Remedy for a dealer error

Last night I was playing at South Point. In one hand I had a single opponent. I bet the turn, he called. I was waiting for the next card to appear when the dealer said to me, "He called you." This was not news to me. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that the dealer was gently prodding me to show my hand, and another couple of seconds to realize that the dealer had made a major mistake. Somehow thinking that the hand was over, he had dropped the stub of the deck onto the discard pile. To make matters worse, he had somehow mixed the burn cards in with all the rest. (I had been watching my opponent, not the dealer, so I can't explain exactly what the dealer did, but that was the result.)

Floor was called. The stub was not clearly separable from the muck, and I don't know where the burn cards were. The floor guy's solution was to pick up most of the cards from the table, picking what appeared to me to be a completely arbitrary point most of the way down the pile. Then he had the dealer reshuffle those cards, cut, burn one, and finally deal a river card.

In theory, if the dealer had been able to tell him where the burn cards were (i.e., did he drop the stub onto the muck, then the burn cards on top?), they could have separated those out, then counted from the bottom the known number of discards that should be present, thus recreating the stub. I'm not sure why they didn't do that.

Another player who was not involved put up quite a fuss about the procedure, saying that all of the cards, including the discards, had to be included in the reshuffle. The floor guy repeatedly but politely rebuffed him by saying, "Thank you for your opinion," then going on with his instructions to the dealer.

I didn't care much. A random card is a random card, and it makes no difference to me whether they come up with the same random card that, absent the dealer error, would have been put out as fifth street, or a different random card. One is no more likely to be either beneficial or detrimental to my situation than another.

But my guess is that there is, in fact, some standard protocol to be followed in the case of this type of mistake, and that what I saw done was not it. Comments from those more knowledgeable in such arcane matters will be welcome.

Magic words at Mirage

A couple of weeks ago I was playing the allvegaspoker.com (AVP) tournament at Mirage. A few seats to my right was a young man who was playing crazy. Within the first few hands, he open-raised to 20 big blinds, then shortly thereafter bet 4000 into a 1300 pot on the flop. This was not the stupid play of inexperience, but the carefree play of a very experienced player in a game being played for stakes he just did not really care about, trying to have some fun. Which is fine with me, but I want to get as much information as I can about what he's doing, because playing with him is going to involve high risk and variance.

He was seated next to a friend of his. One time when he made one of his stupidly big opening raises, his friend folded, then said, "Let me sweat you." So crazy guy showed him his hole cards. I knew right away that I would want to have that hand shown by the dealer if it didn't get exposed in the natural order of play. Furthermore, I was sure that the dealer had not noticed that little interaction, so I would have to be ready to explain to him what had happened. The dealer had a nametag identifying him as David, from Pennsylvania.*

At some point in the hand (I don't remember how far it went, and it doesn't matter), a bet from crazy guy went uncalled, and he won the pot. He traded his cards for the pot. As the dealer was sliding the cards toward the muck, I pointed at the cards and said, loudly and clearly, "Show those, please." I was sitting in the five seat, so the dealer and I were as close and as face-to-face as it is possible to get.

The dealer stopped his motion, the cards paused halfway between the player and the muck, and said, "What?" I repeated: "Show those, please."

The dealer absolutely, unquestionably both heard and understood me that time. But then he reacted in a bizarre way. He deliberately pulled the player's hole cards deep and irretrievably into the muck, gave me a puzzled look on his face, and only then asked, "Why should I show them?" Note that he mucked the cards before asking me that question, and did so entirely deliberately.

This seriously irked me. If he had just been moving too quickly to react in time to my first words, well, OK, such things happen. It's annoying, but I let it go. But this was intentional denial of my request, before he had even asked for, let alone heard, the reason why I was making it. Completely wrong and unprofessional.

So I explained: "That guy showed his cards to the player sitting next to him. That's why I was asking you to show them to the whole table."

The dealer said, "Oh, well you have to tell me that."

My God--can this guy really be this stupid?

I said, "I did tell you. What do you think the words, 'Show those, please' mean?"

He said, "People ask us to show hands all the time, without any good reason to. So you have to let me know that he showed them to another player."

I said--and I trust that the condescension in my tone of voice was perfectly obvious--"So the words, 'Show those, please' does not adequately convey to you that a player is requesting to see the cards?"

He said, "No."

I said, "OK, then, what are the magic words that cause you to actually do your job and show the cards that one player showed to another?"

He didn't have an answer ready for this instantly, but after thinking for a couple of seconds responded, "He showed his cards to another player, so you need to show them to everybody."

I repeated his proposed phrasing exactly, and asked him to confirm that I had it right. He did so. Then I further asked, "And that will get you to show the hand, but 'Show those, please' will not. Do I have that right?"

He was pretty fed up with me by this point, and snarled, "Yes."

I told him that I was glad to learn the magic words, because "Show those, please" worked in every other poker room in town, and it was important to know that the Mirage had a special magic phrase for that purpose. Again, I assume he could not have failed to miss the overt sarcasm in my voice.

So take this as a lesson. If you play poker at the Mirage, and if one player shows his cards to another player, and you want the dealer to enforce the "show one, show all" rule, there is only one specific sentence that you can use to accomplish that task: "He showed his cards to another player, so you need to show them to everybody." If you deviate from this specific formula one iota, the dealer will be obligated to ignore or deny your request.

At least that's what dealer David from Pennsylvania said was the rule and practice at the Mirage poker room. Surely he wouldn't lie about something like that, right?

*I never call out dealers by name for making ordinary mistakes. But this was not a mistake. This was deliberate sabotage of the standard rules and procedures of the game.

Attention, poker dealers

I just stumbled upon a new (at least I think it's new) show on the Discovery channel. It's called "Best in the Business." They design competitions specific to the skills of any given profession or occupation. So far I've seen their segments on excavator operators, grocery baggers, oyster shuckers, and blacksmiths. The program is hosted by Ben Bailey, best known as the driver-questioner on "Cash Cab."

