Summerlin poker

Tonight I went out to Suncoast to see their new poker room. You can see what I saw in the photos above. Not a lot to say about it. It's much like the old one, but without quite as much of the airy, luxurious space between tables. The first couple of tables are also a lot closer to the noise and smoke of adjacent slot machine than any tables in the old room were. Maybe the worst thing about the new place is that the restrooms, instead of being immediately outside the room, are now clear across the casino floor--one of the longest restroom hikes of any poker room that I can think of offhand. That's annoying.

Suncoast has also recently discontinued its $1-2 no-limit hold'em game. Instead, they play with a single $5 blind, the buy-in being $100 to $500. This is a structure I've never seen anywhere before. It definitely changes the character of the game. It threw me off at first. I guess the best way to describe the result is that people play in a more fundamentally sound way. There is less limping and more open-raising. Seeing a flop feels substantially less cheap, and players are noticeably less willing to play an "any two cards" strategy. Family pots are virtually non-existent. That's what threw me off--I'm used to being up against several crappy limpers' hands when I have a good one. Also, since a raise is pretty much going to have to be to about $15 to accomplish anything meaningful, pots grow quickly. On the flop, because the pot size is larger, a bet has to be larger to succeed at whatever goal one might have for it. I imagined at first that the game would have less action than a typical $1-2 game, but paradoxically the result is the opposite, with far larger average pots. One's variance will definitely be higher as a consequence.

In short, the game plays tighter, smarter, and bigger simultaneously. It's an interesting change of pace and challenge. But after being stymied for the first couple of orbits (because my habitual strategy was not working), and getting down to my last $35, I rallied and hit hands at key moments, leaving up by $339 in a bit under two hours. It feels good not just to win, but to be presented with a new poker challenge and successfully figure out how I have to adjust my play.


I rarely play at Red Rock casino, for two good reasons. First, it's too far away. Second, it's one of the most difficult $1-2/$1-3 NLHE games in town to beat, in my opinion. I would put it right up there with the Wynn and the Mirage as averaging the fewest soft spots at the table. My previous experience there is that I either lose or have to play my A-game to score a win. I hadn't played there since May, 2007.

But tonight I was sort of feeling my oats, and I decided that being at Suncoast was already about 90% of the way there, so I might as well give it another shot. I don't like to think that there's any NLHE game in town that is within my bankroll that I need to be intimidated by. Well, I guess I had a little something going tonight, because I pulled in $177 in an hour, then just felt too tired to be at my best for any longer, so called it a day.


On my way out, I remembered that there's a Fatburger at Red Rock. I've lived here for over two years now, and somehow had not yet found my way to a Fatburger. I decided it was time to give it a go for a midnight meal. You certainly have to wait longer than any other fast food place I've been to (they don't start cooking the burger until you order it), but it is indeed worth it. Much better than In 'n' Out Burger, I thought, though the latter tends to get more raves.

"Did you see that?"

At the Suncoast Friday evening, one dealer's pitching technique was quite bad. She flashed a lot more cards than most.

One time a card she was dealing to the player on my right apparently flashed in a way that it would have been visible to me had I been watching, but my attention was somewhere else at that instant. She stopped the deal and asked me, "Did you see that?" I didn't even know what "that" she was referring to--some spectacular sports play on one of the TVs? I guess my look of confusion and reply of "See what?" weren't quite convincing enough, because then she explained that the card had flashed and I might have seen it. Nope. She apparently believed me and moved on.

But what a horrible way to decide what to do! Given the dishonesty of human beings in general, and the known propensity for a substantial percentage of poker players in particular to take advantage of any edge, whether ethical or not, it's sheer laziness on her part to take the easy way out and just ask whether a possible flashed card was seen. If I'm the guy whose card might have been seen, why should my ability to keep my cards secret from my opponents in this hand be made to rely on whether these strangers will happen to choose to answer her honestly?

The only correct and fair way to handle the situation is to replace the card. If it flipped or twisted or bounced in such a way that the dealer could see it, or it is reasonably possible that any other player could have seen it had he been paying attention, then just replace it--period.

I suspect that this particular dealer didn't want to do that because she would be replacing cards on almost every hand, her technique was so bad. So instead she developed the alternative "honor system."

It's a shame that poker players on the whole aren't honorable enough for an honor system to work, but we have to confront the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.

The geopolitical awareness of poker players

Doyle Brunson writes this in his book, My 50 Most Memorable Hands, p. 93:

Not many people realize the insular world a lot of the true gamblers live
in. I remember "Corky" McCorquodale, one of the original inductees into the
Poker Hall of Fame, asking me, "What is Vietnam?" This was almost at the end of
the Vietnam War. Another well known pro asked me, "Is the Isle of Man close to
the water?" Also he asked, "What language do they speak in London?"

