Hey man, we all make mistakes and have breaking points. Do you have any great stories about times you made no mistakes and stayed calm and professional?

Being a fly on the wall in the breakroom is what this thread is supposed to be.
Stories here can be heard by all and instead of understanding this place is "off the poker room floor", but everyone is losing sight of the fact that the players don't normally hear these things, much less get to interject and critique. Clearly dealer stories are not okay here anymore unless the dealer is perfect.

The respect for the "breakroom" part is gone.
As for me, I plan to go take my breaks elsewhere.

RIP breakroom. It's been fun.

PS YTF, thanks for the memories and being the golden age of this breakroom. You have been missed.

I don't blame anyone here for leaving because they're tired of reading nit responses. Many times here lately I've started writing something up then stopped because I'm not interested in reading them either.

For the record, the response you're complaining about came from another dealer. I am happy to police the thread and keep out the whiny players, but you guys gotta own the fact that you don't all agree all the time either.

Good grief. I first stated n my response that I appreciated how good it would feel to say something like that to a player. Then I mentioned that in spite of that I thought it was an unprofessional thing to say at a table. And that's exactly the kind of comments that occur in a breakroom all the time. If a dealer came in and was boasting about how he told off a player, the other dealers would laugh and say "way to go". Then they would tell him he shouldnt do that again because he would likely get fired.

And my response wasnt directed at the actions of the dealer per se. We all have bad days where our self discipline fails and we respond like we all often want to. My initial comment was directed at the poster saying he thought the comment was perfect. I posted that I didnt think it was perfect. That was it, a one sentence post. A difference of opinion. If that somehow ruins the breakroom for you, I really dont know what to tell you. We have disagreements on stuff in our breakroom regularly.

The best in any profession will have bad days. Even though I never considered myself the best, only slightly above average I sure as hell had days where I would miss the simplest stuff or incorrectly call a bet or hand. The only thing I could do and what any professional can do is shake it off and "go get em next time." It always made me feel better when a regular realized I made a rare mistake and instead of jumping on my case they would say with a smile, "Gil are you hungover or did you roll off the wrong side of the couch this morning?"

As far as the story that started all of this, I would classify that in the "I would love to say something like that but I probably should not say something like that" category.

Noted and appreciated.

I guess the main point is that when someone goes through the effort to tell a story here about something funny, silly, or whacky that happened, we don't need the post that comes in straightening their tie and saying "well that shouldn't have happened the way it did because XYZ blah blah blah. That's not professional conduct harrumph." I mean, no **** sherlock? Posting that just dissuades future sharing and effort.

In the spirit of YTF (I think we all miss that guy) Ill post a couple stories from early in my career when I had my foot in my mouth. And of course, spelling and grammar is iffy since Ol' Gil is all liquored up like he usually is when he comes on here.


I think I was about a year or so in and was dealing a table at around 3am in the morning, with about 6-7 players at the table 4 regulars and a couple random guys. Well action had slowed at one point and action was on the player in the 1 seat but he was not paying attention which was pretty rare for this player. Anyway after tapping the table and calling out his name multiple times he quickly acted and said sorry but he was checking out the scene. It took me a minute or so to realize what he was talking about but right outside the poker room was this absolutely stunning early 20s bombshell. I mean she was 5'5'' long beautiful hair, amazing legs and a well.....a pair that woud beat any royal flush. What made this really rare was our casino was notorious for the average age of our customers being well north of AARP, especially at that time of night. I think I let out a subtle, "GAWD D**" and now I was distracted. Finally one of the random players had to get my attention. I said, I'm sorry I was checking out the.......scenery. He sternly looked at me and said, "Dude that's my girlfriend". At first I thought he was kiding but he looked to be getting more and more angry. I backed down like a whupped puppy and said, my apologies. Meanwhile seat one is nearly falling out of his chair laughing at me. He left not too long after and I never saw him, or sadly his girlfriend ever again. The player in seat one always used to bust my balls over that one.

Second story was another with another regular. He was a long-time season ticket holder for our local NFL team and would attend every game and usually 2-3 road games every year.During the playoffs one year our team was in an insane back n forth game and ended up winning on an insane play in overtime. He always played our Monday & Tuesday tournies unless there was a game but he did not come in for about a month after the game. When he finally came in for the first time in a few weeks I joked with him that "man your heart must have been going crazy during that game". He looked at me and said "I was in the hospital for a week thinking I was dying of a heart failure". I turned pale and apologized and honestly could not talk to him for about a week or two. He finally came up to me and said "Dont feel bad about your joke, that is what I get for rooting for this dam team for 35 years" and winked as he walked away.