It seems obvious to me that they could put together a competition for poker dealers. Some sort of crazy card-pitching contest. Fastest to accurately count a table full of poker chips. That kind of thing.

You can find instructions for submitting a demo video here:

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/best-in-the-business/casting-call.html

I'm sure if they get enough submissions from poker dealers with interesting personalities and flashy skills, they'll consider putting together a segment showcasing the best.

Four royal flushes in one hand

A story from TBC's blog, here.

an interesting thing in the eldorado [in Reno] the other morning, and a dealer ended up getting fired. i wasnt at the table but i could hear em on the other table. (i was in the NL game before it broke for the morning tourney, and this was at the STUD table.) seems while the players (all 4 of them) were taking a break, the dealer thought it would be funny to setup the deck to give all 4 the royal flush. essentially no one would be getting hurt, and all get back their money. now everything was going according to plan, and suddenly one old man was screaming how he had a royal flush and wanted his money. the other players told him they ALL had the royal, and i dont know if he was senile, or didnt believe them, but he insisted the floor call gaming, and it seems he eventually got paid and the dealer got fired. i know it seems hard to believe but if u come here u will find out its true. lots of witnesses even dealers at other casinos know about it.

Three strikes

I play at Imperial Palace enough that most of the dealers there know me by name. Last night, however, I was startled to learn that one of them doesn't even remember having seen me before, despite the fact that he has dealt to me well over 20 times. He usually makes small talk with me in a way that has previously caused me to assume that he recognizes me as a local and a regular. (He calls me by name, but only because he's looking at the Bravo display in front of him. I knew that, but still assumed that he knew mine as a familiar face, even if he didn't remember my name from one visit to the next.)

Last night he asked whether I had just arrived today. I was baffled by the question. Arrived where? It took a little back-and-forth before I figured out that he thought I was a tourist. He would have asked the same question of whoever was sitting in seat 10 (next to him), as I was. He had no idea who I was.

Strike one.

(This is, incidentally, the same guy I wrote about 18 months ago here. Anybody who plays as IP regularly will know exactly who I'm talking about from the description I gave of him.)

I lost a big pot at one point, holding A-A. In a three-way hand, I called a lead-out bet from a drunk Danish player on a flop of 7-8-9, and a third guy came along. I improved to top set when an ace came on the turn. Danish drunk bet $70. I raised all-in, another $126 on top of that. Third guy reluctantly called for a little less, Danish guy folded. I showed my set. River was a jack, at which time my caller looked suddenly relieved and turned over his 9-10, having caught his straight. So gross.

Anyway, as always happens in such situations, there was a lot of post-hand table chatter about what had happened. What was different than usual was that the dealer--same one as mentioned above--chimed in with his opinion that I had had "no choice" but to play the hand the way I did, and I had just been unlucky. It was not hard to read into his commentary the implication that the third player had played it badly--which he had, of course, but it is absolutely not the dealer's job to even remotely hint at such a thing.

Strike two.

This dealer has a long-standing bad habit that I have noticed many times before, but have never done anything about until now. When somebody wins a big pot, he says, "Nice hand" as he pushes the chips. This is something that Cardgrrl ranted about in her blog a couple of years ago, here. He did it to me last night after I stacked another player, being on the good side of a set-over-set situation--my queens to his jacks, poor fellow. (This was just two hands after the set of aces went down in flames, and it went a long way toward making me feel that the universe was back in balance again.)

Strike three.

After I had cashed out, I pulled the shift manager, Marc, out of earshot of the tables and mentioned the problem. I said, as closely as I can remember it, "To those of us who have been around the game for a while, those words sound like, 'Don't forget to tip your dealer.' In fact, I suspect that's exactly the effect he hopes to have. But even if that's the last thing on his mind and his motives are purely to be complimentary, it's a practice that has a huge potential for causing resentment. At least one player at the table will not think it was a nice hand, and could easily lash out at the dealer for appearing to take sides. The dealer should be a neutral arbiter of the game, and avoid any appearance of playing favorites, or commenting on how a hand was played or on the outcome."

Marc appeared to immediately get why this was a problem. He was either good at faking it, or genuine in his thanks for bringing it to his attention.

Now the question on my mind is whether this dealer will change his habit. Reasons that he might not include (1) the supervisor doesn't really think it's a big enough deal to do anything about, and he was just placating me; and (2) the dealer gets talked to, but decides that begging for tips is still worth the risk of another reprimand.

So for my readers who frequent IP, I'd be curious to hear if you notice that this dealer continues his "Nice hand" reminder to winners of big pots. Comments section will remain open for your observations.

N.B.: Putting the first observation above in the context of the second and third, and labeling them all as "strikes," will likely mislead readers into thinking that I was somehow offended by the dealer not recognizing me. Truly I wasn't. For the vast majority of dealers, including this one, I don't care one little bit whether they remember me from one visit to another. But it seriously surprised me, because his small talk had, over the course of many months, repeatedly been effective at conveying the false impression that he recognized me. Calling these items three strikes is just a rhetorical device that occurred to me about halfway through composing the post, and shouldn't be taken too literally as it pertains to the first incident.

Clash of the titan hands

I was playing at Binion's tonight. At one point I had 8s-8d and limped. Button limped. Small blind raised to $17, an unusually high raise. This immediately suggested to me that he had one of those pairs that so many $1-2 NLHE players just don't know how to play after the flop--queens, jack, tens, and nines, with jacks being the #1 suspect, as that is the one hand with which I most commonly see the over-sized raise. I called, as did the button.

I flopped a set as I had hoped to do, but apparently I did not specify with sufficient clarity the texture of the flop that I wanted to go along with my set. What I got was 8c-9c-10c, which is maybe the worst possible flop containing an 8 that I could imagine. If I wasn't already on the bad end of a set-over-set situation, or up against a straight or a flush, about half the deck on the turn would give me a very hard decision and maybe an ulcer.

SB bet $30. He had both started the hand with $120 or so. I had a little more than that. I moved all in. Button folded. SB called instantly and enthusiastically. Ruh-roh.

