Hey Gang!
I'm just now crawling out of bed--it's 12:27 in the afternoon--but I suffered through an extremely long evening behind the tables last night.
First of all, since I was sick last weekend, it was my first day back at work in four days. Everyone knows how hard it is to go back to work after a four day weekend, even if you didn't do a damn thing the entire time. Well, that was me last night.
Once I got back, I saw that they'd made a few changes to my new home, 'Chinatown'. First of all, they got rid of that Emperors Challenge pai gow--I'm guessing people liked to be able to tie a hand on occasion, plus the locals love to play the envy bonus. I know that almost every time I've dealt that game, nobody played the challenge, so it seemed like kind of a waste. I guess the numbers backed it up, so they took it out. And, they also removed one of the $5 shoe blackjack games and put in another pai gow table. So my three assigned tables last night were two pai gow games and Crazy 4 Poker.
Unfortunately, a couple of the pai gow tables way out on the far end of the pit were $20 games, so having three other $10 games going on a weeknight kept those tables bereft of players. Yep, my second hour I just stood at a dead table the entire time. Boring. And it makes the night just crawl by. You can't help but look at the clock every minute or so--believe me, it sucks. Try standing in one spot for an entire hour with nothing to read and nobody to talk to. The highlight of my hour was when security came by with a chip fill.
Luckily after that ordeal I got to spend some time at the Crazy 4 Poker table, but I was just mowing 'em down. A gal walked up, bought in for $100, and in the first four hands I dealt myself a three-of-a-kind, an ace-high flush, three aces, and a king-high straight. Wiped her out in less than five minutes. But then it got weird--a couple of real life pudding eatin' gay cowboys sat down to play, and I was subjected to their Hey-look-at-us-we're-proud-to-be-ass-pirates public displays of affection. Unfortunately for them, they were playing with no strategy except to throw away their money, so I didn't have to endure the show for long. Pretty soon, there I was, standing on a dead table again, although a little creeped out by that time.
By midnight, it was dead at my end of the pit, and I think I might've dropped maybe $35 in tokes the entire time. Unfortunately, I had to tough it out--I couldn't take an early out since I'd called in sick on Monday, and this entire paycheck goes towards March Madness buffoonery. So I had to stand there and suffer, while I saw other dealers hitting the door starting after just four hours.
But it got better after that. They started closing dead tables after midnight, so they sent me up to the bar to deal a shoe game for an hour. That was a vast improvement--I had a fun group and was dropping tons of tokes, and I filled the box right up to the lid with red checques. After that I spent the balance of the evening in the main pit dealing blackjack.
I ended up up dealing a $10 shoe game, and the only player was an older Hawaiian gentleman. I put together a great run for him and got him up over $500, and he was toking me $5 a hand, so almost every hand would end with me dropping another ten bucks in the toke box. That is, until this complete jerkoff sat down at the table and completely ruined the vibe. Not only was it the end of the tokes, but I completely wiped out the good player, forcing him to dig out another couple hundred bucks where just a few minutes before he was awash in red and green checques. By the time I left the table, I'd broken the guy, but managed to put another $250 or so into the dealer's paycheck fund.
Luckily I made it until 4:00 am, although I was a tuckered out little trooper by that time. And the oddball thing is, as sick as I was last weekend, by Tuesday morning I felt fine, thinking I'd kicked the funk that'd been dragging me down. As soon as I got to work last night, I started hacking up a lung again. There must be something in the air there that just doesn't agree with me. But I've got the hookup arranged on the Amoxicillian, I'm getting them on Monday, so hopefully that will finally cure what ails me.
Before I left, I ran into one of the Asian gals who was collecting all of the tokes at the end of the shift. She said we completely filled up two of our treasure boxes--a big night. And with all of the dealers that went home early, those of us who made it the entire eight hours should get a decent share for our efforts.
As badly as I wanted to go home, my Asian friend--Nana--insisted that I go out with her after work. She wanted a beer and didn't want to go alone. So I went to the bar with her, but after two Newcastles and a bottle of water, I was dead. Over her objections, I headed for home at 5am and collapsed into bed. Being payday, I've got to go out and run a few errands and pay a few bills this afternoon before heading back to the casino and doing it all over again.
But it's Friday night in Vegas--should be a good time.
Mikey
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