Just soliciting feedback. This is pretty minor in the scheme of things. I don't like ignoring mistakes or making mistakes but I think I'll pick ignorance next time.

Background: this poker room takes the blinds for the drop right after the cards are pitched. The dealer is brand new, first dealing job just a week or two in, a bit nervous but generally doing fine. I'm the BB and call a raise and he accidentally shorts me $1 on my change ($2 was already removed for the drop and he miscounted on the difference). I point it out, he apologizes, I get my $1, and everything is fine until the very next hand:

The BB gets all in vs another player preflop and wins. I was in seat 1, BB is seat 2 and after showdown the dealer is counting out the BB's chips right under my nose.

Dealer: "That's 180"

Me: "I don't think that's right. That's 179".

Dealer looks at the chips again, spreads the 1s and says: "179". He counts out $179 from the loser's stack, pushes it to the BB, pulls the drop.

A full 30 seconds later, middle of the next hand, the BB speaks up because he's just realized it should have been $181 from the losing player, and both me and the dealer were wrong. (Because his $2 BB was already removed from the counted stack for the drop.)

Dealer apologizes profusely, I apologize as well because I was just trying to help correct what I thought was an obvious mistake right happening under my nose.

Seat 4 (who was not involved in the hand at all) now speaks up and just berates me for "trying to be a dealer" and that I should never have opened my pie hole in the first place. I feel awful about it. My mistake was $2 wrong, the dealer was only $1 wrong. And maybe if I hadn't said anything, the dealer would not have gotten flustered and forgotten about the blind/drop. In any case, I look at seat 4 and don't say a word. He's right: I can't get into trouble if I just shut up.

So as a result of all this, I have decided not to pay attention when the dealer is counting other people's money because I'll feel obligated to point out a miscount. If I'm not watching I won't ever have anything to point out. Sound about right?

I think it's fine to point out a mistake when you see it concerning amounts of money. The worst thing that can happen and it be your fault is that it takes a moment to confirm or correct the amounts. If there is a mistake past that point, it's not your fault.

I'm a little confused when you say they take the blinds for the drop immediately after the cards are pitched. Are you talking about the rake? What is the minimum rake they take after the cards are pitched? This is a 1/2nl game, I think you said. So what % of the pot do they take for rake?

Just having trouble seeing what they are really doing there.

Not a % rake, a flat amount drop. $4 or $5, no matter how small the pot, depending on the club. (California law).

Some have $1 jackpot drop and $1 no-flop drop -- so a $2 BB is taken for the drops prior to any betting.

Technically you were right. The dealer was counting the $179 left in the stack, said "That's $180" and you said "No, that's $179". The dealer was making two mistakes: miscounting and forgetting the BB. You noticed one of the two mistakes and correctly pointed it out. Not your fault that you didn't realize the second mistake and still you're obligated to point out the mistakes that you do notice.

+1

I wouldn't say anything to seat 4 though. Just let him be a tool.

OK, thanks. But it seems odd to me that they would actually take the BB and drop it before the action is complete preflop. So the cards are dealt, UTG calls the $2 BB, a couple more call, someone raises to $10, and then it gets around to the BB and his $2 has already been dropped, and the dealer has to remember that it's raised to 10, but you are already in for the $2 I already dropped, so you owe $8 more? That just seems like a process designed to cause the problems the OP describes. I don't see why they wouldnt wait for the action to be complete; seems like it would simplfy things a lot.

1. The House is voracious and impatient. It demands to be fed first.

2. Holdover from Limit, where it doesn't cause such problems.

3. Most players and dealers get used to it.

4. Forget it Browser, it's Chinatown.

No, keep on paying attention and trying to keep things straight.
(Unless it's an error costing Seat 4 $, in which case you should definitely keep quiet.)

You have an obligation to speak up whenever you think an error has occurred. You took correct action.

Seat 4 can go get coolered by a fish. Who cares what he has to say? All that matters is that you were attempting to correct a mistake. Even if the situation became even more complicated, you still took correct action.

Storytime: There was a hand I played about a week ago where the board ran out something like A2428, and two players went to showdown. Player X, who often comes across as a dbag, triumphantly declared "two pair" and tabled A4. Player Y deliberated for a while and eventually tabled A3. I was pretty sleep deprived at the time and mistakenly thought X was angling w/ his "two pair when there's a pair on board" speech to get Y to muck a chop. When the inexperienced dealer started pushing X the pot, I assumed he was fooled by the talk and I spoke up adamantly declaring that X and Y had chopped the hand.

A few seconds later I realized I had totally misread the cards, but by that point I had already been yelled at by approx. 5,173 people, one of which even took the two 4s up off the table and threw them across the table at me. I was verbally harassed both when the incident occurred and whenever a similar situation came up during the subsequent hours ("you see that, seat 8? THAT's a chop, buddy!").

I certainly felt like an idiot at the time, but I just calmly said "my mistake", put on some music, and tuned everybody else out (and also later on felted one of the biggest mouths ). That's what you need to do, too. Even if you think there's a chance you'll look like an idiot and/or will get harassed by others at the table, you still need to speak up if you think the integrity of the game might be being violated.

personally I wouldn't have said anything because it's just $1 there, at best you're right and nobody cares, at worst you're wrong and/or look like a buffoon

But you didn't do wrong by pointing out what you thought was a mistake.

Throw the guy a $1 chip and say "there you go"