How many decks are we using?

Yesterday found me sleeping much later than usual. It was my Saturday and I was taking advantage of it.

When I finally got motivated enough to jump in the shower and face the day I headed out with the intention of playing poker.

One pit stop at the Palms to draw and envelope. Based on my slot play there I am invited to participate in nearly every promotion they have. I reached into the bin and chose and envelope containing a $10 bill. So far so good.

I "invested" the $10 in a keno machine. Bad investment. Since it was my last day to play machines for hopefully a month I decided to ram a few $20s. No luck there either.

I wandered into the poker room with no intention of playing, just getting a feel for the level of activity in the room. I had already chatted with Linda and determined that she was on the "play list". I was headed to Bellagio to play.

Before I could escape the Palms poker room one of our regular players motioned for me to come speak with him. On Tuesday he was scoping out a NL game that I was dealing. I nodded my head toward and empty seat. It was a good game, but I can't say that was the only reason I "invited" him to sit and play. In any case, he took it as a sign that I was encouraging him to sit because the game was good. The seat was empty, that also had some bearing on why I was recruiting players from the box.

He won. He wanted to thank me for gently guiding him to the game. He showed his appreciation by placing 2 red chips in my hand.

I love this town. Have I told you that lately?

*****

I made my way to the Bellagio. Linda knew that I was on my way. As I entered from the parking garage I wandered into the conservatory. The decor had changed since the last time I was there. The picture above is just a limited view of the new lay out. The replica of the Bellagio is complete with lake and dancing fountains. These displays never cease to amaze me and I lingered for awhile. The phone rang. Linda wanted to know where I was. I left the fantasy world behind and headed to the poker room. There was poker to be played.

I jumped into Linda's $4-8 limit game, carved out some early wins and hunkered down. At some point we went to Snacks and had a bite to eat. Back to the grind. Lots of nothing went on and on. The game was great, but I was in a wierd mood, not concentrating, calling a lot, raising hardly at all. Consciously I realize that I am playing like crap, but seemingly powerless to change gears.

At some point Linda got called away from the game. She had to deal. She went off to start a $100-200 blind NL game. She dealt for a few hours and never returned to our game.

My small win vanished and my stack kept shrinking. My original $200 buy-in was gone and I produced another $100 bill. Why, in my current mind set was I continuing to play? Snap out of it!

A new player sat to my right. He related how he was a craps player. Had played a little poker online buy never in a casino. I believed him. He didn't know the first thing about playing BM poker, or poker in general for that matter. He continued to ask questions and I continued to answer them. When several of us informed him that instead of checking out, he could simply check, his answer was "why prolong the agony?". Ignoring the etiquette, it's hard to argue with that. Typically, he was winning. On one particular hand he weathered a storm of raised on every street only to make a gut shot straight on the river. The whole table was in awe. It was funny and he was having fun. Sometimes I am convinced that obliviousness is a virtue.

Another stack or two disappears. I then went on a tear. I got it all back and booked a $67 win. The only notable hand was when I had AA. $20 cap pre-flop with 5 way action. The flop came QQQ. I think I soiled my undies just a little. The game was loose enough that AQ or KQ, despite the cap, was not out of the question. Hell Q2 offsuite was a possibility. In any case the aces held up and I was back in the black. The conversation turned to aces holding up in that situation. My new friend to my right stated that there was only one card I had to worry about. He was correct, but he didn't know it. He was referring the case queen, but in his mind he was talking about ANY generic queen. When I told him that there was a singular queen that I was worried about he looked at me funny and asked if we were only using ONE deck? Are you kidding me? How many decks did you think we were using. Did it LOOK like the dealer was dealing from an 8 deck shoe? Hilarious... But he was having fun and there is something to be said about that simple fact.

My last few wins have been come-from-way-behind wins, but I'll take them. Current streak 9 out of 10 wins. Maybe I'll go play again tonight if I can get motivated to leave the house.

****
I am sorry about the quality of the picture. I quickly snapped it with my cell camera on the way to the water closet. Linda in the box.