It wasn't the worst possible scenario, but it was close. He had pocket jacks, include the jack of clubs, giving him an open-ended straight flush draw. Ugh.

I didn't have to nurse my ulcer for too long, though, as the dealer quickly found the case 8 for fourth street. That was awfully nice, but it still wasn't over.

Memo to the poker gods: When you've got quads made on the turn, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE TO SWEAT THE RIVER!

At this point, another player helpfully announced that he had folded the 7c, which reduced the SB to one out. That helped me relax. I can usually dodge one-outers.

And I did. A harmless 10 hit the river, giving me quads full of tens, or something like that. I won the pot and a $50 jackpot--the minimum one, since it had just reset after somebody else had hit it a short time before.

And now for something complete different: A bonus story, having nothing to do with the above, except that they both took place in the same session.

I got up to throw away a water bottle. Coming back my seat (#1), I noticed a blue $1 chip on the floor between my chair and the dealer's. I knew I hadn't dropped any chips. I was pretty sure it must have come from one of two places. First, the dealer had gotten a fill of blue chips a short time before, and one of them could have been dropped unnoticed. Second, soon after I sat down, a young woman had joined the table across from me, and had dropped her chips on the floor as she tried to move them from the rack to the table. One of them could have easily rolled under the table in my direction.

So when the hand was over and the dealer could listen, I told her that I found a chip, and perhaps she should count her tray to see if one was missing. She did. The count was right, but then (and we are finally getting to the point of the story here) she added, "But I'm always willing to take donations."

Really? Begging? For a $1 chip you're reducing yourself to open, shameless begging? How low can you go? It was pathetic.

On the rare occasions that I find a stray chip on the floor around a poker table and nobody can plausibly claim it, my usual practice is to give it to the dealer as a tip. That wasn't my plan on this occasion, because I had a good idea who the rightful owner was, but if it had been the usual situation, that comment would have caused me to deviate from my normal course and keep the chip rather than rewarding the dealer's scummy groveling for it.

The woman who had dropped her chips earlier happened to be away from the table when this occurred, so I just rolled the chip over toward her seat. When she came back, she didn't question where it had come from, and I didn't volunteer anything about it. I saw no need to open the subject. I especially didn't want the woman to decide she wasn't sure it was hers and give it to the dealer. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Qualifying for the seat

Sunday evening I was playing at Treasure Island, in my favorite seat--#1.* When a new dealer came into the box, I noticed that he slowed down a bit in his pitch for seats 1 and 2. I thought I knew why (this isn't my first rodeo), so I made a point of being even more conspicuous than usual in keeping my hands well away from his pitching zone.

You see, one of the most frequent causes of cards being accidentally exposed during the deal is players getting their hands in the way of the arriving cards. This problem is particularly acute with the player in Seat 1. Most players there, after one or both cards arrive, just can't wait to get their grubby little paws on them to see what goodies Santa has delivered. But because of the geometrical arrangements of the spots around the table, the dealer needs that exact airspace for pitching the cards to Seat 2. Sadly, this conflict of interests commonly sets up an all-too-predictable physical collision between the hands of the guy in Seat 1 and the cards that are being sent to Seat 2.

Dealers seeking to avoid the problem tend to slow down at this corner, anticipating the potential encroachment. There's just a fraction of a second hesitation while he watches to see if he's going to have to loft the cards over Seat 1's hands, or go around them with a backhand delivery, or if he's going to be in the clear. The problem is analogous to a child who rushes into the street almost invisibly from between parked cars, chasing after a stray ball. Drivers who are careful and alert slow down on congested residential roads as a precaution.

There's a similar problem with Seats 9 and 10 (I'm assuming a ten-handed table here), though it's less acute, because Seat 9 gets his cards first almost every time around. That tends to eliminate the dynamic problem of Seat 10's hand shooting from out of nowhere to check his cards. But there is still the static problem, if he doesn't realize that he needs to clear the pitching zone for the dealer and keeps his hands on the table.

I'm well aware of this, so when I'm in either of the chairs next to the dealer, I not only keep my hands completely out of the danger zone, but I try to be sufficient obvious about what I'm doing that the dealer will silently get the message that I can be trusted not to interfere. In short, I pride myself on being a Good Citizen of Seats One and Ten.

Back to TI. After a few hands had played out, I noticed that the dealer had reacted and adjusted to my silent coast-is-clear message. He no longer slowed down around the corner, but slung the cards as fast as he could, demonstrating his confidence that I knew my job as an occupant of the danger spot.

I appreciated his perceptiveness and felt rewarded for my good behavior. I smiled and said to him, "You've figured out that I'm not going to get in your way, haven't you?" He said, "Yes, and I really appreciate it. Most people don't understand how much it slows me down if I have to watch out for them."

We were a team, he and I. He was an Cy Young-eligible pitcher, and all I had to do was stay the heck out of his way.

I thought of an analogy, and shared it with my new partner: "You know how on airlines, in order to sit in the emergency exit rows, you have to agree that you understand how the door works, and that you're physically capable of performing that task? Well, I think they should have a similar thing before you're allowed to sit in Seats 1 or 10. You have to watch a little video on the importance of keeping your hands out of the dealer's way until all the cards are out. Maybe you could get a little card showing your successful completion of the course, like the Red Cross does after you learn CPR."

He agreed that that was a stupendous idea.

Now, which Vegas poker room will be the first to implement it? I'd like to attend the class and be the first poker player to be officially certified to sit anywhere at the table that's open--especially in my favorite two seats next to the dealer.

*If you're curious as to why I like the seats that most players try to avoid, I explained my reasons in detail here.

"You can play your queen if you want to"

I played at the Rio again this evening. In a hand in which I wasn't involved, the final board was 5-5-J-K-2. At showdown, Player A had J-Q. Player B had J-9.

The dealer appropriately chopped the pot. When Player A got his half, it was clear he was expecting the whole thing. He said, "Wait a minute--we both had jacks, but I had a queen with it."

