Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieOB
You're always allowed to ask for a floor - that's the whole point. The dealer can't tell you that the decision is final. I would just tell them to stop dealing and get a floor over, and then just stand up and yell for a floor yourself if needed.
I agree with pretty much everything said. Dealers are pretty weak overall. They don't control games very well at all, people constantly talking about their hand strength in multi way pots before folding etc, and dealers rarely tell them it's out of line or give them a warning. I'm always the one that has to tell people to shut up in multi way pots, and then most of the people get upset with me like I have attitude at the table because they find that type of behavior so acceptable and normal since dealers rarely tell them to stop.
People angle all over the place in Tampa. Just be more aware of the fact that you really need to cover yourself and expect poor dealer skills. There are a few great dealers in Tampa, but it's definitely not the norm.
I'm not as assertive as I should be at times. I thought I was pretty assertive and authoritative with the dealer when I asked to call the floor but she seemed new...maybe not aware that's a player right. I told her it was and I was just ignored and she moves on to the next hand. I know she could hear me clearly as I was in seat 5. I just gave up when she went to the next hand as getting a proper ruling would be really hard at that point. And the pot wasn't that big...like 70 BBs.
Yeah OPTAH is so rarely enforced I'm typically surprised if the dealer does say anything. Last night I'm at a table where one player was constantly narrating his thoughts during multiway hands. Like "whoa a bet and a raise. I think one of you is on a draw. Might have you both beat, but him I haven't seen raise all night. Hmm... I fold" and he would often show me his hands before folding or mucking so I know he was being truthful when saying things like this. Multiple dealers, nobody said a word. I should have said something but guy was on my right and kind of a whale. I felt speaking up might turn him and the table against me and all that would happen is a warning which he would forget 5 minutes later.
There's one dealer who enforces OPTAH but overdoes it. She doesn't even allow talking in heads up pots which I think is kind of ridiculous. I've asked some of the other dealers if that's a rule and they didn't think so but didn't sound sure about it.
So much collusion and softplaying also and normally dealer says nothing, or they jokingly say something like "WHOA
QI didn't hear that". You can flat call with the nuts OTR and say "I'm only doing this because we're friends" and it's totally fine. Even seen people openly colluding like one SS shoves pre, a second guy reshoves, everyone folds, then they try to take their bets back and tell the dealer "we're friends--all the money's going to the same place." Other than telling them the hand has to be played out nothing happens. Seen several cases like this and I've played here just a year.
IWTSTH is massively abused but maybe that's normal. Every time I've seen it invoked by others it was just some guy calling a river bet wanting to see a mucked hand for information. One time I do a triple barrel bluff, guy calls and tables his rivered nut flush out of turn and I throw my hand into the muck. He says he wants to see my hand. It's already in the muck though and irretrievable. He calls the freaking floor, tells the floor he asked to see my hand and THEN I mucked (wrong order, he was drunk), and I then get chastised by the floor who doesn't bother to hear what actually happened and just tells me he had the right to see my hand. WTF...
I invoked IWTSTH just once where I was 99% sure two players were colluding and it looks very likely they just squeezed out a third player OTR (first collider bets, player in middle flat calls, second colluder raises, first colluder 3 bets, player in middle folds, second colluder calls, 3 bettor mucks). And just my luck the dealer acts like she has NO IDEA what I'm talking about. I explicitly say "I want to see that hand. Do you not have that rule here? I've seen it invoked many times. Call a supervisor if you dont know what I'm talking about." Again I get more confusion. Not only that, she gets kind of indignant then tells me "you should really know the rules where you play" and laughs at me. This gets me a bit pissed and I say "Trust me I know the effing rules." NOW she wants to call a supervisor. At this point because I said a naughty word nothing that happened before matters so I just apologize and drop it. So many incompetent dealers...and about 90% of my issues have been with female dealers. I can think of at least 2 who are quite good but most of the rest...pretty meh at best. Maybe I'm a closet sexist or I just run bad with female dealers but IDK...
Also right about tons of angle shooters. Most common is chip hiding which I would guess about a third of players regularly do this (though some nonmaliciously). I've seen some very creative and devious angles though. I'll refrain sharing them as that's probably frowned upon.
The huge redeeming factor of SHRT: many terrible poker players punting away their money. The room and tables are also relatively nice.