My first game was $1-$5 7 Card Stud…hard to believe that in a few hours I’d be dealing $20,000-$40,000 Holdem, right?

The game on Table 1 was $20-$20 Pot Limit Holdem. These boys had left the art of poker far behind and drifted into the art of conversation. I laughed during the down because of quirky comments that were made but the game was not what I’d term a rammer or a jammer. It needed a fuel injection and that just was not going to happen. I got pushed.

The game on Table 2 was $800-$1,600 Mixed. David G. – 1s, Gus H. – 2s. Chau G. – 3s, Ralph P. – 4s, Jennifer – 5s, Daniel N. – 6s, Shaun S. – 7s, Doyle B. – 8s. When I sat down, the conversation rampaged around cookies…yes, cookies. David and Doyle were interested in a particular kind of cookie carried in the gift shop…they had sent several people over to buy it for them and no one found it.

The action went on around the discussion of cookies. They were gambling. Or rather the person raising wasn’t gambling, they person calling them was…or was it the other way around?

After they got their cookies, Chau asked Doyle for some and Doyle threw the whole bag to Chau…it ‘splatted’ onto the table and a cookie crumb explosion occurred! Cookie crumbs everywhere in front of Chau. As Chau picked up the bag and munched, I called Carmen for a Brush…someone said we needed a vacuum instead of a brush. True!

My next game was heads-up $20,000-$40,000 Holdem. Easy as a slice of pie. Some of the biggest games in the world are the easiest to deal. It’s hard to make a mistake in those games and the people playing them are pretty relaxed…or appear to be. That’s why they’re playing at that level, eh? It would really be difficult to tell who won or lost, since they play for hours and I’m only there for a brief part of it.

Then on to a $30-$60 Holdem…and the rest of the night.

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

I spent a few hours playing at Empire Poker after I got home from work. I broke about even, playing $1-$2 Holdem. I like the ease of the game play but not the fact that someone came after me, when I flopped a set, with no over card draw and caught gutter – gutter to make a straight…ugh! I know we’re supposed to love it. But it’s something that I’ve never acquired a taste for, even though I’ve tried all these years.

I sometimes marvel at the comments people make in a B&M game and in the games online. I just got a set beat and picked up K-6 Spades in the blind. The flop came with two spades and I made the Flush on the River. Not to worry. The person I beat popped right into the chat with ‘….then I get chased down by Pokerworks…’

I try to remember to lace up and tie my running shoes before I enter any poker game so when I’m ‘chasing’ someone down, I don’t trip over a shoe lace or have my shoe slip off as in the One Shoe Scenario, if it did, I’d have to keep chasing without it and it would be left at one of the intersections or streets somewhere in cyberspace. 🙂

The person that entered the chat was ‘veebee’ and we established a friendly chat session shortly after that. My handle is ‘PokerWorks’. When you’re playing at Empire, be sure to look for me.

********

My night at work? I hit several ruts in the road. One was in a $30-$60 Holdem game. Jim E., fairly new to our room as a regular. He was in the 9s and not happy…

The first hand I dealt, he zinged his cards over the 10s’s hands and they splatted somewhere around the vicinity of the 4s. The 2nd hand went the same way. I almost felt the 10s cringe when the cards came flying over his hands each time.
We got two new players in the 5 and 6s. Within three hands, Jim threw his cards again. They were airborne until they hit the chips of the 4s. I firmly said, “Just set your cards down, please!”

Jim took off on me. Mumbled something about he’d do whatever he wanted and I couldn’t tell him what to do.
I motioned towards the 4 and 5s and stated, “There’s no reason for your cards to end up down here.”

The 4s started laughing and told me to ‘beat him up…hit him for throwing his cards..’

I said I didn’t want to hit anyone.

Jim grumbled, “What do you think you’re doing?”

I flatly stated, “I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I’m running my game.”

The 5s jumped in, “And I support her for doing that.”

Jim shut right up. The 10s left for another game, Jim slid over into it, slammed his chips down in the rack several times, so hard that I thought the rack might break, and got called to transfer. Beautiful! Everyone in my game made comments about how nice it was that he was going. Some people bring pleasure in coming, others in going…

The stage: Bellagio Poker Room, table 1. The time: 2:00 a.m. The characters: Linda/me, I’m the main character, everyone else just moves in and out of my realm of perception and life. The other characters: 1s – Jimmy G., 3s – Brian N., 5s – Eskimo, 7s – Ray, 8s – Cuckoo.

