What are you disagreeing with- mixing the streets together? I'm assuming this is post-action.

You don't REALLY have a flop pile, turn pile, and river pile... do you, pfap?

No, they're pushed together, but it's generally clear what's from what street. The reason is being able to reconstruct the hand, and verify the dealer's not palming chips. I'm fairly certain this is policy trumpeted by psandman and RR, and I generally trust their opinions on dealer procedures.

The dealer shouldn't be touching the pot enough that he'd be able to bunch it all together. Once you've laid down the bet for a street, that's it.

Ah, gotcha- good point. I rescind my silly quick reply

If the dealer awards the side pots first (as he should) this would never be an issue. But if the dealer were to do it backwards and award the main pot first. then if the all-in player wins main pot and the dealer killed the losing hands there would be no hands left to win the side pots.

Ah, silly me- I thought we were dealing with PROPER dealing procedures in this thread

:P

Well this thread is worthless if you assume everyone is already doing things the proper way

Although in theory this is ok, it doesn't work out in reality. When I pull in bets to the middle, I use my left pinky to rake in bets from the left side of the table and my right hand to bring in from the right and just kind of bring it all together into one pot, whether there are already chips in the middle or not. It would slow down the game a lot if I were to try and keep the bets in any kind of separation.

Great advice itt though. It all seems natural to me because I've played at so many games and dealt at games before, but for most people, some of these things aren't natural. Nice post sir!

I'm not really big on this one. As a practical matter my pots tend to get mixed together and I really don't see an efficient way to keep them the way that RR recommends other than if the game is heads up between players who stack their bets. Where i deal I have automatic shufflers and those bravo devices which really make impossible to smoothly bring bets from the right side of the tabkle to where the pot is kept. I understand what RR says about this but really don't think its practical and honestly I have never seen a deal deal this way in a full game.

I must be magic, then, because I rarely have a problem doing this.

Granted, you can't pull it off every time, but in a NL home game, bets are generally few chips. Rarely more than 10 chips in any one bet, and I can stack a few of those together while pulling them in. If it's more chips, then you're dealing with fewer people and likely an all-in eventually anyway. Or you're on the river and you have both hands free. Even if I can't get them nicely stacked together, I've never had a problem scooping them to the middle and keeping the messy pile a little distinct from the previous messy pile.

Frankly, I've never thought about it that much, so I'll pay attention when I deal tonight, see how problematic it is. I agree in the overall scheme this is minor, but if you get into this habit, it helps a great deal those occasional times someone claims someone didn't put in, or proper change wasn't given, etc.

Just so that I don't cause an argument with pfapfap, I'll just say that my previous posts were in reference to home games that are not drunken free-for-alls, but serious home games. I really can't answer the questions with regards to games that are drunken free-for-alls. So, I'll take his word for it that his answers are more appropriate for those types of games.

Regarding the pot and how to keep it, I refer to the Professional Poker Dealer's Handbook (my personal bible) which clearly states to leave the pot piled and spread. Don't massage or assemble the pot so that players can see the action. The only thing a dealer should do is keep the pot low and spread so a player can approximate the pot size.

Gobbs

I thought that was the case, but I couldn't remember.

It's just the way I've always done it, so I doubt I could change it even if I wanted to.

Well, then you're not playing with the right kind of players! I do agree that with a set professional dealer, most of what you said is preferred, but for the target audience of people trying to get better dealing procedures into their games, I stand by all that I said. As more people get used to the flow of a hand, you can do less. Like I said, it's the difference between 3/6 and 30/60. Same game, drastically different dealer role.

You may not know this since you've only recently started posting a lot, but I've worked many years as a professional dealer. In real, legitimate casinos and everything.

My copy is long gone (I should get another), but I do believe that most of the information in there is for Fixed Limit games. I've deferred to RR for NL pot creation. I think really we're describing more or less the same thing here, though. As you know, dealing requires a lot of subtle actions that are hard to describe to someone. It's a lot of just knowing how to move on your feet and achieve clean results.

Side note.

wow, I just played a freeroll tourny at my local casino (i don't play at a casino)
First dealer was shocking. We were only half way around the table in 15 minutes. It was slow, the dealer had no idea. Was obviously brought in from another part of the casino due to the number of tables.
The second dealer. My GOD, he was good. There was speed & knowledge there, and the math. I have never seen someone return over bets (the 1 chip rule) so quickly.
Only thing is he tried to burn and turn the flop quickly and would sometimes fumble the flop cards. He was friendly too (probably helped that half the table were locals).

Its amazing how much a good dealer can change the game.

I've mentioned this before, but it's worth a repeat. Around Nov 1, 2+2 is releasing the updated version of the PDH. It will have new stuff addressing big bet games and tournaments.