Instead of taking the usual, straightforward approach to the explanation, this impish dealer said, "You can play your queen if you want to. But this guy [Player B] has jacks and fives with a king [pointing to the K on the board], so if you do that, he'll get the whole thing. Still want to play the queen?"

Player A quickly grasped the point and withdrew his objection.

This might sound like it was nasty, but it wasn't. The tone of voice and facial expressions were so light and friendly that he pulled it off. It's kind of a risky thing to do, because it's the sort of comment that some players could take offense at, thinking they're being needled. Still, I liked how the dealer managed the situation.

"I can count!"

One incident from today's Golden Nugget tournament deserves retelling.

I had the table maniac on my immediate left, which was a serious pain in the neck. In the hand in question, I limped in with 10-10. He shoved from the button. His range there was very large, and I thought my 10s were in pretty good shape. But it was hard to estimate his stack, because he had accumulated an enormous number of the two smallest-denomination chips. He really liked them, for some reason, and would put in his blinds and antes with larger chips apparently just for the purpose of getting yet more small chips as change. I don't know if he has some sort of fetish for them, or likes having huge stacks as some sort of visual intimidation, or what.

Anyway, I estimated his stacks to total somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000, and that was a range that I was willing to call. So I did. He had K-9 offsuit, so I was definitely right in my judgment that he was shoving very light there, and I was definitely right to call. Sadly, he got lucky and binked a king to take the pot.

Then the dealer had to count out his voluminous stacks so we could get the pot exactly right. When she got down to the 25-denomination chips, she messed it up. She assembled stacks of 10 chips and said, "500," then put those together and said, "1000." There were several stacks of 20 chips each of these. Like I said, he was cornering the market on the cheap chips.

Even though three people were telling the dealer that she was counting wrong, when she went back, she made the exact same mistake again. She concluded that the total was 17,000 and change. (I don't remember her exact number.) At that point I had lost all confidence in her, and said, "Would you please call the floor to redo the count?"

She gave me the nastiest look I've seen in a long time and spat back, "I can count!" Uh, I beg to differ with you, ma'am. You have proven that, in fact, you cannot count, at least not correctly. But I didn't say that. I just repeated, with more emphasis, "Please call the floor." I intended my voice to convey that I knew perfectly well that when a player makes this request she is obligated to comply, and that if she did not do so, I would call the floor myself and hang on to my chips until help arrived. Apparently she got this message, and put in the call.

While we were waiting, she took another stab at it. This time the maniac was simultaneously trying to count them, and they completely got in each other's way, moving chip stacks this way and that, messing up each other's count. I just made sure that they didn't mix any of my stacks in with his until it got sorted out.

The floor guy came. I don't know his name, but I've seen him at the G.N. for years now, and he's very good at his job. In fact, he's the same one who last year bailed out another dealer who didn't know how to count, in a story I related here. When he arrived, I said, "It's an all-in and call. We need his stacks counted. The dealer got it wrong the first time, and I'd like to have an independent count, please."

The dealer glared at me again, and shot back, "I did not get it wrong!" But floor guy wasn't listening. He was already counting. Just as he had done in the previous incident, he was an absolute wizard. He flew through the stacks expertly, verbalizing the amount of each stack and his running total. It took him less than 30 seconds, and when he was done, nobody doubted that he had the number right.

It was 12,325, a far cry from the 17,000+ that the dealer had counted. I had started that hand with about 56,000 (tournament average was then only about 22,000), so it hurt but wasn't fatal. But a 5,000-chip mistake was not a tiny rounding error; it was HUGE. Some at the table were getting irritated that this took so long to sort out, but it wasn't my fault. I am resolute that I did the right thing by calling for backup, and not accepting the dealer's assertion that she had things under control. She was causing the problem; I was getting it resolved. I'm not going to give away 10% of my stack unnecessarily.

Incidentally, the floor guy also had the dealer color up most of the maniac's small chips so that future hands wouldn't take so long to get right.

Lesson: Don't let dealers intimidate you into just accepting their counts when you have any reason to think there is an error. Get the floor over to verify the amount before you hand over your chips. It's your right.

Dealers find new ways to annoy me

I played at the Stratosphere this evening. Two dealers managed to get on my bad side.

1.

I waited for nearly an hour for a game to start. No problem; this is why I always carry an old New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in my pocket. I pulled out the one I've been working on. I had already been through it twice, and was now going back to fill in the remaining holes. Obviously, I had done all the clues I found easiest, and was left with only the ones that were stumping me.

There was a dealer in the box, deadspreading. He was obviously bored. He asked me an inane question or two. "Working on a crossword puzzle?" No, sir, I'm designing Boeing's next jumbo jet. Moron.

I thought the one-word, curt answers without lifting up my head to make eye contact would be sufficient social signaling that I wasn't open to imbecilic chatting. Apparently not. He said, "Tell me one of the clues--an easy one."

One of the pleasures of such puzzles--unless you intentionally set out to work on it with another person--is completing it without help. You get to sit back after filling in the last letter and think, "I did it!" If somebody helps, it ruins that sensation. It's just as if you cheated by Googling an answer, or looking in the back of the book. I most definitely was not feeling like sharing the puzzle, when I was more than 75% of the way to the finish line.

So I told him--again without giving him the courtesy of looking up--"There aren't any easy ones." He surprised me with his reaction: "Oh, is that one of those New York Times ones?" I nodded. "Oh, well, I probably wouldn't know any of those." I didn't answer, but I thought, "Good. Then maybe you'll shut up."

But no. He kept watching me, and a couple of minutes later he reached over and tapped on a space on the bottom line of the puzzle where he could see I had a seven-letter word partly filled in: IDLE_ _ _. "What's the clue for that one?"

Son of a bitch. I don't want to play with you, dude, and keep your grubby hands off of my puzzle. But I didn't say that. I told him, knowing there was no chance in hell he'd get it. "Do-nothing's state."

"What?"

"DO-NOTHING'S STATE."

"Gee, I have no idea what that would be."

Good. Then shut yer piehole, pinhead.

"Is it 'IDLING?'"

"No, that wouldn't fit the space." This was said through gritted teeth.

