By definition, everyone not on the "good" list ($9 more!) is on the naughty list. To think otherwise is obtuse.

Since part of the issue was identified as HS players not tipping well to begin with, it seems unlikely that some would not consider the $9 "pretip" as an advanced tip instead and reduce their tipping the rest of the down. If they were the kind of people who appreciated good dealers and rewarded them in the first place, dealers wouldn't be avoiding the games or slowing down in the first place.

$25-$30 upfront. Whether the table captain is there or not.

Treat the dealers like human beings and make sure the others do, even your precious, pampered whales.

But the chances of that happening are less than a one-outer.

I've dealt games that are normally time pot paid by winner, $25 for the dealer. But that $25 is not written anywhere. The regs know about it, and still, will stiff the dealer at least 20% of the time.

Personally, I like the $25 paid on time pot down.

Funny thing is even some of the most well known names in poker will toss the dealer that $25 when they win the time pot during the early weeks of the WSOP (HS games outside of Rio). But come the last week or so, they will have ground that down to $10 max after they've lost $2-500k. Really? That $15 is going to make a difference?

OK folks, we've given this thread a lot of leeway up until this point, but we're getting to the point where each post is just a discussion of tipping. It's time to put an end to that.

If you have more constructive non-tipping posts to make, please make them. If tipping is adjacent to the point you're making, then proceed with caution. If you just want to talk about tipping, then please proceed to the tipping containment thread and post your thoughts there.

Thanks!

If you want to improve things you have to stay very focused on the specific area being addressed imo--> it's a disservice to your helpful view that 25-30 up front is best when you unnecessarily vent about bad behavior from whales imo (that message has already been heard loud and clear several times over itt). One thing at a time. Or we can just all agree to stay discontent (which I'm not a fan of really).

Thanks for the gratuitous rudeness. You proposed some ideas. We've explained some of the ramifications, not all of which are positive. Your opinions aren't facts delivered from on high.

So, the dealers seem to feel that there's an attitude problem at the higher stakes tables. What are you doing to work on yours?

Just saw this. Specifically, why can we not continue the discussion? It feels like some progress is actually about to happen (the emotion is fading and we are actually starting to talk numbers/real business).

Also, where is this decision coming from and who can I message if I want to speak to an administrator (or whoever moderates the moderators)?

Thanks.

One of the rules of this forum is that all tipping discussion is to be contained in the tipping containment thread. As mentioned, we gave this thread a bit of leeway because it was not the usual tipping discussion, but it eventually devolved into just people arguing about tipping. We also received a post report about the thread.

If you want to discuss the moderation rules of the forum, there is a thread for that discussion stickied at the top, please feel free to discuss it there.

The decision comes from the rules of this forum and the mods of this forum : me, rapini, and lattimer. If you want to go to a higher authority, you can PM mat sklanky, the site administration, or post in the ATF forum.

I would suggest you read the rules of this forum first though. They are also stickied at the top.

Thanks.

The dealers who don't get the extra $9 will not see it that way. They will see it as concrete evidence that these games are bad for their bottom line. It sure would be a good way to make the EDR way more uncomfortable than it already is, though!

You make an average of x in those games. Suddenly you make x, or you make x + 9. Seems pretty immature, irrational and illogical to look at that as a negative.

wow. i now have a new found respect for commerce dealers. man it must be miserable playing poker outside of socal.

Do you assume that everyone makes every decision based on logic and rational thought? I can assure you that is not the case.

I don't like it when dealers deal really slowly either.

What a piece of **** thread though. What was supposed to come of this? Dealers see it and decide to deal faster? I just don't think that will happen. And the tone generally seems offensive and provoking toward dealers IMO.

And this just seems so out of the blue to me after so many years. Did something happen recently?


I'll be honest and say that I don't play live all that often so I very well may have no idea what I am talking about. Recently I have been somewhat increasingly driving to play live 5-10 NLH on Saturdays. So far I've had one dealer who was painfully slow. Soooo slow ... and it was a time game. I'm nearly positive I could have dealt something like 1.5x faster at least and I've never dealt except in home games. That down was kinda brutal.

Other than that, it has seemed pretty good in my limited experience in my area and I doubt this thread will change anything.

