I met John H. tonight. You don’t know him? How possible? He’s a reader here. Unfortunately I didn’t get to deal to him but he introduced himself to me when I went to his game to find a long-time friend, Marie. On the subject of John…nice! Great presentation of a person filled with life and the sparkle of poker…hey, if you’re into it…you know what I mean.

Marie? We’ve known each other since the early Mirage days. She’s the kind of friend that you could see every day or not see for 20 years and when you crossed paths with her, it would be as if you’d visited with her yesterday. Great lady!

*****

Seems to be a little bit of a problem with the $2-$4 Blind, NLH game…Ramsey, a friend and reader, came to me tonight voicing concerns over the fact that a dealer let a player have a short buy-in into this game. Ramsey doesn’t want to have enemies at the table and didn’t push it after the dealer argued with him and said a player could buy in for $100. I told Ramsey to just have the dealer call a Floor Person for a decision, if the Floor Person didn’t have the correct answer, ask for the Shift Supervisor.

Sorry kids, but sometimes the only answer is to go the ‘head honcho’ when it comes to this type of thing. Why should Joe Blow get a short buy-in when you’ve been bludgeoned all night long and bought in for $200 each time?

Ramsey felt the other players were starting to nitpick him for trying to get the issue resolved and he likes to be liked at the table so he let it drop. Some of the players told him the decision was different every night…even going to the extreme that the player couldn’t re-buy after going broke. Wow! Where did that come from?

We have a lot of new dealers coming into the room right now for our Five-Star World Poker Classic. It’s going to be hell for them because they don’t know a lot of our rules. Rather than argue, just ask the dealer call the Floor Person if you’re sure you know the rule and the dealer is out in left field somewhere with their take on it.

*****
I was part of this project. Sweet!
Howard Lederer’s ‘Secrets of No Limit Holdem’

Brain Food! Ever meet someone that just kept your thoughts hopping? Made you aware of your own awareness? No? Too bad, you’re missing a lot. Can’t explain it if you ain’t there so…

Friday night brought a little nightmare scenario. I went through most of my night without a glitch/hitch/kiss my butt/or any kind of confrontation. Then I hit a $20-$40 7 Card Stud Game. It was six handed when I sat down.

The 4s was a cute, y-o-u-n-g guy. Really young. I gave the dealer I was pushing a mini-massage while he dealt the last hand. The 4s squirmed around, hinting that he needed one too. I sat down in the ‘dead zone’. The game was pretty dead, no action, lots of ‘if you get stuck in this game, you’re an idiot’ kind of vibes.

The 3s was a overly husky (maybe a little over weight) but a very healthy guy somewhere in the 40’s-50’s. Some of the comments during the game went to the gays being able to marry…woops…now they can’t…go to Oregon…and on and on. The 3s made some comment that appeared that he was going to marry his mate and his mate was a man. Hey, no one flinches over these things in the poker room. His sweater (mate?) appeared and sat behind him. They were both good sized guys.

The 4s got a call on his cell. He went through the, “You mean you just finished dinner?” and a few other million threads of conversation and finally convinced his caller to come into the poker room and get him for a drink.

He kept looking over his shoulder at the Front Podium and I finally asked him what/who he was looking for…telling him I’d alert him when they entered the room. Three girls/ladies. He teased that I had to be interested in him when they arrived. (Honestly…he was really cute and well built but I’m not into one night stands).

Just before they showed up, the action went crazy. The last thing on Earth that one would expect to happen, did. There were four players in for a completion to $20. Just as I burned and dealt the up card to the 1s, the 3s, OUCH…it happens here…the 3s discovered that he had a spare down card under his arm. The spare card had apparently came from the 4s’s hand when he folded.

The 3s made all kinds of noise, insinuating the 4s threw his card into his hand…as if he’d done it on purpose.

I immediately called for a decision. Dave N. (Brush and Supervisor came over) and I explained what had happened. Dave looked at the 3s and said, “The hand is dead.”

