A Blast from the Past

Somewhere back in time, I'm guessing about a year ago, there was an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal about a young man who played poker at the Palms. This young man was personable and a pleasure to deal to. I was rather shocked when I read the article which detailed his gambling problem. If I remember correctly, he had lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 in 12 months. He played only $2-4 LIMIT HE. On the surface it sounds like an outrageous sum of money for a $2-4 player, but if you lost $137 a day 365 days in a row the $50,000 is accounted for. The article stated that he was getting help and that he was done with gambling. I had not seen this young man since.
Fast forward to today. He was in the 1s of a $4-8 limit HE game, ramming and jamming. I felt a twinge of guilt as I shook his hand and welcomed him back. Not that I am guilty of anything. I understand, as well as anyone, the siren call of gambling.
I wish him the best.................

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By the end of the month we should have a new poker room manager. I'm not at liberty to name a name just yet. In the mean time we have tweaked a few things. In the past, poker players earned comps @ $1 per hour/max $7 per day. The daily max is now $10. You can now use $100 worth of comps a day instead of the previous $50 daily limit. Six upgraded tables are on order for our "smoking" room. These tables will be identical to the tables in our other room. The bad part about these tables is that there is no raised "rail" around the tables and if you are not careful it is rather easy to sail a card right off of the table onto the floor. The good part is that there is a cup holder imbedded at each player position. That makes it easier to square the table. "Right in front of your cup holders folks" as opposed to telling the 2/3 and 8/9 seats that they should be "sharing" the ends of the tables, etc. Unless you've dealt poker you wouldn't believe how a simple thing like squaring the table can cause such grief. You would think that I was asking some players to donate a kidney rather then asking them to move, just one inch, to one side or the other.
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After a 9 day absence, my return to the box today was rather uneventful--just like is should be.

They were filming some sort of poker tournament at work today. I honestly didn't pay too much attention to it. I don't know who sponsored it or who won it. While I was dealing a $2-4 limit game, a young couple from NY was inquiring about famous poker players who have played at our place. As if on cue, Jennifer H. appeared just outside the room. They seemed impressed. I just kept dealing.