The script is written for total unhappiness, death, doom and destruction. How will our heroine live through this? Sheer strength of will and level headed thinking, baby.

The Game Plaque read $300-$600 mixed, but it was really $100 & $200 Blind, with a spread limit bet up to $500…of course there’s a twist. If anyone just calls the $200, the next person can put a full raise on it, making it $700 to go. Otherwise, the first caller/raiser can only make it $500 to go.

Jimmy immediately said, “Lovely Linda. Come on, Linda, let’s get this going today.”

Brian chimed in with a rendition of some melody and sang, “She’s lovely…lovely, Linda.”

I laughed…short lived…ready for the player/dealer war that I knew was coming.

I announced the Time Pot, counted the rack down, put the used deck into the Shuffle Master and took the newly shuffled deck out and immediately Eskimo informed me that he wanted a scramble each hand, before the deck was put into the Shuffle Master.

“Ok.”

It was Deuce to 7 Triple Draw and the raises went in. I expected a $300 bet and it was $500…no one told me the limit was different than the Game Plaque stated. When I stopped to make sure there was a $1,000 in front of each of the three players in the hand, Eskimo informed me that I didn’t have to look at the bets, they were called. He wasn’t in the hand of course.

I smiled and said, “Believe it or not, it’s part of my job.”

He replied, “Well if you get mad, hit Jimmy.” He thought that was pretty funny and chuckled over it.

I said, “I’m not mad…why would I be?”

That went unanswered as I expected it would. Surprisingly, Ray threw away all of his cards and drew five more, after calling $900 more. Cuckoo and Brian drew two, long and short of it, Cuckoo gave it up on the second draw and Ray won the hand with a 7-6-5-3-2.

Brian had the perfect face for the script…he was ready to KILL something.

By the time we came to the end of Deuce, Cuckoo was crying, Brian was steaming and creased up two of his cards.
I called for a Set Up. I opened the Shuffle Master and waited as Jimmy brought me a Set Up. Brian told me to go ahead and deal the deck in the Shuffle Master. I waited and replied, “He’s bringing the Set Up.”

Brian insisted that I deal the deck that had already been shuffled. I sat there and waited. He was ready to jump out of his chair and I stared out into the poker room, thinking about the glass of wine I was going to have when I got home…peaceful, restful haven, undisturbed by anger and frustration…umhhhh…yummy, yummy, home!

My thought. Why should I speed the game up? If Brian wanted it to run smoothly, he shouldn’t have creased his cards. If I hurry up and deal the deck out of the Shuffle Master, is there a bonus in it for me? No! Same anger, same crap, same ugly faces and attitudes…different day.

I spread the first deck of the Set Up, scrambled it, put it into the Shuffle Master. Spread the 2nd deck, scrambled, shuffled and just as I was going to deal, Brian interjected. “You are not going to deal that deck.”

Me, “No?”

Brian replied with something like this, “No you are not. It’s got to be shuffled by the machine.”

I sat back and waited…the script was written for me to be completely relaxed and at ease…I played the part very well.

Ray asked what was wrong. I replied, “Nothing, honey. We’re just going to wait a minute.”

He was smiling and couldn’t even get to where everyone else was at the table.

Cuckoo was grumbling and asking Eskimo if ‘the scramble was going ok, if everything was working out there…’

Cuckoo lost a few more hands and tried to slam his cards through the rack, taking off with, “This mother fucker, fucking fucker…” kind of thing.

Just the kind of thing that you really can’t even call a floor person for because then he’s going to say he wasn’t talking to me. In reality, I don’t believe he’s sane at that moment or really talking to anyone or thing…he’s just lost in the Black Hole of no self-control. It’s not even in his realm of comprehension that his Poker Face is bleeding and everyone knows it.

I didn’t need to read a script for this one, I always keep my hands up, by my stomach when the hands over. After the third time that Cuckoo tried to merge his cards with the rack, I asked, “Are you getting tired of throwing cards at me?”

He grumbled, “I’m really hurting you. You’re not losing any money. You’re not losing…”

I almost laughed when I replied, “Yeah, so? I can’t change it.”

He went on crying, “You’re not losing any money…”

I said, “It’s Bullshit! That’s what it is.”

He kept crying…big slobbering, angry, belligerent tears that were filled with ‘fuck, fucking mother fucker’…

Lee and David L. took a seat, confusion on the posting of the blind…because the game rule was that if you were in the Big Blind and you elected to let it pass, even if you were a new player, you would have to post the small and big blind behind the button to take a hand…a new twist to go with all the other twisted twists from these guys.

