Here it is, Monday morning, Memorial Day, sometime after four am. I am beat. My entire body aches. I am beyond fatigued. If I were a smoker, I'd probably be on my third pack of the day by now, because in my world, it's still kinda Sunday night.
And it's been one of those nights that just grinds you down. The interesting thing is, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
As miserable as it was to work on Saturday night, I'm glad I made it the entire shift. When I returned to the casino last night, I saw that we'd made $255 apiece in the pit. That's a pretty damn good night--I think it's the second best ever since I've been working at this particular casino. So that made me happy. And I saw on the roadmap that they changed my string of tables--oh, I was still sitting on my ass in Chinatown, but instead of four tables and doing hour-and-twenties, it was changed back down to our normal three-table rotation.
So I leisurely wandered my tired carcass over to the Deuces Wild table to begin my shift. It was dead when I got there, but as soon as I sat down, instant crowd.
Yay! Mikey's back! Oh we're so glad you could be here tonight!
Yep, everyone was thrilled that I was back home in Chinatown, and my table was full about thirty seconds after I sat down.
So there I was, just happy to be there, pitching the cards, crackin' jokes, droppin' a few tokes, basically back in my element. Of course Kimmy was working my section, which is always a nice thing, and when she came by my table and nobody ordered a drink, I stopped the game completely and said Ok gang, new rule at Mikey's table. If you're playing with me and Kimmy is the waitress, there is now a TWO DRINK MINIMUM!
She gave me a smile and a look that said Yeah, that's why I keep you hangin' on... and the game continued for a few minutes, while all the players ending up with drinks in front of them.
But then, one of the other gals--a dual-rate floor person in her dealer clothes--came up behind me and said Go see Cheryl immediately.
Damn.
At that moment, I just *knew* I was gonna get sent to dice, because the gal that took me out deals all of the games except dice, and there was no other reason she would take over my games, unless it was for me to deal a game she didn't know how to.
Depression immediately struck me, full force. It was like the life just got sucked out of me. My shoulders sagged, the smile left my face, I knew I was in for a looooong and miserable night of sweating my ass off on a table that I just didn't want to go to.
But Cheryl, the assistant shift boss, was right there in the Chinatown pit, glasses down on the end of her nose, roadmap in hand, looking like she was there to bear the bad news. The first words out of her mouth were--
Go to the poker room immediately! Don't even change your shirt.
SCORE!
So I ran my chubby little tired ass over to the poker room, and asked the manager if I had time to change my shirt, and he said Yeah, if you can be back here in five minutes. So I got all this stuff movin' at full speed back to my locker, changed into a poker shirt, and headed back, all with a minute to spare.
The first thing he did was hand me a six racks of white chips and a set of keys, and told me to open up table number six. I noticed the line-up and saw that we had nine tables going with only two 'break' dealers, so everyone was either doing two hours or two and a half hours straight without a break, and I had to come in and open another table.
To say it was a busy night in the poker room would be a vast understatement. So busy that it got me out of the pit, but at first I was a little uneasy, because the guy who was toking us so hugely for the past two days was there on Blackjack #2, betting $300 a hand for the dealers, and a two thousand a hand for himself. As much as I wanted to go deal poker, I had mixed emotions about giving up a $250 night and a comfy chair after only one hour...
About the time I was tapping in to my third table of the night, the players at one of the no-limit games just started screaming and going ape-shit. In a good way, I mean. Somebody screamed JACKPOT HAND! and a cheer went up in the room. Some fanfare type of music came on over the P.A. system, and all the players were high-fiving each other. Apparently, over at Santa Fe Station, somebody with at least four sixes lost to somebody with a bigger hand (I heard later that it was two straight flushes in the same hand--somebody had the high one, somebody got the low one, while the three middle cards were on the board). Anyhow, the Bad Beat Jackpot was just under $250,000.
When somebody loses a monster hand like that, they get $45,000, the person who beat them gets $30,000, and everybody who is involved in a hand at that exact same time at every Station Casino in Vegas splits up the rest. It turns out that there were over 700 players at the time, so the players share was like $278 apiece. Not bad, but I was thinking it would be closer to $500. So every player at every poker table got $278. That put everybody in a good mood.
Once the jackpot hits, it takes about two hours to get everyone documented and paid, so it was business as usual after that. Eventually, the floormen came around with a bucket and a bunch of chip racks, each stack holding $278. The players all had a special chip that was distributed when the jackpot hit, so as soon as they turned in their chip, they got their $278 worth of casino checks. But while this was going on there's this huge not-very-subtle-at-all bucket in the middle of the table, for the dealers, and everyone threw their 'breakage' in there--basically the three bucks--as a toke. Some put in more, some put in less, a few stiffed us completely, but about an hour later I got my share, and it was $32. Not bad for just being there when the jackpot hit. Of course, I was still pocketing a buck or two--or more--after each pot I pushed, and I was on pace for a good evening after all, so I figured I was competing favorably with what I would've made in the pit, anyways.
But then, I went to one particular no-limit table, and the dam just burst. Sitting in seat one, was probably our biggest high-roller in the casino. When this guy comes to town, nobody in the pit leaves early, because if he's winning, he is hooking us up. The cocktail waitresses just *love* him, and of course so do the poker dealers because, well, they get to keep whatever he gives them.