Fortunately, he stopped guessing at that point and left me alone.

I'm aware that I can be oblivious to social cues and expectations at times. But however bad I am at that stuff, this blundering imbecile is a hundred times worse. He was as socially clueless as Dana Carvey's "Massive Head Wound Harry." The only way I could have been throwing off more obvious clues that I wanted to be left alone would have been to literally shoot some silk thread out of my butt and start wrapping myself in a cocoon.

The answer to the clue, by the way, turned out to be IDLESSE, a word that I'm not sure I had ever encountered before today.

2.

A while after the game finally got underway, there was a three-way pot that was checked on the flop, turn, and river. The pot was $8. (I'm not sure how that happened. Maybe a fourth player checked out when he missed the flop. Doesn't really matter for the story.) All three players had an ace-baby hand, and were to chop the pot. As the dealer--a 50-something guy named Richard--was putting the chips into two stacks of three and one stack of two, he said, "I think you guys should just leave it all for the dealer."

I've had dealers be pretty obvious in their hinting for tips. There's one guy at Imperial Palace who makes a big show of saying "Nice hand" to players who win any sort of decent pot and who haven't tipped him as quickly as he thinks they should. I get it from him all the time, because I don't give the cards back until the pot is in my possession, and he obviously worries that I'll forget. One of my very earliest blog posts here (November 15, 2006, to be exact) was about three instances of dealer beggars I had encountered in rapid succession. Those stories remained the most flagrant instances I had seen--until today.

Asking for tips, directly or indirectly, is one of the most ugly and unprofessional things dealers can do. I would also guess that it directly violates the explicit policy of every poker room in the state. I have known dealers who make a policy of always answering "yes" when a player asks whether he or she remembered a toke ("Did I get you for that last hand?"), even if the truth is no, because they want to steer entirely clear of saying or doing anything that even remotely smells of requesting tips.

Not Richard. He just out-and-out told three players simultaneously that they should leave the pot to him, rather than make him divide it between them.

What a massive, pathetic loser.

(Uncredited image found here. I cannot tell if it is original to that site.)

Taking the heat

My previous post reminds me of an excellent column by Bob Ciaffone in the April 6, 2011, issue of Card Player magazine (not yet available on their web site). The title is "Taking the Heat," and his point is that poker room employees have a duty to proactively step in to deal with problems, so that players don't have to.

For example, Ciaffone mentions the problem of a player having his chips stacked in such a way that his hole cards become effectively hidden from the view of some of the other seats. He asserts--correctly--that the dealer should recognize the problem and get it fixed without waiting for another player to complain.

In another example, he details a recent incident in which a fishy player was likely driven away from the game because he was literally being squeezed uncomfortably by an obese player whose chair was out of position. In that case, not only did the dealer not act to correct the problem, he resisted Ciaffone's efforts to get him to square up the table.

Ciaffone notes, in conclusion, "The meek person who fails to speak up is often the player who is driven off when cardroom employees fail to take the initiative in ensuring a pleasant environment for a poker game. And he often has an equally unassertive poker style, and is a highly desirable person to gamble with. So, you know who gets hurt the most by the cardroom employees failing to do their jobs--you and I."

He is exactly right. I have written countless times here how much it bothers me to have to speak up and turn myself into the object of attention--or even wrath--of other players in order to get the dealer to address a problem that he or she clearly already knows about, but prefers to try to ignore. I hate that. Ciaffone's column this week should be mandatory reading for all poker room employees.

"Wait" means wait

Almost forgot a little incident from the Palms last night. I should have saved my purple felt picture for this post. Oh well.

The Palms has a long-running promotion that they call "Diamonds Are Forever." If you hit a diamond flush, your name is entered into a drawing. The next day they randomly select three names from the previous day's list of players who made diamond flushes, and those three people win $100 each. It's not a lot of money, and it's pretty rare to both make a diamond flush and then get chosen for a prize, but hey, something is better than nothing. I have been selected exactly once in the past.

Last night I called a flop bet with a flush draw, made it on the turn, and called another bet, hoping he would fire a third time. He didn't. I bet and he quickly folded.

As soon as he mucked, I said to the dealer, "Wait," because I could see that she was about to scoop up the board cards. She heard me, but continued with her task, and to my horror I saw the board cards gathered up, turned over, and put in with the muck. As she did this, she explained, "It's OK, he folded."

Obviously, she had concluded that my "Wait" request was because I thought she was mistakenly cleaning up the table before the hand was over. She knew that that wasn't the case, so felt free to disregard my plea.

I don't think I've ever seen this before. In joints that offer bonuses for high hands, bad beats, etc., dealers are usually extremely alert for signs that somebody has made one. They will often pause a bit before clearing away the cards, to give a player a chance to reveal his hole cards for proof of the hand. Some dealers will even ask if there is a qualifying hand, should the board cards make one possible. Motives for this conduct aren't hard to figure out; in addition to wanting to be helpful to the players, the dealer can usually expect a nice tip if the player wins free money.

It turns out that the young woman from last night is only a part-time fill-in at the Palms, and, in fact, this was only her second shift there. She usually deals at the Venetian, where there are no bonuses or jackpots, so no reason to keep the board intact for verification when a hand is over. She seemed not to even know about the diamond-flush promotion.

I was able to show my two diamonds in the hole, and two other players joined me in confirming that there were three more on the board, so in the end I didn't lose out. We'll see tomorrow if I get $100 worth of lucky. (The flush came just after midnight.)

But, hey, dealers: If a player tells you, loudly and clearly, "Wait," here's an idea. Stop what you're doing and find out why that request is being made. Sure, sometimes it will be due to a misunderstanding, and it will waste a few seconds with no gain. But since that's the worst that can happen, how about giving us the benefit of the doubt? Once in a while, we might actually have a legitimate reason to be blowing that particular whistle.

Ur doin it rong

There are a few poker dealers in town who put out the flop in a weird way. They put the three cards down in a little face-up stack, then scoot the top card to one side, then the next card to the other side. It's a three-step process, instead of the one-step normal way.