I got pushed, moved right into a $10-$20 Pot Limit Holdem game. My last down of the night and pretty peaceful after all the player stress/emotion at table 1.

The beginning of my night was easy and filled with fun loving, poker playing people…I just happened to run aground and hit a snag on table 1. I escaped when the blissful winds of peace blew in to fill my sails and take me off to cool running, open water, moonlit skies and home, wonderful, peaceful harmony…HOME.

Just the right ending for a great script. Cut to…Home.

I went to work with the best of intentions. I was going to deal my full shift and then head home for work that has been waiting…as in like I just got a 400 disc CD player made by Sony that will plug right into my Bose Life Series 25 System and I’m trying to get all those damn CDs in there and listed by name, so what if I only have 250 or so? Then work on this site, links pages and more that needs to be updated, and a few million other projects that seem to unfold when you/I am the single household…that means all the housework, truck washing, laundry, yard work, garbage, etc. has to be done by me along with a zillion photos that I want to scan in and catalogue and put on CD, a book and screen play to write, a few other websites that I’ve created and maintain, phone calls with family and friends, emails with family and friends, discussion/forum posts that need to be answered, sleep, working out, being lazy once in a blue moon…40 hour work week, poker, poker, more poker…damn where was I?

The room was semi-busy and lots of dealers, I started on a break and within 20 minutes, asked if I could play. Sure enough, I was in the 8s on Table 27 within 15 minutes.

The 7s opened and a few minutes later, a woman that wanted to play $1-$5 Stud entered our game. She looked and dressed like she should be home sweating over a cook stove, doing laundry, asking the kids to do their homework and popping hot cookies in her mouth as she scooped them off the cookie sheet while she was doing all of the above. She started a conversation with, “I was playing in another $1-$5 game and this guy kept raising, he never stopped raising, I knew he didn’t have anything but I couldn’t get any cards…”

I did a little reciprocal, “It’s nice when someone in your game is raising, that way if you make a hand, you have a pot to win.” She chattered and I nodded.

I started with $200 on the table and sat through about an hour where I never made a hand or tried to play one. The 10s was quiet and I found out later that his name is Brad…I called him ‘Bad Brad’ after we got to know each other. We both ended up being trapped, roped, and branded in more than one hand and became ‘table friends’.

I finally picked up K-K under the gun. I raised. A player in the 4s that I knew had a lot of credibility raised, the 7s called, I raised, the 4s raised. The 7s called and so did I. I was pretty sure the 4s had A-A. The flop was all little, bad flop for my hand because I feel now that I have to pay off any bets. The 7s and I checked and called to the River. On the River the 4s showed A-A.

He apologized to me. I’ve known him across the table a lot of years but he’s not really a regular…I said, “No problem…you started with the best hand.”

The 7s had no clue as to what was going on or what we were talking about. He was extending a courtesy to me…something I really appreciate from another player.

A few hands later and I looked down to Q-Q. Raised it. The 7s had already called $4 and she climbed right in. The Flop was 5-4-2, she bet, I raised. She called. The Turn was a 5. She checked, I bet, and she called. The River a Deuce, she bet, I called, and she showed me 4-2 offsuit. The player on her right commented that that was the kind of hand that won the pots, ‘even if they get mad at you for playing them…’

Of course I picked up A-A next, right under the gun, raised it, the new player in the 9s called $8 right out of the chute. The 10s, AKA Brad, raised it, 40 people called…swear to God, they came in from across the street…of course the 7s called.

The Flop was 8-8-3. The 7s checked, I bet, the 9s raised, the 10s called, 40 people called and I again raised it and got raised by the 9s. I knew he had an 8 but now the pot was huge. The other 40 people called the 9s’s raise and so did I. On the Turn the 7s and I checked, the 9s bet, the 10s went all-in, the other 40 people called and so did the 7s and me. A 3 popped off on the River, it went ‘check’, ‘check’ and the 9s bet, the other 39 people folded, one of them called.

I turned up the two Aces and said, “Ok, let’s change the deck,” as I shifted them into the muck. Whew! Exasperation here. Not proud of showing the hand or asking for a deck change…just in the head banging mode.

Sure enough the 9s turned over 8-7 offsuit and won a huge pot. Later I asked ‘Bad Brad’ what he had and it turned out that he had those damn Kings. We were both running on empty with big pairs and beats.

I looked at 6-6 several times and not much more. Finally saw A-K S in the small blind, called $2 more with it, flop was 8-4-4, checked and mucked with a bet.

My Button, I looked down to A-J C. I just called $4.