The 3s asked, “Well, what if I just throw my cards into another player’s hand…”

I caught Nate’s eye and mouthed, “Get Suzie!”

Dave continued with, “We wouldn’t recommend that, Sir.”

Suzie appeared. I explained what had happened. Suzie told me to give the 3s $20 out of the rack and kill the hand. I did. Before I let her escape, I asked about the card run…the error had been discovered after the 3s had received fourth street…before the other two players had received fourth street.

She told me to continue with the deal…the next two players would just get their cards, in order, off the deck.

Don’t worry, the next two players didn’t hear a word of anything that was going on. After I killed the 3s’s hand and dealt out the next two cards, they questioned it. I gave them, “That’s the decision.”

The long and short of it, the 4s’s girls showed up. They preened and did a little dialogue tango while the 4s informed them that I wanted him. He looked directly at me and said, “Linda, the massage will have to wait.”

I fell right into his game and said, “Another time then.”

Ain’t poker grand?

*****
I was part of this project. Sweet!
Howard Lederer’s ‘Secrets of No Limit Holdem’

I met and dealt to Jason B., a reader here, after he sat down in a $4-$8 Holdem game. He was going to play in the Friday’s at 5 the following day. Really cute, nice attitude, and we got to visit briefly on Friday. (A little jump ahead here), he was still in the tournament when I came in at 7. I looked for him a few hours later, in the faces that were left in the battle, and he wasn’t there…Damn. I was really hoping he’d win it.

Back to the game on Thursday. A woman that declared she was a CPA, but looked like she could have starred as a witch in a Walt Disney movie, sporting a snaggly toothed smile and long white hair, went all-in and lost. She pulled $40 in chips out of her handbag. Most of the guys at the table started ragging that she’d been ratholing her chips (that means sneaking them off the table). I explained to her that she had to leave all chips in play.

She knew exactly what was going on. Lots of snaggly toothed smiling going on here. She said that she’d bought $40 in chips earlier and paid for them with a $100 bill. Since the dealer couldn’t give her change, she took $100 in red and put $60 of it in her handbag.

The guys just weren’t going for it, even though I tried to interject that “IF” that’s what she did, she could do that. Now I went through the process with her (with a giant smile on my face and trying to make it into a joke…BTW I don’t have snaggly teeth and teeth are one of the first things I notice on people) of explaining that everyone was going to be watching her now and what she did with her chips and since I didn’t want everyone mad at me, she would be forced to leave everything in play on the table.

Her head bobbed up and down, more snaggly teeth smiling, and she laughed her ass off over the tiz the guys were having. The guys weren’t mean, they just wanted her to understand they knew what she was doing and from the way she acted, she probably did do just what they said she did. So I explained all of it to the dealer that pushed me, as he shuffled the first hand.

I then told her, “We’re watching you now,” as I went on my way to the next table.

She thought it was really funny and kept laughing. Nice not to have her go ballistic and throw a fit over it.

*****

I dealt one of the WPT NLH games (that’s the name of our low limit NLH game now). The buy-in has been changed to $200 and the Blinds are now $2-$4. Don’t worry, it never slowed anything down. There is/has always been a main game and a must move since this game started in the room. There’s so much action in this game, it’s not for the faint of heart. I really believe most of these players think that if they go all-in, you have to throw your hand away…or if you go all-in, you’re bluffing.

During my down in this game, one youngster in the 5s, threw off over $600 and left the table. The first hand was pretty incredible to me that he would even call the all-in bet. It started like this: Six or seven people called the $4 Blind.

The Flop was 8-9-10. Bet $5, two players called, the 5s made it $20 to go. The rest of the field called the $20, except the 4s…raise, all-in, for $353.

The 5s put some thought into it (about 30 seconds or so) and called. Everyone else folded.

In this game, once a player is all-in and it’s heads-up, the hands are turned over immediately, just like tournament play.

The 4s had Q-J, the 5s had 9-10. I was flabbergasted over both of their play but I wasn’t giving poker lessons then and I’m not giving them now.

