The poker community really is unique. If you play poker with someone today, or deal to them tomorrow, sooner or later you’re going to cross paths again. That’s a good reason to always leave a game in a calm, pleasant manner rather than having a fit and storming out when you take a beat. Your past play, attitude, and table presence follows you everywhere. It’s extremely important to never let them see you sweat or bleed…keep them guessing and in awe of your table presence. That’s a free tip for the day. 🙂

~~~~

The sad side of poker came to visit last week. On Thursday evening, the 6th, Peter Nagy had a heart attack in the poker room. He crossed Death’s Threshold that night and will be missed by many of us.

~~~~

On the humorous side of poker, you have to love Doyle B. He called Carmen over to pick up his chips and put them on account. He had a few chips short of a full rack of $5,000 chips. The other players teased him with, “Do you always win?…Don’t you ever play until you lose?”

He chuckled and said he did pretty well in Mississippi…followed with, “Speaking of sharing. If I had to share a good looking woman with someone else, I’d get the half that eats!”

He’s a grand man in the grand game of poker! And if he would ever share even 10 years of his poker stories and games with us, we’d be armed with tales worth telling.

~~~~

It’s gloomy and rainy in Vegas…swollen rivers race along the strip and force pedestrians to take cover away from the curb…they’d either drown in the tidal waves created by passing motorists or need a change of clothing and blow dryer.

There are too many accidents to mention (someone said they’d heard that number was close to 200 by 6 p.m. tonight) and when swing shift was leaving the building, the report was that Highway 15 and 95 North were snarled and jammed because of more accidents. Rain here creates very treacherous driving conditions, exercise caution and slow down…maybe you’ll save the life of a poker player/dealer. Thanks in advance.

~~~~

There’s a certain type of player that always fine tunes my ‘irritation meter’ and sends it skyrocketing over the top. He plays the low limit games at Bellagio. His name’s R. W. and he’s a ‘good old boy’ from down South. He really doesn’t mean any harm, he’s just trying to mold the game to suit him. You’ll see him in a lot of players though, they just have different names and shapes and play different limits.

His routine goes like this. Two games running of the same limit, his game has six players, yours has five. You happen to like short handed games and just got this one where you want it when R. W. yells at the players in your game, “Hey, why don’t you guys draw and come over here? No sense in playing short.”

His braying is like the jackal that’s found the scent of a wounded animal. Within a few minutes he does it again and soon another player in his game picks up on it and makes the same braying noise.

No one at your table even knew it was short handed until he started the wheels in motion and now they want to draw. You just give up and go home because he broke up your game and you really don’t want to draw and be shut out of a seat and you really don’t want to play in a game with him.

He also likes to bet when he knows he’s got you but when he thinks you might have the best hand or he’s on a draw, he looks at you and queries, “Just you and me in the hand?”…he gently pats the table like he’s sincerely interested in your welfare…”I’ll check to you.” He’s stroking you while he’s trying to beat you.

Another move he likes to make on a newcomer, that’s sitting by him in the game, that’s new to ‘chopping’ and doesn’t understand what it means, gets it explained to him like this. “Well if it comes down to you and me in the blinds, we just chop. We don’t want the house to get any more money from us. It’s a gentlemen’s agreement between the two of us, we just take our money back.”

He pulled a classic tonight. He left his $4-$8 Holdem game to visit another $4-$8 game and inform a ‘live one’ that a seat was open in his game and the ‘live one’ could just come over and join them now. With that said, R. W. ambled back to his game.

Lobbying is a huge taboo in poker. It’s tacky to try to take a player out of one game and get them into another one but that’s the way R. W. is. And his play is tighter than Bull’s Butt in fly time too. He could win a Zillion $$$, 25 way action pot and the dealer is guaranteed a 50c tip with an explanation of how poor ‘ol R. W. needs to win when he plays.

R. W. always looks for the best game but he’s never the reason it’s the best game. He can change it from ‘live’ to ‘dead’ in a heartbeat. Irritation meter? FULL TILT!