The Flop was A-6-6. The 7s had dilly dallied around with any two cards since she sat down, ran her chips up and ran them back down several times and now, she bet. I raised her. She called.

The Turn was a King. She checked. I bet. She called. The River a 10. She checked. I bet, she called and turned over A-K. Hysteria sets in here. I wanted to do a gut busting, belly laugh when she said, “I thought you had a set.”

I bit my lip to keep from retorting, “Funny, I thought you had nothing.” I really thought she had a bad Ace and the pot would be split when the King came…silly me. Of course I just clammed up and watched the show. Went all-in with 8-8 and lost that pot. Threw away two winners during a three hour period and never drug a chip…nothing I held hit or would have won the pot except those two hands I tossed, one was K-10 and the other 5-2.

I left the room for a bit and returned with a substantial buy-in…I put $300 more on the table. I wasn’t grim, irritated, or in death’s grip with any of it…just kind of in awe that I had been running this way for about a year and it didn’t seem to change.

The 7s won with credible hands for a short time and then about an hour later, she’d played her way off of all of her chips and left with about $25. I’d play with her any day, any time, any stakes.

Seats opened, players changed, I moved to the 9s, Bad Brad moved to the 8s. We got replacement players and the game went on. Quiet and slow for awhile, then BOOM, action and noise.

David was in the 6s with a sweater named Dan. Dan got the 7s soon. T. J. was in the 10s. We started a five way conversation. David was a kick and we hit it off, I felt that I had dealt to him before and he said it might have been his brother that had just left town…they resembled each other. David and Dan were from Edmonton and the talk went to the card rooms there and the action, to playing Vegas. Dan was pretty new to poker, when he held A-K and flopped an Ace, he graciously checked with everyone else, even on the River. He was easy to laugh and easy to like.

David was curious as to the best paying jobs in Vegas…cocktails? Probably. Stories of what dealers made out of high limit…NOT! The best place to play in Vegas? Bellagio, of course, recommended by ‘yours truly’ but it’s also the best overall action in town.

David and Dan won very few hands. Bad Brad and me didn’t do fare too well either.

A new player, Phil as I determined later, sat down in the 2s. He bet no matter what. He didn’t know much about the game except that betting was accepted. I asked his name because the guys on my end kept referring to him as ‘Him’ which I didn’t care for…Phil was just there to play…hell!!! Play he did. No place for the faint of heart.

T. J. was from Kentucky and I blasted him with a Tennessee thing. He said that’s the state they made fun of where he came from. It turned into a laugh a minute. He said he’d just bought his first pair of shoes because they insisted he wear them in the poker room although on the plane they didn’t care. He really was a well dressed, attractive young man so all of it went over well…we laughed and hooted.

Frank came in to deal and went with everything we said and did.

David asked about female dealers getting hit on all the time, as in, “you must get a lot of it when you’re dealing…”

I told David to keep in mind that almost everything that was said at the table was in jest or Bull Shit because players are always bluffing and never tell the truth. We talked about it from both sides. I told him that I knew male dealers that had women players sitting next to them that ran their hands over the male dealers leg, under the table.

Frank said, “Never!” while he busted out laughing.

Most of the guys on my end decided that was the job for them, they should be dealers if they couldn’t get hired as cocktail waitresses.

I asked David how long he’d been in town, he said few hours, he’d just flown in and came right to the tables, he was leaving in a few days for Oregon.

Frank said it reminded him of a trip he took to Sturgis ND, he ridden his bike for 14-15 hours, got there, nothing was open, he took a hotel room that cost $159 for five hours.

I quipped, “Well certainly, she was worth it! Right?”

My audience roared.

Frank said, “No!” and explained it was trip for a ‘biker event’ and he ended up turning around and coming back after he bought a few things.

Somehow the boys on my end then went into a ‘whose wife could out shop whose wife’ kind of thing and ‘give the other guys wife a run for the money’, etc. No matter who said what, it was followed with laughter.

Bad Brad got beat, beat, beat. All the boys on my end were into having a cocktail by now. I was still on the clock and couldn’t get there but this game is the kind of game that I would play in every day for the rest of my life. No one winced, threw a card, had a shit fit, or went into a terminal gloom/swearing attack. They just played, hand after hand, and visited and shared stories. That’s the way poker should be. In the meantime, along about 1 a.m., this kid got about $60 from being even and decided to call it a night.

