A night at Bill's

Last night at Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon turned out to be one of my few unprofitable sessions there. *sigh* It happens.

But there were some noteworthy things, which I collect below.


1.

Not long ago I reported that Bill's had changed its no-limit hold'em game from a single $1 blind to a more standard $1-$2 structure. That experiment did not last long. A little birdie tells me that the people who want to buy in for the minimum $20 (and there are a lot of them) were going broke too fast, and they couldn't keep the game going as consistently. So they have revised it yet again, and now run it as $0.50-$1. That seems reasonable to me. It means two people have money in the pot before the cards are dealt (unlike the original structure), and there's a little more there. It also means a lot more handling of 50-cent pieces, which is mildly annoying, but oh well.


2.

Bill's has joined other Harrah's properties in now allowing a button straddle. As elsewhere, this means that the blinds have to act first, which totally sucks. There should be, like, a constitutional amendment to end this abomination.


3.

Every time I think I've seen everything that can get screwed up in the conduct of a poker hand, somebody finds a new way.

Two players got it all in before the flop. The dealer put out the flop (Jh-8s-Jc), turn (Jd), and river (7h). The players involved showed A-Q (I didn't note the suits, but it didn't matter) and 9h-9d. It looked like a straightforward win for the pocket nines with a full house.

But when the dealer pushed up the two jacks on the flop, he uncovered an extra card. As you can see from the photo below, there had been an unseen fourth card on the flop: the 10d was hiding under the Jh.




I have many times seen dealers accidentally put out four cards on the flop. It is usually pretty straightforward how to handle this. The dealer and floor reconstruct how the cards were taken off of the deck, and thereby determine which card doesn't belong. It becomes the burn card for the turn, as it was supposed to have been. If they cannot confidently reconstruct how the cards came off of the deck, the procedure would be to reshuffle the deck and start the flop over again, though I don't think I've ever seen this resorted to.

Two things made this situation different. First, the players were both all-in before the flop, so there were no further decisions to make. Second, the error was not discovered until after the hand was apparently completed. I have never seen either of these conditions present when there has been an accidental four-card flop, let alone having both of them together.

Significantly, it made no difference which of the four cards on the flop were the "right" ones; any combination still yielded a win for the 9-9 over the A-Q.

Because of that fact, had I been the floor person, I think I would have ruled that the nines win the pot. Had the error been discovered immediately and the proper flop reconstructed before putting out the turn and river, that would have been the result. It doesn't make sense to me to change that just because of the delay in discovering the problem, as long as the outcome couldn't possibly change. However, if different combinations of the flop cards yield different winners of the hands, and the correct flop cannot be reconstructed with virtually 100% confidence, I would split the pot between the two players. Alternately, I suppose one could argue for reshuffling the deck as it was before the flop (i.e., including the board cards and burn cards, but not including the discards from players who folded), then dealing out an entirely new board.

Here, the floor called it a "fouled flop" (a term I have not heard before; a Google search finds it only on one web page, here) and chopped the pot. For the reasons stated above, I don't think this was the best decision for these specific circumstances, but this being a situation I've never encountered or even contemplated before, perhaps it's the correct one by the book.

As always, comments by experienced dealers and floor staff are welcome.

Caveat: There is a possibility that the turn card was actually the Kd rather than the Jd, in which case the content of the flop does matter, because the 10 would then give the A-Q a Broadway straight. I distinctly recall that my first impression was that of a full house, but my memory might be adversely influenced by the subsequent rush of trying to figure out what the right thing to do in this situation was. I also commented to the guy next to me that the outcome wouldn't change no matter what the flop was, and he concurred. Finally, when I blow my photo up and fiddle with the brightness and contrast a bit, there seems to be a "J" in the corner of the turn card.

But two things give me pause. First, you can see that the dealer pushed up the two jacks in the flop, but not the turn card; if he were seeing a full house, I would expect him to push forward all three jacks. If the turn card was a king, it would be easier for him to overlook pushing that forward, even though he technically should.