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

I just registered with Empire Poker, under Chanzes of course, you may see me there playing real money and play money when I have time. On days that I’m playing, I’ll post notice in advance here…join me whenever you can. I promise I’ll behave…well…maybe. Also the possibility of a tournament, anyone interested in a poker tournament where we all get to try to beat each other for real money, send me an email. More on the particulars later. Back to the Brick and Mortar World that I live in.

A few weeks ago, a major interruption in the quiet hum of the room took almost 10 minutes to completely subside. It started in $15-$30 Holdem, huge pot with mass action, Andrew in the 5S had the Button, Mike in the 6S, Small Blind, and two other callers on the River, added even more chips to the already gigantic pot. The Board was A-3-4 or A-2-4 of Hearts, blank, blank.

Mike turned up his hand and said, “Straight Flush.” He actually held the 5-6 of Hearts which was a flush but his straight flush had a gaping hole in it.

Andrew threw his cards face down, they slid underneath the flop and almost into the rack.
The dealer sat there, looking around, as if waiting for the Earth to open and swallow all of them or for a profound announcement from God that it was time to proceed.

Recognition hit Andrew like a thunderbolt when he actually looked at Mike’s hand and realized Mike didn’t have a Straight Flush. Andrew stood up, reached deftly across the table and retrieved his hand and then proceeded to scream at Mike, something like this, “That’s totally unethical. You are completely wrong in calling the wrong hand.”

Andrew turned up the Q-10 of Hearts.

Mike began with something like this, “Oh Andrew, just relax. I wasn’t going to claim the pot anyway.”

Andrew screamed louder, to the dealer, “Get the Floor Man!” and then back to Mike, continuing with the, “…unethical, you’re out of line, you shouldn’t be allowed to play here, etc., etc., etc.”

The Floor Man came over – Jason, a dealer, filling in the Floor Shift for the night – and before the dealer could say anything, Andrew took off with his explanation, something like this. “He turned his hand up and stated that he had a Straight Flush. I threw my hand away, just a little bit away from my hands and luckily I was able to retrieve it! He could’ve caused me to lose the pot. That’s totally unethical. It’s uncalled for.”

All this was at full volume, tilt, tilt, T-I-L-T!

The dealer was pushed, Jason told them both to calm down and let it go and walked away. The incoming dealer shuffled up the next hand…

Andrew went off again, he was totally miffed, same tirade, same volume control…as in none.

Mike did a ramble on, “Oh Andrew, sometime when you’re not drinking coffee, I’ll explain it to you.”

Andrew never slowed down. He continued to tell Mike that he was totally unethical and totally out of line.

By now Carmen had arrived with Jason, she was the supervisor for the night. Mike stood up and said, “Just for that I’m leaving.”

Andrew went with, “Good! And don’t come back!”

Then Mike started laughing and said, “Ok, just for that, I’m staying.” He sat back down.

Carmen sternly informed them that enough was enough and they hushed momentarily. The game moved back into poker but still the players talked about it and Andrew was like an ember being fanned by the wind. Mike still acted as if he could care less and he still stated that he wouldn’t have taken the pot. Andrew went into full yell mode again. The dealer screamed for a decision. Carmen came to the table again and this time informed them they would leave for the night if it continued. It stopped.

The over view: Players do misread their hands. Although Mike is out of line by making the statement that he did, what if he had been a tourist and really had thought that he had a Straight Flush? Cards speak!

It’s Andrew’s responsibility to hold his hand until he’s sure of the winning hand. If another dealer had been in the box, Andrew’s hand would’ve been totally irretrievable because his cards would’ve been swept into the muck immediately. Would Mike really have given the pot to Andrew when Andrew could only state what his cards had been? What do you think a snowball’s chances in Hell are?

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

When there’s a tournament in some other part of the poker world, the room can get pretty quiet. The room is really easy to work and the games are strong, just less high limit than usual which makes it a poker dealer’s dream.

That’s the way it is right now. But still there’s the occasional High Octane Jack Off at the table that makes poker so fascinating. Last week brought us one of those that kept disrupting the whole room with an incredibly noisy outburst every time chips were shoved in her direction. Surprised? Sure you thought it was a guy!