This bugs me greatly. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because it takes an extra second or two every hand, for no good reason. Maybe it's because when I went to poker dealer school they taught us to be really snappy about putting out the flop. The goal, they told us, was to get all three cards exposed at essentially the same time, so that players would not be able to get a read off of an opponent's reaction to any one particular card.

But in any event, it's a practice that is slow and irritating without a single redeeming quality, as far as I can tell. I claim the right to bring a ruler to the casino and smack the hands of the dealers who are doing this, like a nun in parochial school dealing with a naughty student.

Thieving poker dealer

See: http://www.onlinepoker.org/blog/pennsylvania-poker-dealer-caught-stealing-chips/#

"I'm dealing the game"

Last night I was playing at Planet Hollywood. At one point there was a hand with strange action starting with a straddle, several calls, then a big raise, call, min-reraise, couple of calls, and a shove. In the process, I thought that the guy shoving was illegitimately raising himself, because I momentarily lost track of where the raises had come from. I started to point out the problem to the dealer, but after about four words got out of my mouth, I realized my error, and said, "Oh, sorry--never mind." The dealer's response was unusual, in my experience. He said, rather pointedly, "I'm dealing the game here, guy."

It's hard to interpret this as anything other than, "Shut up. I don't need your help. I don't make mistakes."

The fact is, when I speak up to point out a problem in the game, I'm right most of the time. I don't keep track exactly, but it's probably in the neighborhood of 90%. The most common kinds of problems I spot are button location, hands being misread/pot going to wrong player, and illegal raises. Most of the time, dealers appear grateful to have somebody helping get things right.

For example, just last week, at the table next to the one I was at last night (different dealer), there was almost a catastrophe when an all-in on the flop was a set against an overpair. On the turn and river, it seems that everybody was just watching to see if the player with the overpair would catch his miracle two-outer. When he didn't, he started to leave the table, and the dealer started to push the pot to the guy with the set. What nobody except me had noticed was that the final board was a 2-6 straight, though completely jumbled so that it wasn't obvious at a glance. I stopped the dealer and pointed out that it was a chopped pot.

Maybe 10% of the time that I speak up, though, there is something akin to what happened last night: I think there's an error when there isn't. I pretty quickly figure it out and retract my objection with an apology. By far the most common reaction from dealers is along these lines: "No problem. I'm glad you're watching, because I do mess it up once in a while."

So I admit to being a bit miffed at effectively being rebuked by the dealer last night for starting to interject myself. He's somebody who has dealt to me dozens of times, and surely recognizes that I'm a regular and have at least some idea what's going on. I'm not exactly a chatterbox or busybody, trying to wrest control of the game from the dealers at every opportunity.

But beyond that, even if he had never seen me before, it strikes me as both arrogant and unwise to squelch players' attempts to point out and correct errors. The attitude that one doesn't make mistakes and/or that players' vigilance to help prevent problems is unnecessary and unwanted seems to me an invitation to disaster. I told the story of an even more obnoxiously arrogant dealer at the Imperial Palace here. The fact is, dealers make mistakes with some regularity. There's a lot going on, and lots of ways to screw it up, and usually only one way to get it right. Getting everything right all the time is hard. No, not hard--impossible. Dealers should welcome players who are paying enough attention to notice when something gets out of whack, and who care enough to point it out and keep everything kosher, even if it means sometimes having to reassure such a player that things are, in fact, right this time, and the apparent error really isn't one.

About ten minutes after my verbal slap on the wrist, there was a big two-way all-in hand. I was in seat 9 (of 9, to the right of the dealer) and on the button. I noticed that in the commotion of declaring the winner, shoving all the chips his way, etc., the button did not get moved from its place in front of me. The dealer changed decks, made the cut, and dealt the first card to seat 1--at which point I stopped him and pointed out the problem. (The big blind didn't notice that he was going to be paying the big blind for the second time in a row, because he was busy stacking up his new mound of chips.) The two players in the blinds quickly agreed that they had just been the blinds on the previous hand. The dealer set things right and went on with pitching the cards.

I admit that I was deeply, strongly, mightily, intensely tempted to rub his face in it: "Hey, I thought you were dealing this game."

But I didn't.

Dealing and ego don't mix

Today was one of the rare days of perfect, gorgeous weather that we get around here. We're in that very brief interval between when I complain about how hot it is and when I complain about how cold it is. As a result, instead of driving out to Mandalay Bay for NFL Sunday afternoon, I decided to take a stroll downtown.

When I head to Fremont Street to play poker, it's virtually always to Binion's. The only other reasonable choice is the Golden Nugget (El Cortez, Plaza, and Fitzgerald's are not "reasonable" choices), and I like nearly everything about Binion's better: it's more profitable, more comfortable, has better comps, etc. But it's been nearly a year since I played at G.N. and I decided to give it a go.

The real reason I made that choice illustrates how arbitrary my choice of where to play on a given day is, and how little it takes to influence it: G.N. was on a cool episode of "C.S.I" Thursday. In fact, it played the role of two casinos. Its famous shark-tank swimming pool was the scene of an unlikely murder by shark, while its new lobby with the indoor fish tank was used as the fictional rival casino "across the street." I liked seeing the familiar cast (I've been watching since the first season) stroll around the familiar halls. That's why the place was on my mind, and why I made the last-second choice to turn left instead of right after crossing Casino Center Boulevard.

Anyway, things didn't go well at first, and I was down to a stack of something like $120 when the hand in question came up. I was in Seat 3, and Seat 2 and Seat 4 were with me in the hand. I had J-10 and called a bet from Seat 4 on the turn with the board reading Q-A-8-7 for a double-gutter. The river was a 9, giving me the nuts. Seat 2 checked. I checked, fairly confident that the aggressive Seat 4 would bet again.

He did, $20. Seat 2 moved all in for $73. I figured he probably had the same hand I did. I put in my last $81. Seat 4 groaned, but announced a call, without putting out any more chips. He showed 5-6 for the low end of the straight. Seat 2 did indeed have another J-10.