I was reminded of this tonight while playing poker at Suncoast. Several players obviously knew each other. This snippet of conversation ensued:

Player 1: "Did you hear what's happening in Russia?"

Player 2: "No. What?"

Player 1: "They're having a war."

Player 2: "A war? With who?"

Player 1: "Georgia."

Player 2: "Georgia?"

Player 3: "Not our Georgia. There's another one over there."

Player 2: "Well, I'll be damned."

Update on Suncoast poker room

I haven't been out to the Suncoast casino since last December, so I decided that it was time to head there again and see if I could take some money off of the Social Security crowd passive calling stations fine locals that tend to play there, instead of the tourists for a change. I was surprised to find that the poker room isn't where it used to be. It's in a temporary location, a slightly elevated section that previously was part of the bar. Apparently, the space formerly occupied by the poker room is being taken over by a TGI Friday's (because the world needs another one of those, obviously). You get sort of an overview of the current setting in the second photo above.

The place was really buzzing. They had eight tables going! Even though two or three of those were for a tournament, it's still double the number I've ever seen in use before.

In the first photo, you can see that they have also replaced the dirty, worn-out felt (I think it was sort of mustand-colored) with very nice new maroon stuff.

The final photo above is a sneak peek of the space into which the poker room will be moving next week. I can bring this to you because, as an internationally renowned poker blogger, I am revered everywhere I go, and get special favors in virtually every poker room on the planet. Well, that, plus the fact that there is no wall or door or anything keeping the general public from looking in.

It's in a great location, literally about 15 yards from the bottom of the elevator and stairs from the parking garage. I believe that that will officially give the Suncoast the honor of the shortest parking-to-poker hike in town. (Of course, you have to drive out to Summerlin for it, but you can't have everything.) The new space looks like it will be OK, though not quite as nicely set apart from the noise and smoke of the slot machines as the previous room was. By a gross visual estimation, I'm also guessing that it's at least one-third smaller than the old room. That's a shame, because ample space around every table was one of the best physical features in the old place.

We'll soon see.

Great comeback

This happened a couple of months ago, but I was just reminded of it, and I didn't post it at the time. Better late than never.

Playing hold'em at Suncoast (I'm not in this hand), the final board was 2-4-8-9-Q, with no flush possible. The two-way action on the river was big bet and a call. The bettor turned over two pair. The caller turned over J-10, for the nuts. Somebody asked him why he didn't raise. He said, "I thought he (pointing to his lone opponent) might have the higher straight."

A smartass at the end of the table said, "Right. If he had the jack, ten, AND king in his hand, he would have had you beat."

Officially, of course, I must express my strong disapproval of such comments. First, we don't want to smarten up the clueless players and make them harder to beat. Second, making somebody feel stupid at the table is likely to result in him picking up his chips and leaving a lot sooner than he otherwise would.

But I've gotta admit, it was very, very funny.

Could I have found a new poker home???

Ever since the Hilton closed down, I've been adrift. I haven't had a default place that would tend to top my list of choices of where to play. I've just been wandering, hoping that someplace would strike my fancy enough to settle in.

The Venetian was coming closest. It's clean, well-run, good mix of locals and tourists, profitable, reasonably easy to get to (i.e., I can get in the back way without fighting Strip traffic), skilled dealers, quiet, smoke-free. So there wasn't anything to gripe about, but for whatever reason I just couldn't fall in love with it.

I tried Treasure Island. I really did. It shares many of the things I liked so much about the Hilton: Small, friendly, quiet, mix of locals and tourists, easy access. But for reasons that I never figured out, I just didn't make money there, despite trying and trying and trying. Maybe it was just strange statistical variance, or maybe it was something about the style generally played there that I couldn't ever put my finger on. But I can't keep playing at a financial loss.

I've also tried to love Mandalay Bay and the Monte Carlo, but can't. Suncoast is a place I like a lot, but it's a long drive for me, and there isn't a no-limit game going on with enough regularity. Caesars is OK, but, like the Venetian, bigger than I really care for, and fairly difficult in terms of parking/walking.

So basically I've been a bit depressed. I just can't deal with the fact that such a nice, cozy, profitable place like the Hilton closes while awful, abominable, atrocious, aggravating places (and that's only using the "a" adjectives!) sprout up and never die. The world ain't fair.

But tonight I have a glimmer of hope.

I've only walked into the Rio poker room once before, and I didn't have a great first impression. I had read largely negative reviews of the room at http://www.allvegaspoker.com/, so maybe that predisposed me to not liking it. I parked in the wrong garage, and it's an exceptionally long walk if you do that. Then, after the long walk, they only had one game going, and it was limit, and that day I just wasn't in the mood to play it, so I left. That was late last year sometime.

