Last week, $8-$16 Holdem, Bill V. He’s got a tangy kind of whine to go along with a slight Southern drawl, he never shuts up, and contrary to what poker’s all about it, I believe he plays to win but also plays because he wants to be somewhere and have someone listen to him. I could be wrong about the ‘listen to him part’ but I just don’t think so. He was in the 3s, yakking and jawing with the players next to him when I sat down in the Box. Hey, this isn’t a ‘Bill rant’, just part of what goes on at the table, and if it was a ‘Bill rant’ and you don’t like it, leave now!

Somewhere about half way through my down, Bill raised pre-flop, got one caller, and the action took off. The board was something like A-10-Little, a Jack on the Turn, putting up 2 Flush cards, and whatever the Flush card was, it came on the River and paired the board. The first player had checked and called after Bill raised him on the Flop. On the River, Bill went into a, “Jesus Christ, Linda, why don’t you put up something to beat me?” as the first player checked.

The first player turned over a pair and Bill turned over the needed Straight cards and won the hand.

I replied, “Jesus Christ, Bill, if I knew what was coming, I’d of retired long ago.”

He really wasn’t being anything other than Bill and I wasn’t being anything other than Linda. He tolerates me jabbing him with a verbal tango every time I get ready to dance so how can I fault him for that?

We got a new player in the game, the 8s, he posted and won a pot and Bill made some comment to him about, ‘see, she put up every card that could beat you and you couldn’t even bet on the River, just like she did to me’.

As I pushed the pot, I said to the 8s, “Just ignore him.”

Bill never slowed down and the 8s just nodded as if I was crazy.

The 5s grumbled about never winning a hand and never having a playable hand. I told him to take a deep breath and relax otherwise he’d end up being like that…I waved my hand towards Bill.

Bill jumped right into the role, he did a spastic type of twitch, pulled his shoulders up, hunched over and did a jerk, cracked his head to one side, acted like he was glassy eyed and frothing at the mouth and did, “Yeah, duh! Duh!”

I cracked up. So did the rest of the table. They kept me entertained.

*****

Back to this night. The only two $15-$30 Holdem games I dealt were some of the worst in existence…possibly the worst games I’ve ever dealt at Bellagio…fold, fold, fold…call, check, check, check. The Sandman must’ve stopped by here and picked up some dull, tired, sleepy sand to spread on the rest of the world.

But the $4-$8 Holdem games I dealt were exactly the opposite of the $15-$30 Holdem games. The meaning of the words ‘ram and jam’ were created from tablets written in stone, the tablets were ground into ‘gamble dust’, and sprinkled on these games. It was infectious, incurable gambling. Everyone seemed to be in great spirits, give or take a few bad apples here and there. For the most part, they were happy and gambling.

*****

My last down was in a $2,000-$4,000 Mixed game. A-Rod was sitting behind Phil Ivey, not really sweating him, just visiting. He left a few minutes later and the conversation moved to the fact that Phil didn’t know him and was surprised when A-Rod wanted to sit down and visit with him.

Chau was in the 1s, Gus in the 2s, Jennifer in the 3s, David G. in the 4s, Phil I. in the 7s and Minh in the 8s. They’d been there awhile and none of them appeared to be too happy.

Particulars another time. The Sandman sprinkled some of that $15-$30 Holdem dust on me and I can’t keep my eyes open.