That's your opinion. Since it's in line with the incarceration of speech/no outsiders welcome/don't say anything that might ruffle any feathers culture of LCP (that's my humble opinion of this sub-forum- please don't ban me again for having an unpopular opinion)- and because you are a mod obv, you should be good...

Others think it was a good thread, and that I was actually being the most respectful (yet admittedly pretty direct/not much of a sugar-coater) and some dealers were flinging lots of misplaced **** at me... In some places of discussion, different opinions are tolerated though and all of this would be fine and only time would give us a consensus/answer.


Yes, I thought some dealers might not be fully aware of the fact that a) the player pools at different stakes have different wants/needs, b) high stakes players value speed/efficiency and professionalism over all else (lower stakes games value rules enforcement and fun with the dealer more) and c) the most assured way to increase dealer earnings is to get more hands out.

I was speaking for bigger games and I was referring to the big card rooms in Las Vegas. Many of the dealers are excellent here. Some however loaf, space out, watch TV, talk too much and miss action, are overly combative/abrasive, etc like you wouldn't believe. <--- kills big games and costs everyone (including them!) a lot of money.

You are fortunate that whatever small room you play 5-10 at doesn't have this issue really. It doesn't exist in LA too much either- even in the big rooms. But in Vegas it does (mainly due to very poor management imo). And it makes it really hard to build and maintain big games. So my bad if my PSA was taken personally or whatever I guess. Since I don't know who one person itt is irl (aside from the players who posted), I didn't expect it to be received that way.

I don't mod this forum.


It was late last night and my post may have been stronger than I meant it. It doesn't bother me if someone wants to put up a post that says dealers should deal fast and well. I just don't think that putting up such a post in such a general manner on a general message forum for the whole world (as opposed to applicable to one casino or maybe one region) is going to accomplish anything like causing dealers to deal faster or better. Even if it did at all, it is unlikely you would notice the results with the dealers reading it likely being spread around the whole world.

And I thought the way the original post was written was just extremely likely to only cause dealers to be defensive (whether rightly or wrongly). Seemed like you just came straight from a bad experience and were irritated and posted it from that position with an underlying tone and word choice that seems to imply dealers are stupid. You started the post with "1. The more hands you get out, the more $$$ you make. <--- LDO, yet some dealers completely drag through ..." I don't think that is likely to easily lead to actual productive dialogue and rather, as I stated earlier, it seems provocative and likely to just piss off dealers and cause them to be defensive. Even just labeling it a "PSA for dealers" seems condescending and like something that would cause dealers to almost be getting ready to be pissed off before they even read the content.

Maybe broaching the topic in some better way would have been more likely to be productive, although I doubt it would have much effect anyway.

My opinion anyway.



I think the room at which I tend to play is the biggest room on the East coast, although, yea, I assume it is smaller than the big rooms in Vegas, and I haven't played above 5-10.

I was following this thread, then skimmed maybe the last half of it. From the dealers, I'm curious what your PSA to pros would be? What are a few things we do that you like that speed the game up or improve your dealing experience? What are a few that we could do that most of us don't along those lines? Anything that we think helps that doesn't?

I'm talking about stuff like pushing bets forward, scooping mucked cards in with our fold if the player didn't toss them forward, prompting unaware players, moving the button, etc. I try to do things like that to help, and as far as I can tell, most dealers like it. Curious to hear their thoughts on those types of things, or what else may be helpful.

I also wanted to chime in with a couple things that I think would help most dealers along the lines of this thread:

1. Always acknowledge every tip, even if you think it's not enough. There are a couple dealers who deal to me who never say thanks or acknowledge a tip below a certain amount. This includes even $2-$3 sometimes. They actually act annoyed. In this region, tips are way above the national average, so what might be standard in Vegas, AC, etc is cheap to those who never dealt anywhere else and they make this obvious. Unfortunately for them, this makes me tip less, not more - if they resent me for giving them money, I'm going to adjust down to the bare minimum to not look like a cheap skate to the players. Instead, I'll give extra to other dealers who do a good job and seem appreciative. Without getting into tipping any further, I'll just say I know I tip a couple thousand more per year than the average grinder - at least, so I may be stingy compared to a fun player but not compared to other pros. Acknowledgement doesn't even have to be "Thanks!" it can simply be tapping the chip(s) on the tray/table/whatever or a head nod.

