Table Tango

I walked into the poker room, checked out the games in the limit I wanted to play, and found the perfect home in a game with a Live One - here after known as L.O.

The dealer calls for player’s checks and I make myself comfortable while waiting for my chips and the blind. I survey the players and most of them are dead. They are barely aware that anyone is live at the table. Hell, maybe they aren’t even breathing. It looks like I’m in the perfect spot, sitting with the L.O. two seats on my right. At least when he gets the urge to raise, if I have anything, I can re-raise and get it down to him and me.
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You’ve been moving around the card rooms in Las Vegas for a few months…played at Bellagio, Excalibur, the Station Casinos, Sam’s Town, and every place else that you could get to and afford the action. You’re always hearing talk of “the old days”. No limit poker at it’s finest…the days when ranches were won and lost on the turn of a card…and you’re really yearning to see some of that action.

So what do you do? You pull out your handy time configuration unit…the one that’s strapped to your neck because you might want to escape where you are and what you’re doing in a heartbeat…and set it to the year 1954. You’ve set your geo-locater for Montana, the Northwest Section…Missoula to be exact.
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It’s business as usual…poker here, poker there, people running in from all over the world, wins/losses, stories galore…one place opens…one place closes. You just go with the flow. Oh, one important factor here, you’re a female dealer/player.

You open a new casino…high limit poker and the works…it’s not your first but you’re hoping it’ll be your last. Like maybe Ed McMahon does have your phone number after all or maybe that guy that kept sticking his knee into your thigh while you were dealing bought you a lottery ticket and will call to tell you that you’ve won the biggest jackpot in history. (Is this a total dream or what?)
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It’s your day off and you haven’t purchased chips and taken a seat at the green felt for over 2 weeks. But today you’ve decided it’s time to go back. You stopped 2 weeks ago with a winning streak and you’ve been playing pretty strong - now your head is telling you it’s time to get back into the thick of it. Get involved and try to pick up a few stray dollars here and there because you have bills and the extra money would come in handy. Besides . . . you know that you’re the favorite in a lot of the lower limit games. ‘Nuff said.

You cruise into the room you used to work in and put your name on a $6-12 holdem game. Seven names on the list and you ask the brush if they’ll be starting a game soon. Several people drift by and chat for a moment, including the floor man. The decision is made to start the game but it will take a few moments to find a dealer, so you take a seat in a $3-6 holdem game while you’re waiting.
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You’re tired of punching that time clock and saying, “Yes, Sir!” and “No, Ma’am!” You don’t want to wear a suit or a dress and heels anymore and have to pick up the load when someone else doesn’t do their job. You’re sick of never being able to make more money than everyone else around you and being married to the ‘grind’! You’re ready to go to work for yourself!

You start figuring out how much cash you have on hand and how much cash you can borrow and what type of business you want to set up and where. First you look at real estate, scan the paper for businesses that are up for sale, check with real estate agents on properties with great locations, even check other states and cities. Whew! Expensivvvvve won’t even begin to describe this.
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You’ve entered the game at half time or maybe it’s the 3rd day or whenever you found the time to get there and get seated.

The locals are grim, holding their position, after all…they’re defending home turf. The tourists are jovial and reckless, throwing their chips into the pots, laughing as they pull back more and stack and stack and stack. The locals are losing…they have no cheering section and each time they lose a pot, they make comments about the tourists. They’re so nasty, a referee might throw a flag on them …but there are no referees in this battle.
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A past World Series winner moves through the poker room - his dorsal fin riding high, up out of the water. He barely glances at anything other than the high limit section where he’s heading. He’s trying to pick out the next fish that’s flopping and bleeding, which is the scent that brought him here. He’s cruel and cold, malicious to dealers and capable of using every swear word known to mankind when he takes a beat, couldn’t possibly be his play or the random run of the cards, after all . . . he’s a major tournament winner!

Poker rooms are filled with them - those that will never know that fleeting moment of victory in a tournament and those that never play tournaments. They aren’t all the same, some of them amble and graze. Some of them are like magpies, floating in and then flapping out, harping and yakking about everything in general and nothing in particular.
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