I'm also complaining about this in B&M, TWSS, 4L, etc etc, but it impacts my Las Vegas Lifestyle as Aria will no longer be part of it

This is definitely tl;dr, so if you read it, it's your own fault...

So I'm at Aria last night around 1:45 a.m., after playing 1/3 NL for about 12 hours, and the following happens:

Opponent makes a bet on the river, throwing out a string of red chips that I can't really see how many it is. I have a flush, but feel that my opponent might have caught a full house on river, so I call, but rather than slowing the game down & asking for an exact count I just take two handfuls of chips to make sure I have the bet covered & sort of dump them in a pile over the line, saying call.

Opponent has the full house & the dealer instantly grabs all the chips I put out, & without breaking them down, mixes them in the pot & gives them to my opponent, while I'm saying hey what are you doing? He racks up & leaves seconds later & she tells him to tell his girlfriend she said hi or some similar personal message indicating that they know eachother.

I ask the dealer what the deal is & she said she was able to see that I had definitely put out exactly 40 & gave me a ton of attitude about it. The loose pile of chips was sitting right in front of my spot in the 7 seat, & not nicely stacked.

Several other players at the table chimed in about the inappropriateness of not breaking down the chips & severe unlikelihood she actually had any idea what was in the stack & just wanted to cover up her mistake. I was going to just let it go, I'm sure there's a lesson in there about protecting my chips & all that, but due to all her attitude, the floor was eventually called over.

The dealer told her side of the story...that I had put out exactly 40 & yes she should have broken them down but it was definitely exactly right. I & a couple others then explained what actually happened & the floor was like well you'd be surprised at how good dealers can be at counting chip stacks & blah blah blah.

Then we got to the part of the story with the personal message & the guy said oh, ok, let me go look into this or something to that effect. He walked away. The dealer continued to give me attitude, saying she should be able to talk to whoever she wants & it's none of my business who she wants to talk to & that she's been doing this for 7 years so she knows how many chips I put out

You'd think what she would have learned in 7 years is not to give attitude to players when they are being very polite about you screwing them over, & TO BREAK DOWN MUDDLED CHIP STACKS TO MAKE SURE THE POT IS CORRECT.

Anyway, I'd been joking around & laughing & having a good time with my tablemates & enjoying myself, but the whole thing just sort of put a damper on my night & I really just wanted to leave, but wanted to wait & see what the floor would say.

I probably put out between $45 & $60 (if I had to bet on it, I'd say it was $55), so the actual $ really wasn't important, it was more the principle of what they'd decide & how they'd deal with this.

So I don't hear a word for ~40 minutes or so, so I go up to the desk and talk to a supervisor about what's going on as I just want to go home & go to bed at this point. He says there was a shift change, & so no one was still there, but he'd talk to the dealer about it & see if anyone had filed a surveillance request or anything.

I sit around for another 30+ mins & still haven't heard anything, so I rack up, cash out, & ask him about it again. He says that no one filed a surveillance request & so there's nothing he can do now. I said I understand, but it's kind of messed up how y'all have been treating me. He said something to the effect of well sorry but that's just the way it is, deal with it.

So yeah, that, combined with some other really weird floor rulings that didn't effect me (including pulling cards out of the muck & allowing a husband & wife to trade off sitting in a seat when there were 25 people on the waiting list), & reports from a friend that she noticed at least 5 dealer errors in her tournament, I'm quite done with Aria.

I saw Barry Greenstein, David Benyamine, Scott Seiver, Iceman (!), Sorel Mizzi, etc there, so I'm sure their high stakes games are going great, & most of the dealers I had were fairly competent, but I guess they just don't have enough decent dealers to fulfill the demand, and save the good ones for the higher level people that they care about.

So yeah. Sorry for the tl;dr, but meh.

did villain ship a nice tip to dealer on way out also?

is aria going to slip to B standards

That's a minute of my life I will not get back.

That truly sucks. I understand you not wanting to slow the game down, but you should always know the amount you're calling and place that amount in front of you. Or you could say call....wait for the hands to be shown down and collect / pay accordingly. That being said - the dealer and floor personnel are way below average.