If I play a tourney and don't want to leave a general tip but just tip a specific tourney dealer or two is that cool? Will they get in trouble?

A tournament dealer sitting at a tournament table can get into trouble if they take tips at every room I worked in. However, there is usually nothing stopping you from walking up to a dealer who is sitting at a cash game (or a dead spread or not at a table) and stuffing some chips or money in their box. So just wait until the dealer is not at a tournament table to tip them.

This can be difficult if you're at a big tournament event where there are no cash games but if it's important enough to you to show your appreciation to a single dealer or dealers, you can likely find a time and place they can accept a gratuity without risking their job.

100% this.


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Same same .. It's almost impossible to tip a specific Dealer if you play a tournament away from your normal rooms. There are stories of Dealers meeting at gas stations and what not to get a direct share of a BBJ in a tip pooling room .. and promptly getting fired over it when the exchange was seen somehow.

I tipped a tournament Dealer one time and the look on their face was awesome. They immediately called over the Floor and it was whisked away for the tip pool of the event. Of course the next Dealer had me out of the tournament in 5 hands .. fun fun. GL

Room I deal in is soliciting promo ideas from dealers. Anyone have any cool promotions in your rooms that I can submit and claim I came up with it myself?

Not a dealer so feel free to delete if my posting here is inappropriate.

Never seen this offered anywhere. May be a really stupid idea. But...........

Once a month (quarter???) "We will stake you" Player selected (selection method to be determined) will be staked to (amount to be determined but should be significant). Player will be allowed to keep a percentage of his/her winnings and the casino will absorb all the loss. Obviously, the casino needs to implement procedures to ensure players comply with whatever monitoring procedures are established.

May not be a good idea. May not even be legal. But it's something different (at least from my limited experience)

Definitely not feasible to stake players in cash. Giving out tournament buyins as a bonus to cash game players is doable.

Actually that reminds me - I don't know if they still do it but Venetian used to have a thing where you could use your comps to buy in to tournaments. That could definitely drive a bit more play.

I'm not a fan of high hand promotions but they do bring in players. I prefer hot seat or splash pots.

The most effective promo in our room has been cash for hours. Top X players for the month or anyone with over 150 hours gets $500.

Something that really worked in an overnight game I used to play was free breakfast. Play at least 4 hours between midnight and 6am, get a free breakfast from the diner. It didn't come until at least 7am so we'd all wind up staying until at least 8. I've never seen any other rooms do this. The most you'll see most places is they bring in donuts or hot dogs or something.

I dealt my first ever bad beat on Saturday night. To be fair, I spent the first decade of my career working in rooms that only had high hand promos, or else I'd have dealt other bad beats earlier.

This was the 5th table of a 5-ball. Naturally, they kept me in the box for additional downs while the paperwork was processed and the prize money was prepared.

Did I mention that this was on a Saturday night? And the casino was slammed? My down at the table turned into a 7-ball. And my string turned into an 11-ball. I could barely stand up by the time I was pushed!

Promos ..

'hourly/daily' High Hand ..

Weekly 'Hot' Hands .. Take all the combinations of full houses with 2 or 3 pocket pairs and have progressive payouts with the last few hands 'off the board' paying out the highest amounts (pyramid style) Run these Monday to Sunday to keep the OMC Regs happy as they chop up the low end payouts and then see how action picks up on the weekend when the higher amounts are still on the board

Royal Flush bonus .. each suit has a bounty .. add $xx to the bounty each day unless hit. Starting bounty can be as low as $50 and add $25 per day. Can also do this with straight flushes also if you want it to hit more often .. 2 cards in hole of course (or not)

Full House raffle .. Player gets a ticket for each Full House or better then hold a raffle at month's end by pulling a ticket (or two) every 30 minutes. If you run PLO then they have to Flop the Full House. (Must be present to win .. ala, bring your tickets with you on the day of the drawing) I've also seen where tickets are electronic in Bravo or some other software and randomized for whose logged into the system. Floors don't like this one since it does take some running and extra paperwork depending on the promo governing body and Players complain if the raffle in not in their normal playing window.

