Your old company or another one?

I read in the news that employers across the nation aren't giving annual pay raises as consistently as they used to.

To that end, I gave myself a pay raise a few years ago when I went dual rate with 2 days on the floor. Then I gave myself another pay raise a year later by switching to 1 day on the floor. A few months ago I got another pay raise by just dealing full time. The only time I floor now is if the regular floor is sick or on vacation and I suit up for a day or two to cover him.

annual pay whats?

Blinds 300/600/600. BB puts in his ante with 6 black chips, but posts his BB with a 5k chip despite the fact that I clearly see he has 6 or 7 other black chips. I ask if he wants to use those chips for the BB instead, and he says, "No, I need those to shuffle," and tosses the 5k chip toward the chip leader, of whom I then ask, "Can you break this for him? He needs chips to shuffle." So we got the BB's shuffling chip situation squared away, and play resumed.

Tournament players are a special breed.

To be fair, when I am playing, I will often post a bigger chip even though I have exact change just so I can keep my smaller chips. If for some reason I end up folding my BB and the dealer doesn't have exact change, I will switch out to the smaller chips as I fold.

The question is, why are you changing up the big blind before actionnis complete? I understand making sure the ante is exact. That should be required. But the big blind doesn't require change until action is complete. Why not wait? Maybe there will be enough to make change?

I wouldn't have changed out his BB-- he tossed the chip to another player for change. Since they were in seats 2 and 8, I shipped back his fresh new shuffling chips for him. Customer service!

I dealt the weirdest/funniest/saddest down this afternoon. It was a $2/$5 cash game. Two players I know who are very good players. Very good. They usually play higher, but play $2/$5 often enough. Crushers. The other 7 are Randoms that I have never seen before. What made it so weird is that 3 of the Randoms would get it in bad, then win, then talk $hit. Hand after hand it would happen.

The first couple of hands were standard random versus good player. Good player flops top pair (or top two) bets pot gets called by a player who checks his cards with an obvious flush draw. Turn is a blank, good player goes all in, random calls, hits flush on river. Good player nods, plays off random and says good hand.

It sucks, but everyone has seen it before. Normal variance in the life of a good player. Randoms chase and occasionally hit.

Then the fuse was lit. One of the good players won a medium pot. He had AK, flop was something like 4 j 10, random bet a small amount. Good player called. Turn is an ace. Random bets small. Good player thinks for a while and just calls. Turn is a Q. Random bets a small amount. Good player (with the nuts) raises, random calls, good player turns over his nut straight. Pretty straightforward action.

Random goes nuts. Starts berating good player, asks how he can call the flop, etc. Good player doesn't say anything which just seems to feed the random. Random starts to cross some lines. I start to speak up to stop him, but the good player signals to me that he is good and not to worry about it. I let the random rant a bit. It turns out that the random has two friends at the table. They start to back up his smack talk. Everything seems to calm down.

Then we go down the rabbit hole of absurdity.

For the next 15 minutes, it seemed like every other hand, one of the good players would flop a monster hand, one of the three Randoms who were friends would raise, reraise, or whatever, and basically the money would go all in. The good players would show their monsters, the Randoms wouldn't show. I would deal the rest of the board and the random would then turnover the best hand that had to go runner runner to get there.

Then they would talk smack about winning. At first the good players just smiled and accepted the results. Good players know that bad players occasionally win. It happens. But after the 3rd or 4th time of them suffering a ridiculous bad beat, they start to get annoyed. They do not express it, but I can clearly see it in them. They are frustrated. They are playing at a dream table, but losing. Badly.

To make it worse, the bad Randoms are talking $hit. It gets bad enough that I have to call the floor over and he delivers a warning which sort of casts a pall over the table. I am sure the good players don't want the Randoms driven away by a floor, but it is also clear they are frustrated and the smack talk is getting to them. They are playing excellent poker, and getting absolutely crushed by inferior players. Often in the worst ways. Violated. They are both down at least 4 or 5 buy-ins. Probably way more.

It culminates in my last hand of the down. Preflop action was whatever. Flop comes out 3x 9s 10s. Random bets, and good player shoves his $1000 into a ~$100 pot. Random thinks. He knows he is bad, but he keeps saying the other player was bluffing. He goes for a long time. A really long time. Finally the other good player calls clock. It took me a while to get a floor, but a floor comes over and we run through the clock procedure. With 10 seconds to go, the random says "**** it. I know you are bluffing" and calls. I tap the table and put out a another 3x. Then the river is a 4x. Flush missed.

Both players sit there for a second. Finally the good player turns over a QJs for an open ended straight flush draw that compleyely misses. The random then yells "I knew you were bluffing!!!!" And turns over 8 4 offsuit for a rivered pair.

It takes me a second to comprehend the shown hands. I then kill the QJs. The three random friends immediately start smack talking about poker skill. They are loudly and annoyingly going off on the good player. So loud that the floor comes wandering back to the table.

Words are then exchanged. Slurs are exchanged and challenges to manhood are exchanged. The good player who lost the hand can no longer stand it. They simply lose it and stand up and get in the other players face.

Security is called, 4 people are kicked out. One of the good players and 3 of the Randoms who were friends. The other good player leaves as well.

I have thought about this down for the past few hours. A lot. Even now I cannot let it go.

The good players were mostly fine. I am actually amazed at how they professional they were. The suffered bad beat after bad beat over and over. To the point of ridiculousness. They never flinched. It was obvious to me they got flustered, but on the outside they kept their cool. Even to the point where obviously inferior players were mocking them.

As a player, I pride myself on my ability to take bad beats and suffer through verbal abuse without letting it bother me. It is really hard for other players to tilt me. For me it is all about the play of the hands. I pride myself on getting it in good, losing, and then talking with the other player and making them feel good about their bad play.

That is literally poker at its finest. One of the best skills in poker.

I am unsure if I could have held out as long as these two did. They suffered bad beat after runner runner, after bad beat. It was insane. Then throw in the verbal abuse from obviously inferior players.

Obviously they are wrong for losing their $hit, but I honestly do not know if I could do any better.

Crazy down.

I hope I am never in that position as a player.

I can't say I've had runs that bad, but that kind of thing is why I moved to seat 0. I can only handle a certain number of suckouts per night and hearing the other player brag about their play cuts that number in half.

I'm glad none of the players started targeting you.

The good thing about dealing tournament series is the players are a lot easier to deal with. The downside is I'm not getting as many good stories as I used to, so I have to make due with finding amusements in the little things.

A guy busts early in the tournament. AK vs AA, flop was AKK. 5 minutes later he came back with and started talking about how he's on his second bullet and you wouldn't believe the hand! "I flopped a full house versus full house!" Someone says "No way, the same thing happened here earlier. Someone flopped Kings full and lost to Aces full.". "That's crazy! There was no way to get away from my hand." "Yeah, our guy was stuck too. No way he's folding there." The back and forth went on for a good 10 minutes with nobody realizing they were talking about the same hand.

I've had a fair number of table captains try to take charge here. I'm not sure if it's because they don't recognize me or if it's just how things are in this city.

There was a weird blind situation where two new players arrive at the same time as someone busting. I announce that one of the new players is assuming the dead button, blinds are here and here. The other new player jumps to his feet and says "Hold on! Where was the button last hand? Let's figure this out!" It's already been figured out, so I try to explain it to him and wait for him to catch up. He points to the SB and says "Were you even the big blind last hand?" "Yes." He finally lets it go and we get on with the hand.

Another guy wins 3/4 of a pot and turns around to talk to his friend as I do the split. He finally turns around to see a big pile of chips in front of him and says "Did you even get this right??"