I gave it another shot tonight, and was pleasantly surprised about nearly everything. When I parked in the west ("Carnival") garage, the poker room was a shorter walk to get to than most places. Of course, there is the added pleasure of turning away from Strip traffic when coming off of I-15.

They had two no-limit games going and one $3-6 limit. Restrooms were very close, a fact of which my gradually enlarging prostate gland took special note. The poker room was open, or, I guess, sort of semi-enclosed, but it's not stuck among the slot machines and table games. Rather, it's next to the little bowling alley, the buffet, and the sports book, which gives it a completely different sound and feel than the rooms that are too close to the ding-ding-ding of the slots and the whoops from the craps tables. I detected no infiltration of cigarette smoke (and I have a sensitive nose for it), and it was pleasantly quiet. The room is about the size that I like.

The staff was attentive, friendly, and helpful. The dealers were outstanding--and that's something I'm pretty fussy about. Every one of the four on duty tonight was well above the industry average. Every one of them was fast, efficient, good at enforcing rules politely, and I saw not a single error made. Highly impressive.

During one hand, one player asked another to move his hands so that his chip stacks were more visible. An uninvolved player eyeballed the stacks in question and said, "Looks like $180 or $190 or so." This happens all the time, even though it shouldn't. I've never even once heard a dealer say anything about it--until tonight. This dealer politely said, "One player to a hand, please." The dealer was absolutely right. It's a minor thing, but unless a player asks the dealer to count down an opponent's chip stack(s), how he estimates the number of chips left is his own business, and an integral part of no-limit decision-making. Other players shouldn't stick their noses into it. As regular readers will know, I love strict enforcement of the rules, because that's how the game is most fair. I wanted to kiss that dealer--except that his moustache would have been a little bit scratchy, I think.

A poker room's cocktail waitresses are about eleventy-billionth on my list of priorities for reason to pick a place to play. But it was impossible not to notice the outfits these girls were wearing. I can't remember any other casino where the uniforms looked so much like a nightie a young woman might wear to bed on her wedding night. See http://www.vegasrex.com/2007/11/01/the-rios-new-clothes/ for more photos and comments.

The Rio poker room also has massages available at the table. This surprised me, because it's something I've previously seen only in the largest rooms (e.g., Venetian, Caesars, MGM) and in the Palms. I don't know how they can make a good living in rooms as small as the Rio and Palms, but I'm happy to have them there. It makes for a nice break in a long, tiring session.

I also learned that there is a weekly freeroll. Spend 15 hours at cash games Sunday through Thursday, and you qualify for a tournament the following Wednesday evening. The room puts up $5000 in prize money, but this gets pushed up, because people who don't qualify for free can buy in for $230. The shift supervisor told me that they average about 30 free entries and 20 buy-ins, so the prize pool gets to $8000-$9000. That may work out to more tournament equity per hour of qualifying play than the Hilton's monthly freeroll did, and that was often considered the best deal in town.

I was amused by the felt on one table, pictured above. Just in case you forget what beats what, it's right there on the table for you. I've never seen that anywhere before.

Three of the old regulars from the Hilton were there, so apparently I'm not the only one noticing that much of what was likeable at the Hilton is embodied at the Rio, too.

Another little touch I liked was the wide variety of commemorative chips. I like having a bunch of different chips in play. It gives me something else to look at and think about, because, let's face it, poker can have long boring stretches, and nobody can maintain focus on the game all the time for hours on end. I also like keeping a collection of the different unusual chips that casinos put out. Yeah, I know, that makes me a sucker, because I buy for $5 what the casino pays about ten cents to have made, but it's a little thing that makes me happy, having a few hundred different chips at home to play with. The Rio must have an enormous number of different ones, because I found the 12 pictured above just in what I had in my stacks when it was time to cash out. (You can click on the photo for a much more detailed view of them, if you're interested.) I usually only expect maybe two or three different ones the first time I visit a room that is new to me.

Last but not least, it was incredibly easy to make money. Of course, this is a sample of one night, which doesn't say much for the long run, but it was a promising start. I basically got run over by the deck, and made a profit of $225 in about 45 minutes of playing $3-6 limit while waiting for a no-limit seat. That is completely unprecedented in my experience. Then I bought in for $100 at the no-limit game and left with another $158 profit an hour later (not including the chips I kept as souvenirs, which I don't think the IRS needs to know about...), mostly coming from a three-way all-in when I had flopped a set of tens and they held up.

It's only one visit there so far, but kind of like you feel after a first date that went well, I'm a bit giddy, and having fantasies that maybe this is the place for me. I really liked everything about the room. Or, to put it another way, I can't find anything to be my usual grumpy self about. I can't wait to try it again and see if first impressions hold up.

Walking away in the middle of a hand--not recommended!

