Hey Gang... I know that today is the end of a nice long holiday weekend for most of you, so I hope you make the most of it before heading back to your respective cube-farms tomorrow. I had to work all weekend, so except for the huge feast on Thursday, for me it was pretty much the same as every other weekend, except for the fact that I'm now fighting a minor head cold. There are just too many damn germs in this town.
After work on Friday night, I went out for drinks with my friend Anna, like we normally do every Saturday morning at 4am. A few other dealers joined us, but after a round or two, somebody came up with the brilliant idea that we should go play Pai Gow over at the Fiesta. I was ok with that suggestion, except for that whole 'going to the Fiesta' part of it. So, I suggested Green Valley Ranch instead--not only is it a helluva lot nicer casino, it was also about a mile or two closer to our barstools.
So the party left the bar and a few minutes later reconvened at the ATM machine at the top of the escalator at GVR. Everyone took out a hundy and we found an empty $10 Pai Gow table after that.
We were having lots of fun, but it took me for-frickin-EVER to finally catch a winning hand. After awhile, another one of the gang from the bar, Candace, joined us but said she put her name on the waiting list in the poker room for a seat at the 4-8 game they had going. That sounded like a good idea, but I refused to hit the ATM again, and didn't want to go sit at a 4-8 Holdem table without at least a hundy worth of bullets. So the girls took off--Marcie went home, Anna and Candace headed to the poker room, while I stayed put at the Pai Gow table trying to scratch my way back from 'broke' to 'broke even'.
But the dealer was hot, and my buy-in completely migrated into the rack, so I headed over to the poker room to see the girls. I found them sitting at the softest 4-8 game in the history of casino poker, and I took a seat just behind them, announcing to the rest of the crowd that my two best earners were about to shake them all down.
Talk about prophetic--from that moment on, Anna won the next eight hands in a row. And it was a half-kill game after the second win, so the pots were huge! At least four people saw every flop, and nobody would fold until the river. It was amazing--she had a run of cards that was unbelievable, although the last couple of hands were won without having to show her hand. I wasn't there fifteen minutes before I was wandering the room looking for four empty chip racks. She had a handful of red chips that had made their way to her stack, so she handed me $35 worth and told me to go back to the Pai Gow table and win our money back, and that she'd come join me again in a few minutes.
So I went back to the pit, and I left her sitting there at the poker table stacking almost $400 worth of other people's money, with a promise that she'd leave as soon as she lost a showdown.
When I got back to the Pai Gow table, it was empty, so I just played heads up against the dealer. Anna showed up about a half hour later, saying that she lost a hundred back to the table because she 'felt bad for taking their money and leaving right away'. Ugh... Gotta work on that whole 'killer instinct' thing, there, Anna...
Anyhow, she joined me and we played a bit longer. I was doing ok, and had turned that $35 into just over a hundred. In fact, I had $120 sitting in front of me, and said, "Ok, I'm going to win one more hand and leave--don't wanna get greedy".
Uttering that sentence triggered a streak of seven Pai Gows in a row for Mikey, leaving me with nothing but a handful of silver and a story with a crummy ending. By that time, it was after 10am, and I was exhausted. Not only had I been up all for over 22 hours straight, but I was fighting a head cold and had to go back to work on Saturday night and really needed to get some rest. I got home and went straight to bed, but couldn't fall asleep. I turned on the Georgia game and finally fell asleep around 11:30, waking up again at 2:30.
As much as I wanted and needed sleep, it wasn't happening, so I quit fighting it and got out of bed. Luckily there were plenty of good games to watch on Saturday afternoon, so I just watched TV until it was time to head back to work.
My cold had gotten worse, but calling in sick was out of the question. First of all, I need the money, and second of all, our tokes have gone up quite a bit this past week--every day has been over $150, and I didn't want to miss out now that we're finally making decent money again. So I drugged up and dragged my ass back down to the casino.
We were busy as hell again last night, which was nice, and I had some fun players at my tables all evening. I was really tempted to sign the Early Out list--I was sick, exhausted, and ready to go home as soon as I clocked in, but I toughed it out and lasted the full eight hours. I'm glad I did, because I think we made good money again, and I also had a long-time lurker, occasional comments-section poster show up at my table around 2 am to say hello and play a few hands.
When I finally staggered back to the parking garage after my shift, it was all I could do to keep my eyes open for the drive home. I took some more medicine, kicked off my shoes, and passed out with ESPN playing in the background.
I've got nothing planned for the rest of the afternoon except to catch up on all the emails from the past week and to watch a little football. If I could taste anything, I'd probably eat some leftovers, too, but right now nothing sounds good except for maybe an extra-spicy Bloody Mary.
And a nap.
Mikey
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