A few hands later, the bet got raised (not sure how much) by the 5s and the 8 and 4s called. The Flop was Ace-little-little. Both the 4 and 5s checked. The 8s bet $100. The 4s folded and the 5s thought about it for around 30 seconds and went all in for a little over $150. The 8s called.

The 5s turned over Q-Q. The 4s exclaimed, “I threw away Queens!”

The 8s turned over A-K and since the Flop was a Rainbow, the 4s was drawing dead…if the 4s was telling the truth. I ran out the cards and pushed the pot to the 8s. The 5s picked up his drink and left the table…no noise, no fuss.

The 5s got married to every hand he looked at. While there are a lot of reasons to get married to a hand, there are a lot of reasons to end the relationship at any point during the hand…think about it when you take a seat in this little island of volcanic, chip spewing action!

*****
I was part of this project. Sweet!
Howard Lederer’s ‘Secrets of No Limit Holdem’

My Sheriff’s Card is about to expire. Ugh!!! While this sounds like such a small thing, to a night creature it’s a drag. The rest of the world thinks that all of us should conform to day time hours…while that may be true in the State of Nowhere, it just ain’t so in Vegas. We are a 24 hour a day town which means the employees are 24 hour a day people too. A few years ago, when this glorious event rolled around, I could call Metro, make an appointment, walk in and skip all the lines, because I was already a card holder, and get through the process within 15 minutes for the small sum of $35.00.

Times have changed. Now I have to go to Metro or a fingerprint shop, get fingerprinted (this is only done during daylight while I would like to be snuggled into the dark and quiet of my bedroom), pay a fee (that varies according to where I have it done), and then purchase a cashier’s check or a money order in the amount of $75, fill out several forms and turn all of that (finger prints included) into employee services where all of it is sent to Metro for processing. Then…hopefully…I will receive my new Sheriff’s Card. I just can’t give a thumbs up to this process…the down side to it is that if I fail to renew, I cannot work…until I do renew, the Time Clock beeps at me each time I clock in and out, reminding me that I must renew. Shit…an alarm clock at work too!

*****

Last week when I came tripping through the room, getting ready to push into a game, there were two guys standing by the Cashier’s Cage, craning their necks at the players on Table 1. Who was up there? Who were the stars?

They recognized Doyle and Jennifer. I told them the player with his back to them in white shirt was Gus Hanson. They queried, “The bald guy?”

“No…he’s not bald, just has his head shaved.”

“Who else?”

“The guy next to him with the blue shirt on is Renee. Celine Dion’s husband.”

They stated, as if they knew the answer, “Doyle wouldn’t play less than $300-$600.”

I said, “Try $1,000-$2,000 or higher.”

Big eyes here…they were so damn excited…next question, “What if we asked them for a picture…not while they’re playing…?”

I replied, “First of all you could never take a picture up there because the Floor Person would stop you…”

“No…what if we saw them away from the table and asked them for a picture, what are they like, would they let us take one?”

Me, “Well it depends on how their mood is for the day, whether they won or lost, or just how they feel in general. They might say yes and then again they might tell you to screw off!”

Believe it or not, they seemed really happy with that answer.

*****

Last week I slipped into the Dealer’s Box on Table 28. Great little game, lots of action, nice people that didn’t have any problem playing ATC (any two cards)…my kind of game. The 3s was a nice looking youngster that had a lot of chips and played most of the hands, although he didn’t play like an ‘idjit’, he seemed to tango every chance he got. When he won a pot, he sent me $1…appreciated.

Somehow the conversation went to high limit. The 3s stated that a few years ago in Atlantic City, he was playing $1,000-$2,000 Blind…stop…stutter…stare…everyone wanted to know if he was playing in a Tournament…”No!” It then went to, “Not a cash game?”

He replied, “Yes. A game just like this only with $1,000-$2,000 blinds.”

They all went ga-ga…”how/what?”

He said he won a lottery. They queried him, “How much?”

His reply, “A lot…I was the only winner.”