Tonight at the Hilton I witnessed another very strange occurrence in a poker hand--a player walking away from the table, leaving behind his would-have-been winning hand, and thereby forfeiting the pot. This also reminded me of a somewhat similar event from last fall.

For those who want the Reader's Digest condensed version without slogging through the stories, here's the moral: If you walk away from the table, you can't win the money, even if you have the best hand! Nobody should be that stupid.

Story #1:

Three players were involved. I folded before the flop and was just watching. Marty is a solid, above-average player in seat 4. Two people I don't recognise are in seats 5 and 6. The flop is J-Q-x, with the two face cards both being spades. Seat 5 pushes all-in, and both opponents call him. Seat 5 then makes his first mistake by flipping his cards face-up, even though the other two players can continue betting into a side pot after the turn and river cards are revealed. I don't know if he didn't realize that two people had called him (his action would be fine against just one opponent, since nobody would have any decisions left to make), or he just didn't understand why he shouldn't do that. (People develop strange bad habits in their casual home games, and tend to bring them to the casino, where they cause trouble.) He has the A-4 of spades, for the nut flush draw, with no pair.

Marty and Seat 6 both check after the turn card and again after the river, both of which are blanks. But as soon as Seat 5 sees that he didn't make his flush on the river, he makes his second mistake: he turns and walks away from the table, without waiting to see the other players' hands or to watch the pot being awarded. I suppose he must have assumed that at least one of the other two players had him beat. This was, in fact, pretty likely, but you never know for sure what people are doing in this crazy game.

So then the next bizarre thing happens: Seat 6 mucks his cards without showing them. He certainly could determine that he didn't have Seat 5's ace-high beat, but Marty hadn't shown yet. This means that Seat 6 couldn't possibly know for sure whether he won or lost.* I think that Seat 6 didn't grasp the implication of Seat 5 walking away (that is, that he was effectively forfeiting any claim to the pot, even if he had the best hand).

Marty is sharp, though, and absolutely knew what that meant. He wisely turned his hole cards face-up after seeing Seat 6 muck. He had a measly 9-10 offsuit, no pair, so he would have lost to the ace-high of Seat 5. He had been going for the straight draw and missed. But he was the only player who (1) was still at the table, and (2) showed his hand to the dealer and the table--which meant that he was the only one to whom the dealer could possibly award the pot, no matter how terrible his cards were!** The dealer can't push the pot to an empty seat, nor to a player who threw his cards away without showing them when the claim to the pot is still undecided.

The story has a coda. Former Seat 5 actually walked only to the poker room entrance, then stopped, as if he wasn't sure what to do next. After the next hand had begun, he came back over and stood next to his friend in seat 9 to watch him play. Seat 9 informs him that A-4 was actually the winning hand, but that he couldn't be awarded the pot because he gave up and left.

Now we're into the second hand after the one in question. I see and hear Former Seat 5 talking to the shift supervisor, Ken, at the front desk. Ken had no idea what had transpired. A few things seem immediately obvious to me: (1) No matter what Ken learns, he's not going to be able to rectify the situation now; it's a pretty universal rule that a player forfeits all claim to a pot if he waits until the next hand is in progress to make his protest about whatever happened.*** (2) Former Seat 5 can only relate first-hand what he saw, and the rest he's going to be recounting second-hand, and it will probably get garbled in the process. Which means that (3) Ken is soon going to have to come over to the table and query the dealer about what happened. The dealer, while a very sweet woman, speaks English as a second language, and she tends to get flustered when she feels under pressure, and when that happens, she doesn't relate events in a clear, concise manner. In other words, if Ken comes over to investigate, it's going to be a huge mess, with everybody offering facts, observations, and opinions, and it will stop the game cold for a long time while Ken sorts it all out. Moreover, Marty will probably come under at least some social pressure to give Former Seat 5 what he (Marty) won in that hand, or maybe split it. I don't think he should have to do that or even get pressed into such a gesture.

I think I can prevent the impending argument, because I know exactly what happened, and what facts are pertinent to applying the applicable rules. (It does occasionally come in handy to have graduated from a poker dealer school and to have the odd hobby of actually reading boring poker rule books.) So I hopped over and told Ken the story as recounted above. Former Seat 5 didn't deny having left his seat before seeing his opponents' hands. Ken gently explained that there was no way to give him the pot after the fact. (I didn't stick around to hear the explanation, but I assume it included both the fact that the guy had essentially forfeited any claim to the pot by leaving the area, and the fact that they couldn't correct anything this long after the hand was over anyway.) Former Seat 5 appeared to acknowledge that he had screwed up, though I'm only surmising this by body language and gestures. Fortunately, he didn't make a big stink about it.