2. When you're at a short-handed table, or even heads up, instead of assuming it's going to suck for you, give it a fair shot and crank out as many hands as you can for 5 or 10 minutes. I actually tip more short-handed, and while you may not get any big tips, I suspect most good dealers who keep the tempo as fast as possible will make more dealing heads up/short handed when someone who "gets it," is one of the players because they'll maybe get 10% less per hand but they'll deal 30% more hands. If the other player is stiffing them, I'll also draw attention to my tip. "Thanks, dealer's name, here you go!" or I'll toss the tip in an area where the dealer will have to reach in front of the other player to take it. If that doesn't work, I may politely encourage the other player to tip, depending on the situation. As a dealer, if you don't have this trick in your arsenal, when someone is stiffing you just wait for the next hand someone else tips you and make a show of thanking them.

I've seen dealers clean up heads up/short handed, and I've seen those who could do that slow down instead and then they don't do so well. One of the prime examples is if the hand is over before the shuffle machine is done, hand shuffle! If this happens four or five times in a down, which is not unusual heads up, and you get an extra hand out each time, you just made around $5 extra.

Now, if the players don't get it, or whatever, then slow down if you want.

Also, this is more for newer dealers who haven't dealt heads up or short handed a lot, don't worry so much about getting the blinds out before you start pitching. Say it, then go. Given the faster pace of the game, sometimes players are dragging a pot or trying to reply to a text or something and they will get it posted. When it's short handed it's easy enough to track the action without having the blinds posted in advance. Once you're done pitching point to where the blind is, and who the action is on if it still isn't up, then make the player get it posted. Maybe 1 in 100 times you'll run into a spot where they wanted to quit and you dealt them in, but 99% of the time you're saving time and keeping the game moving, which is making you more money/hour.


3. Please never try to break a game. It drives me nuts when we get down to four or five players and the dealer stops dealing to ask if we want to keep playing or just calls a floor over to ask about breaking the game when no player has asked. The odds of this making someone sit out are about 70%, and then it often breaks the game. If you just keep dealing, the odds of everyone continuing are pretty good. I suppose if everyone is treating you poorly or stiffing you, do what you've gotta do, but usually when this happens it isn't the case - the dealer doesn't like dealing short, assumes they're going to do worse, or just wants to get a break or go home.

4. I know there was some talk before about enforcing certain rules, and I know a lot of that depends on room management and you can't be expected to get in trouble over it... But, timing is key. Please don't nitpick a rule on someone who just lost 200bb on the last hand - if you wait 2 or 3 hands and do it, they're way less likely to react poorly. When a fun player loses like three buyins in one hand in a massive pot, then the dealer starts arguing with them about taking a napkin off the table or going over the cap by 3 big blinds, it's the worst thing ever for the game. Wait a couple seconds, while they cool down, unless your boss is standing at the table or something. You can also try to couch it in, "Sorry sir, I know this is kind of ridiculous but I got yelled at yesterday so I have to ask you to..." Most people can relate to the sentiment of, "Hey my boss is making me do this stupid thing, can you help me out?"

A lot of times a little thing like that can make a huge difference in keeping a game happy and moving, which will hopefully make you more money.

I'm pretty sure most dealers HATE IT when you move the button.

I don't think this is really true. Don't all players value speed/efficiency? I don't really know anyone who goes to the game to pal around with the dealers, and I think a lot of low stakes players can be more lax about rule enforcement with less money at stake.

Whole thread reads like you saying you want dealers to be better at their job. well, of course, but if it were that easy why save it for the high stakes tables?

Would like to hear opinions about this from dealers. I typically move the button right after the last hand has finished, keep a finger on it until the dealer notices it, and make sure to say "button is good" or something along those lines. In my experience, the vast majority of dealers seem to appreciate it.

Don't touch the button.

Don't move the button unless a dealer asks you to do so.

However if you insist on moving the button then the way you do it is better the doing secretly.

I dont wish it to happen...but if it does PLEASE say "button moved dealer"

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And as far as players "helping" paying attention to the action is number 1 in my mind.

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Confirmed - please don't touch the button. And if I ever give you a ride in my car, please don't try to help me drive by grabbing the steering wheel when I'm about to turn. Please don't grab my knife while I'm eating to help me cut my food. I've been well-trained on how to pitch cards, calculate side pots, and move the button to where I want it to be.