While the others asked if they could ‘be his mother, would he adopt them, did he need a brother’, I couldn’t help but express my genuine happiness for him. I said, “Good for you. That’s wonderful.”

While they were all gabbing and chortling, I caught his eye and mouthed, “How much?”

He mouthed back, “After taxes…______!”

Several people asked me, “He told you how much…what was it?”

I said, “A lot.”

He went on to explain that when he realized he’d won, that he had the ONLY ticket, he was frightened. He thought something bad was going to happen. While most of you might find that hard to believe, I can associate with that. So many of us are taught that you can’t have your cake and eat it too…the Twilight Zone Theory takes over.

He also explained that he was told to sign the ticket when he bought it, he did, and that was one of the best things he could have done…no argument or accusations from anyone. He met with the IRS, the Lottery Officials, etc., etc., etc.

He gave some of it away to Charities, family and friends, and got a zillion phone calls from people he’d never heard of. He said he has a representative from Merrill Lynch that handles everything for him, takes care of advising him on investments and he finally forwarded all of his phone calls to the representative.

I got pushed. I stopped and asked him if he was excited or filled with disbelief at first…as in ‘did it register?’ He said he was very frightened. He thought something really bad was going to happen. I asked his name…he told me…I gave him a card to this site and asked if he minded that I write this here, he said “No, go ahead.”

I finished by telling him that I felt he was handling it well and how happy I was for him. He’s 27, how wonderful that he appears to be in a state of mind with it that it’s a means to live his life with relative ease instead of feeling that he has to punish everyone with it or be a big shot and shove people around. I respect him even more for tipping me a $1 when he won a pot…it would be gauche if he threw his weight around in any limit…and I liked the fact that he played $4-$8 rather than trying to slam it out in high limit.

Real people are the core of poker.

*****
I was part of this project. Sweet!
Howard Lederer’s ‘Secrets of No Limit Holdem’

I’ve had more than one query on Howard Lederer’s new video from people wondering if it’s for real. The answer is, “YES!” I’m happy to be a part of it and my tag line at the bottom of the posts will boast that fact. It was fun. I picked some of the people for the project and they were all extremely happy to be a part of it too. I just watched the WPT yesterday and the ad for this video is running on that time slot. It was fun to see some of the people in the project and moi dealing…Howard was great to work with and so was Rick. Rick is the driving force that made it happen.

There’s a lot going on. First and strongest in my mind is the fact that I can’t lose 20 pounds of fat off my ass but I can lose a Seiko watch that I’ve had for 20 years. While it sounds funny, I’m really quite disturbed by this loss. I had gone to work out at a local club and put the watch in my jacket pocket, with my car keys, and locked everything in my locker. I must have pulled my keys out and the watch with it.

I went back the following day and checked with the club, looked in the parking lot, went to Walgreens Drug Store, where I picked up a prescription, checked their parking lot, and checked with the management hoping that someone had found it and turned it in…it just didn’t happen.

Pretty sad now, the watch had a special meaning for me as I bought it for myself for a birthday present when I was in need of something special in my life. Now I hope the new owner has a special place for it in their life, as I did in mine.

*****

On the poker front, I met Bob S. a few weeks ago. He’s a reader and very friendly, open-minded kind of guy. I get a kick out of listening to him, his poker play, and with his youth, he stays up for days at a time playing in different games.

I dealt to him in a $15-$30 Holdem game last night and he asked me the question???? Have I seen ‘A River Runs Through it”?

My answer, “Yes. If find it to be quite dark and gloomy, sad…as a lot of life is sad.”

He said he saw it again last night and every time he sees it or hears of it, he thinks of me…hey us Montana Chicks stick in your mind.

*****

One incredible hand in the $20-$40 Omaha 8 or Better with a Kill, took me three weeks to stack the chips. It was a Kill pot with seven players and max raises before the Flop and on the Flop, the Turn went to four bets losing a couple of players, the River to two/three bets with four players. One high, two lows whacked it up.

Double A was in there jamming because as he asked, “Is this your last hand, Linda? Then I have to play…”

He got ¼ of the pot and I believe he either broke even or made a few bucks on it.

