This...is the big problem for me.

We all make mistakes, even big ones.

But a dealer thinking the player,
who just lost money because of a dealer mistake,
is out of line for being upset...dealer should never get tipped again.

That's the worst mistake you've ever seen? I must be terrible because I do that a few times a year. Usually half way through the down for some reason.

The one time I've seen that happen, somebody tipped the dealer $5 to buy a coffee. The whole table had a good laugh.

Can dealer let everyone keep their original two cards and deal two more? I assume that would be no problem assuming there was no action which I mean why would there be.

Yes, happens all the time

I once saw a dealer deal out the cards and handle the 1st round of betting and then slowly slowly slowly proceed to FALL ASLEEP in the midst of putting out the turn!

He made a (slow) mistake with the "burn card" that caused the table to erupt which caused him to suddenly wake up!

It quickly got straightened out but he was very embarrassed.

The worst mistake I ever saw in terms of pure physical comedy was a dealer that dropped the stub at the end of the hand and exposed almost every card that was left in the deck. I totally forget what the ruling was from the floor but seeing all those cards face up on the table I could barely contain my laughter. (I was pushing in on this hand so I had to keep my composure)

That’s amazing. I can’t imagine what the ruling would be. Was it a large pot?

Several years back at a WSOP main event feature table the dealer fumbled the stub and basically exposed every card remaining. TD comes in and says he's not going to call out every card that was exposed because there were too many. Either the players saw it or they didn't. The stub was collected, reshuffled, and the hand resumed.

It was shown on the broadcast but I couldn't find a clip of it.

The worst I recall was a 2/5 game at a card room now closed. Dealer was one of the regulars and was actually pretty solid.

Several players get involved and it ends up as an all-in with at least 2 side-pots, about $2k in total in the middle. Prior to peeling off the river, players are trying to get the dealer to set the pots correctly, but for whatever reason she just wants to run it out. At showdown, dealer realizes she significantly($200+) miscounted the pots as players call it out and then accidentally combines 2 pots.

I was getting up from the table for a dinner date, but I imagine it took a good 5-10 minutes to unwind that mess as she had to call the floor. Dealer didn't get fired, but, that was a large, totally avoidable error. I'm guessing she was just hoping the large stack would scoop and save her work, but that did not happen.

I love when regs try to pull that **** . I smile and will wait for an eternity for them to either muck their hand or turn it over.
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*EDIT* Oh yeah not really a big mistake, but I had to correct the dealer twice in a row that we're not playing 2/5 when he kept my whole $5 chip after folding big blind.

My fear is definitely getting shorted on chips though during a hand. With so much action going on processing the hand, player tendencies, and then I also have to make sure the dealer isn't trying to stiff me on a pot.

Of course it was lol at least it was at 2/3 though and not 5/10+

I find the fact that the players were the ones asking for the side pots to be made right prior to continuing to deal interesting bc my experience is just the opposite. Often, when I start to make the pots correct, a vocal player (often not one in the hand) will loudly insist that I should just deal the cards and then sort it out after. That way, if the biggest stack wins, everything can be pushed to him without taking the time to make the sidepots correct.

When I first started dealing, we had the option of which way to do it. It was sort of viewed that new, inexperienced dealers needed to make them correct, while the experienced ones could sort it out later. Some players would get very irate if a dealer didnt sort it out at the end. Finally our room made it policy that pots were to be made right prior to dealing to make it standard. While there were mistakes made by dealers, esp when you are running it twice, what drove the policy was actual player behavior. When the sidepots werent made ahead of time, we had players muck Without tabling their hand after seeing a hand that beat theirs, only to realize too late that they would have won a side pot. (Of course, then they said it was the dealers fault, bc if they had built the sidepots they would have seen it. This even though they were one of the players pushing the dealer to skip ahead in the first place). We also had players refuse to pay off the sidepot, claiming they didnt know a third player was allin until after the cards were dealt.

So I always built the pots before completing the deal, and do it fast enough that it really is no big deal. IMO this is far better than the total chaos that can occur when you get4 players calling out who gets what, with 3 being wrong. Then it takes a long time to fix the mess.

But I just found it funny that you had players insisting on making sidepots first, as I have never seen that happen. Though I have had players tell me privately Later that they liked that I insisted on making the pots right So they could feel confident where their money was. But no one ever spoke up about it at the table. I guess it's sort of how no one admits they actually like Nickleback.

I hate it when dealers refuse to make side pots right because 'If the biggest stack wins it all, I don't have to worry about it'. Slow down, do things right, keep the pot right at all times, so there isn't any confusion.

