The Tax Man Will Have To Wait!

After an exhausting search last night (actually early this morning), I decided that yes, tomorrow is another day. I chose to end the frustration and just go to bed. I would continue the search for the tax documents when I woke up. This proved to be a good idea and after rubbing the desert sand out of my eyes I rummaged, for the third time, through the desk drawers. Bingo! I located the W2s. They were just one of my issues because for 8 months during 2004 I had an internet business. The details of the profitability of that venture still lay just out of my reach, so I will mail the good ol' extention request sometime on Friday. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. The only problem with this approach is that you basically have to complete your tax forms in order to file the extention. If I knew what I owed I would just file the taxes in their entirity. I'll make an uneducated guess and write a check to send along with the extention. In a few months, I'll be in the same position..........
A while back I wrote about the two ladies who berated the player who did not live up to their toking expectations. This week found me in a similar situation. I'm dealing a little $2-4 game. One of the players was experiencing her first brick and mortar poker game. She kept talking about her online prowess and made the claim that she had won over $1,000,000 online. I have a sneaking suspicion that she was talking about "play" points, but who knows. Some of my co-workers believe that she was talking about cold, hard cash. Who knows?? Anyway, while I am in the box, she makes a Club Royal. In our room, that hand is worth $599 plus the pot. When I paid her her bonus, she threw me three chips. Don't worry, they were Blue Chips worth $1 each. I don't know where it started, but many locals adhere to the conventional wisdom that 10% of a bonus win is the standard toke. One of our regular players literally screeched at the jackpot winner and told her that she needed to give me at least $25. -----I don't know where she came up with the $25 figure. The cynical side of my brain wanted to say that if you are going to badger her, tell her to give me $60 damn it. --- I immediately said hold on a minute here. I looked the lady in the eye and told her that she should give me whatever she was comfortable giving me. If it was $3, so be it. If it was $60, so be it. If it was $25 or $0.00 so be it. I think I offended the lady who spoke up on my behalf. That was not my intention. Anywhoo, I eventually got the $25 toke. Another player in the game told me that my attitude in those circumstances was what made me his favorite dealer. I told him that I was going to eat one way or the n'other..... Why make a Broadway production out of a stiff or what some would consider a toke that was somewhere south of what they deem appropriate. It all comes out in the wash.

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I'm on the NO SLOTS bandwagon again. 15 days and counting.

Tuesday night found me meeting a friend at the Rio for some poker. I hadn't played poker for about a month. Three hours later I had won two pots and split a third. Despite this dismal fact, I only lost about $30. Wednesday night, the poker muse called again. Same friend, different venue. We checked out he new room at the Trop. Six table, two sat dark, two had dealers sitting dead spreads and two were in action. One game was $1-3 spread limit HE and the other was $2-6 spread limit HE. We opted to be relative high rollers and jumped into the $2-6 game. Not much happening here and we chose to leave after only 30 minutes. I think I was stuck about $28. The game was severely short handed when we left and it broke minutes later. We then strolled across the bridge that spans Tropicana Ave. in order to check out the new room at MGM. We got on an interest list for $6-12 HE and also got on the $4-8 list. The 6-12 never materialized so we played 4-8 for a few hours. I ended up $8 to the good.
The room at the MGM is very nice. It's location is great as it is immediately seen by anyone entering from the corner of LV Blvd and Trop. Ave. It is a looooong way from the MGM parking garage, but then again, everything is a loooong way from the MGM parking garage. By recomendation would be to valet park at the Trop and then walk over teh bridge to MGM. The "room" curves around the Centrifuge Bar which leads to one of the major detriments. I don't know if it happens every day, but on Wednesdays, on the hour, female dancers appear at Centrifuge. The dancers are not visible from the poker room, but the soundtrack to the dance is VERY audible. It is deafening! I would guess that the poker room management and the bar management need to have a summit.
As a side note, while playing at MGM I saw what looked like a familiar face at one of the No Limit tables. Jim from Colorado was indeed in town. We chatted briefly about going to Aruba for the Ultimate Bet event. Should be great fun. Linda, Jim and I unleashed in the Carribbean. We may need to notify the liquor distributors in Aruba to stock up........

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The Palms has announced that they will host a Summer Poker Tournament Series. These tournaments will begin on May 28th to coincide with the WSOP. With the WSOP being just across the street we should see a fair amount of business. I forgot to bring home a schedule noting the details, so this is culled as accurately as possible from my failing memory. There will be Noon and 7PM events every day. There will be $200 (or $300---I can't recall exactly) and $500 events with a few $1000 events thrown in towards the end of the series. The lesser buy-in events will allow rebuys and the $500 events will not. The total prize pool is expected to exceed 5 million. I believe that all events will be No Limit Hold'em.

Off to sandman land. I'll need the rest because I need to do some creative accounting in the morning in order to get that extention post marked April 15, 2005.