The Thousand-Dollar Deuce

I didn't write much about my week at work, because truly, not much happened. It's still pretty slow, and we're all just biding our time until Labor Day Weekend/Football season starts.

On Saturday night, I was exiled to No Man's Land, the far end of the Pai Gow pit where nobody ever goes. Basically, you're on two games, dealing for 40 minutes, followed by a 20 minute break every hour. It's a cakewalk, but it makes for a long night. And the two games aren't the first choice of any dealer--Bonus Holdem (total sucker game--I avoid it like the plague) and the $20 Pai Gow game which is always the last to open and the first to close. After midnight, those games are shut down and you're just stuck on random tables for the rest of your shift. It kinda sucks.

Anyhow, there I was, sitting alone at the Bonus Holdem table, watching the Nascar race from Bristol on the big screen TVs way over in the sportsbook. I opened the table, and no players had yet sat down. And who did I see bouncing her way towards me from the food court? None other than my hottie friend Lisa Lisa The One I Adore, you know, my gal who works as a cocktail waitress down on the strip (the one from the puking story, for my regular readers). She's literally the hottest chick I know in this town, so my evening was instantly looking up.

She said she took the night off and was out goofing off, fighting with her boyfriend, and wanted to come down and see me, so she took a seat at my table. I tried to warn her off, saying not to play the game, but that she could just sit there and visit. But she didn't want to bring any unwanted attention to me, so she bought in for a hundy and played a few hands. We had a few laughs and did some catching up, but the cards weren't kind. Luckily I was leaving soon, so she was only down about ten bucks by the time I got tapped out.

I told her to move over one table and that I'd be back in twenty minutes. But she didn't want to play Pai Gow at twenty bucks a hand, so she wandered over to the ten-dollar game.

I got back from my break, and since the $20 table still had no players, I asked the floorperson to call the shift boss and see if we couldn't get the limit temporarily lowered to ten bucks. She did, the boss said yes, and a few minutes later, I was kicking Lisa's ass at ten bucks a pop. We were still laughing it up and having a good time, and of course she asked me to take off early and go drinking with her.

Damn.

I need the money, so I couldn't leave work early on a weekend. The best I could do was hope for the 2:20 am push. She said she was cool with that and told me to call her once I got out of work.

One problemo. I never had her phone number. So of course when I went on break, I made a big show of walking over and obviously scoring her digits, putting them into my cell phone while my buddies watched, shaking their heads in disbelief. Heh. As a bonus, she kissed me goodbye. Double heh.

As I wandered back to the dining room, I got a lot of "Dude--who was that???" type of questions, which is always good for the old ego.

Anyhow, several hours later, my shift ended, I got the 2:20 am push, and headed for the door. As soon as I pulled out, I called Lisa, said I'd be at the bar in two minutes, and she said she'd be there about two minutes after me.

Nice.

I walked in, but had to pee, so I went straight to the mens' room. When I got out, I saw that Cory the bartender had set me up with a tall glass of Captain and Coke and set it right next to a pretty cute blonde girl who at that moment had just hit a royal flush while playing video poker. Cory is a good bartender and earned a big tip for setting my drink up at a primo location. I had a couple of minutes of interesting conversation with my new friend, but Lisa then showed up and we got busy drinking, laughing, and carrying on like we do.

At some point, we went outside, but it was too hot out, and we went back to the bar. The cook, Johnnie--the one who makes the steak nachos for us every weekend--came out with some homemade salsa for us to try.

No problemo--I love me some chips and salsa. But holy shiat--he'd made this stuff out of habaneros and jalapenos. It tasted really good, but about five seconds after putting it in your mouth, it just burned like slurping hot lava. We passed it around the bar, and could find only one brave soul who said he really liked the stuff, so we gave it to him.

Anyhow, after the $200 ass-whoopin' I'd put on Lisa at the casino, she decided to make her money back by playing video poker. I told her about the gal at the end of the bar who'd hit a royal an hour earlier, saying that there wouldn't be another royal in that place for a week. But we were grinding it out--she put in $40 and we played some Double Double Bonus Poker (I freely admit that I have no earthly idea what the differences are between the different games, except deuces wild). Anyhow, we were playing the same machine, she was hitting the buttons on the right, me on the left.

She managed to catch a couple of four-of-a-kinds and was up almost $200 when we were dealt a King, Queen, Ace, and Deuce of diamonds, along with some rag. I hit the 'hold' buttons on the Ace-King-Queen, and she tried to hold the deuce!

I freaked out a little, telling her that she *had* to go for the royal. But she wanted to go for the more likely flush, since she had four cards to it already. But I said That flush will only get you two-fifty. A royal will get you a thousand!

She reluctantly agreed, because she was just shy of breaking even for the night, and threw away the deuce.

We hit the deal button, and pandemonium broke out when the ten-jack of diamonds flopped.

Royal Flush, baby!

Four thousand credits.

Boo-yeah! High fives all around, screaming, jumping up and down, a round of shots were ordered--the celebration got loud for a few minutes. We played a couple more hands, she got the balance to $1198, and then cashed out.

She tipped the bartender a hundy, and then also threw a Benjamin my way for talking her into throwing away that deuce. Nice!

After about a half hour more, she put another twenty in the machine and we played it for awhile. But she had to go to the bathroom and told me to play it for her while she was gone. As soon as she walked away, the first hand I was dealt was Ace-King-Queen-Jack of diamonds, with nine of spades.

Holy shiat--one card away from *another* royal!

I had the bartender get me a towel, and I just covered the screen, opting not to deal the hand until she got back to see it.

A few minutes later, she came back and was like "What's up with the towel?"

I 'slow-rolled' it, revealing one card at a time from left to right. Of course by the time she saw the third card, she was in full-on freak-out mode, thinking I'd hit another royal. But I told her I was waiting for her to get back to hit the button.

She ditched the nine, and instead of getting the ten of diamonds to make the royal, we got the deuce. That same one we threw away earlier, earning us a plain old flush instead of the monster.

Oh well.

Two royals in one hour would've been too much to hope for. But damn, it sure would've been nice.

As it was we stuck around till the sun was almost up, and said our goodbyes. It was a helluva Saturday night.

And since I had me a brand-new crispy hundred in my wallet, I decided to stop at the grocery store and stock up without having to use the debit card. I got a few things I needed, and also a few 'luxury' items since I was shopping with house money.

My purchases came to $57.98, earning me two pennies, two twenties, and believe it or not, a two-dollar bill in change.

No diamonds, though.

Mikey