Random seat draws via Bravo .. Players always think these are rigged, most require at least one hour of play for the computer to include in drawing .. could do 1 'ticket' per hour played that day also.

Most rooms have eliminated their 'minor' BBJ payouts, but I like them since I am a fan of 'more' payouts as opposed to 'large' payouts. AAAKK loses for 10% of the BBJ pot or similar

Tournament point system with a quarterly Freeroll to the top xx. This takes tracking as well, with a 'tier' system for how many points you gain based on BI amount and field size. You can also offer seats in this tournament to the top xx cash game hourly Players as well, but mixing cash and tournament Player pools isn't always 'fun'

Not a house favorite, but reduced rake before Noon or similar .. or you could do increased Player points at certain times of the day. MGM Detroit pays 2x Player points at all their 2/5 tables for some reason. Obv Marketing has to be on board with that since food/drink/gift shop are involved with Player points in most rooms.

Hourly splash pots .. again, Players think this is rigged to a 'favorite' table whether live draw or computer. A twist on this is that the table with the first Flop/Board containing the Ace of Spades 'wins' the splash pot. Of course then they think the shufflers are rigged .. That way there is suspense as to when the Splash Pot will occur, if at all. If it doesn't happen, then it doubles to the next hour.

Bounties are the rage right now .. you could expand on the pyramid explained above by having the Player pull an envelope (spin a wheel) and not knowing what they've won until they reveal it themselves.

That's all I've got .. take credit where credit is due .. GL

Congratulations! I hope the players hooked you up.

The closest I've come is someone folding what turned out to be a bad beat draw on the flop on a 2/5 table. P1 flopped quads and open shoved for 8x the pot. P2 folded a gutshot to a straight flush. They wanted me to rabbit hunt but I refused out of fear P1 and/or P2 might not make it home alive if it would have hit.

Congrats on the bad beat bolt.

The players were generous and I was/am grateful.

Several years ago I was dealing 2-4 limit hold'em and the board approximated 5C 6C 8C 10C QC. On the river:

Player 1: Check
Player 2: Bet $4
Player 1: Call $4

Player 2 turned over 9C JC for a straight flush. Player 1 turned over 4C 7C for a straight flush and said, "I put you on a higher straight flush. That's why I only called."

This was for a $25 pot. I was, and still am, dumb-founded. But this was a high-hand only room, with no bad beat jackpot. Player 2 did win the hourly high hand (something like $250).

Another time in the same room I dealt quads over quads with both players holding pocket pairs. As I recall, the losing hand was Quad 8's, so that would have qualified for a bad beat jackpot in just about any room with that promo.

My back hurts from just reading this.

In the rooms I dealt in with BBJs it was traditional to have the dealer out when the paperwork was done.

I know that I was out of there when I dealt mine. Got the wife and headed to another room to play. It was fun putting all that money into an ATM when we stopped off at the bank on the way home.

When I dealt a bad beat, the game just continued as usual, after the floor had collected the IDs from the players. I continued to push to the next table. When the paperwork was done,(about 30 mins later) I was pulled out to an adjacent table to sign and another dealer sat in. Then they brought the players over to the table I was at one by one. The floor would have the player sign, then I would count out the money to the player. If they chose to tip, they would do it then. So I really only missed one down during the entire process.

We have an EGOMC (that's an Extra-Grumpy Old Man Coffee) who's a regular 1-3 NL player at my room. He likes to sit next to the dealer and mutter vulgarities about the other players under his breath. He's a huge nit and a losing player. I found this one amusing.

Preflop, limps around to EGOMC on the button. EGOMC raises to $20. One caller.

Flop is Q86 rainbow. Middle-aged guy leads out for $5 into a $50 pot. EGOMC cals.
Turn is a 7. Middle-aged guy bets $5 into a $60 pot. EGOMC calls.
River is 4. Middle-aged guy bets out $50 into a $70 pot. EGOMC calls.

Middle-aged guy tables K5 offsuit for a straight. EGOMC tables AA and starts muttering. "Of course this $*%@'ing guy hits a $&%#'ing runner-runner gutshot to crack my $&*#'ing aces."

Consumate professional dealer in the box keeps his mouth shut and doesn't point out that if EGOMC had bothered raising the hugely undersized bet on either the flop or the turn he would have won the pot.

Would "It's tough for them to fold when you don't bet" be inappropriate?