I had a great night at work yesterday, and of course I'm mentally preparing myself for another eight hours of Rapid Roulette/Ultimate Holdem again tonight.
Last night, I got a break from my usual tables and was dealing carnival games all night--Deuces Wild, Let It Ride, and Crazy 4 Poker. That particular 'string' of tables is a dealers' favorite, as the games are casual, you don't have the whiners and strokers like on blackjack and dice, and you get to sit on your ass and deal them. So I felt particularly lucky last night. That was, until about 2:00 am when they moved me over to the only open Pai Gow table that we had going.
Normally I really enjoy dealing Pai Gow, but not so much when I saw where they were sending me. You see, as much as I like dealing and working in my particular casino, there are about 20 people I can think of off the top of my head who I just absolutely hate dealing to, and if I could have one work-related wish, it would be that nobody on that list would ever win another bet in my casino. I *love* seeing them go broke.
Well, there's this gal who tops the list for me, and she tops almost every other dealer's list also. She looks like a cross between Star Jones and Rosie O'Donnell, yet she struts around like she's Vanessa Williams or something. She's always broke, she never tips, but she's always trying to buddy up to players and then get them to finance her gambling. Usually, it's some older lonely drunk guy who falls for this, and when she suggests "pooling" their bankrolls to play, they fall for it. Unfortunately, she usually has about a hundred bucks to their thousand, gets them to bankroll her, and then pockets whatever she wins.
And she's been doing this so much that she's been warned if she ever hustles players at the tables again, she's banned permanently. I've busted her a couple of times and backed her off my table, and called her out in front of everyone to quit bumming money off of my players, so of course she gave me the I'll never tip another dealer here ever again because of you! speech, which, of course, she's given to about a dozen of us. So every time she sits down, the dealers are gunning for her. And since she can't hustle people at the tables, her new M.O. is to lurk around the bar and flirt with guys playing video poker, and then get them to come down to the tables and play, bankrolling her of course, with the it-pains-me-to-think-about-it offer of maybe a roll in the hay later...
Ugh. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little...
Anyhow, while I was dealing my games last night, I saw her move in on a drunk redneck fool up in the bar who'd won a bundle playing video poker. She talked him into playing Pai Gow, pooling their bankroll of course, and since he was out of it, she could easily take chips off the table and put them in her pocket without him noticing. Quite the scam going on there, but the dealers and floorpeople are on to her. At least those of us with a clue.
Well, late last night, all of my tables went dead, so they sent me over to Pai Gow. Great.
She's managed to squirrel away $500 worth of chips off the table, while her drunk redneck friend who was more interested in pawing her than playing Pai Gow, went broke.
She *knows* I can't frickin' stand her, and also knows that I love seeing her go broke. So she loves to bet big when I sit down at her table, hoping to catch a monster, and she gives me a smug look every time she wins a hand. About a month ago, I sat down at the table she was playing on and the very first hand I dealt her was four-of-a-kind for a $125 bonus. It made me absolutely sick. The only redeeming factor was the fact that the guy who was bankrolling her that night wasn't quite drunk enough and insisted that she pay him half, so that was nice. I know she hated to do that... And of course she stiffed me--she never tips.
So I sat down, and where she was playing $10 per hand, she immediately dug into her pockets and took out the $500 worth of chips she'd squirreled away. She played two hands at a hundred apiece, with her last two red chips on the bonus.
I dealt myself a flush with a pair of fives on top.
Heh. That knocked her down, and I swept $210 of her money into the rack. She banked the next hand, got a worthless King-high Pai Gow, and I took another hundred off of her.
Third hand, she played two spots for a hundred apiece again, and dug the last $20 out of her wallet to put on the bonus spots.
This time I had a straight with an Ace-King on top, beating her again, for $220. She got pissed and said she'd be back. We watched her go to the cage, trying to get a cash advance or something, no go, so she hit the ATM. All she got out was a twenty.
She came back to the table, did a $20 'money plays', and used her last three silver dollar tokens as her bonus (Now she was no longer eligible for the envy bonus, as she was two dollars short).
She had a weak hand, a pair of fives with a queen-ten up top, and my two pair beat her. She got all pissy about it and stomped off, but the bottom line was that I smoked her for $540 in less than fifteen minutes, and she left flat-ass broke. The icing on the cake was that there was another girl at the table, and on that last hand, I dealt her a straight-flush for a $250 payoff. Had the loser chick had an extra two bucks, she would've gotten the envy bonus for another $20, and probably would've won all her money back, because right after that I proceeded to deal myself a damn-near endless string of pai-gows and weak hands until I got tapped out.
Of course the floorman, who can't stand her either, could barely control his amusement at the fact that she went broke, and there was a not-subtle-at-all high-five, which I'm sure she saw, as I walked away and took my last break.
And just to prove there is a God, and His rewards are just, as soon as I got back to the employee dining room, they'd just set out a huge breakfast buffet. So I fixed myself a plate of biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, and bacon. I also got me a tall glass of ice cold milk and a cup of orange juice.
It was almost like a victory meal, as I related the story to my fellow dealers and basked in their admiration.
Since it was my 'Monday', I had to stay and deal to the bitter end, no half-hour Early Out or twenty-minute push to do tokes for me. I finally clocked out sometime after 4:00 am, drove home, took a shower, drank two quick beers, and collapsed on the bed without ever turning on the TV. The silence did me good, and as a bonus, there were no roommates outside doing construction or mechanical projects. So instead of waking up at 10:00 am, I slept all the way until 1:20 this afternoon, waking up surprisingly refreshed.
I got dressed, found that my new Bad Mother F*cker wallet had arrived, so I transferred all the essentials over (cash, bank cards, that condom I've had since college...) and headed out to do my usual Friday afternoon errands.
Turns out that my wallet was a huge hit with the bank teller, the gal selling stamps at the drugstore, and the checkout girl at Target. When they each asked where I'd gotten it, I lied, and told them I'd won it in a poker tournament.
Heh.
And each time, I got that same look of flirtatious approval.
That's right--40 years old, still acting like I'm in college. I bet I could've talked any one of them playing Pai Gow with me...
Mikey
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