Good Morning to all my readers who haven't made it to Vegas yet for the long weekend... (Yeah, it seems like lots of people are gonna be in town for the Not-SoberFest activities). This year won't be nearly as much fun for me, if only because last year was when Sticky and I became a "we" and had a blast together for three days straight. And even though we're not a couple anymore, it sure would be fun to have her around for a weekend of Vegas buffoonery with the gang. Also, I only have one night free from work--Friday night--to hang out with everyone and get silly. But you can rest assured that I'm going to make the most of my limited time.
The big plan on Friday night is to head over to Angy's Tower Suite at the Mirage for a happy hour party. Then, after a couple hours of drinkin' and such, we'll shuffle off to the Carnaval Court at Harrah's and dance, drink, and act stupid until they toss us out of there. After that, it may be a late-night/early-morning breakfast at the Peppermill before I make my way home to sleep it off all day before going back to work on Saturday night.
Angy wants to provide food for the party, and decided that room service was just too damn expensive for a group of thirty people, so she's getting pizzas delivered instead. Since I'm the 'man on the scene', I'm the point-man for that little project. Of course we're going with NY Pizza & Pasta. But I had to go down and do a little politickin' with the owners of the place because they don't deliver to the Strip.
So, yesterday morning, I got up and went to school, and was introduced to the mind-boggling concept of Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low. Good lord, what a pain in the ass to deal! Just try doing all the other stuff that goes with dealing, and then add keeping track of the entire pot all the way to showdown into the mix. That's a tough gig, and I'll admit that currently, I'm not up to the task of dealing any pot-limit game. I ended up dealing 2-5 No Limit Holdem during my stay in the box, and it went pretty well. The instructors there tell me I'm better than a lot of dealers who already have jobs, so getting one shouldn't be too tough. The only problem is that there are NO poker jobs available in the city right now.
Well, let me re-phrase that--I know of two. One is at the Flea-esta Henderson, but it's on-call only. I cannot take that job because it's working for the same company that owns the casino where I currently work. I'd like to keep my current job, at least until next May, and I can't get two paychecks from the same company. So that one is out.
There is also an opening at the Excalibur, which would be pretty cool. However, they're asking for one year poker dealing experience, which I don't 'officially' have. Of course, I've dealt a few private parties and tournaments over the course of the past two years, but it's not what you'd call verifiable experience. So I doubt I'd make the first cut.
I'm told by people in 'the biz' that everyone will start ramping up and hiring dealers like crazy in January, but I really don't want to wait that long. I'm cash-poor now! So I'll keep looking.
Anyhow, once I got out of class, I had to go run my Angy-errand and take care of getting pizzas delivered to the Mirage on Friday night. So I drove out to my new second-favorite pizza joint, NY Pizza & Pasta, to embark on a two-fold mission--get some lunch, and talk them into providing the grub for our party.
So I sat down and ordered a couple of slices of pepperoni & sausage, along with a root beer. Once the food came, I mentioned to my waitress that I was the guy who called last week looking for a big delivery order. She summoned the owner, a nice lady who's name has since slipped my mind (great politician, that Mikey), who came over and sat down with me.
We had a little impromptu conference-call with Angy, and decided that we'd play it safe and order eight large pies, and as long as we took care of the driver and met him downstairs at the front door, they'd deliver eight pizzas and enough plates and napkins for our group at a time of our choosing on Friday night. We chose 6:45 pm.
So, the deal was made, and I set out choosing which pies to order, basically getting a few plain cheese pizzas, and the rest a variety of two-topping combos. Once all the business was taken care of, we shook hands and I finished my lunch. As I went to pay, I got word that lunch was on them, as I was now their new favorite customer.
Oh hell yeah!
A comped lunch in Vegas--and I didn't have to lose my ass at the tables to get it, either! So instead of paying my tab, I left a nice tip for my server and headed back towards home, talking to Angy most of the way back, letting her know the details of the deal we made.
I puttered around the house for a bit once I got home, and then took a nice 2-hour nap before heading into work. When I got there, something was amiss. Chinatown was gone... I know I was scheduled to deal Pai Gow, but there were no Pai Gow tables to be found. It turns out that the casino was replacing all of the carpet in the pit, so half of the tables were either taken out or moved. I eventually found my tables on the other side of the bar, over where the old rapid roulette setup used to be.
I did my first hour, went on break, grabbed some chicken and rice for dinner, then headed back. Once I got back to my next table, the eight-o'clock crew came on, and after just twenty minutes, I was getting tapped out again to go on break.
I was like WTF?--This kinda stuff only happens at *late* at night when we have too many dealers and not enough open games. So I went to the boss to find out what the deal was, and he told me to go on break, but I told him I'd only been back for 20 minutes.
He then told me that because of the carpet mess, he had twice as many dealers as he had tables, so we were gonna be doing short pushes all night long.
Great. Not only did I trade my more lucrative Friday night for a much-slower Wednesday, but we were going to make even less money than usual as everyone was spending just as much time on break as they were dealing. So I said I'd take one for the team and I left after just two hours. Good lord, what a clusterf*ck. Seriously, the pit was all torn up and under construction, so none of the players were staying around long at all. I haven't seen the tokes yet for Wednesday night, but they're gonna be bad. Rob worked earlier in the day and said his shift didn't drop much money at all, either.
So I guess it's a good thing that I didn't have to pay for lunch. It looks to be another lean month.
Mikey
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