Dealers baffle me sometimes

Last night at Bill's there was a dealer that I don't recall having seen there before.

In the first of two puzzling things I saw him do in one down, I moved all-in on the turn, holding the second nuts (second-best possible straight) with a flush redraw. My one opponent called. Our hands were shown. He had just top pair. The best he could do on the river was improve that pair to trips; he could not make a straight or flush. He was drawing dead.

The dealer looked at our hands for a few seconds, then proceeded to make the pot right. That's what was strange, because I had the other guy covered--not just by a little bit, but by over $100. Not even close.

So this dealer, assuming that he knows how to read poker hands, sees that I am absolutely going to win this pot no matter what card comes next, sees that I have way more chips than the other guy, but still he paused the action long enough to count down the other guy's chips, cut out an equal number from my stacks, and return the balance to me. As he did the last of these steps, he said, "This probably isn't necessary."

LDO.

But, OK, whatever.

[Edit: On re-reading, I see that those last two paragraphs are fine examples of my scintillating, refined, highly literate writing style that people everywhere are raving about.]

A few hands later, he wrinkled my forehead again. I wasn't in this hand, but at showdown we had K-8 versus K-4, with a board of AKJK5. Because of straight and flush possibilties, the river went check-check, so the pot was already right, with no last bets to be taken back.

This dealer never announced that it was a split pot. He didn't push up the kings and ace and jack on the board to indicate the tied winning hands. To make matters worse, he picked up both players' cards, turned them face down, and stuffed them into the muck. Then, and only then, did he start dividing the pot into two equal parts. Neither player had said anything to this point indicating that they understood it was a chopped pot.

The problem here is that it's a situation in which one or both players will commonly misread the board and think that the K-8 hand is the winner. In fact, I thought perhaps the dealer was going to make that mistake, since he gave no indication of his read.

Fortunately, it appears that both players understood what was happening, as each took his half of the pot without comment or fuss.

It is really bad practice to kill the winning hand(s) before awarding the pot. Sooner or later, there is going to be a controversy. A player will misread the hands and protest that the pot is going to the wrong person. Or, worse, the dealer himself will misread it and award the pot incorrectly, or will forget which player had which hand and push the pot to the wrong seat. With the hands mixed into the muck, there will be no way to verify the right answer, and it will come down to either other players speaking up about what they remember the cards being, or checking security video. Either way, it's a mess that causes ill feelings and stops the game dead in its tracks for unbearably long. And it can be avoided (mostly) by the simple expedient of keeping the winning hand(s) face up on the table until after the pot has been pushed. This is standard procedure everywhere, and I have no idea why this dealer had developed the bad habit of doing things out of order. There is nothing to gain by his alternate method, and lots to lose.

Because I was sitting in seat one, I thought I might quietly give the dealer a helpful hint to this effect. But I didn't know him at all, and he didn't know me from Adam, so I was aware that he had no reason to trust me to know whereof I spoke, and I didn't want to come across as a know-it-all. Therefore, I started by casually mentioning that I hadn't seen him here before and asking if he was new to poker dealing. He said, "No, not really." I thought there was a clear edge of defensiveness in his tone and a kind of half-scowl on his face. I aborted my plans, as I got the distinct impression that he wasn't going to be receptive to suggestions on how to run his game.

It's not like I was going to follow that up with, "Really? Cuz you sure deal like it's your first friggin' day on the job, you mouth-breathing half-wit!" I may have thought that, but I wouldn't ever say it.

Oh well. If he won't learn the easy way, he will one day learn the hard way.