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??"

Say "Nope" and continue dealing the next hand.

I should probably post this in it's own thread, but the dealer bears some of the responsibility so I will post it here. The dealer didn't cause this problem, but a better dealer probably would have had a better outcome.

I am playing in a casino $2/$5 game (my stack is ~$1000 buy in). It is a weird game. Lots of loose pre-flop limping and lots of strange post flop aggression. There are 5 players who are aggressively raising every draw (including quite a few gutterballs) and even raising many top pair mediocre kickers. It is a great table to play at as lots of money is going in bad postflop and lots of hands can be played cheaply pre-flop.

So the hand, UTG limps, 4 other players limp to me in the small blind with 4c 2c. I complete. The BB checks. $35 in the pot. Flop comes Ac, 3d, 5c. I flop a straight with a gutter straight flush draw. I check figuring that any flush draw will bet as well as an Ace and then I will hammer it. To my surprise it checks around (sucks for me).

The turn is the best card in the deck. The 3c. I think for a split second and consider checking again, but I think it is better to bet. I will be raised by the Kc and any 3. Even a weak ace might do something stupid if I bet.

I bet a $25 green chip. The BB folds. UTG says raise and throws out a $100 black chip.

A quick note on UTG. He is the outlier at the table. He is a nit. A big nit. I immediately know he has a full house or even 3h3s. I don't even think he raises KcXc. He never raises, let alone reraises. Another note about UTG, he is an angleshooter, butba flaky angleshooter. I have seen him angle in the past where it was clear he was angling, but I have also seen him get into the stupidest arguments where it is clear he is wrong. He has literally wrongly argued over which two football teams were playing on MNF while the game was on a comercial on every TV in the poker room.

So he is ditzy, but also angles when he sees an opportunity. It is hard to tell which is which.

So anyway, I bet $25 green, he announces raise, and thows out a $100 black chip.

The dealer is deeply engrossed in a conversation, but sort of announces the raise. The raise declaration is literally part of his conversation. It is like he is saying to the player next to him "The Yankees are favored in the AL. Bet $25. But the Orioles are struggling lately and have to go through an extra wildcard round. Raise $100. But I really think they can do it now that they have gotten their bullpen stabilized."

His tone never changed, so anyone who was ignoring his chatter didn't hear the bet or raise. After UTG throws out the black chip, the next player pauses, thinks, and then says "Raise?" while gesturing towards the black chip. His voice rises as he says it so it is easy to hear the question in his voice.

The dealer declares "Raise" and continues to chatter.

The next three players immediately fold in succession to me. Immediately.

I stop an tell the dealer that the player was asking a question. He wasn't raising. The questioning player quickly responds that he was asking if it was a raise.

Dealer wakes up and realizes he has a problem on his hand. You can see him rerun the action in his mind. UTG jumps in and said that the player reraised and there was followup action so it is binding.

The dealer freezes and realizes that he has a big issue on his hand. He doesn't know what to say. I immediately call over the floor.

The floor comes over and I try to explain what I saw/heard, but he only wants to hear from the dealer. The dealer explains that he said he announced a bet, raise, and reraise, and there were three folds. He leaves out that he was talking during those announcements. The questioning player tries to explain that he was asking if it was raised. I try backing him up, but UTG absolutely wants the reraise to stand. He is getting loud and animated.

The floor listens for a few seconds then rules that the player reraised. He states there was significant action afterwards so it has to stand. The player tries arguing with him but the floor will have none of it. He tells the player to put in $175 or leave and be 86ed.

While the player is sitting there and thinking. I ask the floorperson if we can step aside for a minute. We step a few feet from the table and I explain that I have the stone cold nuts. I am winning the hand. It isn't in my best interst to be honest and say that the other player clearly asked a question, but I know that is what he did. Furthermore, I explain that UTG probably has 33 or AA thinking he wants action.

The floorperson listens to me and says that if I want to give the other player a refund, I can, but his call stands. I say ok.

We go back to the table. The other player pushes $175 out. I call. UTG reraises all in. Other player folds, I insta-call.

I consider slow rolling UTG. I really do, but I have slow rolled like 3 times in my life and those were in response to previous slow rolls. I hate slow rolling So I wait for him to turn over his hand and then immediately turn over mine.

He turns over 33. I turn over the straight flush. UTG is stunned.

The pot is pushed my way. I try and refund the other player $175, but two other players rightfully speak up saying i cannot pay out of my stack. They are correct of course.

I have no other money other than $22 in my wallet.

The floor insists that it can only pay him out of my stack if I am leaving. The other player is looking at me wondering if he is going to get his money back.

I know everyone is right about giving money out of a stack, but now I was made to feel like the *******. I wanted to continue to play, but if I did that he doesn't get paid right away.

I ask if anyone can loan me $175, but I don't know anyone there well enough so no one speaks up (I wouldn't either in their position). I tell the other player that I will pay him back when I leave.

We continue to play, other player busts. He looks at me for a split second, but realizes that $175 isn't going to get him back in the game, so he leaves. I consider leaving, but there is too much money on the table and my ride is still playing at another table so I can't.

I felt this was poorly handled all around. The dealer could have done far better. Far, far better. The floor could have done better.

I felt like an ******* despite me doing nothing wrong.

Dealer better? Sure, but we all know that this is hit or miss with the verbiage that occurred. The real issue IMO is that the Dealer didn't stop the fold train in order for 'the next Player' to actually put out the raise.

TNP is stuck in the rules (as is the Floor really) in that he also didn't stop the fold train and protect his action.

HOW IN THE WORLD did you get into a private Floor 'chat' while still in the hand!!

Did you ask 'your ride' for the $175?

Was TNP a Reg? If so, it might have been possible to leave the money with the Poker Desk and let him receive it the next session. While a stretch, I've seen it done with HH funds or other.

Interesting spot, but I think the Floor's decision was correct and you were just caught in a catch-22 with the $175. It really sounds as if you were sitting with a bunch of pretty tight Players. While still breaking the letter of the law, I think in at least a few of the rooms I play in the chips could've been transferred .. especially when TNP busted. GL

TNP also owns a solid amount of this by saying one word "raise" instead of "what's the action?" or "how much is that?" Even "is that a call?" is better than just using "raise" and hoping everyone hears the question mark.

you bought in with all the money you had on you? high five!

couldn't you just zelle him $175?

I'm surprised to hear the dealer even thought the guy raised. From your description, when he said raise he meant that as a yes to the question.