Today at work I dealt to a guy who won a car on The Price is Right. My question was which game did he play?
One Year Ago Today
This was the day I had my interview for poker dealer school, which was the first time I mentioned those new plans in my blog. I heard about the class from my friend Corey who now deals at the Bellagio in Vegas, and I said it was ironic that my plans would change on the day I came back from Rochester where I told all of them what my now-old plans were. This decision delayed our moving plans at least another two months, and since we’re still in New York I guess it delayed them much further. But I’m so glad we took the class because now I have a job, and for the past 10 months I’ve had a job that gives me money, new friends, a life, and a chance to move out west and deal.
Thoughts
I had another kind of double entendre that made me laugh. If you remember, the first was in my college apartment when I was looking at water in a measuring cup. I saw that the water was pretty murky, so I said aloud, “Now that’s unsettling.” I laughed because not only was it unsettling that the water was murky, but the water was literally unsettling because all the curd hadn’t settled to the bottom yet. The second one was a year later at home, and it had something to do with a tissue. I forgot that I had a used one in my pocket or something, so I said, “Ah buggers” because I had to go back and get it to throw it out. I laughed because the tissue was literally buggers, but I didn’t say it because of that.
So tonight I had a third one, which is maybe more of a stretch but I really liked it. I need a little backstory: I sometimes call my mom a “sil,” which is a childish thing I do to tell her how silly or crazy she is. That happens all the time because she does some really silly/stupid things that make me laugh. So she was showing me the wood frame they put in around the window in the bathroom, and I said, “It has a little sill.” I then laughed hysterically because I call her a little sil, and the bathroom literally had a little sil in it if you mean her. So this is more of a stretch and a personal joke, but I liked it.
My Day
I got up about when I wanted to, and I had time to shower and eat breakfast before going into work an hour early. I got chocolate on my pants the last time I worked (I sat on a piece of a Fastbreak), and since my other pair were waiting for me at Wardrobe at work I had to wear other pants. We got there a little early which gave me time to drop off the dirty ones and put on the clean ones.
The poker room was really busy; all but one of the regular tables was used and the rest were going to be filled by the tournament. I started with a break, and saw that my first cash game was $2-$4. So I was setting up a terrible night, and that first break shouldn’t even count because it was at the worst time. After that first break I had 5.5 hours of straight downs, which is now the longest stretch I’ve had. First I hated when I went 3.5 straight, then the next night was 4.5, and now 5.5. This is not a good pattern. Thankfully I wasn’t too terribly hungry, I didn’t have to use the bathroom to the extent of an impending disaster, but I was really thirsty and my eyes were tired.
For the most part though my night wasn’t that bad. After $2-$4 I had $500 max, and I got another one later in that long string. I had major chip issues though because I didn’t have a break to get my own chips, so I had to keep calling for chips like every other down. I would run out of whites, lose my quarters, and always need more rake chips. I never got close to running out of reds though which is usually what happens.
One cool thing that happened at work was I was dealing to a guy who said he won a car on The Price is Right back in the 80s. I was really enthralled by that because I always thought it strange that I haven’t met anyone who has been on that show (or at least no one who talked about it, although I would want to talk about it all the time). He actually got on the show, he made it through contestant’s row, and he won a car (a Chevelle). He said they call and give you the option to take the cash value instead of the prize, which he did. I asked him which game he played to win, because I’m very familiar with that show and the car games are good. He played the dice game, which is probably the easiest game because it’s easy to just play the odds. He said he rolled all 1s and 6s, and in the game you pick higher or lower than what you roll between 1 and 6, so he couldn’t lose. I should have asked him about contestant’s row and the wheel, but I didn’t want to gush.
I made one little dealer error that I always figured I was bound to make but hadn’t yet. After I deal the cards they get a little loose in my hand, so I use my other hand to push them all in place for the rest of the hand. But this time when I did that some of the cards fell off the top, which I knew would happen eventually. Thankfully they fell very neatly so I decided to just carefully pick them back up and not worry about it because I knew it was put back right.
So 6 hours into my shift I finally had a(nother) break, and I used that to get some food and take care of my thirst and subsequent bathroom needs. I also cashed out most of my chips because my box was getting full. I had a three-table run next, which would take me to 8 hours and I figured I’d be sent home then since they still had all the 7pm dealers. But the third table in my string broke before I got to it (it was Omaha so that was fine), and I was sent home a half hour early. Brian was already out so it worked out well. I made $225 so it was a good night, and I only had one tournament down. After work we drove back home, and I watched a little Seinfeld before bed around 5:30am. Hopefully I can wake up at a reasonable hour so I can eat before work tomorrow. Thanks for reading, “And the words you said tore through my head like bullets from a gun.”
—Eric Del Medico
