Quote:
Originally Posted by Nate.
The BB"J" and "poker club" procedures breed a lot of ill will among the players. It can be very hard to get a consistent ruling on anything--so, for example, you might ask one floorman if you can be away from the table for X minutes to make a phone call, and come back X minutes later to find you've been picked up.
In one day of playing, I saw:
(1) A dealer shuffle chips in the pot idly during a hand.
(2) A dealer twirl a chip from the pot in his right hand during a hand.
(3) A dealer give an extra $5 out of the rack to a player in what should have been an $8 pot.
(4) A dealer count down the stub in such a way that I could see all the cards as they were being counted. This was during a fairly large pot--I was facing a $120 bet on the river into roughly a $300 pot. (Yes, I said something about it while the action was still on me.)
(5) A dealer deal the turn card by sliding a card off the deck with his left thumb and rotating his left hand.
(6) A dealer seem to grimace at receiving "only" a $4 tip.
In none of these cases was the behavior corrected; I've seen even worse happen on other days. The floormen spend a lot of time back behind the back desk, not seeming to do much of anything, even when there are issues needing to be addressed. The floormen also have given me a lot of attitude and spoken to me as if I'm a problem. (I've played in dozens of cardrooms for thousands of hours, and have consistently gotten along very well with all the staff.) It's routine to walk into the room and go to the board to put your name on a list, only to be ignored by the staff there. More than once I've been grimaced at just for saying "excuse me" to someone (who didn't appear to be doing anything productive) in an attempt to get my name on a list or get seated in a game. This is a very bad way for players to be greeted.
So, I'm not surprised that new players--casual or experienced--are not attracted to the room, and I'm also not surprised that existing players aren't coming back.
FWIW, these observations come after roughly 125 hours of play in the cardroom--so, enough that I'm confident forming judgments, but not enough that I'm infallible. And, for whatever it's worth, I'm generally disposed to like cardrooms and their management.
All my best,
--Nate
Nate,
I'm fairly regular at Turning Stone. I have seen all of the things you've mentioned as well. I keep going back though because it isn't like that all of the time and I find the play to be soft.
I will say one thing that really irks me is the one older dealer who practically begs for a tip every hand. He gets on my nerves so bad. Listen if you just dealt a hand that railed me for $200 don't expect a tip when I win the next $20 pot.