Just as a for-instance with this guy, one time I was dealing dice to him, and I cracked a joke and he tipped me $200 for it. And for the whole night, he was 'buying' the 4 and the 10 for $500 each. Whenever a four or ten was rolled, the payoff is $975. So I cut out two pink $500 chips and told him to drop me a greenie, and he said No, cut it out, meaning, 'just pay me the $975 in the lower denomination chips'. So I did, and he said, Keep the greens for yourself! So that was a nice $75 tip. But he then said, Whenever it hits, you keep the greens every time, Mikey. So I dealt to this guy all night long, and whenever a four or ten hit, I was dropping $75 in the toke box. That's the kind of player he is. Of course everyone who lives on tips just *loves* this guy.
Anyhow, he was telling me that he made $38,000 on the dice table earlier in the day, and asked me if I got any part of that. I told him no, not if I'm working in the poker room. Then he asked me if I got anything extra for the jackpot hitting that night. Again, I told him just what people in here want to give whenever they got their payoff.
His exact words were F*CK THAT!
~~CHUNK~~
Out came a stack of red chips, a hundred bucks worth (and remember, this is in the middle of a poker hand, so I've got about a million things going on at the time). He said Here--put that in your pocket, it's yours!
SCORE!
I dropped that in my pocket so fast that half the people at the table had no idea what was going on.
Of course, it was a pretty big game, and he was pushing the action, so there were some HUGE pots being pushed around the table. And I was the beneficiary. Of course I was rooting for him to win, because whenever he took down any pot, no matter what the size, he toked me at least $15.
He was also having bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue Label brought in for the table. Normally, at our casino, the only Scotch you can get at the table is the shiatty Red Label. Even a single glass of Black Label requires a comp ticket issued by the pit or a host before a waitress can bring it. But this guy just tells the waitress, Hey, bring a bottle of Blue Label to the table with ten glasses, and they do it, no questions asked. (For those of you that don't know, a single bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue runs about $350 retail nowadays).
When I finally got off the table and went on break, I had over $200 in my pocket, so I figured I wasn't missing anything from the pit. And my hot streak continued when I got back to the dining room and saw Kimmy sitting there all by herself.
Mikey was having a good day.
Of course, with the good comes the bad, and the 4/8 game I tapped into after my break was one that everyone hated--full of whiners, and three good solid stiffs to go along with it. When I tapped the dealer out, he turned and whispered to me Have fun with these losers...
He was right--it was a shiatbag game, and I was very happy when I got tapped off the game a half hour later.
But then, it was back to the monster no-limit game where everyone was drunk on Scotch and throwing chips around like candy from a parade float. Our high-roller was still there, thank god, because I knew with him there I'd make a nice chunk of change. And he was still tossing me at least $15 a pot on every win. I also noticed three empty bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue on the cart next to his chair...
But there was one guy at the table who felt a little threatened by the alpha-male at the table, and wouldn't you know it, he was on seat ten, so I was right between them. They were snipping at each other every hand, and I had to tell 'em both to play nice a couple of times. Eventually, there was going to be a showdown.
Luckily, it came just a few minutes later. I dealt a hand, and the high roller raised the action to $20 to go. Four people called. The guy in seat ten went All-in, and then the high roller stood up and announced for the entire room to hear, I will crack those Aces, BITCH! I'm all-in!
It was all I could do to keep from laughing my ass off.
Everyone else folded, and there was a nice pile of chips in the middle of the table. They turned their cards up, and seat 10 had pocket Aces, while the high roller in seat one had an eight-ten of hearts. I ran out the flop, the turn, and the river, and I'll be damned if I didn't put three hearts on the board to make his flush.
Yep, the Aces got cracked, and the chirping started again.
I pushed the huge pile of chips over to the winner in seat one, and I couldn't believe what came out of his mouth next. He pushed all the chips back towards me and said, You keep it Mikey, I think I'm gonna go get some sleep.
HOLY F*CKING SH*T!!!!
There were so many chips that they wouldn't come close to fitting in my shirt pocket--I had to rat-hole a handful or two in my pants. Of course, the other guy was still chirping and the floor guy had to come over, so everyone was watching this drama unfold and nobody noticed me pocketing a monster pot.
The game slowed down a bit after that--the high roller was gone, and his whipping boy had left broke. I was only there for about ten more minutes, and I couldn't wait to go cash out. But I had at least one more down to do before the night was over (and they asked told me that I might need to stay and work overtime, too!).
Finally, a few minutes after three am, I got taken off the game, and they said I could go home.
The finally tally for the night? Almost $600. I left fifty bucks behind for the floor guys with instructions to rescue me from the pit tonight and then I came as close to skipping out of there as my tired ass would allow. I was starving, so I made a quick stop at Jack in the Box for breakfast sandie, then came on home. Of course I'm feeling like I was run over by a truck, but I'm just a little too keyed up for sleep right now, as you can imagine.
Oh, the last thing I did before I left was check the roadmap for tonight. They've got me scheduled on three carnival games that are usually the first to be closed and that everyone deals. It looks like they're planning on losing me to the poker room already.
Mikey
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