It happens every time. It is a player's turn to act, but the cocktail waitress (or, less frequently, food service waitress) is there, either to take the player's order or deliver it. Which does the guy choose to attend to first? The waitress.
I don't get this.
To me, it seems obvious that the game comes first. By dealing with the game first, you keep only one person waiting--one who is being paid to be there. By dealing with the waitress first, you keep 8 or 9 other people waiting for you--all of whom are, one way or another, paying to be there. (Plus the dealer, of course.) Doesn't that comparison of consequences make it mandatory etiquette to tell the waitress, "Just a minute, please," take one's turn, then deal with the service issue?
But I almost never see it done that way.
People are so incredibly thoughtless and rude and self-centered.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Consistent wrong choice
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6 comments:
While it's true that players are rude like this, the casino workers should definitely know enough about a game of poker to wait for their business if a player is in a hand. It's not that hard to figure out. I actually commended a massage girl at the Venetian a few weeks ago for having enough sense to see that a player was involved and wait to get paid.
Yeah, I think you're leaving out part of the calculation.
The other 9 people at the table must wait for me if I talk to the waitress, so it is no loss to the rude player.
Waitresses, however, have a tendency to walk away unless they are actively trying to collect money. So the rude player might have to wait 5 or 10 more minutes to get his drink if he attended to the game first.
I wonder if you've ever seen the same person keep the table waiting while placing an order, but make the waitress wait until the end of the hand when he needs to pay her.
I doubt that a waitress would walk away if first told, "Just a moment, please." However, I don't know that, because it happens so rarely.
Who's prettier?
The social calculation is not nearly as straightforward as you suggest.
First, waitresses bringing drinks and food are often holding trays full of drink orders and/or food. It seems discourteous to make them stand at the table, holding the tray, waiting for the hand to finish, when a quick drink drop off and tip allows her to move on. Also, it allows the waitress to more quickly attend to players at other tables, who certainly have an interest in faster service, even if it comes at the expense of slowing your game down slightly.
Next, waitresses tend to take drink orders from the entire table at one visit. Even if only a few players place orders, there is a generally accepted pause in action when the waitress arrives. This might not be as big an issue in Vegas where the wait staff tends to be more plentiful and more attentive, but it is certainly very evident in the non-Vegas casinos where I mostly play (where a waitress may not come by more than once every 15-20 minutes, and once every hour during the 3:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. period.
Finally, since a vast majority of players make use of waitresses at some point in the game (even if it's only for coffee or soda), most players tolerate slight pauses in action caused by other players dealing with waitresses, since they themselves will need to do the same thing at some point.
I do not excuse, however, those who let their eating habits delay the game. These are the players who order food, and can't seem to anticipate when they may receive cards or face a decision in the game. Unprepared for the inevitable action, these players need to be told the action is on them, then updated as to prior action, then wipe their hands and proceed to play (usually folding), then repeating within a few moments. Dante should reserve a spot in poker hell for these folks!
I played poker with a guy once who was eating spicy chicken wings during the game. His fingers were orange and sticky. Gross! But he was a horrible player so we all tolerated him.
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