*****

I dealt the $1,000-$2,000 Mixed Game on Table 1. Chau – 1s, Jennifer – 2s, Phil – 3s, Lee S. – 4s, Gus – 5s, Minh – 6s, Hamid – 7s, Renee – 8s.

A little earlier, before I pushed into the game, I walked up to Phil and told him that I was dealing Table 30…$1-$2 Blind NLH, when Phil walked into the room. My conversation to Phil went something like this, “You would’ve thought God walked into the room. All of the players were in awe that they saw you…”

He rolled his eyes…resembling boredom. At that moment, Gus walked by and slapped me on the ass, I turned to him and exclaimed, “You little smart ass,” and went back to Phil…”How can you not love that enthusiasm…that happiness with these people that are so excited that your are here?”

He smiled then…not really agreeing with me because he probably gets a lot of irritating noise and confrontation from people, but hey…that’s what happens when you’re a star.

Gus? I’ve smacked him on his cute little ass before too…hey, turn about is fair play.

*****

Then I pushed into this game. The first hand was towards the end of the Omaha 8 or Better. Lots of raising and action, Hamid flopped a set of Aces and Renee carved right through that hand with a Flush and the best low. Huge pot.

Something needs to be said here about Renee. He never raises his voice or makes any noise when he loses or wins a hand. He’s the King of Polite. Consequently the other players have toned down any attitude and are on their best behavior when he’s in the game. Me, and other dealers included, love this new poker attitude in high limit.

As the game progressed, Hamid couldn’t control his anger and frustration with the game. He is the subject of other posts. When he’s losing, he slams and smacks his chips down on the table, swears continuously, and carries on a conversation with the Poker Gods from Hell. It gets pretty ugly at times. This time was no exception.

At one point, on the River, during a 7 Card Stud 8 or Better hand, Hamid slammed, smashed, bashed his chips, swore, (I couldn’t hear what he said but I knew by the way Minh’s glance jerked to me that Hamid was swearing at me), thought, slammed some more, thought some more, and finally called although he knew he was beat…Renee waited patiently through Hamid’s fit and then called also.

At the same time, I said to Hamid, “That’s enough!”

Hamid mumbled something and I said, “Then take a walk.”

I dealt the next hand and Hamid was still swearing in a monotone grumble. I looked right at him and said, “I can’t deal if you’re swearing at me.”

Hamid jumped up and left the game. Chau and Minh both told me to call the Floorman. Minh said, “Linda, not just for you but we don’t want to listen to that while we’re playing.”

Chau told me to get the Floorman and get it stopped. Fred was the High Brush and nowhere in sight. Just before Hamid reappeared, I called Fred and told him that Hamid was swearing, slamming his chips and cards, and the players wanted it stopped. Hamid was coming back to the game and Fred stopped him, telling him something in private that would hopefully settle him down.

I got pushed and explained to the incoming dealer that Hamid had been cautioned. Call the Floorman if he erupted over anything.

****

When I dealt the $10-$20 NLH game, it was kind of funny, in a strange sort of way. Two seats were open when I sat down, more seats opened, more players came in…it took at least 10 minutes to get everything organized and in order with players posting, taking time, deal him out, deal him in…

Jimmy T. took a seat in this game. He’s the Table Captain of all games, likes to count down the player’s bet, (even when he’s not in a hand), tell the dealer what to do, and make demanding accusations to players and dealers about the action and what’s ‘happening/not happening’ at the table. If he was always right, it would be ok…unfortunately he’s very seldom ever right.

One new player switched seats several times and had never post the blind and had never been dealt in. This was during all the confusion of players leaving and new players taking a seat. When the new player moved to a new seat, and I dealt him out, Jimmy demanded, “Why didn’t you deal him a hand?”

I replied, “He’s never posted and never been dealt in.”

Still Jimmy acted as if I was out of line. The players in the one and three seat are fairly new faces in the room and I exclaimed, “Jimmy’s the dealer, he runs all games I deal.”

