Comprehensive Greektown tomfoolery thread

[AKQJ10]

Speak up or not?

Full table, button on 2, seat 4 busts out. Now the button moves to some point between 3 and 4. Seat 5, who should be the lone BB, takes back a dollar when the dealer asks for a SB. No one else can recall where the button should be, and seat 3 is happy to call it 4's dead button.

(If it matters, the dealer is the one from the OP, the very worst in the room.)

[crazyb16]

Originally Posted by AKQJ10

Speak up or not?

Full table, button on 2, seat 4 busts out. Now the button moves to some point between 3 and 4. Seat 5, who should be the lone BB, takes back a dollar when the dealer asks for a SB. No one else can recall where the button should be, and seat 3 is happy to call it 4's dead button.

(If it matters, the dealer is the one from the OP, the very worst in the room.)

I would personally save myself the headache of speaking up and dealing with these clowns in hopes to speed up the game...

[AKQJ10]

Yeah, i shouldn't have brought it up. I'm just compulsive (although in principle, all of us should be getting free hands, but the guy who missed the blind got more than the rest of us which is a competitive advantage -- but i should have let it slide).

Tuesday they were in rare form even for Greektown. Four hours in, two major cluster****s.

#1. Huge main pot and $20 side pot after flop betting. Heavy action on turn. Now dealer brings turn bets into main pot. Chaos ensues. Meanwhile, river betting has gotten going: bet, call, raise. As everyone tries to reconstruct action, dealer brings in the 2 bets but not the raise and puts THAT in the main pot. Game stops for a few minutes to sort this out with plenty of shouting and other commotion.

#2. Kill pot. Dealer tosses out kill button to SB, but somehow no one including the kill sees it. Limp, limp, I raise a259 dddc, calls, 3-bet, i 4-bet cap, all call. Now the dealer asks the kill, who has folded, to post $10. Kill obliges. Now I'm not willing to play a totally screwed up hand with a kill but non-kill stakes, so I ask for the floor - 3 times. After much commotion, the floor reasonably rules no kill this hand, same player has to post kill next hand.

Then in the evening session:

3. Another dealer, an experienced one, screws up at least 2 quartered pots in a down, i mean really butchers them as though she's never dealt the game before. I don't mean misread the board. I mean, quarter a pot wrong and rectify it incorrectly after pushing the other half of the pot, with half the table clamoring for her to straighten it out. (Actually this is pretty standard fare for Greektown, but it's still irritating when you see it multiple times a down and realize that virtually all the table could do a better job dividing pots.)

A few minutes later, i pointed out a marked card from a shuffler crease. "Oh, that's just the shuffler," she said, and did nothing else about it. I've given up pointing out marked cards because even in normal cardrooms they say, "Oh, that's just the shuffler," as though somehow the fact that no one meant to mark the cards means it's legitimate for them to be marked. Funny thing is, in my mind the rake is part of the fee we pay to maintain proper playing equipment. I used to consider marked cards a really big deal, but no one else seems to care, so i finally just gave up. But for some reason i spoke up this time.

Then at the end of her down, she pushed me half a pot she had forgotten to rake. This is another Greektown specialty, asking the players for the rake after the pot's pushed. I just said, "No." She threatened not to give me another hand, so i grabbed a rack. She relented and pitched me cards anyway.

[prototypepariah]

Originally Posted by AKQJ10

None of them spreads an equally soft $5/10 Omaha 8 game, or for that matter ANY fixed-limit game less than 15/30. If you're not fond of playing NLHE and nothing but NLHE, then you're kind of stuck. That's the only reason several of us put up with this stuff.

There's limit hold'em in michigan/detroit?

[AKQJ10]

15/30 as part of the Motor City RxR. 3/6 kill at GT. Not sure about Soaring Eagle and other native casinos.

[prototypepariah]

Sorry, what's RxR ?

[gambit8888]

Originally Posted by prototypepariah

Sorry, what's RxR ?