Bad Brad is leaving on a Red-Eye and the other boys promised they would be in tonight to say ‘hi’. Not only that, I’m expecting to meet ‘Salsa’, for the first time, after a year or so of emails and stories/posts on discussion pages, and Tanya, another new acquaintance on the forum/discussion board.

Yippeee!

She’s drinking wine…uh oh…never know what’s going to pop out on these pages when she gets in one of those…hold on, just in case it isn’t good, maybe you could get a glass of wine and share the experience or just drift by this one like it never happened.

A very long time, dear friend of mine, Jon, was in town tonight and graced table 16 with his presence. I particularly enjoy his zest for life, young/hard bodied women, his wit, intuition, and the thought he puts into everything that most people discard without thinking twice about it…that would be the human element. We could go for weeks on the ‘human element’ but we aren’t going to.

He’s a long-term thinker, I like that. He’s also aware of the human interaction in the ‘poker interface’ and I really like that. He’s also very much into matters of the heart and when he takes a friend or romantic interest into his life…they are there for good baby…no games and no bullshit, they’re in his heart and life…I really like that. Sometimes I get a very unique glimpse through a window into someone’s being and I cherish it forever…so it is with Jon.

So please, step into another facet of my relationship with Jon, a new forum/poker discussion board that is shared with this site and his site, PokerSearch.Com. There are many topics and options available and it is filling up with content worth reading. The new forum has much more to offer than the old one…be sure to register and share your knowledge and experiences with us and everyone else that happens to drop in.

One little comedic ice breaker from Jon as I was dealing to him tonight. The announcement came, “Players, we’re starting a $60-$120 game on table 8.”

We had two seats open and Jon innocently asked, “What I want to know is why are they starting that game when we have seats open here?”

It went over well with everyone…including Nicholas in the 3s. Nicholas? I won him over but it took a few minutes. He’s smart, lippy, and ready to jump on anyone and anything with a quick reply or a cutting verbal thrust that would take out the jugular and leave blood spurting everywhere.

In one hand, Nicholas had led the bet all the way and was called by the 6s. On the River, Nicholas bet and the 6s called with $7 instead of $8. I motioned to the stack and said, “Honey, you need $1 more.”

While the 6s was putting out $1 more and turning over J-J, Nicholas was throwing his hand away and snipped, “No he doesn’t, just give him my money.”

I replied, “He still needs $1 more.”

Nicholas went off into a, “Far be it from me to ever tell you how to do your job.”

I started laughing.

He stated, “I’m dead serious. I really meant it.”

I kept laughing and stated, “And I’m seriously laughing.”

He continued with something like this, “I thought you were going to call security and tell them I’m a smart little prick…”

He’s full of the energy of life and youth, doesn’t know where he’s going or how to get there…YET!!! But he will…he’ll be a ‘ball buster’ when he figures it out.

No collisions, no contusions, no accidents or abrasions…nice night. I even got out early.

When I’m extremely tired or am fading a lot of stress due to family illness/circumstances beyond human control, small things irritate me more than the giant things in life when I’m dealing a game. A Linda whine, in order of priority:

1. Number one is someone fidgeting with the Button while I’m dealing the cards. First and foremost, I believe the Button should be in plain view, not capping someone’s cards, hidden under their hand or elbow, or shoved back against the rail showing ‘possession’. When a player is slamming it onto the table, trying to put a reverse spin on it, so it rolls out like a yoyo and then returns to them, I find it to be extremely obnoxious. Sometimes they lose control of it and it veers off in a helter skelter pattern, running across the table and can cause pain if it hits someone because it’s released with a lot of force. Not only can it cause pain or a problem, it’s also irritating in the sense that it’s like someone bouncing a ball off the wall of your bedroom wall when you’re trying to sleep.

Moving the Button for me!!!! Please don’t. I have a pattern; I push the pot, move the Button, shuffle up and deal. Stop messing with my programming.

When I place the Button in front of the player, I have my ‘deal zone’ all figured out. I can deal right over the top of the Button without ever exposing a card, if the player just keeps there hands down and leaves the Button alone. Especially irritating to me is the fact that I deal the first card, it glides over the Button, deserving a ’10’ on any Olympic grading scale for precision, true flight, correct speed, and angle, and then when the 2nd card is being delivered, the player grabs the Button and holds it up, as if I almost exposed the first card and they need to make sure I have a ‘clean’ delivery on this one. Get the hell out of here with that!!! Why the 2nd card and not the first? Now they finally figured out the cards are being dealt? After everyone else has two and they already have one….

