, I didn’t get out until about 1:30 a.m. I am going to sign the E/O again tonight. I’d better get to hopping if I’m going to make the list before the line is drawn.