So there I was at work last night, bitching that I was tired and that I wanted to go home since it was my eighth straight day in the casino... Of course my boss was quite unsympathetic--
Well, it's your own fault!
Now that you've made your money for the week, I know you just want to go out and spend it...
Well, she was right about that second one. I made more take-home pay in three six-hour shifts in the poker room than I usually make in four eight-hour shifts in the pit. But I certainly don't want to go out and spend it--I'm holding onto it like it's blood.
Anyhow, I was quite pissy and tired, being forced to go back to the pit, when I'd rather deal poker, or short of that, have the night off completely. Nope, I got option number three, aka, the shiat sandwich--working in the pit all night.
So, all of my fellow dealers where like Dude--are you with us or with them? What's the deal? How come you're dealing blackjack tonight?
Because The MAN is keepin' me down!
Yep, I was told that 1) No, I couldn't have the night off, no matter how many days in a row I've already worked, and 2) We're too busy in the pit to let you go to the poker room (who by the way told me they wanted me again last night).
So when I saw them not opening a couple of Pai Gow tables, and found myself standing on a dead game at 9:00 pm, I was rather unhappy. Too busy, my ass. It was dead in the casino last night. Well, relatively dead--just not nearly as busy as I thought it should be. And I'd put myself on the Early Out list, with the notation ASAP next to my name. Seriously--I was beat. I was so tired--and I was on a shiatty string of games too--that $5 flea gow game, the $10 double-deck SuperFun game, and a shoe. The problem was that the five dollar flea gow game is a grind, and on the blackjack games, I only had one player at a time, which just *kills* you because you can't move--you're stuck in one spot the entire hour, hunched over, dealing at full speed. It really takes it out of you. And then once I wiped out my players, I stood there doing nothing, which was ok, but then again, that makes you more fatigued to just stand there not moving at all. So last night at work was especially tough.
Finally, around 10:30, while standing on a dead game and seeing SIX other dead games in the pit, one of the floor people came by and asked me how long I'd been in, and I said that I was due for break at the next push, ten minutes hence. She said that once I get tapped out, I could go home.
Woot!
As soon as I'd signed out and changed and stuff, I gimped my tired ass over to the poker room to play a little bit of $4/8 Hold-em. I figured my gal Kathy (from the Palms) would be there because she usually always plays on Thursday nights, but she was nowhere to be found. Regardless, that Bad Beat jackpot is worth $45,000 to the winner, and it's gonna hit soon, so I figured I might as well take a shot at it.
Anyhow, as soon as I walked up to the desk, they asked me where my dealers shirt was--We've got a table with your name on it!
For a second, I was like.... Are you serious? But they just laughed and said they needed me earlier but the crisis had passed. Of course we were so busy in the pit that I managed to get out four hours early. Hmmm...
The second thing they asked me was if I'd gotten my transfer paperwork completed yet. But I told them I had to do it on Friday, once Greg the poker room manager came in. So that's on my list of errands to run this afternoon. But once the work-chatter was done, I bought a rack of white and sat down at a $4/8 game.
Now, this 4/8 game is unlike any I've played before, except maybe at Mandalay Bay several years ago. The blinds are $1 and $2, and it's $2 to call, but you gotta make it $6 if you want to raise (increments of $4). After the flop, it's $4 to bet and raise, and after the turn and river, it's $8. But then, the game has a half-kill, so once a player wins two pots in a row, they have to post $3, and then it's $3 to see a flop, and the betting levels are $6 and $12. It's a pretty fun game, and not nearly as many suckouts as there are on a regular 3/6 game with no Kill.
Oh, and it's fairly easy to deal, too.
Anyhow, I realized very soon that besides myself, there were two other 'good' players at the table, both of them, unfortunately, immediately to my left, so I was always playing my raises out of position, but everyone else was just plain awful poker players. Mostly very easy-to-read calling stations.
So I liked my chances. And I played one hand just perfectly--too long of a story to type it all up here, but the gal I beat wouldn't quit complimenting me on how badly I outplayed her on the hand and how she just *knew* she had me beaten (but actually, I had her all the way). She just sat there shaking her head for about two or three minutes and kept saying, Man, you really got me on that one...
Why didn't you bet or raise on the turn?
-If I would've bet out would you have raised?
No.
-And if I check-raised you on the turn what would you have done?
Folded.
-Then I got two extra bets out of you after that. But check-calling on the turn and check-raising on the river earned me another $16 out of your stack. You were in love with your hand and committed to the pot by then.
Damn. You're right.
-Yeah, I read it in a book somewhere... Heh.
But she was friendly about it and didn't go on tilt or anything, and since she was sitting right next to me, we had a pleasant and enjoyable poker conversation for almost an hour while taking turns raking pots.
I was doing *really* well, only making one bad lay-down, and I won every showdown except for one, when a guy made trips on the river. But then the game broke up after about an hour and a half and I decided to call it a night. I had managed to turn my hundred-dollar buy-in into just under two hundred, so I'd call it a successful night. (Besides, I had to make up for the four hours in tokes I lost by taking early out, somehow. I figured the poker room offered me the best chance).
As I was leaving, I sent a text message to my gal Michelle, asking if she was still at the bar (she got off at 11, but usually hangs out for awhile afterwards). But no, she wasn't there, she'd already gone home for the night.
Damn.
Oh well. I figured I should use some of my poker winnings on responsible stuff like a tank of gas and some groceries, so instead of going out drinking and chasing the mini-skirt, I stopped at the Sinclair station and WalMart.
When I got home, I found Rob sitting in the magic sleepy-time chair in the living room watching a Roger Waters concert DVD, so I stayed up to watch. And then we knocked out the remaining six or seven episodes of Jeopardy off of the DVR list. Oh, and this current champion? She's gonna give Ken Jennings a run for his money--she knows every question about Shakespeare, Opera, Poetry, Labor Unions, and all that other shiat nobody cares about. (And Rob and I decided that we're going to bother the executive producers of Jeopardy until they give us an entire week without any Shakespeare questions. Jesus H. Christ at the Renaissance Faire--enough f*cking Shakespeare already!)
So that's what I've been doing all night. Sleep is on the agenda for today, then later this afternoon its off to do the paperwork required to get my ass into the poker room permanently. And I'm hoping that tonight I get to relax for eight hours, dealing Pai Gow back in Chinatown where I belong. Enough of this blackjack shiat.
That's all for now.
Mikey
No comments:
Post a Comment