Story #2:

This occurred the first time I played at the Suncoast last October. A new person was coming to the table, and the previous player from that seat had behind left a glass and a bottle of whatever he was drinking. The new player's hands were full with his chips, so the player in the adjacent seat graciously stood up, picked up the leftover crap, and walked over to the wastebasket near the poker room entrance to throw it away.

The problem was that this guy was, at that very moment, in the middle of a hand with a big pot, being contested by multiple players! He WALKED AWAY FROM THE TABLE, so when it came to his turn to act, and he wasn't in his seat, the dealer assumed he intended to fold and had gone out for a smoke or something. (This is very common, unfortunately. People often don't wait for their turn to fold before getting up to go to the restroom, get a snack, smoke, or whatever. They just leave their cards, knowing that the dealer will have no choice but to collect them as folded. It's rude and against the rules, but they do it all the time anyway.)

He was livid to return to the table and find that the dealer had mucked his cards. He claimed (plausibly, I thought--though it doesn't make even a speck of difference whether he was being truthful) to have had a flush, and that he would have beaten the hand that had been declared the winner. Maybe he did. But if so, it just magnifies the stupidity of walking away. He could have at least told the dealer, "I'm just stepping away to clear stuff out for this new player, I'll be back in ten seconds." That would have prevented the problem. He ranted on and on for 30 minutes about it.

Every poker room I've ever played in has posted on the wall a list of house rules. Usually near the top of the list is the universal mandate that each player must protect his or her own hand--protect it, that is, not only from being seen by other players, but from a whole variety of things that can cause it to be declared dead.**** These include the dealer accidentally collecting the cards after erroneously thinking the player has folded, another player's discarded hand getting intermingled with the player's live hole cards, and the cards falling off the table.

Walking away from the table isn't doing a very good job of protecting one's cards. It was this guy's own fault, and he just wouldn't admit it. The dealer took pretty intense abuse from him and from a couple of other players who agreed with him. She was actually close to tears. I stayed out of the controversy, except to reassure the dealer privately later that it wasn't her fault.

Moral of the stories (reprise):

If you're so stupid that you walk away from the table when you have money in the pot and it is even remotely possible that you might win the hand at showdown, you deserve to lose. All you have to do is sit there! What could be easier?!



*Even if he has no pair and both of his cards are lower than what's on the board--which means that the five community cards are his final hand, and his hole cards are ignored--that might be true for the other remaining player, too, in which case they would split the pot.


**He probably could have claimed it even without showing, since one opponent had forfeited by leaving and the other had forfeited by mucking his cards. But Marty is smart enough to make it all clean and legal and straightforward, and not leave open a possible argument somebody might have for reclaiming the pot if it came to a floor person's decision.


***E.g., Cooke, Cooke's Rules of Real Poker, p. 75:

11.13 After Showdown. ...Once the dealer has commenced the shuffle for the next hand then all rights to a decision regarding the previous hand are forfeited.


****See also:

The Professional Poker Dealer's Handbook by Paymar, Harris, and Malmuth, p. 18 (emphasis in original):
1. Players must protect their own hands at all times. This may be the most important rule in all of poker. A hand may be declared "dead" if even one card touches the muck or if another player's card touches a hand that is not protected.... Although the dealer should be aware of only mucking discarded hands, a player who fails to take reasonable means to protect his or her hand usually has no recourse if the hand becomes fouled or if the dealer accidentally collects an unprotected hand.

Poker Tournament Directors' Association rules, #28:
Unprotected hands. If a dealer kills an unprotected hand, the player will have no redress and will not be entitled to a refund of bets.

Robert's Rules of Poker, Chapter 3, under "Irregularities":
2. You must protect your own hand at all times. Your cards may be protected with your hands, a chip, or other object placed on top of them. If you fail to protect your hand, you will have no redress if it becomes fouled or the dealer accidentally kills it.

Krieger and Bykofsky, The Rules of Poker, p. 242 (I don't know why this is only in their "Tournament rules" section; it would seem to apply equally to cash games):
9.35 Killing Unprotected Hands. If a dealer kills an unprotected hand, the player will have no redress and will not be entitled to his money back.

Cooke, Cooke's Rules of Real Poker, p. 75:
11.10 Protecting Interest in the Pot. A player with a hand he believes to be the winning hand is responsible to hold onto his own hand until the pot is awarded. No player with an interest in the pot should release his hand to the dealer until his portion of the pot has been pushed to him.


Addendum, February 28, 2008

Reader Darrell Davis emailed me the following note, with an interesting story similar to those above. It is posted here with his permission.

I have been reading your blog and see you sometimes recount other peoples
stories. Usually these are from people you know, not some anonymous internet
person, but I have a story that you might be interested in. It too involves a
dealer affecting the outcome of a hand.