They cracked up. I couldn’t help but laugh too.

Hey that’s the way it is in poker land, if you can’t laugh you’d have to have a jug of wine and bottle of Valium to get through the night.

I dealt to Max in the Fridays at Five NLH Tournament last week. A player questioned me when he called a raise from the BB and he thought I didn’t give him the right change for a $500 chip. Max said, “She never makes a mistake and I can attest to that.”

I did a, “Wow!” kind of thing. I was really surprised to hear Max jump so readily to my defense. It was nice. Yes…Max was one of my posts last month.

*****

Barry Schulman played over 9s in the $1-$2 NLH game tonight. He posted and won the first pot. A few minutes later, one of his friends came by to visit. I listened to Barry tell his friend about Eric Drache (used to manage the Mirage card room and was playing $30-$60 Holdem), Suzie Lederer. (Swing shift supervisor after she walked by our table), and then he stated, “The dealer is Linda. She’s the best dealer in the world. She’s got a goofy website…”

I started laughing as I caught his eye. I got pushed about the same time. As I stepped out of the Dealer’s Chair behind Barry, he continued with, “She looks like she could be a member of Hell’s Angels. Show him your stuff, Linda.”

I put my hands out in front of me and acted like I was cranking the throttle on a Harley and went, “Vroom, Vroom!”

His friend went something like this, “How did you do that?”

I turned my back to him, lifted my hair, and said, “He’s talking about this,” exposing the tattoo on the back of neck.

Then I looked at the friend intently and said, “I got it done when I was old enough to know I really wanted one,” and walked off.

*****

I couldn’t wake up through most of my shift. I felt as if I were asleep and wrapped in cotton, placed in a bag, floating in water…no gravity, no reality, no sound, no thoughts…I made it through the shift without missing a beat which was a miracle in itself.

Table 1 was Chau, Gus, Shaun, Jimmy, and Eli. $1,000-$2,000 Mixed Games…a slice of pie. NLH $10-$20 Blind on Table 3, pretty boring and not a lot of action. The funny game was when I hit the four handed, $20-$40 Omaha 8 or better on Table 6.

Double A won a pot and ordered a Heineken (Kenny was sitting behind him and they were having a beer). I have never witnessed Double A drinking anything other than Green Tea and water. I chided him with the fact that he was drinking a beer and he said that for every pot he won, he would order a beer. He won three of them and I told him again that was a lot of beer to drink…he said he would.

Kenny always seems to be much happier when he’s sitting on the side lines than he does when he’s in a game. Poker can be a brutal mistress. He was having fun, watching Double A play, and asked me if the format for Table Tango was going to stay this way. I said, “Yes.”

He said it was better before because now he had to scroll all the time. I’m trying to work with the template a bit to see if I can stretch it a little but in the long run, this format is much better, archives can be accessed by month rather than the previous mess.

Asian Lee got in the game. He’s always nonstop talk and has a following…this time the following was Ming and Ritchie. At one point Ming was standing behind the 6s, gabbing it up and Ritchie was standing behind the 9s, gabbing it up. Of course it was a foreign language.

The 6s looked around and said, “It’s in surround sound.”

He’s right. They take off in Chinese or Vietnamese or whatever the hell it is and it’s staccato doink, doink, doink, until you want to rip your ears off just to get rid of it.

A few nights ago I thought I’d laugh my ass off when when Ming, Ritchie, and Lee were in the same game and Ming was teasing them and trying to get them to gamble. He said to Ritchie, “Don’t be a Chinese Chicken!”

Back to the Omaha game. Lee lost a few pots with me and did his usual, “Hehhhh-hennnum. Favorite dealer….repeat, repeat, repeat…” then take a walk. I got pushed.

I still love Double A the mostest!!!! If you knew him, you would too.

Howard Lederer’s new video/dvd is available here: Secrets of No Limit Holdem

Hey…I’m the dealer. Check it out and improve your game before the big tournaments begin at Bellagio and the WSOP.