2. Making Ante change from other Antes in Stud games…they believe they are speeding up the game and in the long run, they cause more confusion. If it’s a $4-$8 or $40-$80 or $30-$60, when they make change, they are leaving one chip in front of them and taking their change from the other player, $4-$8 is $.50, hence $1 is left on the table…$40-$80 or $30-$60 is $5 leaving a $10 chip on the table. If any dealer isn’t paying close attention, it appears that one player anteed and the other player didn’t so now the confusion and slowing down the game begins.

3. Time collections…the self proclaimed Table Captain should make sure everyone’s time is out for the dealer, by changing up some of their chips ahead of time and having the correct change there instead of reaching across everyone and leaving the Time Collection laying in front of some of the players, instead of grouped so it’s obvious it’s for everyone.

In $30-$60 Holdem, the time is $6 for each player. The 2s may have a $1 chip and a $5 chip and the 4s may have a $1 chip and a $10 chip…the 4s reaches over and takes the $5 chip for change. YOO HOO! This really simplifies matters. Sorry, just a little sarcasm here…common sense should work for people but it just doesn’t, some of them were born with a full bank account that accumulates interest each day and others never managed to find/accumulate/save any of it. More confusion.

It would actually be easier if the players set out their own time and did not worry about making change for anyone but that does not appear to be a possibility in the real world.

4. Asking for a Set Up and/or nagging to let the Floor know a seat is open. When I’ve yelled at the top of my lungs, “Seat Open!” or “Set Up!” five times and am watching for the Floor Person or Chip Runner as I shuffle each hand and deal, the player that asks the idiot question, “Do they know we have a seat open?” or “Did you get a Set Up?”

My question here is, “Are your ears painted on?” Of course I can’t ask it…

And even better yet is when I have just spread the new deck, checked it face up, scrambled it, turned it face down, scrambled it, shuffled and dealt, and the player looks up and asks, “Did we get a setup yet?” or when the Floor notifies you that a player is coming and the player looks up and asks, “Do they know we have a seat open?”

I reply, “A player’s on their way,” and to add more irritation to the endless drivel, they ask, “Who is it?”
Now how in the hell would I know? Does it look like I have the list strapped to my chest.

5. When the action’s gone crazy, bets are capped, and as I reach for the player’s chips, they reach out and interrupt my reach to stack their bets up, or push them in to me…delay of game here, my motion has to stop while I wait for them to dick around with a bet that’s already been placed.

6. When a new player sits down and doesn’t know poop about the game or the play of it, and believe me I know immediately just by the way they look, their actions, etc., probably long before the rest of the table has figured it out, everyone wants to chime in and tell them what/how/when.

All the noise and confusion just makes it worse for the new player. How can they listen to seven people at the same time? Just sit back, be quiet, and let me run the show, that’s my job. I can bring a new player into the ‘play’ of the game and make them feel comfortable at the same time, touched with a little humor and a smile.

I’m the tour guide for the lights and excitement, sizzle, and pop at Bellagio’s poker table. So shut up! You’re there to play…just do it!

Amazing how one table makes the difference in your whole night…not in the form of tipping…but opens your eyes to a side of people that you’d rather not see. Yes, details to follow:

For the last few weeks, I’ve been in the kind of ‘dealer land’ that all dealers wish they could stay in forever. No one threw cards at me or glared or swore or had anything to say other than, “Hey that’s poker!” or “Nice hand!” or something that implied they were there to have fun and weren’t going to die or sleep in the street if they didn’t win a pot.

Lately I’ve dealt to people that just came to play. One night I pushed into a $4-$8 Holdem game and three of the players had just sat down and not taken a hand yet. The 1s was one of them and I found out his name was Kenny. He was w-a-s-t-e-d! As in drink, drank, drunk and the bar was empty. His eyes were trying to focus and his mind wouldn’t let them but he was there to play. Every time he looked at his cards, he leaned clear into my arm with his head and I had to brace myself to keep from falling over…Kenny was a good sized lad.

I got a huge kick out of him and his friends and the whole table for that matter. Kenny thought he had to play every hand if he wanted to ‘be in the game’. I believe he thought he had to leave if he didn’t play every hand. He flopped a flush draw once, the board paired on the Turn, he made a straight on the River as there was a four card straight on board and he didn’t even see it. Lucky for him because the other player turned a full house.

Yes, I saw every hand Kenny held. I finally convinced him that he could fold if he wanted to and didn’t have to stay in…then he would ask me after he folded, if he’d done the right thing. I answered him honestly. Yet he still never figured out what the ‘burn’ cards were, or why the button was there, or anything else before I left. He was gracious and fun, spunky and belligerent, having fun and drunk…if all that makes sense. I even checked back on the table a few hours later to see how everyone was doing…they were still jamming. Love it!