She was 45-50ish attractive, in pretty good shape, drunk on her butt and having the time of her life because she had a captive audience of nine guys in $4-$8 Holdem and she was taking their money. She never shut up. She rocked the socks right off their feet with her noise and mouth and then came back to ricochet through any thoughts they might have tried to salvage through her grandstanding stage of “I’m here and you’re going to like it!”

Each time she won a pot, she jumped up and whoo-hooed and screamed but that was after she went through the verbal taunting of ‘Oh did I win? I didn’t think I had a chance!”

Umhhh! Who’s playing what game here?

A young man sitting next to her that had put up with her noise in his right ear for a few hours, did the unexpected. He burst out with, “Why don’t you just shut up?” Followed by, “Bet everyone here has been wanting to say that for awhile, huh?”

Everyone laughed, except Ms. High Octane. She just brushed it off with, “You remind me of my son,” and continued to wrangle, jangle, and disrupt everyone.

She called one of the guys in her game a Son-of-a-Bitch. The dealer cautioned her that name calling and swearing wasn’t allowed so a few minutes later she spit out, “fuck!”

The dealer cautioned her again on her language. And again a few minutes later, she did the ‘fucking’ thing again. Cautioned again to watch her language she continued to carry on like she was the only human in the world that was allowed to breathe air and everyone else could share her exhaust.

When a Chip Runner came into view, the dealer asked to have the Shift Supervisor come over. In the meantime, Don B., had to get involved in all of it by making a double innuendo to her, “Why didn’t you call that hand? I can see your well stacked,” eyeing her chest when he said it.

She jumped right on it, stuck her chest out, shoulders back and declared, “Yes, I am!”

The Supervisor came over and sat and talked with her for a few minutes, general conversation, asked her if she was driving home, etc. He really didn’t want to send her on her way because she was having a good time and she had a lot of the chips but she lost her drinking privileges and was cut off. She still made noises for the next hour or so but then slipped away into the night and lights of Vegas. She had the spotlight and the limelight at the poker table for hours and she loved every minute of it. Unknown whether she won or lost.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

A $15-$30 Holdem Game tonight, two locals and five tourists set the stage for a walk through Poker Comedy Land. Everyone gambled but a lot of funny conversation was going on. The 9S was absent and the talk centered around him for a few minutes, how he really liked to gamble and would show you any two cards and he did. The 6S popped up with, “Yeah, but he’s got very good looking daughters.”

The banter went back and forth about his daughters and the 1S said, “Yes but those photos can be touched up you know?”

Everyone roared…dealer included.

The next topic went to, “where are you staying?” The 1S said he was staying at Bellagio. The 6S asked how the 1S could afford the rates as he, the 6S, was in Vegas for a convention and he couldn’t afford it.

The 1S replied that he had a poker rate to which the query came, “How much?”

Reply, “$129 on weekdays.”

The 6S exclaimed, “Good God! Do you get a woman with that?”

The 10S said, “Yes. He gets a maid to clean his room everyday.”

Everyone was in stitches as the 6S persisted, “Does she at least stay an hour?”

The 1S retorted, “That’s all you need? One hour?”

The 6S said he stayed at the hotel that had the little men dressed up in the little vest and little outfit…Les Miserable was mentioned in there somewhere. Then he coughed up the fact that he was staying at the Trop.

Through all the laughter questions were asked about, “How are the rooms there?” “What do you pay a night?” And still the gambling and jamming was going on.

The 6S made a comment that the 8S resembled an actor but couldn’t think of who. The 1S seat went into, “The guy in Shawshank Redemption…somebody help me with what the guy’s name is…”

The 6S named off someone about the time the 1S came up with Tim Robbins.

The 5S said, “I’ll tell you who he looks like and it’s a compliment. James Dean.”

The 8S smiled and said, “I’ve even got leathers.”

Someone else asked, “Oh is that Jimmy Dean, the sausage guy?”

The 6S was told, and the players agreed, that his voice resembled that of Joe Pesci.