Round by Round.


Usually one orbit of Holdem and one orbit of Omaha, but actually it could be any two games that the players agree upon.

[AKQJ10]

Oooooh boy....

I just got in a dispute with a dealer who wanted to push me half a pot that was a confusing mix of red and white, and then had trouble matching up the even number of red chips. I think she's in tears now. (I'm not kidding.)

Details to follow...

[Koss]

I'm glad to see nothing has changed since I was a reg there 7 years ago. I always thought the management were worse than the dealers. I remember back in 2005 the wait for a table during prime time could be 2+ hours. After one fairly long wait, I get called. When I get my chips and go to the table, I'm told that the seat isn't actually available. Typical. Actually, it seemed fairly common for people to simply jump on an empty seat there despite not being on any of the waiting lists, and management did nothing about this.

They tell me I'm still next to be called. Do you think the next name is mine? No. So I find the same floor manager who told me I was next, and let her know they just called someone else who wasn't me. She DENIES EVER HAVING SEEN OR TALKED TO ME BEFORE. Luckily I was able to talk to the person actually calling names off the list and get them to fix the situation and make me next. If they had bumped me to the bottom of the list, I likely would have created a rather large scene.

Another gem was the manager who gave me tons of crap about validating my parking after a 16 hour session.
Him: "What game have you been playing?"
Me: "3/6 at the table over there" *points to table*
Him: "That table is 5/10" *points to different table*
Me: "Not that one the 3/6 table next to it"
Him: "That table is 5/10, see all the red chips?" *still pointing to other table*
Me: "Follow me" *walks to table where I've been forever* "This table, right here. I've been at this table for over 16 hours."
Him: "I guess, whatever you say" *validates parking.*

I'm sure there's 100 other stories like this, but I quit playing there quite some time ago. The management probably had a lot to do with that.

[Bene Gesserit]

IDK for sure but if a place doesn't usually replace an obiviously marked card is it wise to alert the whole table to that fact if you happen to notice it? Home game with friends for sure, casino with strangers IDK

[AKQJ10]

Originally Posted by AKQJ10

I think she's in tears now. (I'm not kidding.)

On further reflection, i think she was crying over the comment of another guy that, "This job only requires a second-grade education." I would never say such a thing, as i greatly respect those dealers who work to be good at their job. But she was really struggling with that new "hi-lo split pot" thing that they've introduced in their Omaha games here 15 years ago.

1. Immediately before this, on the same hand, we had raised river action on a four-way pot, so four of us had two bets in front of us. I won low, another player won high. I suggested letting the two of us take our last bets back after showdown. "No, let me do it my own way!" OK, do it your own way, but get it right please. I don't get why they're in such a rush to do things wrong, but then we they have a legitimate and standard way to speed things up like not bringing in 8 chips from each of us to give them back to each of us, they get confused and balk!

Nevertheless, if bringing in those bets helps you feel comfortable and get it right, do what you gotta do.

2. Then she divided them up into a mess of red/white with no possible way to tell whether it matched or not. Then i got pretty agitated. I'm trying to work on being more pleasant in my requests, so instead of getting worked up that my money was getting divided up wrong, i should have just calmly requested (not really a request) that she take it back and divide it properly.

I'm just always afraid they're going to push uneven pots (which they do alarmingly often) and then the other player will add it to his stack too quickly for us to get it sorted out. One more reason to track the action to the dollar, i suppose.

3. Then, after she took it back and tried to divide it properly, she kept wanting to put two more red chips in one stack and some quantity of white in the other. "Please, just match up the red and push those stacks of red!" No, that wasn't her way of doing things. Her way was to put more two red in one and ten more white in the other, or maybe 8 white, or 9 white, or 12, or heaven knows what she was trying to do.

4. That's when the other player made the "2nd grade education" remark.

I need to tone it down but that was way over the line IMO.