I think he threw her a red or two, but I can't 100% say cuz I was already in "what's going on here" mode.



Yeah, I think I might have even said call, but she kept looking at me & that's when I started putting out chips. Like I said, I'm definitely sure I should have protected myself better, & I 100% would have just let it go if she didn't give me so much attitude about it out of the blue.

+1 spot on

yes, I was warned it was long, and I can handle long....just not long and boring.

At least the bathtub one was interesting.

Not really sure what the deal is with all the attitude. I wasn't posting the story to entertain you. I was posting it to show my disappointment with the customer service I received at Aria yesterday.

The 't' in "tl;dr" stands for "too." If something is fun & interesting, chances are it's not too long, and it's actually the correct length.

If you've received good customer service at Aria, I'm happy for you, and I hope others receive it as well, as that should be their aim & I hope mine is just an isolated incident & not indicative of a larger problem.

Slow reader, huh?

JP, you should have slowed the game down.

I really have nothing to add but there was a floor ruling about a month ago where a player was getting into an argument with another about his slowfolding. Floor was called and kind of dissipated the argument. The other guy repeated kept saying to the slowfolder "are you good?" putting his hand out in "relax dude, just let me save face" kind of way. Then another floor person came (some guy with glasses) and was sort of on the other guy's side. Slowfolder asked that floor to make the other guy stop talking to him and floor kind of said, well he's just asking you a question if you're good or not. Slowfolder literally waved him off and floor said "Sir, don't pass me off." He said "I just did" and floor said "Rack up!" It was just a weird situation and really I felt the floor was on a power trip.

edit: so no, I don't really agree with a lot of rulings but who doesn't?

I had this same thing (only slightly worse) happen to me at foxwoods one time. I pushed all in and got called with someone with significantly less chips than me. He won the hand and the dealer shipped him all the chips.

Dealers are people and people make mistakes. You really have to protect your chips to the best of your abilities. On a side note I'm going to be venturing out to vegas soon, we should meet up. Do you still have my phone number?

Yeah, I agree entirely that I could have done something different to protect myself, but it's a fairly standard thing that I see several times each time I play poker, & the dealer always counts it down. I just didn't appreciate the way it was handled, definitely will be more careful about it in the future, but like I said, could care less bout the $ aspect of it in this case as it was negligible.

Yes, I do still have your #. I read your $500 thread & was going to say something. Should be fun.

The "attitude out of the blue" probably comes for the possibility that the dealer knew she did something wrong. The dealer might be upset or embarrassed at being called out for the error and the attitude you received is some primal brain stem reaction at self protection

Some (most?) dealers, both poker and table, are just one level above carnies working the ring toss game at your local carnivals. I wouldn't expect any help from them in any kind of controversy at the table as they are always going to protect their own interests and maybe even hide behind the "protection of the game" or "speed of play" rules if that is an angle they can use.

If you want to cause some pain file a complaint with the Gaming Board. It will probably cause you just as much of a headache as Aria but if you are a vengeful type that's your play.

Thanks for the warning about Aria. It's always good for the board to share good and bad info/experiences about a place.

Probably the first really negative thing I've read about Aria so far.

Lame treatment but all you have to do is say "call" and the whole thing becomes a non-issue.

By over-thinking the situation and making a strange decision in an effort to not slow the pace of play, you caused the game to come to screeching halt. I do understand your trepidation however - I hate to inconvenience other people.

Man all I know is you probably really helped the pace of the game pickup by placing these 2 piles of chips in the pot, then chatting with the dealer, and then calling the floor over. Thanks for thinking about the pace of the game.

How do you grab 2 handful of chips and only come away with $55? I thought you were gonna have like $200.

Do you plan on posting this everywhere and then still continuing to play at Aria or was this the final straw?

Hi Murder:

I don't have much sympathy. While I'm sure that everything you are saying is correct, the first rule of poker is "protect your hand," and placing the right amount of chips in the pot is part of that.

Poor dealers have always been an industry wide problem, and while it may be difficult to believe, the dealers today are in general much better than they use to be. However, that doesn't mean you can ever get careless as you did here and not expect to have problems.