Here's where it got interesting. The dealer pulled Seat 4's $20 into the pot, told Seat 2 and me to take back our last bets, and started chopping the pot. He had heard Seat 4's call, but somehow didn't realize that that meant more chips had to be tendered. A player at the other end of the table and I both simultaneously stopped him and said he wasn't doing it right.

He thought for a second, then seemed to have a light bulb go on. "Oh! Right!" He put the $20 back in front of Seat 4, then took more chips from Seat 4 to match my stack. He then counted down Seat 2's stack, discovering that it was $73. He took the $81 from Seat 4 and said, "So $73 of this goes to him (Seat 2)."

Uh, no.

At this point, it was clear to me that he had no idea how to do this. He was just guessing, making it up as he went along. So I stopped him and asked him to please call the floor and leave all the chips where they were until the floor could sort it out. (I could have told him exactly how to do it, but I hate it when several players are all barking instructions to the dealer in contradictory ways--because there's more than one way to go about it--and making everything even more chaotic.) He obviously didn't want to. He said, "I've got this."

I try to be nice to dealers. I don't gripe about ordinary mistakes. But this was a disaster in the making. We were on the verge of losing track of which chip stacks were which. Furthermore, it was clear that the only reason he didn't want to call the floor over to handle it was because he was too embarrassed to admit that he didn't know what he was doing. Sorry, pal, but that's just not a good enough reason, and I'm not afraid to let you know it. I told him, "No, you haven't got this. You've screwed it up twice already, and I have no confidence that you'll get it right on your third try. Please call the floor over to sort it out."

He still just sat there, obviously fuming, but not doing anything. After a few seconds, another player not involved spoke up: "A player has asked you to call the floor. Would you please do that so we can get this finished and get on to the next hand?" That finally pushed the dealer to relent.

Floor guy came over, the situation was explained, and he rapidly and efficiently determined what needed to happen, moved the chips around expertly, explaining exactly what he was doing at every step. Nicely done, sir, a flawless performance.

When it was all over, I did not tip the dealer, which for me is a rare act of protest at his conduct.

I actually know exactly how the dealer felt in that spot. I went to poker dealer school just before moving to Vegas, thinking I'd get a job in the box. I vividly remember the first time I took the skills test and had to make right a pot with three side pots. I screwed up, and got myself so confused that I could neither finish the way I had started nor retrace my steps and get back to baseline to start over again. I went into deep brainfreeze and had no idea what to do next. I was embarrassed in front of the instructor and my classmates, and mad at myself for bollixing something I knew in theory how to do. But there was nothing to be done at that point except 'fess up: Sorry, I've made a big mess of it and now my mind has locked up to the point that I can't figure it out. I flunked, though I redeemed myself the next day on the retake.

Dealers make mistakes. That usually doesn't bother me. But not being willing to admit that you made a mess that you can't clean up, when it's my money you're about to give away to other people? That bothers me.

Being unable to admit that you're in over your head is as fatal a flaw in poker dealers as it is in poker players.

Yeah, that's the ticket!

I was playing today at Caesars Palace. During one hand, a player put out six red chips ($30), in two stacks of three chips each. For some reason, the dealer saw only one of them (probably because the second one was kind of close to the pot, and he thought it was already part of the pot). He announced the bet as $15. I asked him to check that. He looked again, realized his error, and said, "Make that $30."

A few seconds later he quipped, "I'm just so used to those two-and-and-half-dollar chips."

Pain, relived

A post yesterday told a story about a Venetian dealer named Mark, and mentioned that I have known him, well, basically ever since I moved to Vegas, as he was then working at the Hilton, which was my primary poker hangout for a long time.

A reader asked if he was the same dealer "Mark" mentioned in another old post. The answer is no, that was a guy at the Orleans. I don't think I've ever talked about Hilton/Venetian Mark before, at least not by name. However, the question reminded me of a post that's old enough that I think many readers will not have encountered it, or perhaps did three years ago when I wrote it, but won't remember it.

Mark was the dealer for what was undoubtedly the most painful ten minutes of poker I've ever experienced, and my guess is that it was a sufficiently striking experience that he still remembers it, too. Some good did come out of it, though; I think it is still one of my best stories, and one of my best posts. Since it cost me something like $475 to have the experience, I might as well get maximal mileage out of it by referring you back to read it again (or for the first time)!

http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/08/irony-poker-story-in-4-parts-non-grumpy.html

"Scott was a little uptight"

I still have a couple more stories from the Venetian yesterday.

At the same time that I entered the game, coming into the box was Mark, a dealer I have known since he worked at the Hilton. He is an exceptionally good dealer: he knows the rules forwards and backwards, enforces them consistently, pays attention to everything, rarely makes any mistakes, and he either remains quiet or says something funny--no mindless chit-chat. My kind of guy.

Adam and Eve, we are led to believe, had an abundant garden full of everything to eat they could want, but had one fruit tree that was forbidden to them. So, rather than say, "OK, we can do without that one thing," they just couldn't resist the temptation. Kids are like that, too--make one thing off-limits to them, and it becomes the only thing they want.

Well, poker players are just the same way. There is only one topic of conversation that is prohibited during the play of a hand, and that is the hand in progress. So what do poker players MOST want to talk about? The hand in progress.

This was going on yesterday. I think the thing that triggered Mark's initial attempt to stifle it was somebody commenting on the size of a bet that had just been made and what it might signify. After the hand was over, he politely asked the players not to discuss the hand until it was done.

The offender objected, insisting that what he had said was perfectly fine. He then tried posing a series of hypothetical things one might say, to each of which Mark calmly responded, "It would be better if you waited until after the hand was over."

After Mark had moved on to another table, the guy whose comment had started the whole thing said, "Scott was a little uptight." (Yeah, he called him "Scott." Great memory in addition to a finely honed sense of social propriety.)