The 6S asked the 5S what he did for a living which the answer is poker. And the 6S said he ran an inkjet printer/supply company that did very well back East.

The dealer asked him if he was the one that spammed everyone’s email with the print cartridge sale ads all the time, to which the 6S replied, “No. I use my business as a front for my real business which is selling Viagra and sex aids over the internet.”

The dealer said, “If I get one more email asking me if I want a larger penis”…the guys got really quiet for a few seconds…”I’m going to ask them what it’s attached to.”

Everyone at the table was laughing their butts off. The 5S made a comment that the whole conversation at the table was the strangest he could remember in a long time. The 9S returned, another game broke and filled the three empty seats and everyone quieted right down and went back to poker, poker, poker.

Wish, wish, wish, a recording had been made of the session. It’s one of the rare ones that really make poker fun, funny, funner!

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

Dealing poker is like being part of the Matrix. You plug in when you walk through the door and unplug when you walk out, remembering all the time that you’re there that there really is no spoon. At times it seems bizarre to watch people walking through the door, finding a game, buying chips, settling into the table routine, relaxed and calm, laughing when they start out winning, and watching them turn into a demon from hell when they take a few beats or get low carded two or three times in 7 Card Stud.

Nothing brings out a person’s true personality like watching their money being pushed across the table to someone else…well maybe if you screw with their kids or mate but money places huge in the overall scheme of things. Other times the whole poker scene appears to be completely natural and a normal part of life. That having been said, I’m now ‘unplugged’.

~~~~~

A question that always comes to mind when a player never tips more than 50c – why in the hell don’t they just buy a roll of halves and quit with the crap of ‘chop’ when they throw out a $1?

First, it appears that they are trying to show everyone at the table that tipping 50c is cool and inflation hasn’t struck the poker room.

Second, they are slowing down the deal and the game by expecting the dealer to stop and break a buck down. Yes, I feel that it slows down my game.

Third, there are a lot of dealers that will never order halves when they take in a fill and will drop them into the rake if they are in the rack because these dealers don’t want to accept 50c for a toke. They want $1 or nothing.

I say screw these dealers but I still have to follow their arrogant asses in the line-up which means no halves in the rack. So…if you’re one of these 50c for life tippers, just order a roll of halves when you get your chips. Simplify it for the rest of us. Oh…and stop pointing out to the guy that gives $3 to $4 a hand, that he can tip us 50c. For hell’s sake, I don’t cut into your action so don’t cut into mine.

~~~~~

Several funny things at the table. Simon, a young, exuberant chase the Sheilas and smoke too many cigarettes, $4-$8 Holdem player, here for a few weeks to mess with the locals minds, was asked if he was married. He said, “No! I’m going to find a woman in her forties that I hate and buy her a house!”

Another one was a woman new to poker playing $4-$8 Holdem and several times a player at the table said, “I’ve got the nuts!”She had no idea what that meant. Someone explained it to her and a few hands later, she bet and said, “I’ve got the balls!”

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

You’ve dealt to this guy for somewhere around 10 years. He played $75-$150 7 Card Stud at the Mirage and moved up with all the limits and all the games. He even got into a fight with Sam G. at the Mirage one time and Sam G. got 86’d for a hell-uva long time over it…permanently from the Mirage and the first year Bellagio was opened.

One night at the Mirage, you’re dealing a Mixed game of Holdem and 7 Card Stud to this guy, he’s the One Seat, Howard L. the Two Seat, Stu Ungar the Four Seat, and Doyle B. the Eight Seat. It’s a brisk little $200-$400 game and lots of action. One Holdem hand in which Stu is the Big Blind, Howard the Small Blind, Stu flops a flush and Howard flops two pair. End result is that Howard makes a Full House on the River. Of course Stu wants to feed you his hole cards and throws them into your chest and leaves the room.

That was a typical Stu move. Lose a hand, throw his cards into the dealer’s body parts and jump up and leave the room to go snort, choke, gasp, or whatever it was he did. Hate when all these movies and articles glorify a player and act like they were so great. If they were/are, why the hell can’t they take a beat like a gentlemen/lady instead of acting like they’re still in the sandlot playing with ‘liddle cars and truckies and Barbie thingies’?

