"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.