Dealers annoy me

Two stories from my Caesars Palace session today. I was not in either hand.

1.

The final board was 10-10-8-8-10. There was no betting between the two players involved on the turn or river. First player shows 3-3 in the hole. He's playing the board, and it seems pretty obvious that the other guy will be, too, based on the lack of interest in betting. But the second guy is staring at the first guy's cards and the board. Most likely, he's temporarily confused by the three-pair thing, which always throws people off. The dealer is impatient, and signals for him to show his cards so he can (presumably) divide the pot and move on. The second guy is still holding back, looking dazed. The dealer's motions, then words, get increasingly insistent: "Turn over your cards!" The guy finally does. He has something like 6-7. Split pot, as predicted.

This dealer was in the wrong. As I have said here so many times that I feel like a broken record (and, by the way, how's that for a turn of phrase that is quickly losing any point of experiential reference among younger generations?), the decision at the end of a hand whether to table one's card or muck them unseen is a strategic one, just as much as betting/checking/raising are. The dealer is not allowed to influence this decision, any more than he is allowed to influence the betting. He can tell the player what his options are--show or muck--but he must not pressure the player to choose one over the other.

In this situation, the second player might have decided (wrongly) that his opponent's hand was better, mucked, and thus relinquished his claim to half the pot. He should be allowed to do so freely. If a player wishes to forfeit the winning hand or half of the pot on the basis of misreading his own hand, an opponent's hand, and/or the board, he is free to do so. Nobody is allowed to prevent him from making this kind of mistake any more than they would be allowed to coach him in whether to fold, call, or raise a bet.

This principle also applies, incidentally, when there has been a bet and call on the river. Often when the bettor is reluctant to show, the dealer will tell him that he has to show first. This is wrong. Again, the dealer should be neutral about which choice the player makes. His only encouragement should be something like, "Sir, it's on you to either show your cards or muck them." Remind him what his options are, and that the obligation is his to pick one of them, but don't force him one way or the other. Imagine how obviously wrong it would be for the dealer to tell the bettor in that scenario to muck his cards without showing them. It is equally wrong for him to tell the player to show them.


2.

A few hours later we had another situation in which there was a full house on the board: 9-J-J-9-J. Three players checked it down on the turn and river. At the end, two of them turned their hole cards face up; both were playing the five cards on the board. The third guy said something like, "I'm playing the board just like everyone else," and returned his cards to the dealer face down, and the dealer duly mixed them into the muck.

The dealer then chopped the pot up three ways. I asked him, how could the player with a dead hand get part of the pot. The dealer said that he took the guy's statement about playing the board as an indication that he was claiming his share of the pot. I told him that the rule in every casino I know of is that one has to show one's cards to get part of the pot, even when playing the board. The dealer acknowledged that "technically" that was the rule at Caesars, too. (I emphasized that I didn't care how this pot was divided, since I wasn't in it, but I wanted to know the house rule for future reference.) I guess the dealer didn't feel much compulsion to follow the rule, even when he knew what it was.


So there's the strange dichotomy I saw today: One dealer going further than he should in pushing a player to expose his hole cards, followed a few hours later by another dealer not caring that a player didn't show them when the rules required that he do so in order to claim part of the pot.

See what messes and inconsistencies and contradictions get into the air when dealers are lax about the rules?