Stu ambles back, takes a hand, gets beat by this guy and verbal abuse begins. Stu calls him everything but a real person, insults his girlfriend calling her all these ugly infested ‘c’ words, and a few other million things.

Doyle puts his chips in a rack and Stu asks him if he’s leaving. Doyle states that he is and ‘no one wants to listen to it anymore’.

Howard puts his chips in a rack and Stu continues on his ‘fucking whore, cunt, bitch asshole, no life, never had a life, never will have a life, I’ll bust your face and your bitch’s too if I see you in the parking lot’, distasteful use of wordage and language.

Finally the shift supervisor, Donna H. goes off shift and Walt S. takes over. Walt asks Stu to put his chips in a rack and end it. The game mercifully breaks up with the One Seat leaving and Stu putting his chips in a rack. By now you’ve made up the Set Up and the rack is locked up. Yahoo! You get to walk away from Mr. Potty Mouth.

Funny part of it is that the next night, several players approach you and ask why you didn’t call the Floor Supervisor when Stu was calling you all those names. You almost die laughing as you try to explain that he wasn’t talking to you, he was talking to One Seat.

So the story continues. You deal to the One Seat year after year. You never make a mistake in a game that he’s in yet he feels it’s necessary to interject with “Give him $2,000 change.” or “Just leave the bet in front of him and that’s what he owes.”

No shit! Often wonder what these guys think you do when they aren’t around to tell you what to do?

One night at Bellagio this player tries doing shots with the other high limit players. He can’t handle it and ends up throwing up on the table. They left him laying in it and moved to another table to continue to the game.

Then one day he finally asks his long time girl friend to marry him. A couple of the high limit players, as in Jennifer and Howard, like him so much that a few weeks before his wedding they hire a private detective to follow his betrothed around. Come to find out she’s already married. At least his friends waited until he had bought the ring and proposed, sent out all the invitations, set up the catering service and planned the honeymoon.

Is this sarcastic? Truthfully…do you want friends like that?

Well…back to poker, poker, poker. You listen to him one night as he complains that he never receives a tip from a dealer. No matter what kind of beats he takes or hard his night is, the dealer is always sitting there waiting for a tip yet the dealer never tips him.

You talk to Johnny World about this. Johnny World is in cahoots with you and when this player loses a pot, you are going to reach in your shirt pocket and throw him a couple of bucks. Johnny will back you up and say he put you up to it…but Johnny starts running across the damn USA to the East Coast and a few other places and you never get to pull it off. Damn bad beat there!

So…you go in to deal $1,000-$2,000 Mixed Games and this guy’s in the 4 seat. The game is Deuce to 7 Triple Draw. The bets are in on the first round and you burn and just as you get ready to pitch the first draw cards, this player screams, “Don’t deal the cards!”

You stop. What are you supposed to do?

This guy continues with ‘deal them down and push them’. Ok. After seven years of pitching draw cards, now, out of a clear blue sky and someone’s whim, you’re supposed to do it another way. Everything changes in high limit. One day they can chop, the next day they may chop your head off…you just never know.

A few hands later it’s the first draw in a multi-way action pot and this player wants three cards. You deal them to the table top before pushing them but one of them catches off the edge of the deck and does a little “SNAP”. It didn’t expose but instantly he’s on you.

“You’ve got to be more careful. We’re playing for real money you know!”

How many times have you heard that in your dealing career? Every time you hear it, you want to say, “No-o-o-o-! Damn I’m sorry. Thought you all got your chalk back at the end of the night.”

You respond to him, “I’m sorry.”

“Well you are going to have to pay more attention!” He pounds you like a meat tenderizing mallet on a bad steak.

You’re just dripping with a small amount of irritation and reply, “It won’t happen again. I’m trying to do the best job for you that I can.”

He explodes like The Blow Hole on Oahu, “THAT’S A LIE!”