No, he wasn't being uptight. He was doing his job correctly, in a way that, unfortunately, most dealers don't bother with. Whether it's because they don't want to offend any player and risk cutting into tip income, or because they're tired of the constant battle, most dealers just let this stuff go by without comment, which is a large part of the reason it's such a ubiquitous problem. If every dealer handled such matters every time they came up, players would quickly learn that the rule really does matter, and would learn to shut up.

I have heard nearly infinite variations on the exchange that this player and Mark had: A player says something about the hand in progress, receives a reprimand or reminder from the dealer, and responds with some lame excuse about why that particular thing is allowable.

So let's set the record straight. (Not that anybody who really needs to be taught this will be reading, but I turn a blind eye to that fact.) What you can say about the hand in progress is what the current bet is, whose turn it is, and what the individual cards on the board are (e.g., for a player who can't see them clearly)--though even there it is usually best to leave those things to the dealer. Those are the stark, basic facts that are or should be available to all observers equally. Any facts beyond those, or any interpretations of what those facts mean, are off-limits.

To wit:

If you tell your neighbor what cards you folded, you are breaking the rule.

If you speculate out loud about what you think another player's cards are, you are breaking the rule.

If the third card of a suit comes and you say, "Somebody just made their flush," you are breaking the rule (in addition to showing that you have difficulty with noun and pronoun matching).

If the five community cards make a straight and you joke, "I would have made a straight if I had stayed in," you are breaking the rule.

If somebody puts in a large pre-flop reraise and you say, "Big pair," you are breaking the rule.

If somebody makes a large bet and you say, "There's a guy who doesn't want a call," you are breaking the rule.

If the flop comes with two of some rank and you whisper to your neighbor that you folded another one of those, you are breaking the rule.

If at the showdown one player's hand has been shown, another player is trying to decide whether to show or muck, and you say, "Any pair beats him," you are breaking the rule.

If somebody bets and you observe out loud, "He's pot-committed now," you are breaking the rule.

If there are four diamonds on the final board when it comes to the showdown and you say, "Who's got a diamond?" you are breaking the rule.

If the board contains a pair and three parts of a straight flush and you say, "Possible bad-beat jackpot," you are breaking the rule.

If you say, "I'm going to fold because that guy's hands are shaking so bad I know he's got a monster," you are breaking the rule.

If you ask another player, "Are you betting that much because you don't want anybody chasing the flush draw?" you are breaking the rule.

If you say, "Let's have a six on the river to make my straight," you are breaking the rule.

If there are three jacks on the board and you ask, "Who's got the last one?" you are breaking the rule.

If there are four nines on the board and you say, "Any ace wins it," you are breaking the rule.

Get the idea?

To be as general as possible, if anything you say could even conceivably help another player decide what to do or influence how he decides to play his hand or give him more information or insight about what is happening, it is not allowed. In making that determination, you should assume that there is a player at the table who is blind, deaf, drunk to just short of passing out, and who is such a novice at poker that he doesn't even what hands beat what other hands; i.e., any small clue you give out might help him.

An exception to all of this is if you are one of just two players left actively contesting the pot, in which case it is no longer possible for you to unduly influence the action of a third party.

None of this is particularly complicated. You don't talk about the hand in progress. It's a beautifully simple rule, really. The exceptions are so few that you could easily ignore them, act as if there were no exceptions at all, and go through an entire poker career just fine, never saying a word about the hand in progress.

I am appalled on a nearly daily basis about how casually and frequently this rule is violated, and how little most dealers do to keep a lid on these comments. I'll always appreciate and stand up for those stalwart few who make the effort.

"Have you been carded?"

I have several stories from my session at the Venetian today. Sometimes I mash them all together into one multi-part post, but today I'm going to keep them separate, mainly (1) for ease of finding them later (I've discovered that I have more trouble finding an old story when I need it if it's one part of a big post), and (2) so that the comments threads stay more coherent.

At the table was a young man who was appeared to be of borderline age to be legal in a casino. When a new dealer came into the box, she asked him, "Have you been carded?" He said yes.

Wow. What an effective security measure! Yep. There's no way on earth that anybody could slip past that kind of scrutiny. Why, in order for an underage person to keep playing in that situation, he would have to tell an untruth! At a poker table!

If she has concerns about his age, she is supposed to check his ID herself, or have her supervisor do it--not just ask him whether anybody else has checked it. That's just laughably stupid and ineffective. It's no better than ignoring the issue entirely. Her question will only catch people who are so dense as to answer no, which won't include anybody who knows that his only ID shows him to be a minor.

Compounding the silliness, the dealer said that if he showed up in the system as having a player's card, she wouldn't have asked him, but he was just "guest." There's more of that steel-trap brain of hers at work. After all, nobody could ever hand his undersage pal a player's card and have him sign in with it. Nope. That has never happened in the history of the world. A player's card is watertight proof of legal age.

It's certainly true that nobody likes to harass players by being, say, the 15th employee of the day to ask to see ID, but that's why casinos have readily available wristbands that announce that the person's ID has been verified, so that he can be left in peace thereafter. If she had arranged for him to get one, she would have saved him future repeat questioning and would have actually been doing her job, all at the same time. What a concept!

I'm reminded of something from my youth. My brother was the eldest in the family, so he tended to get stricter discipline. For example, when he was in high school, dating and driving, he had curfews. My parents would set an alarm clock in the hall outside their bedroom. If he didn't get home by the appointed hour, it would wake them up, and he'd be in trouble. By the time I got to the same age, as the third child, things had gotten a tad more lax. Rather than the alarm clock thing, they would just ask me the next morning, "What time did you get home last night?"

Which approach do you think was more effective at enforcing the rule?

I suspect this dealer would go with the question method, and not realize it opened any loopholes.*



*Obviously, the morning-after question is not completely toothless. After all, it's always possible that a parent would wake up for some reason past the deadline and find that the wayward child was not in the home, in which case an untruthful answer the next morning would have repercussions beyond having been out too late. However, it is important to note that I never, ever violated curfew, and thus I never, ever had the slightest reason to lie about it. The reason this is important to make explicit is that my father reads this blog faithfully, and I wouldn't want to risk being grounded for past hypothetical transgressions.