Friday, May 30, 2008

The Return of the Mundane

I'm glad to see that everyone liked the poker story--for being such a grind, it was a pretty interesting day. And 33 comments (so far) is a new record. The old one, I think, was 29, when I wrote about the difficulties I was having with Kimmy a few weeks back and everyone was feeling sorry for me. But the way I see it, I can never have too many commentors. It means that what I'm writing is interesting to people other than just me.

But my weekend is over, and it's back to the same old same old. I wasn't sure where I'd be working when I got back to work last night--if I would be in the pit, or if I'd be in the poker room. Luckily I was in the pit, because I only have one poker dealing shirt, and I left it sitting on my bed when I took off for the casino. I was back on my favorite string of tables, two pai gows and the deuces wild game, and I started on table that hadn't even been opened yet, so it was a nice way to ease back in from my weekend.

Of course, once the table was opened and ready to go, I got the first overstuffed old lady waddling up telling me that it was such a darn shame that I had to sit there by myself and do nothing.

Yeah, it just really sucks sometimes...

My second table was *much* better--it was Deuces Wild, and a couple of my favorite players were there, my girl Kathy (from the Palms) being one of them. I told her of my adventurous weekend, and that I expected to see her down at Binion's but she said she didn't know about it or else she would've been at the tournament (I don't have her number, or else I would've called and told her). And the last time I saw her, I completely forgot about it. So she was a little bummed that she missed it, but was happy for me for doing so well.

Since we both have Wednesdays off, and have talked about going and playing poker together, she asked me if I'd want to go play in a tournament with her next Wednesday at Green Valley Ranch. Apparently, they have a pretty juicy HORSE tournament with just a $40 buy-in and all kinds of crazy action. So our plan is to meet up a couple of hours beforehand and play a little 4/8, and then play in the tournament together. And we've also talked about a 'last longer' side bet, but we haven't quite settled on the stakes just yet.

So that hour of dealing just cruised by--before I knew it, I was on break again.

My Pai Gow tables were fun--none of the usual fleas were in attendance, and I had some fun players. I had one chick laughing so much, that she kept putting me up for a dollar on the bonus, and I eventually dealt her a Royal Flush--$750 for her, $151 for me!

Score!

Around 11:00 pm, the Chinatown pit just went completely dead, so I did a whole lot of sitting and doing nothing. On the plus side, my gal Beth had escaped from the bowling alley and had taken over the cocktail waitressing duties in my section for the gal with the nasally voice and bad attitude who is usually there on Kimmy's day off. So because it was dead slow, she'd come over and visit with me for a few minutes at a time between rounds because neither one of us were doing a damn thing.

One of the gals who works the floor at that end of the pit noticed this a few times and finally came over to say something about it.

Damn Mikey, did you get a new girlfriend? What happened to the brunette?

My only response was to shrug and say Uh, I was tempted by the fruit of another...

I lasted until about 1:30 this morning, but finally gave up once they started closing all of my tables. If I were to stay, my only option was to deal $5 blackjack in the bar, which rates just below dental work with no anesthesia as far as things I want to do this week. So I took the early out when they offered it.

When I was leaving the pit, I saw Kathy sitting at a $25 blackjack game and asked her if she wanted to go play some poker with me as soon as I got changed, but she declined, say she had just come from two hours in there and had gotten crushed at the 4/8 table, yet was making it all back playing blackjack. Interesting...

So a few minutes later, I ambled over to the poker room, and bought in for a hundy at a the $4/$8 table. Unfortunately, I burned through $40 worth of blinds without ever seeing a pocket pair or a card with eyeballs, so I asked for a seat change. I ended up sitting next to gal who also happened to be a dealer at The Palms, and of course was also a friend of Kathy's. We hit it off immediately and yucked it up for a couple of hours. I started winning, but she wasn't doing so well, dumping a lot of chips to a couple of guys who were just sucking out with junk almost every hand. But she made a lot of loose calls and raises, so it wasn't completely unexpected. It might've had something to do with the Patron on the rocks she was sipping on all night, too.

There was also the biggest of our regular asshats sitting at our table on the other side of her, and he was getting all jealous that her and I were getting along so well, when he'd spent an hour hitting on her, coming up empty every time. So every time he'd say something completely stupid, which was pretty much every time he opened his mouth, I whispered something that would make her laugh and he'd get all paranoid that I was talking about him. Which I was, but still...

He'd already busted out of the no limit game earlier and was down to his last $100 in our game, and we had a lot of fun taking all of his money from him and sending him home broke. The other dealers told me that he's a complete loser and used to get thrown out every night. But they won't ban him because he's such a shiatty player that everyone wants him to stay at the table. They generally wait until he goes broke, and then they throw him out. But he left on his own this morning.

Of course, I stayed too long, but I was having a lot of fun. But the game got pretty loose when we got shorthanded around 4:00 this morning, and instead of leaving when I doubled up, I got involved in a pot with one of the suck-out fish at the table, and he called every raise, making his hand on the river. Instead of leaving with $200, I walked with only about $130, which kind of sucked, but like I said, after the Binion's tournament, it was all house money!

But my new friend--Amanda was her name--colored up, and I didn't want to play four-handed with two jackasses that never folded, so our game broke up and I came home.

I'm gonna go to bed at some point, but I had three cups of coffee when I was playing cards. There might've been a drop or two of Bailey's in the cup, but I'm not quite sure I remember correctly. The point is, I'm not quite tired yet, and the sun is up anyways, so I'm gonna try and make it until about ten am, and then just sleep all afternoon before going to work.

I'm also hoping that I hear some news about my job situation tonight. They were in a huge rush to hire somebody, but the poker room manager has been off the past two days, so I've heard nothing new. But I'd love to get out of the pit and into the poker room this weekend--I'm sure the money would be better.

Mikey

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