He looks at his cards. “Well you may be trying your best but you will make the same mistake again.”

You just got Grayed…the G-Man bit a chunk out of your self contained, hard working epicenter.
The G-Man lives in a black and white world. He’s the only one that’s ever allowed a discrepancy and if it happens, he tries to kill all witnesses so they can’t tell anyone. If he’s the only one that knows of the discrepancy, he goes through extensive programming to remove all traces of it from his mind.

You have no win with him but don’t feel bad about it because neither does anyone else in the world.

Why was Stu so verbally hot on the G-Man? Word had it that Stu ran a poker stake up into a bit of cash and instead of divvying it up with the G-man and someone else involved, Stu blew it on the race track. When the G-man tried to collect, Stu went to SOMEONE that could hurt you. The SOMEONE called the G-man and the other someone else and Stu together and informed the G-Man and his pal that Stu didn’t owe anyone anything. The whole thing was dropped. Stu liked to punish people when he felt he had the upper hand and that’s where he was with the G-Man.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

There are a lot of topics to cover, guess I’ve just been a lazy dog and haven’t managed to find the time to accomplish everything I needed to do so I’m still coming up last in a one woman race. Dragsville!

The games are hopping. High limit’s really slow due to the big tournament in Tunica. Reports are in from some players that have been there and back. Some love it, some hate it. Isn’t that the way it is with mankind? One player stated there was nothing to do there but play poker and after waiting hours to get into a game, buying his chips taking his first hand, the supervisors closed the table because they needed it for a tournament…needless to say he was HOT!

Monday night found a lonely little $1,500-$3,000 Mixed Game up on top at Bellagio and it was four handed. Jennifer, Minh, Eli, and Doyle. Clipped and short conversations between Jennifer and Doyle. See the previous post.

Tuesday and Wednesday were really thin up in the top section but games were rocking in the real world. Real world? Where the rest of us play, silly. Three and four $30-$60 Holdem games a night and the same in $15-$30. Lots of $20-$40 and $15-$30 7 Card Stud Action. The $8-$16 and $4-$8 Holdem games are thriving and so is the $1-$5 and $4-$8 7 Card Stud. The $20-$40 Omaha 8 or Better crowd is always there and truly, I promise there will be a post that gets really in depth into the heart and soul of this group that comes together everyday to beat each other’s brains out.

Super Bowl Weekend is upon us. The room will be exploding with players. And screaming, applauding, insanity will overtake most of them as they place wagers on the game. It’s always great for poker and how convenient is it when the poker room opens right into the sports book?

There’s an incredible, beautiful sunrise coming up over Vegas right now, light gray skies being chased away by brilliant, orange clouds adorned with swirls of purple. Given this moment in time, it’s really hard to think about anything else so I leave you with a link to one of Linda’s poems and I’ll be back tomorrow, promise, promise, promise, to tell you more tales of the green felt.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

There’s a little war going on up in ‘high limit land’. Jennifer has committed the cardinal sign. There just are things you don’t do in high limit; you can’t slow roll, you can’t state your hand incorrectly, you can’t swear and carry on like a jackass in front of a man’s wife unless he’s doing it also and a few million other things that most of us take for granted when we play poker.

Taking a shot will get you shot…ok, not literally but one thing you don’t want, in ‘high limit land’, is a bad name with the only other people that can afford to play the game with you.

The war has been ongoing since last week. The game was $2,000-$4,000 Mixed and they were playing Deuce to 7 Triple Draw. Jennifer apparently bet on the River, Doyle called, Jennifer threw her hand face up and the dealer, (not this dealer), called her hand as a 7 low, when in reality, she had paired deuces. Doyle threw his hand into the muck and then realized that she had a pair. The Supervisor was called and the ruling was that Jennifer got the pot as she still had a live hand…pot size somewhere around $30,000 to $40,000.

No one even seemed to care that the dealer had miscalled the hand…in this limit why the dealer would say anything is a bit of a mystery because the only thing a dealer has to do is call the high and low card in stud games, the players take care of themselves and the dealer is never involved unless a player asks the dealer a question.