I live outside of Dallas Texas. I normally play at Winstar Casino in
Oklahoma. They have a really nice 46 table poker room. I really like the place.
It always seems well run and efficient. But yesterday I had a hand that was
interesting.

I was playing in a 1-2 NL game. The person to my immediate right had just
lost a big pot and was left with only $8. He did not rebuy. This player was a
regular and seemed extra familar to the current dealer. I don't remember his
name, but I will call him Ted.

The next hand Ted limped in for $2. I looked down to find KhQh and raised
to $12. I got 3 callers, including Ted all in for his remaining $6. This created
a side pot of roughly $16. The flop came Jack high with 2 hearts. It checked to
me and I made a continuation bet. One player at the other end of the table was
contemplating a call. While he was thinking, Ted said "that's not good" and
stood up and walked away behind me.

The other player eventually folded. The dealer quickly threw out the turn
and river which did not improve my hand. I was left with King high as was well
aware that Ted might have had a winning hand. The dealer pushed me the side pot
and then said "lets see them". I asked if Ted's hand was dead. He looked behind
me and said "Ted are you still in this?". I looked over my shoulder and saw Ted
at least 10 feet away talking to another dealer. Ted walked over towards the
table, still talking to the other dealer. He stood about 2 feet behind his chair
and the dealer said "lets see a winner".

I figured if I said anything else Ted would realize that he might have a
winner and turn over his hand anyway. So I went ahead and turned over mine.

The dealer announced "King high" and then asked Ted what he had. Now Ted
realized he had the winner. He came the rest of the way to the table and turned
over his hand for an Ace high to take the main pot.

I jokingly asked the dealer how long he would have waited for Ted to return
to the table before he would have killed his hand. He didn't get it. I was
tempted to call for a ruling from the floor, but I realized that this would
definately make me the bad guy at the table. I really like to play the good guy
image and didn't want to change that. I decided to just concentrate on the next
hand.

The hand didn't affect the bottom line too much, there was roughly $40 in
the main pot. But it was the most interesting hand involving a dealer that I
have been involved in.

-Darrell

I probably would have handled this about the same way. When the guy is still in the room within earshot, he hasn't quite abandoned his hand. It would seem kind of nit-like to try to insist that his hand be killed under those circumstances, especially when (1) the guy is already down, (2) it's such a small amount of money involved, and (3) you can call the player back to the table just as quickly as you can call the floor over to make a decision. But he was definitely pushing the limits of what can reasonably be tolerated before he is considered to have forfeited his interest in the pot, IMHO.

Some poker stories (non-grumpy content)

While looking for a story I wrote up for a friend last year (which I hope will be in my next entry), I came across this email (now slightly edited for clarity) with what I thought were pretty amusing stories that all happened to me in one crazy week last October. Enjoy.

1. "That guy couldn't feel any better..."

This week a California couple has been putting in mega-hours at Suncoast. They both get drunk early and stay that way the whole time they play. They’re really pretty annoying, because they flagrantly talk about the hand while it’s in progress and coach each other, and the casino staff won’t do anything about it, because they’re dropping thousands of dollars a day. They’re never paying attention, so they slow the game down terribly, because every time it’s their turn, the dealer has to catch them up on what’s happening. The woman, Kelly, is actually a decent player. But the guy, Rob, is awful—he’s never paying attention, and thinks the way to play is to make ridiculous bets and raises every time, because occasionally he’ll get a call when he has a monster hand, or pull off a big suckout with lucky cards coming. He must get such an adrenaline rush when those huge pots are pushed to him, because he’s willing to lose tons of money in the process. Obviously, decent players will just wait for a big hand, and when the stars are all lined up right, spring the trap on him.

So Monday night, I think it was, Player A is a guy who, I swear, talks exactly like Paulie Walnuts on the Sopranos. Player B is somebody I haven’t seen before, but he has been waiting and waiting and waiting for a chance to nail Rob for all his chips, and he finally does it. B quickly declares that he’s done playing for the day, because he just doubled his money. He packs up his chips and leaves. After he leaves the table, Player A says (and remember, you must hear the Paulie Walnuts voice in your head when you read this), “That guy couldn’t feel any better if he had just gotten a blow job!”

I usually try not to laugh at or otherwise encourage the many crudities and vulgarities that low-class poker players engage in, but it was just too perfect a line, in too funny a voice, and I almost fell out of my chair laughing so hard.