The second thing is that right after snapping the picture, I whipped out my pen and paper to record notes about the hand, and I wrote: "(10) J 8 J 7 K." I was doing that immediately after the cards had been swept away following the floor decision, so it was from short-term memory rather than copying what I was seeing. I think now that I just mistakenly wrote a "K" there. I also clearly inverted the order of the turn and river, which adds to the likelihood that my "K" was a mistake of memory. But now I can't be 100% sure. I did not watch the hand play out, because I had stepped away from the table to snap the next two photos you'll see. I only came back as the dealer was declaring the winner and the error was uncovered, so the whole thing caught me kind of off-guard.


4.

New toy at Bill's:





I did not inquire as to how one plays, what stakes it can be set up for, or exactly how one goes about winning entry to the WSOP using it (as the signage implies one can do). Call Bill's and ask them, if you're interested. See here for more about the machines.


5.

One of the annoyances of playing at Bill's is the frequent overhead announcement of names from the restaurant's waiting list.

Last night, though, I (and probably only I) got a kick out of one of them, when the loudspeaker called for, "Nietzsche, party of four. Nietzsche, party of four."

I would have been amused no end to see a guy in a Superman costume stand up and say, "Hey, I think that's for me!"

(A little philosophy humor there. If you don't get it, see here. It won't make you laugh, but at least you'll understand.)

Ah, well. An identical announcement has probably been made an infinite number of times before.

(Yes, that's yet more lame philosophy humor. See here.)


6.

Here's an observation I've had in mind to blog about for a long time now, but never previously got around to it.

What is the most useless casino employee? The restroom attendant. I don't need somebody to turn on the water faucet for me and hand me a paper towel. It does not make my life any easier or more pleasant. In fact, I find it instrusive and obnoxious. No tip EVAR!

One of the best skits in the whole history of "Saturday Night Live" had Kevin Nealon as "The Bathroom Attendant," paying just a little bit too much attention to customer Harvey Keitel. Nealon, in fact, says here that that was his favorite SNL role. (For the curious, the show aired January 16, 1993; Episode 18-11 (#337).) Sadly, the clip does not appear to be posted anywhere on the web, despite there being many people saying that they wish they could watch it again. There are any number of YouTube videos that mimic the same idea, but I doubt that any of them skewer the point as perfectly as Nealon and Keitel.

Anyway, these attendants seem to be cropping up in ever more casinos. I think Hard Rock was the first place I saw them. I was surprised when I later found one at Bally's. But last night, for the first time, there was one at Bill's. Bill's! This is not exactly top-dollar territory we're talking about.

Spare me.


7.

Interesting observation from an unknown player at our table:

"You cannot be the drunkest, most effed-up person in Vegas. I know. I've tried."


Addendum

I forgot one more story. Reader Minton was there with me for part of the session. At one point I had 2h-4h and flopped a flush. When I won at the showdown, Minton said, "That made me all tingly."

Weird rule at the Riviera

Above is the Riviera I wish I were at. The one I have actually been at this week is considerably less glamorous. But it has at least been profitable, as some compensation for being a dump. I may continue going there every night as long as the pool tournament is going and most of the locals are staying away. The Riviera games are pretty soft on a regular basis, but right now they are marshmallows.

Last night after I had been playing for quite a while, a Riviera regular (one of maybe only four I've encountered this week) showed up. When he was under the gun, he put out a $5 chip. The dealer announced, "Five dollar straddle." I assumed he had just had a slip of the tongue, so I asked, "Five?" He said yes. Both the player and dealer said that the straddle can be either $4 or $5. I had never seen this before, here or anywhere else.

Half an hour later we have a new dealer. Same player puts out a $5 chip. Dealer makes change and announces, "Four dollar straddle." The player tells her that it's $5. She has never heard of this rule, but rather than calling the floor over (which seems the obvious thing to do), she just says, "Oh, OK," and lets it go.