Question 1:

Where would you keep the muck?
a) next to/under your right hand; right hand side
b) next to/under your left hand holding the deck; left hand side

I saw both:
In casinos, they generally seem to keep the muck on the left hand side so that the dealer can rest his hand holding the deck on/nearby the muck pile.
On TV (e.g. WSOP), they keep it on the right hand side (where it's not really protected when the dealer's attention is to his left side, or when he reaches out to his left side with his right hand forcing him/her to turn his/her back to the entire right side of the table...)

The thing is: keeping the muck next to the left hand side can be quite difficult depending on the size of the table; chip tray and chips in the main pot (together with the burn cards) can greatly deminish the space for a muck pile on the left side...

So, I don't know which is better...


Question 2:

Do you stack the pot, or just keep the pot a big pile of chips?

In casinos, they stack everything due to the cameras and stuff,
but on TV (High Stakes, WSOP) they have the chips in a big pile, all mixed...

Just don't make a mistake as a dealer/player so that you don't have to reconstruct any betting, I guess, and you can save some energy, but I don't know it that's good either... as a rotating dealer, I wouldn't want to spend my time stacking chips when I'm involved in the hand as well...

THOUGHTS?

^ some european and australian casinos stack chips in the pot however most people here will recommend that you have them in a pile but moderately spread out.

The reasoning is that knowing the pot size is a skill in itself.

"standard" answer is that you have a big pile except in split-pot games, where you keep them stacked.

It's one of those things that can easily be a house rule, though.

Nice article, will bookmark for future reference. Undervalued importance of rapping tables and "push pot, move dot, pull slot" despite observing wide spread use. Dealers explained "tapping tips is mainly for cameras," so I mistook other policies for similar purpose. What is the significance of being able to reconstruct the hand? Understand the benefit toward potential misunderstandings, but is recalling previous streets not player's responsibility?

It doesn't need to be crystal clear but it's also so that the players can verify that the pot is right, and that the dealer isn't palming chips. It also aids in reconstruction should there be a question, or if someone splashes the pot.

I feel like a bit of a doofus for asking this, as I've played a fair bit of B&M for the past 6 years (I'd estimate maybe 2500 hours or so), have read the PDH, and feel like I do a pretty good job dealing in home games (although pfapfap's post will help a good deal - great job). So, after all that preamble...

What is the purpose of keeping the burn cards separate from the muck? I see casino dealers consistently do this (tucking them under the pot), but I can't recall ever seeing a situation come up where seems like it would really matter. When I deal in our home games, I usually just throw the burns into the muck (which I keep under control near my right hand, as described in other posts).

Because seeing the number of burn cards makes it easier to remember if you burned yet for this particular street?

Because in some rare case you might need to verify what a particular burn card is?

I've just never run across a situation where this became significant. I know there must be some sort of obvious reason, but it escapes me.

Yes, and in other games like triple draw the burns tell you how many draws you have gone through.

Everything needs to be above-board. You don't want anybody to have an opening to accuse you of cheating. Besides, you've never been in a home game where someone burned early, then had to wait for action to complete, then either had to count the muck to see if he burned, or burned a second time?

This may not be the official reason, but burning to the felt and then sliding the card under the pot takes more time than just flinging a card off the top of the deck into the muck. The rap and burn is the time for people to holler at you that you're about to make one of the biggest mistakes in dealing poker, so I don't like to rush that part.

Ok, those reasons make sense. The home games in which I've played have been close enough friends & work colleagues where the "avoidance of cheating appearance" aspect hasn't really been a factor. I can easily see, however, where this comes into play in a larger game with friends-of-friends-of-friends-etc and more money.

I like the delay/visibility piece to ensure action is complete before burning. I don't remember ever doing this (i.e., burning early), but other players in my game do sometimes. So in the spirit of "leading the horse to water" by example, I'll start doing this.

* * * * *

Different topic, but in spirit of the overall thread...

I HATE it when some doofus deals the entire board out, burns and all, at the beginning of the hand, and then just turns the cards face up on each street. Yeah, I've seen people clueless enough who actually do this. Rather than saying something and coming across as a "nit" to the uninformed, I just try to deal smoothly and correctly, in the hope that it'll be noticed, appreciated, and emulated. The good news is that any player boneheaded enough to deal like THAT....well, it's not really taking candy from a baby, it's more, the baby just hands the candy to you...

doofus raises hand

I've done this on occasion, when I have to get up and do host duties and such. I have the table turn the cards.

yes, I violate the "burn cards block cheating" standard occasionally... it's a trade-off

you are now allowed to put me on Ignore, as a self-shun

For cryin' out loud, just have someone else finish dealing!

Baiting me won't help you, because every post you make baiting is just one post in response...