2. Inflicting a bad beat

I have put some truly sick beats on people for big pots recently. Last night, when one of three ultra-drunks sat down, he started throwing in big raises nearly every hand, and scaring people off. I picked up A-J on the button, and decided to play back hard at him to see if I could cool his jets. He raised, and I reraised. He called. Flop had a Q and two little cards--nothing to help me, really, but he checked, so I put in a pot-sized bet. He hesitated quite a bit (and he was way too drunk to be consciously doing that to disguise a big hand), but called. Turn was a 10, which I didn’t like at all, because he could easily have either a Q or 10 in his hand, and any pair would be ahead of me at this point. But he looked at the board for a long time, as though he didn’t like it much, and checked, so I pushed all-in. To my considerable surprise and consternation, he thought a while, then said, “Fuck it, I’m calling!” and pushed his chips in. Then the blessed K came on the river, giving me the highest possible straight. Turns out he had Q-9, so he had flopped top pair, which explains why he was willing to call. So because I caught one of the few cards left in the deck (any of four kings or three remaining aces) that could save me, I made over $200 on that hand instead of losing the same amount.

There was an audible gasp from the table when we turned over our hands at the end (in a tournament, you have to both turn over your hands as soon as the betting is complete, but in cash games you can wait until all the cards have been put out), and they realized that I had moved all-in with basically nothing, and sucked out. This was obviously startling because they had only seen me bet strong with strong, made hands. Several people all at once were saying, “I would have sworn he had pocket aces,” “I thought he must have flopped a set,” etc. But somewhat surprisingly, there was general approval and admiration: the consensus was “You’ve got a helluva lot of guts to do that,” rather than “Boy, that was stupid—don’t you know you can’t bluff a drunk, bad player off a hand?” I certainly should know that by now—it’s one of those lessons I’ve had to pay to learn more than a few times.


3. Inflicting another bad beat

I didn’t get enough sleep last night because I was playing so late, so around 8 pm tonight I was really hitting the wall. I was at the Orleans again, had started with $100, doubled it up, then lost a big hand when I had A-J and another A on the flop, but I didn’t recognize that an opponent had made two pair, so got knocked back down to about $100 again. I decided I’d play one more big hand, and then win or lose, I’d go home. But then I went card-dead. I waited 45 minutes for any decent hand to play, and nothing came. I was down to about $75, because of paying the blinds and calling a few pre-flop raises, only to have to dump the hand when nothing developed. Finally I decided that I would just have to pick two cards and play them as if they were aces, and hope for the best. I got J-3 of diamonds in late position, a real crap hand. But sometimes—especially if you have a strong, tight reputation and haven’t raised in a long time—you can get away with playing like you’re holding a big pair, even when you’re not. That’s what I decided to go for.

I raised to $12 and got five callers. Yikes! That’s not what I wanted! With five others seeing the flop, it’s going to help one of them for sure, and it will be hard to push him off the hand. Oh well—the pot was now big enough that it was worth taking a major gamble on winning it.

The flop is 10-8-3. I’ve got a crummy pair of 3s, and nothing more. But it’s checked around to me, so apparently nobody else liked it very much either, and I decide to go for it. I push in my last $60 or so. One guy calls. Crap! No matter what he has, it’s got to have me beat, because nobody would call that bet with a worse hand. Oh well, I went into this hand knowing that it might blow up on me, but I had made enough at the Hilton earlier that even if I bombed out here, I’d still be up for the day. Turn card was a 7, and the river a 9. I sheepishly turned over my cards to show that I just had the 3s.

I didn’t even realize what had happened until another player said, “Oh my God, he hit runner-runner straight!” Sure enough, there was a 7, 8, 9, and 10 on the board, plus my J for the straight. The other guy had had ace-ten, giving him top pair and top kicker on the flop—a pretty good hand for him to gamble on. He was, shall we say, unhappy when he saw how it had gone down. Oh well—as they say, that’s poker, and I’ve been on the bad end of crap just like that enough times that I don’t mind a little excessively good luck flowing my way now and then.

Besides, hands like that have powerful future value, even if I lose them. To the extent that I’m known just as a rock that only plays premium hands, it’s hard to get action. When people see that I can push just as hard with nothing as I do when I’ve got the goods, it makes them more likely to call me the next time I actually have the best hand. Having opponents completely unsure what I have is at least as good as, if not better than, just having them habitually run away because they’re convinced I have the nuts.

Dealers as beggars

As Joan Rivers used to say in her stand-up routines, "Can we talk?" In particular, can we talk about dealers who beg (directly or indirectly) for tips?

There's a dealer named John at Orleans that I have previously liked a lot--he's very funny, while also being better than average at keeping things moving clearly and efficiently. But he shocked me the other day. He looked extremely bored while waiting for the action to finish on one hand, and while dealing the cards on the next he was in slow motion--literally. I told him that it looked like his batteries had run down. He just said, "No, that's not it." I didn't catch what he meant. But then that hand turned into a huge pot, and the winner tipped him 2 red ($5) chips. The next deal flew out of his hands. I still didn't make the connection, but I said, "Hey, I guess you got new batteries." He replied, "Yep, two red ones." Then he added, "Basically, you guys determine how fast we'll go here."