When I was cashing out at the end of the night, I asked the floor guy at the desk. He told me that, yes, the straddle can be $5 if the whole table has agreed to it. Hmmm. At the time of the first incident, I had been at the table longer than anybody else, and nobody had ever asked for consensus. If the whole table had, in fact, agreed to this arrangement before I arrived, and the first dealer knew this to be so, is that agreement still valid when not a single player who had made it remained at the table--that is, after a complete turnover of players? That seems odd.

I asked the floorman why some of his dealers seemed not to have heard of this option. His response: "Because we kind of make things up as we go."

Ah. Well, that would explain it, all right. Fine way to run a poker room.

I really don't care whether somebody straddles for $4 or $5. The advantage is that it saves the dealer making a lot of change. It also makes it that much easier for me to fold marginal hands. The disadvantage is that it's non-standard (I have a general dislike for non-standard rules, unless there is a very good justification for them), it's unknown to most of the players and apparently even some of the dealers, and it relies on 100% table agreement, which is no longer present as soon as somebody new comes along.

It's not important, but it's peculiar, which obligates me to report it here. Now I have done so.

Button straddle

The other day at Harrah's I was surprised to see the button straddle being used. I had previously seen this only at the Rio, Hard Rock, and, most recently, the Stratosphere. I went to allvegaspoker.com, the best source of information about what's happening in Vegas poker rooms, and found this report confirming my observation, and noting that the rule change would also be coming to some or perhaps all Harrah's properties. Last night at Imperial Palace a dealer confirmed that they had had it going for two days.

I've previously explained my reasons for disliking it here. I have seen nothing since then to change my opinion, so I won't repeat the arguments here. This note is just to express my dismay that the thing is spreading. I hope that it stops where it is, and does not become a de facto standard in poker rooms.

"I know what a straddle is"

I was playing at the Monte Carlo tonight. We were in the first orbit after a new player had joined the table. When it was his big blind, the player to his left put in a live straddle to $4. Several people called the $4, including the big blind. When action reverted to the straddler, he raised to $24. That's where the trouble began.

But before I can continue the story, I need to provide you with this small diversion. It's a clip from "Seinfeld." In order to understand and appreciate what went through my mind as the rest of the story played out, you really need to take a minute (OK, 2:40) to watch the following scene first:




Back to our story. So the under-the-gun player raises to $24. The big blind objects. "He can't do that. When he put in his first raise, that was his turn. He can't reraise himself." Simultaneously, about three people at the table said variants of the same thing: "Yes, he can. It's a live straddle."

To all of which the new guy said testily, "I know what a straddle is!"

I had an instantaneous flashback to Jerry Seinfeld. I wanted to raise both of my index fingers, and tell him with a smile, "I don't think you do!"

OK, that's the end of the funny part of the story. It went back and forth, and he finally accepted the action, yet still insisting that (1) it was not legitimate, and (2) he knew what a straddle was. It was kind of bizarre.

In order to assuage the pedants among my readers (that's not an insult; I consider myself a fine specimen of the species), I'll point out that I do know that the term "straddle" has had more than one meaning over time. See here, e.g. But in contemporary usage, at least in Las Vegas, the term always suggests an optional blind raise with option to raise again.

This has never happened

I'm guessing that the following sequence of events has never occurred, not even once, in the history of poker:

1. The player to the left of the big blind posts a live straddle.
2. The dealer announces the straddle.
3. Every player at the table is paying attention and hears the announcement.
4. Every player who wishes to limp in to the pot, when it is his turn, remembers the straddle announcement, and, without further prompting or correction, places the correct amount in front of him.

I think the bare minimum number of reminders a dealer ever has to issue, after the initial announcement, is two.

The sequence in which every player hears the message, remembers it, and acts accordingly is, I think, like the unicorn, merely a lovely but unrealistic myth.

A pox on the "button straddle"

Every time I think I know everything about poker--at least about rules and procedures--I'm proven wrong.

Last night at the Rio a player was putting in a straddle bet from the button. This is something I had never seen before. The dealer would announce "button straddle."