Then I had the fun of everyone being ‘in love’ with me…or pretending to be. The query from a 25 year old, “You’re 26 aren’t you? What are you doing when you get off work?”

Or, “Linda, you truly are Linda.” Yes children, I’ve been told a thousand times that Linda means beautiful in Spanish. This sweet heart was giving me the ultimate compliment.

Then a table full of guys, in which the 3s, around 60ish, said, “Linda! You are beautiful, I wish I could have seen you when you were young.”

I slapped the table and retorted, “I’m young now, damn it!”

Everyone laughed, the 2s said I looked just fine the way I was and the 1s said he was jealous.

The 3s managed to explain, with the help of all the other guys, that he really wished he’d met me when he was younger.

It was fun but let’s get back to tonight.

I went through the whole night, easy dealing, games were lively, boisterous players and lots of action…then the ‘nuisance break’ and up to table one for my last down. $400-$800 Mixed Games. Eli E.- 1s, Lee – 5s, O’Neil – 7s, and Cuckoo – 8s.

First Lee glared and stared at me because he lost a hand. Then Eli grabbed the deck and scrambled it in a wide circle when he lost a hand. He left it, spread out over the 1, 2, 3s area and I said, “You have to pull it together and straighten it out.”

He ignored me.

Then Cuckoo…God Almighty Cuckoo lost a few hands and went into ‘mother fucker, fucking fucker’, repeat, skip, repeat, skip, repeat. He tried to throw the cards through the rack. I had my hands up.
The second hand he lost, he tried to mate/merge his cards with the rack. I had my hands up again. He missed me both times and it was bothering him a lot that I was too smart/quick for him so the third hand, he just threw his cards across the table. He did the, ‘mother fucking, fucking fucker’ thing, until I left the box.

I never looked at any of the players, never changed my attitude or stance…just wondered how in the hell I could end up in the ‘twilight zone’ of poker after having spent two weeks in prime ‘dealer land’ and enjoying it.

Oh sure, you hear this all the time, “He used to be a dealer.” Well in truth, Cuckoo told that same tale about himself not too long ago. So where is he coming from? Don’t bother trying to answer that one…he lives in his own hell or he wouldn’t be where he is, behaving as he does.

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

People packed, player jammed, the war of the microphones was on…80 entries into the Friday’s at Five, No Limit Holdem Tournament…and ‘hurrying scurrying’ in every part of the room.

Amazing as it may seem, the games just keep getting better and better. This statement is not a dealer/tip increase statement but action/new player statement. They appear out of nowhere, ready to play, willing to sit down and gamble, gamble, gamble, even if they have no idea how to play. Even late in the night, 15 to 20 people walked through the door with giant drink glasses, from another casino, in their hand and sort of did a single file, parade, walk through the room…not like they were doing a ‘conga line’ but like they were looking and watching as they went through.

Poker’s finally hitting the big time. It’s talked about, discussed and played on television, no longer hidden away in some dark corner of the basement, it’s ‘SHOWTIME’! Speaking of Show Time, I’m on my way to Aruba, next month to deal Ultimate Bet’s Ultimate Poker Classic II, an official WPT event. I plan on having an ‘Ultimate Trip Report’ when I return.

*****

I officially met Justin. I had dealt to him about six to seven months ago when he was in a game with Jillian and Ramsey…another post. He was in the 1s in a $4-$8 Holdem game and I said, “Hello,” he replied back, conversation went to when he was here last and the Jillian/Ramsey thing.

He took off on, “Where’s Sam G.? I keep hearing his name paged but I haven’t seen him?”

I did a, “He’s not one of my favorite people.”

He did something like, “He’s not someone my parents want me to model my life after…”

I caught on. “You must have been reading my site.”

He laughed and gave me, ‘of course I have, how would I know this, Linda…’

So I asked his name…now we’re officially introduced.

He was ‘messin’ wit me’ and it was funny. We visited through most of my down. The game was lively and everyone was slamming chips in the pot, the automatic shuffler was on this table and all in all, it was what I consider an A+ on the dealer’s report card for games I’d like to deal.

The funny part is that Sam G. was in the room and playing on Table 1. I dealt to him a few hours later. No one is immune to a Sam G. verbal attack and he tried to put one on Carmen. He, of course, thinks his wit and humor are beyond compare and that the world is his stage so everyone should be ready to applaud and laugh when he says something.