I find myself mesmerized by the personality display of the people that put money in my pocket. You may not see what I see. If you see only the cards and the chips…I would have to believe you are not capable of seeing what I see. I never judge anyone until I’ve witnessed that someone make themselves look cheap and sleazy, trap themselves in a lie, or watched them steal something…at that point I know I don’t want them around me.

I’m open for a personality check raise when it comes to someone that I’ve spent time with at the table, while I’m dealing or playing. I have a lot of latitude and understanding, yet I have no patience for the dipshits that try to run over everyone and think the world was created for their convenience. Some of the people I deal to keep me enchanted by their actions and conversation and the way they play the game of poker and life. And so it is with Lance.

Lance is a reckless, wild child trapped in an adult male body and society’s straightjacket. He’s ready to run, scream at the wind, paw the ground, and leap from the top of the highest mountain with a parachute made from the gossamer strands of fairy dust.

I’ve had my days with Lance before he figured out that I wasn’t the enemy. He’s the subject of other posts in the Diary and Table Tango.

One day I slid into the box in a $30-$60 7 Card Stud game…Jean was leaving the game with a couple of racks and Lance was ready to buy chips. As she walked away, he yelled, “Jennifer, sell me some chips.”

She kept walking and he kept yelling, confounded by the fact that she wouldn’t answer him. He was in the 1s and I quietly said, “Her name is Jean.”

He did a, “You want to bet? You want to bet a $1,000? I’ve known her for years,” as he started counting out $100 bills to make the bet.

I never said another word, just kept dealing, and he raced off with his $100 bills to buy chips.

He came back a few moments later and had a little conniption fit about the fact that she could have told him her name wasn’t Jennifer….

Another time he was in the 10s in a $30-$60 Holdem game and he won a few pots. He said something like this, “I know you’re thinking that I’m not your friend because I didn’t tip you.”

I laughed and retorted, “No…I don’t think anything like that.”

He said, “Yes you do. If I don’t tip, you don’t think I’m your friend.”

I couldn’t help but laugh and I didn’t say anything else. Really kids, that’s not my style…but he seemed so sure that he had me pegged.

He’s got an attractive, delightfully friendly wife named Becky. She played a lot in the room for a while. She’s quiet and always appears to be quite calm, which is just the opposite of Lance. She hasn’t been in now in some time. I asked him about her and he said she’s been playing a lot on the Internet.

So…Lance may not know that I enjoy his personality, but I do. A lot of it reflects my own thoughts at times and I can’t help but laugh when I see some of his antics and listen to his outbursts at the table.

I dealt to him in a $30-$60 Holdem game the other night. His hands clench and loosen, repeat, repeat, repeat…as if he’s going to detonate himself and the world will have to go too.

He raised it pre-flop and got a caller, the Flop was 6-6-? and two Clubs. He bet, got called, the Turn and River were both blanks.

He bet the Turn, got called and bet the River and got raised. He raised! His opponent turned his hand up and showed the K-8 of Clubs before he pitched it. Lance showed his opponent no pair, Q-J of Clubs.

As I pushed the pot to Lance, he exclaimed, “Six…Six…” as if he was stabbing his opponent with the words.

His features were carved in stone as he stacked the chips but I know he was exploding inside. I looked at him as I shuffled and it was all I could do to keep a straight face and not bust out laughing.

A few minutes later I asked him if he remembered the time he was talking to his voice mail, pretending it was his wife. He did a quizzical, “No…you’ll have to tell me about it.”

When I got pushed, I walked around behind him and explained the basics of the conversation. He roared. He said he’d forgotten all about it. He told me a ‘Pigeon Tale’ a few weeks ago and I laughed so hard, he told me I could write about it. After I reminded him of the voice mail incident, I told him I wanted to write about that too.

His words were interrupted through laughter, “Write anything you want. Just send it to me when you do.” Yes, he’s going to get a copy of this in an email.