Looking around the internet, it appears that this is the same thing as is elsewhere called a "Mississippi straddle." I have heard of that before, but only in the context of players asking dealers in other casinos if it was allowed, and the answer was always "no," so I never explored how it worked. I was surprised to learn that the Rio allows it.

The player on the button can post double the big blind before the cards are dealt. The pre-flop action then starts with the small and big blinds, concluding with the button. In other words, the button gets to act last on every round of betting, not just the three after the flop.

I don't like this at all. With the common straddle, the players in the blinds only have their relative position altered slightly. The big blind, instead of being last to act before the flop, is next-to-last. This isn't much of a change, and if the action has gone all the way around without a raise, the blinds can limp in with only the straddler left as a possible raiser behind. But with the button straddle, the players in the blinds have their relative order of action shifted radically, from last or almost last to first. If they choose to limp in, there is the whole table of people yet to act behind who might raise, rather than just the straddler. That makes a huge difference in whether one judges it to be worth calling from the small blind.

I don't think a player should be able to alter the order of play that dramatically.

There is nothing about this in the poker rule books that I have. It isn't even included in Michael Wiesenberg's poker dictionary (see http://www.poker1.com/mcu/mculib_dictionary.asp). I find precious little intelligent discussion of its merits and demerits in the various poker forums. All of which means that I don't have thoughtful commentary from reliable sources that might help me see aspects of this variation that are at present escaping me. For that reason, I'll keep an open mind on the subject for now. Maybe there are decent arguments that would make me revise my opinion.

But for now, I think it stinks.

(Had another small profit at the Rio today, and picked up another nice batch of colorful chips, as shown above.)

No-limit straddles

Every poker room in the city, save one, has what seems to me to be a flaw in its rules: specifically, a fixed amount for a straddle bet in no-limit games. This is my call for the other 50+ rooms to get with the program.

First, the basics. A straddle is the currently more popular term for what Michael Wiesenberg's poker dictionary (the best there is; see http://www.poker1.com/mcu/mculib_dictionary.asp) calls an overblind:

********
overblind
1. (v) Put in a blind when one is already present. In a traveling blind game, this could mean someone putting in an optional blind in addition to the mandatory blinds. In a game without mandatory blinds, this would be blinding a pot (putting in a blind) after someone else has killed it. (To put in an overblind is sometimes called to kill.) Sometimes called go the overs. 2. (n) The blind put in by the person who overblinds. In a 3-3-6 traveling blind game ($12 limit or $12 minimum bet no-limit), John might put in $12 before getting his cards. He has doubled the limit (or the minimum bet) to $24, and he gets last action before the draw. Someone might say, "John acts last; he has the overblind." Also straddle, for both meanings.
**********

Because a straddle is simply a blind raise (though whether it is technically a "raise" is a point I'll deal with shortly), with the option to reraise oneself, in limit games it makes sense for it to be the same amount that a regular raise from first position (i.e., under the gun) would be. But since no-limit games don’t restrict the size of a raise, it's illogical for the amount of a straddle to be limited.

To be sure, nearly every poker room with no-limit games allows only a fixed straddle of double the big blind. Treasure Island is the exception. (The astute reader may have guessed that from the choice of accompanying photo.) There, a straddle bet in a no-limit game can be of any size the player wants to make it, up to his whole stack. After thinking about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re doing it right, and everybody else is doing it wrong.

Personally, I think straddles are generally pretty stupid strategy. (See my full rant on this at http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2006/11/live-straddle.html.) I rarely do them, but it doesn’t bother me that others like using them. It just seems to me that if the goal of allowing them in the first place is to increase action (particularly at a tight-fisted table), then that would be better achieved by allowing a straddle of any amount. As it stands, the difference between calling the $2 big blind (in a $1-2 game) and a $4 straddle is virtually nil. But a straddle to, say, $15 would definitely alter (and make more complicated) the decisions for the other players. And from the perspective of poker room managers, it will tend to increase the chance of getting a pot large enough to collect the maximum rake.