On www.allvegaspoker.com I've read visitors commenting on the occasional dealer who is shameless in hinting for tips, but I've never seen it before. I lost all respect for this John. How completely crass and tacky and unprofessional, to deliberately slow down in order to annoy (or cajole or encourage--whatever) players into tipping better. The only book there is for poker dealers ("Professional Poker Dealer's Handbook," by Dan Paymar) says (though it shouldn't need to be said):

Always thank a player immediately for a toke. Try to make eye contact, as
this adds sincerity to the thanks. Show gratitude in your voice, but always do
it the same regardless of the size of the toke. Don't fawn over a player because
of an unusually large toke, and don't sound disgruntled because of a small toke
or none at all.... It can go without saying that dealers have a natural
resentment toward a "stiff" (non-toker). However, such a player should be
treated as well as any other. Even the non-tokers are important to your income
because without them there might not be a game for you to deal. Also, the
subject of tokes should never be discussed within earshot of any player.

Maybe my next "tip" for John should be a copy of that page of the book.

Second story: The only time I've tried playing at the Sahara was about two weeks ago, and a similar thing happened. Two guys in a pot go to the showdown. The one who called the last bet voluntarily turned over his hand first. The other guy sees that it's a winner, and mucks. The winner asks to see the mucked hand, with which request the dealer complies. The loser is out of chips and leaves the table.

The dealer tells the winner of the hand that, in the future, it might be better not to ask to see the hand, because sometimes the guy who mucks has actually thrown away the winner without knowing it, so exposing the hand risks losing the pot. Better to just take the money and be left wondering what your opponent had. (In some casinos, the house rule is that the dealer has to kill the hand before showing it, so there is no such risk, but generally what the dealer said here is correct.) The player saw the point, and thanked the dealer for the advice. The dealer said, "Well, you know, there is always a way to show appreciation for good advice from the dealer." The player said, "You're right"--and tossed him a few chips.

Completely tacky.

Final story. Last night I was playing at Suncoast. I won an enormous pot--about $900, because of a three-way all-in. There was a side pot, but the dealer ended up not having to count it out, because I was the big stack and I won it all. I passed him a $5 chip. He went surly fast, and seemed extremely grumpy for the next several hands. Maybe something else had happened that I missed, but I got the impression that he felt shortchanged on his tip for that big pot. I hope that wasn't it.

Everybody has his or her own approach to tipping dealers. Here's mine (remembering that we're talking either $1-$2 no-limit or $3-$6 limit here). I give $1 from every pot I win. The exception is that if a hand takes unusually long to play out (e.g., lots of bets and raises with several people involved, and/or side pot to count down), I'll bump it up to $2 or $3, because the dealer could otherwise have gotten out another hand or two in that amount of time. On one hand, that means that I might look cheap when there's a large pot and I toke only a buck (and some players have called me cheap in that situation). But on the other hand, I do the same even if I only pick up $3 by winning the blinds with an early-position raise, in which case I'm giving 1/3 of my profit. I figure it all averages out. I also don't distinguish between fast and slow dealers (because their tip income will naturally reflect their speed), or between those who make few mistakes and those who make many. I've wrestled with the ethics of this, and decided that I just don't want to be faced with having to weigh all those factors to come up with a "right" amount every time I win a hand, so I've basically said, "screw it all," and devolved to the fixed amount. If that makes me lazy or unethical in some other players' eyes, so be it--it's what works best for me.

I was encouraged recently that this was an acceptable approach when I read David Sklansky's book, "Poker, Gaming, and Life," in which he makes the following comment (p. 116-117):

One logical way to tip if you are a regular player is the following: Tip in
such a way that if everybody tipped similarly, the dealer would make a
reasonable amount for the day. For instance, if a dealer deals about 150 hands
per day, you might think that he or she ought to average about 75 cents per hand
dealt. If so, you might want to make this your average tip, depending on the
size of the pot. You know that tourists frequently tip more, while others tip
not at all, but that is not your concern. No dealer should complain about you if
you use this method. Furthermore, if you are trying to make a living by playing
poker but are just struggling along [that's me!], it should not be expected that
you toke off a high percentage of your income. You are still helping dealers
indirectly by keeping games going.

I agree, except that I've eliminated the part about the size of the pot. I figure that since I don't hold the dealer responsible when I lose a hand, I don't owe him or her a "reward" when I win one, either. The tip is a sign of thanks and respect for doing the job, and, in my opinion, doesn't need to relate to the size of the pot won.

But even if I'm being unforgiveably tightfisted, it doesn't excuse dealers degrading themselves by begging. It's an embarrassment. (What's more, I'm guessing that it's explicitly forbidden by every casino in town.)

Comments are welcome--particularly from dealers--about this touchy subject.