Doyle had a fit with Jennifer, something like, “you’d pick the nickels off a dead person’s eyes’ and a few other things. Jennifer had a tiz and flipped the pot at Doyle. Conjecture has it that she did give the pot to him.

Along into this week, the war is still in full force. Jennifer wants to explain to everyone that she didn’t realize she paired deuces and no one, especially Doyle, wants to continue going over it and since she has a tendency to get a bit moody and mouthy, she’s fighting with everyone. Hey, it’s hell when there’s only a handful of players that can afford that limit because you’re going to look at them every time you want to play. Beating them is one thing, pulling a shot or antagonizing is another. Maybe you’d have to be there….

~~~~~~

There’s more going on in a poker game than meets the eye at times and some of them are a lot of fun. Take John for example. He plays $15-$30 and $20-$40 7 Card Stud. He’s been a regular at Bellagio since opening and he’s buffed out and great to look at…of course he’s married and when he comes in to play poker that’s exactly what he does although he likes to tease and play ‘the game’.

He’s always teasing you about the ‘leather room’ and ‘red spike heels’ and ‘whips’ and on and on and on. You play the game better than the average player so any time John makes a comment, a return comment is instantly forthcoming.

Bill, another regular, is fairly quiet, likes to fish, (literally in a lake not just at the table), and comes in after 9 or 10 p.m. each night to join the game.

You push into a $15-$30 Stud game in which John’s in the One Seat and Bill’s in the Four Seat. A stranger in the Two Seat loses about the 3rd or 4th hand you deal and has a little tiz, flips his cards in the air, grabs the remainder of his chips and leaves.

Bill looks at John and says, “Guess he can’t stand a beating. Acts like you do, John.”

John is pumping chips into the next hand, looks at you and says, “I never act like that do I? Not even when I’m in the Leather Room?”

You just smile and say, “No but when I slap the handcuffs on you, you do start to scream.”

Bill’s mouth drops open and he gasps, “You guys are turning me on.”

Your smile widens and you continue, “But you really go crazy when I bring out the Red, Velvet Rope.”

Bill reaches in his pocket and digs out a handful of bills, extends his hand across the table to you and says, “Here! These are yours.”

Another stranger at the table pipes in, “Oh you’re going to need a lot more than that. Better go to the ATM or get your credit cards out.”

The whole table collapses into a howling melee and you just keep on dealing….

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

Last week found us dealing to Larry Flynt. To some of you ‘youngies’ that may not mean anything other than the fact that he owns the Hustler Casino in California. To some of us ‘oldies’ it means that the first time we picked up his Hustler magazine some 25 odd years ago, we were shocked by the graphic illustrations and statements he published for the whole world to see.

He’s got quite a history and you can read a little of it here.

You knew he was in the room and in your line-up. Sure enough, you walk up to deal to Chip R., Jennifer, Eric D. (original opener and ex-manager of the Mirage Card Room), Danny R., Larry F. in the Five Seat, Johnny C., Eli, and Doyle.

You sit down in the Dealer’s Chair and try to adjust the height because it’s way too low to even let you get your elbows above the table. It won’t budge and you have no choice but to sit down and deal. While you’re shuffling, with the table in your arm pits, you realize that it’s been raised to accommodate Larry’s chair.

Larry is seated right across from you and has two wood dividers on the table in front of him…they extend like a partition in a roll top desk only they are about an inch and half thick, six inches high and 15 to 16 inches long. They’re dark wood and have an ‘H’ engraved in them. His left arm lays between the two petitions and his right arm lays on the outside of them where his chips are stacked. He’s in a conversation with everyone at the table, or so it seems, and you reach over and touch his hand and wait until he gives you eye contact. When he does, you ask, “Where would you like your cards dealt?”

He taps his left hand on the table and you’re off and running, spread the new deck, announce ‘time pot’ and shuffle up and deal. The game is $2,000-$4,000 7 Card Stud.

Larry wins the first hand and you ask him for $80 in Time. He gives you the $80 plus $5 for you and three players get up to go start a mixed $2,000-$4,000 game. The game only lasts another 15 or 20 minutes. Larry’s tired and the talk is that it will resume on the following day.

