Certain incidences in poker – this is about tipping BTW – that stick out in my thoughts are pretty funny. Like when I first started dealing, it was at the Oxford in Missoula MT. It’s close to another lifetime ago. There were two tables there, one in the front of the establishment that ran almost 24 hours a day and was $1-2 limit 5 Card Stud, ($2 on the river only) and the other was in a back room that housed two pan tables also. The one in the back room was called ‘the big game’. That’s incredibly funny now after having dealt to the Corporation and Andy Beal.

The game up front was at a ‘stand up’ table and the players and dealer were seated on bar stools around it – or they could stand up. One of my clearest memories of tipping in that game was a gent named Swede that ran a butcher shop. He came in to play occasionally and when he did he got pig faced drunk and could barely sit astraddle of the damn bar stool. The first time I dealt to him, I was in shock when he leaned over the table at me, after I pushed him a pot, and barked, “Anyone tipping you?”

His words hung in the air for at least a minute while I tried to figure out if he was going to reach across the table and choke me to death, pummel me in the face, or just pass out and fall to the floor.

I’m not sure what broke the silence, perhaps I looked as if I’d faint. In those days I didn’t even know what cursing was and I certainly didn’t know people got angry when they lost playing poker, so how was I to even begin to figure out where he was going with this?

“Well, I’ll tip ya, even if I don’t like you at all,” he growled as he threw me $2-$3 out of each pot he won, and the pots were never over $40 or $50.

Over a period of time, we grew accustomed to each other and I laughed and barked right back at him when he came in…he liked that a lot. He was always the live one in that game, he played every hand and usually lost $200-$300 a night when he came in.

Then the Oxford brought in another poker table and it was $3-6 dealer’s choice. There was a menu on the wall and the players could choose the game they wanted to play when they were the dealer. I graduated from dealing the 5 card stud game to dealing all the games within a short time period. It was so exciting, I worked at night, all night, sometimes 16 hour shifts and it was a crazy time in my life.

A few years later, one night a stranger appeared at the game. He wasn’t a stranger to the old timers that hung at the Oxford. His name was Dave Earl and he was a banker from Spokane WA. This Poker Tale is about the game in the basement of the OX and what actually happened in that game with Dave Earl and some of the artists that dealt it – I just turned it into an outer space traveler making the scene. Dave Earl used to hit town back in the old days when the Ox had a hide-out game in the basement. Now he was quite elderly and we just had the chemistry where we liked each other immediately.

When I dealt to him, he would give me half the pot when he won it, or even more. He would even ask me how much I wanted for a tip. I was so embarrassed, I wouldn’t say anything so he would tell me to hold out my hand and he dropped chips into it. He was very good to me.

The sickest part of the whole Montana scene was that the game was legal but it had a ‘pot limit’ allowed by the state. It was $100 max. Some cities went right by the letter of the law and the pot never went over that amount. If people were jamming and the pot was made, they had to stop betting at that point. Some cities allowed the pot to go to the sky, so you could go to Butte MT and play REAL NLH or to Billings MT and play $30-60, $10-20, etc. So when Dave Earl was handing me chips, he was giving me his profit, and more, on every pot he won.

Another guy that came through town on occasion and usually stayed for two to three weeks, just to play poker, would always expect me to take my own tip out of a pot when he won it. I never took more than what I thought it was worth, if there was lots of action and he won a pot close to $100, I did take $2 at times. Most of the time I took $1. One time I pushed him a pot and didn’t take anything, the guy next to him said, “You forgot to tip the dealer.”

He replied, “She knows how it works, if she doesn’t take one, she isn’t getting one.” *hysterical*

Another guy used to come in now and then, drunker than a skunk, and when he won a pot, he would yell, “READY!”

Believe me, I was.

He threw chips into the air, whatever I caught, I got to keep. I could snag some chips out of the air in those days.

Years later I ran a game at the Stockman’s. It was a college hang out and my boyfriend (long time EX now) and I leased tables and ran a game seven nights a week. It was a zoo. All the jocks hung out there and had beer spitting contests and belly busting contests and all sorts of craziness was afoot. While it was a lot of fun, it was a lot of hard work too. I did most of the dealing. I could start a game with two guys sitting at the bar – still can practically. Car salesmen ain’t got nothing on me baby. One night three guys showed up from out of town. They were in MT to go hunting, two were from Texas and one was from Oklahoma. They jumped in the game and loaded up on firewater.

They were so damn much fun, they never got upset or distressed and just wanted to play poker. When one of them won a pot (some of those pots were $20 and $30), the other one would reach over and grab a $10 or $15 stack from the winner and give it to me. Kee-rist! They played until I took a break, then cashed out and left for the night. I should have just hooked up a catheter and kept dealing but nature called after about three hours. I was in shock at how much money they gave me, thinking back on it, it’s still kind of unreal.

*Post Poned – AGAIN*