You can always inquire with a floor about their house procedures. Pretty sure there are rooms where it’s policy to make the pots right, others where it’s up to the dealer and then some where policy is to wait til showdown. At least in pot raked games.

I generally agree with always having the pots right but there are some dealers where you always hope that they don’t have to deal with any all-ins because they’re so crazy slow counting down stacks.

There's still confusion and potential for errors if the pots are sorted before running it out. Players still show out of order, muck even though they might win a side pot, dealers forget which side pot is which, and of course do the math wrong or spill chips when doing the side pots. I think not sorting in advance gets blamed for things that would have happened anyway and may introduce more errors.

I've settled on a middle ground - I'll make sure I know the stack size order and where all of the side pots are before proceeding, but I don't actually make them unless a player asks me to. I'll sometimes get yelled at while doing this by players who want me to hurry up and run out the board. After I run it out I point at the two players who are first to show and yell (if necessary) that this is the current side pot, please show. If someone tries to show early I'll turn their cards back over and push them back to the player. Please hold onto this for a second while I do the side pots.

The other day I had a player yell at me for not making a pot right when it was heads up! He called a river bet and I asked them to show down. "I get $6 change!" "Yes, you will if you lost." "Where's my change!" I give it to him and pull in the bets. Both players finally show and he won, then continued to yell at me for several more minutes.

Not the costliest or worst mistake I’ve seen, but one I thought was interesting.

Heads-up on the river I am first to act, have the villain covered and am holding the nuts. I bet an amount equal to 2/3rds of the villian's stack. He shoved and I announced “call” and tabled my hand.

The dealer pulled in only enough chips from the villain equal to the amount of my initial bet and returned the rest to villain. I asked the dealer what he was doing. He replied, “you didn’t call the raise”. I explained to him that I announced Call and tabled the nuts. But he insisted that I hadn’t put in the chips to make the call and he said he didn’t hear me say “call”.

I quickly realized that I should keep my my mouth shut and take the pot that was pushed to me, because the inept floor person would probably agree with the dealer.

I waited until the next hand played out before I asked the dealer, “if I didn’t call his raise before how come you pushed me the pot?” His eyes went wide and he realized he screwed up. Because if he was right that I hadn’t called then the pot should have gone to the villain. But it was too late now.

In what world does tabling your hand keep you from calling a raise. You got robbed.

My middle ground for the sidepots thing is that when we start to see more than two side pots I definitely have to make it right before running things out. It’s usually not the guy that covers everyone that is mad that you do it the long way, it’s usually someone not even in the hand!

Ignoring the mistake, if there's no additional action, setting the pots will slow down the game. Any work that needs to be done to combine chips into pots can be done at the end when you know who the winner is. Now if there was still action on the river (or on later streets), then that would be another dealer mistake as you'd want to set the pots.

Reading the first few pages of this thread for the first time and I picture all the scenarios as if they happened on tables with plexiglass setups even though they were all pre-covid. Sigh, hope we are almost done with those...

I was in a NL game, stuck pretty good and buy some additional chips from the tray with cash. Bought $300 in greens and on we go.

When the next dealer sits down, they inform the floor that the tray is light by $100! They check the tapes and discover that the previous dealer actually gave me
$400 in green for my $300 in cash. I'm happy to give back the extra $100 and honestly didn't notice the excess until they told me. Hopefully the dealer didn't get in much trouble...

You didn't notice you got 16 chips instead of 12 chips?

The main issue here was that the dealer did set the pots, but did so incorrectly, and the side pots were significant. I think the smallest side pot was $300 and the larger one was at least $600. Being off by $200 is a lot in this spot and the error was then compounded by the dealer pushing them together when different players won them.

All in all, it was just a terrible outcome. I agree that either setting the pots or not setting the pots is fine, but in my experience, i've found that when the pot was set in advance, i've never been short. Having it set in advance gives the player enough time to look at the pot and identify if it is correct. When the dealer does it at the end, it is often rushed to get to the next hand and as a player, it's very hard to question it in that window. 95% of the time the dealer gets it right either way, but that 5% is important.

It's just good to have all but the last side pot set (if not all of them) before the last card(s) come out. With good Dealer communication you can tell the table how Showdown will be handled before burning as well.

I find it good practice to put the side pots towards the 'all-in' Player involved for a visual reference at Showdown. GL

Not really, just added it to my other greens and rolled on. It was like 10 years ago, I count everything pretty obsessively now.