Carmen walked behind the dealer’s chair and consequently Sam’s chair, while performing her job duties. Sam leaned back and she put her hand on his back as she went by.

He retorted, “Get those man’s hands off of me. I don’t like any man that dresses up as a woman.”

She laughed and replied, “That’s not what I hear.”

I liked her reply, I hated his idiot statement to her.

She’s not tiny or petite, she’s a ‘classic beauty’. She greets everyone as if they were the only person in the world and deserved her utmost attention, and they get it. She does her job very well and that includes working with the Railbirds of the world.

Tomorrow is an anniversary, a time that still makes my head reel and devastates my spirit…the day that Peace died. No one has won…with that thought I close this subject with a prayer for peace, with the hope that we all learn to live together and help each other instead of destroying the Earth, and hearts and homes of our people and our children.

*******

High Limit last week, a rather unique circumstance found Jimmy G. talking a lot instead of playing very many hands. We’ve spent a lot of years together at the table and his conversation is normally, “Come on, Linda. We’ve got to concentrate.” Believe me I concentrate as hard as I can when I deal any game, to make sure I don’t make a mistake and the players are satisfied with my dealing.

Yes, he means ‘we’ in that I have to think ‘Jimmy’ while I deal. I really don’t mind any of his statements or his antics even though he gets a little bizarre once in awhile with things like, “Ok, scramble them clockwise, with your left hand, and in a small circle.” or “Scramble them in a big scramble, use both hands…now stop and do it the other way.”

Not long ago, when he was extremely frustrated with the game and in the 1s, when I dropped the deck and pushed the pot, he grabbed the cards and started to scramble them.

I went, “Hey! Come on, you know you can’t do that.”

He queried, “I can’t?” But he released the deck and let me deal without hassling me.

Back to the night he wanted to talk…he was in the 1s again, Shaun and Brian were battling it out, while O’Neal played an occasional hand, and Jimmy folded almost every hand.

This is not a direct quote but a general run of the conversation.

Jimmy asked me how many years I’d been dealing, I told him around 23 years. He stated that I must have seen a lot of players come and go. I said yes and he asked if a lot of them were losers. Again I said yes. He asked why I thought that was and I told him that I thought they didn’t have the discipline to play the downside. Anyone can play when the cards are hitting them in the face but being able to survive the downside, when you run bad for months, is when you have to play your best game and most people just can’t knuckle down and do it. They think they’re being cheated or it’s the deck or it’s all luck or the dealer or all of those choices put together.

We talked about the $75-$150 game that ran every day when the Mirage opened, it was the ‘big’ game. It was huge in those days, now it’s like peanuts in comparison to most of what’s really considered high limit in our room. I pointed out to him that most of the people that played every day in that game, now play $40-$80 or $30-$60 Stud. He asked me why. I told him that some of them couldn’t fade it and others just lost the desire to play high…the latter being why I think A.J. and Joe R. play the $40-$80.

Amazingly, then he asked me if I could ‘set up’ a deck if I wanted to…followed by, you probably wouldn’t tell me if you could. Funny but I could have sworn the hairs in Brian’s ears stood up, trying to hear what my answer would be.

I stated that I had never learned and had no desire to, that a few people had offered to teach me but it’s not in my nature. I just don’t lie, steal or cheat. I don’t know how to be so greedy that I would try to cheat someone out of their money.

He asked me if I knew anyone that could and I replied that over the years, I knew a few people that could. Then of course, he asked if any of them worked at Bellagio. To my knowledge, “No!” I don’t know anyone in Bellagio that can set up a deck.

By now I was getting pushed and he was talking about someone that had shown him how to cut the deck with one hand, could I do that? “No! Never learned.”

Instead of the Floor Person bringing in the new set up, the incoming Graveyard Dealer brought it with him. Jimmy picked up the old deck that I was taking out and cut it with one hand, then did it again so he could show Brian. By now the two new decks were on the table, I had one of the old decks in my hand and waited for Jimmy to hand me the deck he was cutting. He did.

I leaned over and quietly asked him why he brought all that up. He said he was just curious and that he’d heard me called “Fingers” before.

I laughed and told him that was a new one for me, that I’d been called everything but a White Woman since I became a dealer, but never “Fingers”.

He chuckled and said if I was trying to be a comedian, that I was playing to a very tough field. I walked to the Page area, left the Set-up, hit the time clock and the road.

Oh yes, once during my down, Jimmy asked me scramble the deck with only my right hand, counter clockwise, and told me when it was enough. Funny guy!