Blackjack, Anyone?

The Omaha tournament had barely begun when my sweetie spotted me wandering around in confusion.

"Can't you find your table, stupid?" she asked me kindly.

"I think I'm knocked out of the tournament," I stammered.

"Knocked out? It just started. How could you lose so fast?" she shouted.

"I don't know," I said, scratching my head. "I got involved in a big pot, and I'm pretty sure I made the nut low, but they kept all my chips."

"This is an Omaha high tournament, you fool. You have to be the worst poker player in the world, hands up."

"Ha, ha," I laughed. "The expression is hands down, silly."

I reeled back as my beloved connected with a right cross to my chin. "It's hands up. Anyone watching you play has to throw their hands up."

Later, she looked at me in despair. "What am I going to do with you, Maxwell? You're totally hopeless in poker. I took you to bingo once and you caused a riot by repeatedly calling out 'bingo' by mistake. I took you to a slot tournament and you screwed that up too by never being able to finish on time. Isn't there any game you can play?"

"Well, I've always wanted to learn blackjack. It looks pretty simple. Maybe they have a Blackjack for Dummies book I could read."

"Blackjack for Dummies would be too advanced for you. Blackjack for Imbeciles would be more your style," she sneered. "But let's give it a try anyway. They say that miracles still do happen."

She went out and bought me a book that covered basic strategy and drilled me for weeks. Finally, she decided to test me. We went to a $5 table in a Vegas casino and I tossed the dealer a $10 bill.

"Two chips?" my sweetie smiled. "Are you trying to bankrupt the casino?" She grabbed my wallet and pulled out a few twenties. "OK, deal," she instructed the dealer.

I carefully gathered in my two cards, and cupped them in my hand and bent up the edges, the way Barbara had told me to do when I played poker.

"Sir!" the woman dealer barked at me. "You can't hide your cards. Please don't bend them. And you must use only one hand to look at them."

"One hand? I don't want to show my cards to the other players."

Barbara gave me an agonized look. "Why, oh why do I keep getting into these situations with you? Look, you idiot, this isn't poker. It doesn't matter who sees your cards. Just do like the dealer tells you."

"OK, OK," I said irritably. "I have an ace and a 7 and the dealer has a 7. I take a card, right?"

"No, you fool. Stand! Stand!"

I stood up. "Why can't I play sitting down?" I asked in confusion.

My sweetie banged her hand against her forehead. "Didn't you read the book? You have a soft 18, stupid."

"Soft? What does soft mean?"

"It stands for your head!" she barked. "It also describes your … "

"Barbara!"

"Oh, never mind."

"Sir, what are you doing?" the dealer asked in growing irritation.

"What do you mean?" I replied. "I'm playing blackjack."

"What … I … am … asking," she said very slowly, "is do you wish to take a card or not?"

I looked at Barbara. "You have enough cards," she said.

"I have enough cards," I repeated to the dealer.

"Then put them under your chips!" she screamed.

I put my two cards under my stack of playing chips. The dealer turned red, grabbed them in a rage, and jammed them under the chips I had bet. She finished the deal and turned up her downcard, which was an ace, tying my 18. "Push," she said.

"Push? What am I supposed to push?" I asked.

The woman to my left picked up her chips. "I'm going to another table," she announced. "I refuse to play next to an idiot."

"Who is she talking about?" I asked Barbara.

"I have no idea, egghead, but you're the only other player here."

As play continued, the dealer kept looking at her watch, anxious for the next shift to relieve her. On the next hand, she showed an ace. "Would you like insurance?" she asked, expecting the worst.

I did not disappoint her. "I don't need any insurance. I'm on Medicare."

The dealer moaned audibly. "I think I'll go back to my old job as a hooker."

Barbara also threw her hands up. "I'm leaving," she announced. "I can't watch this. When you've lost all your chips, come get me at the Triple Play slot machines."

"Go ahead, who needs you? I'm starting to get the hang of this stupid game now."

Playing on my own, I made every blunder possible. I split fives and pictures, drew to bust hands with the dealer showing fives and sixes, failed to split eights, hit soft-hand winners, and doubled down on blackjacks.

And I won. No matter how erratically I played, I couldn't lose. A spectator looked on in amazement. "Can you count cards?" he asked, whispering in my ear.

"Sure, I can count cards," I responded. "I have three, the dealer has two, and that man on my right has four."

"Card counter! Card counter!" the dealer shouted. Three security guards ran up and read me my rights, then dragged me to the basement and beat the stuffing out of me. I came to in the parking lot to find my sweetie standing over me shaking her head. "I knew I should never have left you alone, you cretin. What happened?"

I shrugged. "I guess when I split tens, they realized I was too good a player for them."