[sevup]

Originally Posted by AKQJ10

On further reflection, i think she was crying over the comment of another guy that, "This job only requires a second-grade education." I would never say such a thing, as i greatly respect those dealers who work to be good at their job. But she was really struggling with that new "hi-lo split pot" thing that they've introduced in their Omaha games here 15 years ago.

1. Immediately before this, on the same hand, we had raised river action on a four-way pot, so four of us had two bets in front of us. I won low, another player won high. I suggested letting the two of us take our last bets back after showdown. "No, let me do it my own way!" OK, do it your own way, but get it right please. I don't get why they're in such a rush to do things wrong, but then we they have a legitimate and standard way to speed things up like not bringing in 8 chips from each of us to give them back to each of us, they get confused and balk!

Nevertheless, if bringing in those bets helps you feel comfortable and get it right, do what you gotta do.

2. Then she divided them up into a mess of red/white with no possible way to tell whether it matched or not. Then i got pretty agitated. I'm trying to work on being more pleasant in my requests, so instead of getting worked up that my money was getting divided up wrong, i should have just calmly requested (not really a request) that she take it back and divide it properly.

I'm just always afraid they're going to push uneven pots (which they do alarmingly often) and then the other player will add it to his stack too quickly for us to get it sorted out. One more reason to track the action to the dollar, i suppose.

3. Then, after she took it back and tried to divide it properly, she kept wanting to put two more red chips in one stack and some quantity of white in the other. "Please, just match up the red and push those stacks of red!" No, that wasn't her way of doing things. Her way was to put more two red in one and ten more white in the other, or maybe 8 white, or 9 white, or 12, or heaven knows what she was trying to do.

4. That's when the other player made the "2nd grade education" remark.

I need to tone it down but that was way over the line IMO.

I was at the table for this and yeah, I think she was more upset by the other guy's comments....There were 2 or 3 dealers in a row at that point that became outright rude if anyone tried to correct them or help them out and she was the capper. I'm amazed in a position where they work on tips that they treat the customer so consistently poorly. There are some really good dealers there too, but the bad ones really sour the experience.

[AKQJ10]

Originally Posted by sevup

There were 2 or 3 dealers in a row at that point that became outright rude if anyone tried to correct them or help them out and she was the capper.

The fascinating thing is, the really good dealers there don't get defensive about it. Occasionally they make mistakes, as we all do, but they take everything in stride.

The horrible dealers get really upset if you try to help them out. I suppose they're used to everyone helping them out, and half the table saying one thing and half the table saying something else. But that's how it goes when you're routinely wasting people's time floundering at a job you really don't know how to perform.

I still think the game would go faster, with no loss of integrity, to let us pass the deck like i understand they do in the UK and just have a "dealer" there to drop tips in the box after each hand. At least give us the option to do that for a half-hour, depending on the identity of the dealer who shows up.

[AKQJ10]

Oh, and i left out the small detail that eventually she gave up dividing the whites and did whatever and then i divided them appropriately with my neighbor. If they won't let us pass the deck, at least it would save time for us all to make a "gentlemen's agreement" to just accept however the dealer divides the pot but not put it in our stacks, and then settle up after the hand. I trust any of the players to chop a pot more than i trust 40% of the dealers.

[DucoGranger]

Originally Posted by AKQJ10

I suggested letting the two of us take our last bets back after showdown. "No, let me do it my own way!" OK, do it your own way, but get it right please.

As a former dealer I would have probably have said something similar to those same lines. Granted I used to deal in a podunk, ghetto neighborhood where the patrons had very aggressive personalities. In that case you would find that if you didnt establish your place at the table they would tell you how to run the table more and more as the night went on. Often one of the best dealers at that room would be heard saying "I don't come to your job and tell you what to do so please dont tell me how to do mine."

With that said, you are right. Good dealers dont often have to say these kinds of things as their quick, confident, and accurate dealing maturely mitigates the power struggle that can happen at the table.