Hop in – time to take a cruise through poker land. All of the ballyhoo and shake, rattle, and roll of the last four weeks is gone. There’s even room to cruise between the tables without shoving bodies out of the way and you can hear conversation as it’s meant to be heard – without screaming. Continue reading Taking a cruise through poker land
Tag Archives: dealing high limit
Andy Beal vs. The Corporation and ‘2nd tier’ players
On the Andy side of play. He was playing Minh tonight when I came in to work. I stopped for a moment, sat down beside him in a spare chair, asked how he was doing and his reply went like this. He said he had won both Saturday and Sunday and that he was up right now. They started at $1,000-$2,000 and then moved up to $6,000-$12,000 and now were playing $10,000-$20,000. He also said that he felt he was playing a ‘2nd tier’ player and maybe that’s why he was doing so well. I left him for work and the game ran about another hour and a half. I didn’t deal it. Continue reading Andy Beal vs. The Corporation and ‘2nd tier’ players
‘yeah, she play everywhere, the Orleans, here…’
When I arrived, Andy was playing Howard L. I walked up and said hello to Andy, asked how he was doing and asked if he rested well. He stood for a moment and visited with me. Small talk. The dealer was shuffling the hand and I had just a millisecond to check out Andy, his attitude, his chips and Howard’s chips. Continue reading ‘yeah, she play everywhere, the Orleans, here…’
Andy Beal is back!
He’s back. I knew he would be. He can’t walk away from it now. He has to find out why it torments his thoughts, why he hasn’t beaten the game, why it’s an intangible puzzle that keeps spinning through his mind… Continue reading Andy Beal is back!
“Well, he can afford it!”
Andy played Todd and Howard. He lost. From what I heard, he’s going home. He may play again today but I believe he’s done for now. Continue reading “Well, he can afford it!”
Andy, Doyle, Todd, and Craig
My first game of the night was table 7. Andy and Doyle. Todd, Doyle’s son, was sitting behind him. Andy’s had a sweater sitting with him every night. When I walked up to the table, his sweater said, “Yes, he does remember you. I read your site and really enjoy it.” Continue reading Andy, Doyle, Todd, and Craig
Andy Beal’s tracking with poker chips
On the Andy scene, he was playing Ted F. Andy takes the 4s and has the 1-2-3 seats locked up with racks of blue chips – $1. They form a barricade across the end of the table and I couldn’t stifle my curiosity so I asked Carmen about it when we had a few minutes together. She said she thought it was some way of keeping track of hands raised or hands that went to the flop or some sort of record keeping but she wasn’t really sure. The word was that by the end of this session, he was down about 2.5…Ugh!
Bring on the medication
Last night I skated past all the high limit, tonight I think I hit everyone until the last part of my night. Everything was screaming mayhem. Microphones howled with pages for players to their open seat and table transfers and pages for phone calls, people talking and milling about, dealers, chip runners, supervisors, cocktails, porters, announcements of satellites being held for Omaha 8 or Better Tomorrow. Continue reading Bring on the medication
Boony-Schmoony dubbed B.S. for short
Boony Schmooney! B.S. fits pretty well. He shows up infrequently at Bellagio, damn good thing or he’d need a medic to remove the chair from his head the dealer keeps mentally putting there.
B.S. plays Omaha 8 or Better, $60-$120 with a 1/3 Kill and he’s not happy. He never seems to be jubilant and elated so it may be just his personality but this trip has him down to the last little teensy bit of happiness that he might have brought with him…he’s running on empty.
The dealer faded his glares and pained looks when B.S. called a bet, knowing that he was beat. A hand at the end of the down, B.S. made a bad call on the Turn. He threw the $100 bill out and tossed a $20 chip straight up in the air, way too close to the Dealer. The Dealer never even looked up and deftly caught the chip at chest level about an inch from the white shirt.
A sweater at the table said, “Nice catch!”.
The dealer held the chip without moving for a few seconds, then replied, “Beats the hell out of taking it in the face.”
B.S. just didn’t get it. He then made another bad call on the River, throwing out another $100 bill and another $20 chip but this chip went straight up in the air and then landed in the pot.
The dealer ignored his looks of pain and agony as the pot was awarded to the opponent.
The following night, the same dealer, came in early and the Supervisor, Kamell, asked the dealer to take Jon out of table 7. Jon was on OT and the dealer went to the game, asked Jon if he wanted to finish the down or be pushed. Jon opted to go.
The game was $60-$120 Omaha 8 or Better with a 1/3 Kill. You guessed it! B.S. was there also. The dealer dealt the first few hands and B.S. played every hand. B.S. made some noise about ‘a dealer was here and then this dealer had to let him out…’
B.S. continued to play and complain. A new dealer arrived and asked if she should push or go to the next game. B.S. went into a ‘yes, you’d better get this dealer out of here’ as he glared at the present dealer.
The dealer watched B.S. and continued to do so while pushing the pot and pulling in the deck, preparing to leave the game.
B.S. had the look of a wild eyed, barn yard cat, as he blurted out, “Don’t ever come into a game when you’re not supposed to!”
This is too funny for words. Does he really think dealers just walk around the room and pick the game they want to deal. If they did, none of them would ever deal this game or any of the really high limit, those boys would have to deal their own.
While leaving the box, the dealer replied, “I was supposed to be here.”
B.S., “No you weren’t.”
Dealer, “You’d better take it up with Kamell.”
Another case of the dealer doing nothing wrong, only their job, and a sore loser having his little fittie poo because he can’t believe it might be the run of the cards or his own bad play. Man these guys get to be like stink on the bottom of your shoe, you can wash off the doggie poo but the stink just stays there.
BTW, the dealer reported this to Kamell and Kamell spoke to B.S. just to set the record straight.
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The tournament is taking its toll. While attendance has been better than expected and everyone seems to love it, it’s very hard on most of the players. They start out happy, filled with expectation, and very few of them win anything. The picture isn’t pretty and nothing more needs to be said about that part of it…you’re smart enough to draw you’re own conclusions.
It’s hard on the poker room personnel also. Lots of people work overtime and fade a lot of noise and heat for less money than is normally made when the room is quiet.
There’s a lot to be said for the Regulars or Locals as they are referred to. They know the value of a good dealer and floor person and they treat us with respect and gratuities for the service we provide. Lots of the tournament players don’t even act like we can think or breathe air unless they tell us how to do it and they certainly aren’t giving up anything they don’t have to give up which mainly means we work a lot harder for less money and get treated like a door mat.
What a nice treat to enter a game and have five or six of the players in the game look up and smile followed by, “Hello!” Hooray for the Locals. We Wuv U!
*****
This post is done by Chanzes – during the time period that I took a break from posting in the Diary.
World’s champion head-butter
Whether this was the expected registration or not for Bellagio’s Five-Diamond First Event Finalists, the room was very busy and games everywhere. Satellites were running for tomorrow’s tournament. Nice little buzz and lots of noise and chips going on.