But on to more of Lance and his zaniness: December brings the NFR (National Finals Rodeo) to Las Vegas. We miss most of the Cowboys and Cowgirls, as they are more at home at Sam’s Town, The Gold Coast, and The Orleans. We do get a few that I consider regulars…they come in once or twice a year and like to play poker. They dress the part and are friendly and nice to have in a game.

One in particular was playing in a $30-$60 Holdem game, seated next to Lance, while I was dealing. The talk between the two of them was about the different events, the rodeo in general, and tickets to see the events. Lance appeared to be totally wrapped into that conversation with question after question and finally picked up his cell phone. He dialed a Number and then went into this, “Hi Honey. Yes…we’re going to go to the rodeo on Saturday night. What? Yes, I know you wanted to see Neil Diamond but cancel that, we’re going to the rodeo instead…What?” a pause and then in disbelief he stated, “She hung up on me.”

I started laughing. He pulled it off so well…the whole thing was too cool and polished for me. I said, “Come on. We know that was your voice mail.”

He gave me a startled look and did some form of denial but just the way it went down…I would’ve bet him $1,000 that he was talking to voice mail and not his wife. Yet no one else even picked up on it. They were all buried in the poker game…no, not necessarily stuck…just buried in their own plot known unawareness.

You see the keen thing about watching Lance is that he’s not buried…even when he’s stuck. His mind is still cavorting and searching, prying and prodding…yet very few people ever pick up on that. It’s too bad because they really are missing a show.

The pigeon tale: I sat down to deal a $30-$60 Holdem game. Lance is in the 5s. He gets a devious smile that rages through his eyes and leads me into it like this, “I got myself into trouble again.”

“You? How?”

“I’ll tell you about it.”

“Ok.”

He can’t contain himself. He’s dying to tell the story and the table is his audience, the stage is set. He’s ready to burst with the details and as I shuffle and deal the first hand, he starts laughing. I, of course, have to laugh because when he laughs it makes me laugh.

I know the story is coming and I wait, it doesn’t take long.

“I went to the Gambler’s Book Store the other day. You wouldn’t believe it. There’s pigeon shit everywhere. The parking lot, the building, every thing is covered in pigeon shit.”

I’m directing the action in the game, nodding as I listen to him…

“When I walk into the book store, there are three guys in there standing around. I asked them if they knew there was pigeon shit everywhere outside.”

I asked, “Really, that bad?”

He asked me if I’d ever been there and I said, “No. Not in years now.”

He continued, “You wouldn’t believe it. It’s covering everything. Well, I should have known something was up because none of them said a word. So…just before I left, a guy came out of the back and said the Mayor had been there last week and talked to him about the pigeons.”

Lance continued, “I told him that I could take care of the pigeons for him for a fee.”

He still had that boyish, devilish, I’m going to blow up laughing look, dancing out of his eyes. “The guy said, ‘Why don’t you just get out of here and don’t come back’.”

The whole table was listening to the tale and I’d been dealing and running the game through all of this. Now I exclaimed, “No way!”

He went on. “I should have known something was up as soon as I made the statement when I walked in and the three guys never said a word. I told this story to the table a few nights ago and Mason said that the owner of the Book Store keeps bags of feed in the back of the store and he feeds the pigeons all the time.”

I did a, “Ugh! How in the hell could he keep his business up if people have to wade through that to go into the store?”

“You wouldn’t believe it, Linda. The back of the store looks like someone painted it with pigeon shit.”

He did go on to explain how easy it was to get rid of pigeons…not that he was in to killing animals or anything. And I couldn’t help but query why the Mayor was there talking to the owner about the pigeon problem. My line of reasoning would be that other store owners or people that live in that area might not want pigeon shit landscaping, not to mention the disease factor, smell, and a few other things that go with the whole scene. No answer on the Mayor thing.

Lance said he’d visited the store with a friend, Mike. When he left the store, Mike asked him why he couldn’t just behave normally and not open his mouth.

I agree with Lance. If the World’s tilting or something’s awry, why should we just shut up and pretend it didn’t happen…shout when you have to…let’s clean up the pigeon shit that surrounds us and make the world a better place.