Your pretty sure that Eric, Danny, and Johnny were all playing Larry’s money, not that anyone gives a damn one way or the other. The game breaks up, Larry sends you all of his $5 chips and tells you they are for you, followed up with a smile. And you say, “It’s really nice to meet you.”

Hey, did you ever think when you read the Hustler Magazine a million or so years ago that you would ever deal a hand of poker to him? You didn’t even know how to play poker then, let alone think it.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.

Linda G. is pretty damned unhappy about my laxness in writing and keeping up the updates about the real world of poker so I’ve vowed to get started, in earnest, and keep the lines and tales from the green felt flowing.

In retrospect to the last post about Dino and Sammy, nope…not the Rat Pack, let’s get back to the Dino thread that was kind of hinting about more to come. Dino’s big claim to fame is that he once held down a job for 6 hours. He hated working. He makes fun of people that are happy in their jobs – especially poker dealers.

It goes something like this, he puts on a stupid grin and then makes sure that no one talks louder than he does, which means he has no volume control, because he wants to be the only person heard and off he goes. “Ohhhhh! I’m so happy I have a mortgage. I’m so stupid that I’m happy I have a job. Ohhhhhhh, I get to come to work every night. I’m so glad that I’m here.”

Drip about 5 gallons of sarcasm all over the statement and the look on his face and you’ll get the picture.

He dresses very well, no jeans and slouchy shirts or run down shoes for this guy, his clothes for the evening might cost more than the average person makes in two weeks. He’s not stupid by any means and he’s very witty, coupled with bitterness and alcohol and a few other drugs over the years…he will tell you this himself so it’s not idle gossip. Yet he’s sitting in the Sport’s Book at 2 a.m. with a girl that looks like she needs a life transfusion, (yeah as in get one), trying to sleep on his arm and he looks at you with alcohol stressed eyes that refuse to focus, and asks if you’re going to the Stardust. So in other words he needs a ride.

He’s always playing low limit, hanging in the Sport’s Book, drunk, slithering around the slots, and security has asked him to leave more than once but he feels he’s got the best of the game. Guess that’s the important part, how he feels about himself.

So back to the game the other night. He comes in after missing his blind and posting, never shuts up, starts a hell of a ruckus with you and you try to side step and slide around all the obstacles he throws in your path because only one other player in the $4-$8 Holdem game is a regular. There’s a few young, new players and you want them to have fun. You don’t want them to get initiated in to how to be an asshole at the poker table in one easy lesson.

After Dino rants at you for longer than God could stand, you just look at him and smile, “Hey, it’s hard to match wits with an unarmed man.”

The kid in the 10 seat busts out laughing. Dino goes a little crazy and wants to know what you said. You just keep dealing. This makes Dino even nosier. He does say something that’s pretty funny though: “If you keep it up, I’m going to have to call someone and have myself thrown out of here.”

That one brought the house down. They all laughed.

At the same time, there’s a sultry beauty in the Four Seat. Of course Dino went after her. She ignored him and parried with a few curt sentences from time to time and finally he made the big mistake of getting really mean.

She had mentioned that her husband played higher limits while conversing with the Three Seat. Dino just couldn’t let it go and stated that he would also play higher limits if he was married to her…followed with, “So I wouldn’t have to be around you.”

The beauty looked like someone slapped her in the face and turned away from him in disgust.

You knew it was too much and he crossed the line so when he started to say something else to her, you interjected with, “Leave her alone. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Dino shut up for a few seconds and then started on you again. You get pushed and tell the dealer coming in that Dino has been totally rude to the Four Seat and she doesn’t want to talk to him.

You then go to the Floor Person and tell them that Dino is borderline for being ballistic and he’s hassling the Four Seat. You’re about five minutes in your next down and Dino’s chips are racked and he’s leaving. Well, you mess with the bull you get the horn, Buddy. Who was the beauty? Todd Brunson’s wife, Doyle’s daughter-in-law.

*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.