I'm not insisting that he do anything. All else being equal, such players are bad for the game.

The marginal utility of such a player behavior gets more negative as there are more players doing it. One guy like that isn't a big deal, unless he's slowing the game down. 6 or 7 at the same table is horrible for the game.

The reason this is awesome is that you can get bigger value-bets paid off. Say you bet 1k on the river, if the pot is a giant mess that will seem like a "big" bet and be less likely to get called whereas if they can see that the pot is already 1.3k they will be like, well its less than pot I call with top pair shyt kicker.

Btw, I really don't see any reason that the pot "should be a messy pile". Sure being able to calculate pot-size is a skill but its really not all that important in comparison to actual decisions you'd make in a hand.

Do you see value in minimizing the dealers having their hands in your money?

Here in California, the conventions in NL seem to be as follows:

1. Dealers don't announce who the action is on unless it is pretty clear the person isn't paying attention.

2. Dealers announce the amounts of bets that are more than a few chips.

I know this isn't the only way to do things, but I am convinced that this issue doesn't matter that much because California does it this way and the world hasn't ended.

Me, too. And I've personally asked people very high up in poker hierarchy about this. Announce that the action has changed. Don't announce bet values. This is very standard. In high stakes cash games, the players don't even want you announcing that there was a bet, let alone the value.

That's my policy for cash games, and it's not a problem. The players who are aware enough to notice a change in the dealer's statements are aware enough to notice the betting.

The bigger problem is that almost every other dealer I've ever seen DOES announce bet sizes, unprompted. So I often get caustic, "HOW MUCH?!" statements snarled at me, as if I'm slacking on my job.

I prefer bigger games, but I am atypical. Most dealers I know prefer the small games.

Er... uh...

Yeah.

Yeah.

Every now and again in a low stakes daily tournament, I'll do an experiment, where I WILL announce the small bet sizes. Almost every time, someone asks me how much is the bet.

I always announce blind increases, usually several times. "Blinds are up, 75 and 150, please. 150 to call, everybody, blinds are up." Almost every time, someone puts out the wrong amount after a blind increase. At the very least, I get people asking, "Are the blinds up?" or craning around to look at the clock.

The people who need to have the number announced are the same people who won't hear me announce it anyway. I had one regular player who seemed to be on autopilot to repeat whatever I said in a question. "Blind are 50/100, big blind please." "My blind is 100?" "It's been folded around, action's on you." "Action's on me?" "It's been raised, action's on you." "There's a raise?"

The other thing to consider (and I should REALLY consider it here), is that less is more. If I'm announcing every single bet every single time, then my voice becomes so much white noise. People are LESS likely to hear something I say, especially at a crucial moment. If I'm silent except for key points, then when I speak it has more value.

That said, if I have a player repeatedly asking for the bet value, I'll announce it unprompted when action gets to him. I read that as a permanent, "Tell me every time."

How about antes?

Ha! Haven't dealt a tourney with antes for a while.

Those... well. Yeesh. Those are my own little game. I usually sing a song as I'm shuffling. "Antes antes antes antes, ANTES ANTES ANTES ANTES, everybody put out antes, now's the time for antes, you all need to ante, let's see those antes..."

Or whatever. I make it up as I go along. Hardly anybody ever seems to hear me.

The most head-scratching part about antes is when people on the ends throw it in the middle, and then are NO HELP AT ALL when I'm looking around asking who anted and who didn't. "Y'all are on a circle, here. The ante is in front of you, yes, but that point is also in front of everybody on this side of the table. That's how circles work," I often think to myself.

Ah yes, the ante dance. I'll try an ante song next time.

There is also something to be said for the "less is more" tactic on certain games where people have trouble paying attention.

Although I get that there are other salient reasons why we need every pot stacked in a split-pot game, it seems odd to suggest that one standard of security is OK for those games but a higher standard of security is necessary for other games. IOW, if i can trust the other procedures in place to prevent a dealer from stealing from an Omaha 8 pot, it seems weird to suggest those procedures are inadequate for HE or Omaha high.

(Not advocating for stacking HE pots, just trying to keep the logic consistent here.)

Not at all. There are times when a dealer must have his hands in the pot. The idea is that you maintain secuirty as best you can by minimizing the opportunites for theft balanced against the keeping the game moving.

I keep the doors to my house locked and the burglar alarm on for security. Yet there are times when for I will turn the alarm off and leave doors unlocked because I expect people to be going in and out and it would be very inconvenient for me to have to keep turn the alarm off and and on and unlocking and locking doors each time someone needs to go in or out. Yes its less secure ..... but we balance the risk against convenience.


In split pot games the dealer will have to have his hands in the pot sometimes to split the pot. Because this hapopens fairly frequently it actually speeds the game up to have the dealer stack the pot while the hand is being played. The benefit of the dealer doing this outweighs the risk. (keep in mind that the incremental risk is only that the dealer is stacking the pots that end up not being chopped)

In non-split pot games like holdem ..... even though there are occasional hands that the dealer will have to split .... overall it will slow the game down to have the dealer stack every pot and the incremental risk is significantly greater because the number of pots that end up not being chopped is much larger.

This is not logically inconsistent.

It is also worth noting that nosebleed split games aren't (or weren't pre-boom ) stacked.

Well said, psandman.

Also note that the games where you stack to split tend to have players who are more aware of what the dealer is doing and what the pot should be.

It's not illogical at all to have different standards for different games. Every game is not the same, despite what home game NLHE players who wander into PLO seem to think.

I agree; i was just pointing out that "Dealers shouldn't have their hands in the pot because it's insecure," (paraphrased) is a really overgeneralized implication.

The other day i was in a 4/8 hold 'em game where a disabled gentleman in the 1 seat needed the dealer to handle his cards and chips. I noticed that one dealer stacked the pot when this guy was in it, which IMO is a perfectly reasonable accommodation to keep the game moving provided the dealer is very careful to be consistent about it.

The first hand i noticed this, the 1 seat had a full house and i noticed the dealer stacking the chips on the river, which suggested a horrible dealer tell. But then i kept noticing it, so perhaps it was just coincidence when i noticed it.