Best wishes,
Mason

The Aria is awesome..next time slow your roll and count out the correct amount of chips..

My $.02...Next time you say "I call" just wait for a total from the dealer before you push chips forward.

Also from the story...."he'll take a look into this".....I'm not so sure that he meant let me run to the tapes more than he meant.....I'll tell you I'll talk to this dealer later to make you feel better about the situation. I mean were you demanding that he look at the tapes to see if you overpaid the $10.....then let it go on for 40+ mins?

Def not going to file a complaint with the Gaming Board. Just disappointed with customer service & expected better things from Aria then what I saw & heard about yesterday.

No problem.

Yeah, I've been there several times before & never really had a bad experience.

Yeah, I understand I needed to protect myself, and should not rely on the competence of others, but the main point was to discuss the way the situation was handled after this happened.

Yes, I was wrong, but they were much wronger

Well, the simple thing is, I win, they ship me the pot, I lose, dealer counts chips that are already out there, refunds the rest, & we move on really quickly. If I had known how it would play out, I certainly would have done it differently, but with a competent dealer, this is the swiftest method afaik because even if I ask, and count out the correct # of chips, they should be double-checking it anyway. The floor was only called over because the dealer was so rude about it.

I usually keep 50 stacks because it's easier to deal with standard bet-sizes in a 1/2 or 1/3 game that way (i.e. someone bets 40, take 2 off a stack & put it in, etc.), so I grabbed one short incomplete stack, & then a similar # of chips from another stack. Handful probably was not the correct term.

I won't be going back. If they had handled the situation in a respectful manner it would have been an absolute non-issue. Yeah, it's lame she gave the guy $15 of my $, but whatever, apologize, say you'll follow proper procedure next time, & move on. It all could have happened while she was dealing the next hand.

I neither expect nor deserve sympathy for what initially happened. I agree I could have done something different, and the fact that I didn't allowed her to do what she did. The only reason I included that part in the story is to set up the resulting actions.

I do feel that I deserve to be treated with a minimal level of respect as a polite, non-beligerent, sober, friendly poker player, though.

I am glad you have had good experiences with the Aria, & hope you continue to do so. Thinking the problem here is me & not the resulting actions of the floor is lol, though, as anyone who was at the table can attest.

Agree.

Yeah, I didn't know what he meant, but he acted like he took it more seriously once he found out the dealer knew the guy. I assumed he was going to come back with some sort of statement or apology that he couldn't do anything, which would have been fine...wandering off & then never coming back to tell me anything is impolite & not good customer service, and a pretty non-effective floor decision.

You forgot the part, where you say "I CALL", he tables, you say nh and she says what you have to pay. This is the quickest method.

Tbh, I am surprised that you didnt do that. You said you lost 10-20$ because of that and I think you shouldnt disregard a room because of such a tiny mistake. It sucks et al., but from everything I've gathered about poker rooms, Aria seems to do the best job. If there was an alternative, I could see where you were coming from and just choosing to go there, but right now there seems no alternative.

And again, the first thing I've learned when I educated myself about live poker was: Announce your actions.

A lot of people, including me, even announce folds when it is not obvious that we are folding.

I think you are making more out of this than it actually is. Bad customer support is something to frown upon, but we also have to stay fair. If this happened for $1000, it would have been handled differently, I am sure.

Just because he didn't do things correctly doesn't give the dealer a pass. She is still supposed to count the bet.

I disagree that this is the quickest method, because its not. This involves me asking the question, receiving an answer, counting the chips out, then the dealer also counting the chips out afterward, or at least stacking it up against his bet, which was still strewn out & never broken down afaik.

I do agree with you that this would be the best thing for me to do, however, and I freely admit that I could have handled it differently.

People putting out approximate stacks to call all-ins or other bets is a pretty standard part of poker, though, and I did verbally indicate that it was a call as well. Sometimes the dealer will even ask you to put out a stack for the camera.

I agree entirely that the $ involved is not worth worrying about whatsoever, and I never expected them to go to the cameras or anything. Just be polite & not get all mad because you made a dumb mistake, tell me you're sorry it happened, there's nothing you can do, and that she will break down chips in the future. Is that difficult