I’ve checked several sources, and there is very little advice in print about this question. Specifically, the allowable amount of a straddle in a no-limit game is not discussed in Cooke’s Rules of Real Poker or Lou Krieger’s Rules of Poker. Bob Ciaffone’s "Robert’s Rules of Poker" (never in print, as far as I know, but widely available online) specifies that the straddle amount is twice the big blind, but it’s not clear to me whether he is intending to include no-limit games in that prescription. In Paymar et al’s Professional Poker Dealer’s Handbook, p. 141 (2nd edition), they don’t discuss no-limit games, but do say that in spread-limit games the straddle amount can be anything up to the maximum raise that would be allowed. This makes sense. Extending the same logic to no-limit games, the straddle amount should be unlimited.

Two technical questions that I can think of will come up if other poker rooms were to decide to give this a trial:

1. What is the minimum amount of a reraise? If the straddle is just a raise of the $2 big blind, then a straddle of, say, $15 is a $13 raise, and one would think that the minimum reraise would therefore be another $13, to a total of a $28 bet. But it may be better to think of the straddle not as a standard raise, but more like another (optional) blind. If so, then the minimum next raise would need to be double the straddle amount (e.g., to $30 on a $15 straddle). (Robert’s Rules, version 10, #15: “A straddle bet sets a new minimum bring-in; it is not treated as a raise.”) Personally, I think this makes more sense, and would be easier to implement, though it’s only a small difference.

2. What is the minimum bet on subsequent betting rounds? Usually the minimum bet on the flop, turn, and river is the amount of the big blind. Usually the occurrence of a straddle before the flop isn’t considered to change this. However, if one sees the straddle as, effectively, a third blind, then it might make more sense to use the straddle amount as the minimum bet size on subsequent streets, too. Furthermore, if there’s a straddle to, say, $15, with a call or two, a minimum bet on subsequent betting rounds of $15 is more sensible than reverting to a $2 minimum, given how big the pot is going to be. The question may never come up, because the kind of action junkie that will throw in a sizable straddle, given the chance, isn’t going to even consider a $2 bet when there’s a decent-sized pot built by his pre-flop action. But the room staff should make the decision in advance one way or the other, to be prepared, just in case.

So how about it, Venetian? Caesars? Mirage? MGM? Mandalay? Binion's? Red Rock? Who among you will step forward, admit that you've had an illogical rule in place, and change it?

Live straddle

You know how most casino games have bets that have larger or smaller house edges, and the ones with the biggest house edges are called the "sucker bets"? Well, the live straddle is the sucker bet of poker.

You're putting money into the pot voluntarily, without knowing what your cards are, knowing that you'll have to play the hand out of position. I can't think of even one good reason a sensible player would want to do that.

To sweeten the pot, you say? I doubt that it does, because you'll get fewer callers for the larger amount, offsetting the fact that they each come in for a bit more money.

To thin the field of opponents, you say? Well, you might not want to thin the field after you see what cards you have. If you have middle suited connectors, for example, you probably want as many players as possible in, because that's how such hands tend to get maximum value when they hit big.

To gain the advantage of acting last before the flop, you say? Sorry, but that's a pittance of an advantage compared to the uphill climb of having to act out of position for each of the next three betting rounds.

To be able to bluff-raise pre-flop and steal the limpers' bets, you say? Well, there's a decent chance that one of them knows you intend to pull this trick, and is limping in with a real hand, just waiting for you to do it, so he can re-raise you. Then how smart does your little ploy seem? Furthermore, there are a good number of players who dislike the live straddle enough that, especially when they're in late position, they'll put in a hefty raise with nothing, just to steal your money, and to discourage you from doing it again anytime soon. I heard one guy say, "If I'm in position, I'll always raise the straddle just on general principle." Can't say as I blame him.

And to make matters worse, the straddle always slows down the game, because there's always at least 2 or 3 players who don't notice that it's on, no matter how many times the dealer announces it, so we waste time while it all gets sorted out. It's a nuisance, with no benefit to anybody.

If I had my own casino, you'd get kicked out just for uttering the words "live straddle," let alone trying to do it.