On a bonus note, it's one thing to say what room you work in.

Saying what room you work in and when your first day was means that you've narrowed down who you are to what, 2, maybe 3 people?

And if they know about your tray being short that time, they know who you are. Now's a good time to tell us how awesome your boss is.

James and Jeremy are totally the best coach and floor manager ever!

(Side note: they already know exactly who I am.)

There are actually some things Harrahs does quite well.

You're talking to someone whose last job was working at Wal-Mart. Compared to that, working for Caesar's is like working for the Taj Mahal. (The real one, not the Atlantic City casino...)

Twice the pay, half the work. Plus I maybe only get an irate guest at my table once every couple of days at the Horseshoe, as compared with at least 4 or 5 every single day at Walmart. From my perspective, this casino might as well be heaven.

Plus I was a huge poker player before I started, and am used to working jobs that I hate, so my mindset is still pretty much "Really? You're going to PAY me to run a poker table for 8 hours a day?"

Super Nit is a reg and 25-50% of the time when it's been raised PF and 90% of the time when he is facing a bet on a later street he will go hollywood and jump in the tank for like 30-60 seconds(longer if its later in the hand), re-check his hole cards, count out chips like he's going to call, re-check his cards, stack the chips back up, stare down the bettor, count out the chips like he's going to call again, re-check his cards, look at the board, re-check his cards...(get the idea?) and then say something nit-like as he FINALLY mucks.

Everyone knows he is going to fold and a couple other regs call him out on it almost every time he does it, but it doesn't stop him from thinking they're filming Rounders 2 and he's the lead.

I've pulled Super Nit aside in the past and tried to be nice explaining why this is a problem and his reply is instant anger and to say "why don't i have the right to think about what i wanna do?" I have jokingly said I could put a perma-clock on him(which may be the next step) and he flips out.

Any psychology experts that can tell me how you get SuperNit to stop without him turning into SuperHulk? This is the guy that will tell anyone and everyone that will listen to him how the casino is out to get him and made a special rule just for him and blah blah blah and the shufflers are rigged to set him up to lose blah blah blah.

Dude, just muck when you know you're folding. That is all I ask. If you need a minute to think on a big pot, go ahead, but the ESPN cameras aren't here mmmmmKay.

Unless he's a whale, just ban him. It seems like most, if not all, of your other players would shower you with praise for doing so.

This^^ was my idea. Slap a 30 sec shot clock on him when he's stuck big one day and when he loses his mind and flips a table over we can perma-ban him. Problem solved. Boss disagreed... For now

Not every customer is a desirable one. If he really is destroying the game like you say, you'd be better off without him.

"You do, but not for every single decicion."

Explain that players are complaining and he's costing the house
and if he doesn't knock it off you're gonna start with a 24 hour ban.
That won't work because instead of 25-50% PF and 90% after it will be 30 sec 100% of the time he acts.

When I was booking sports, I worked with a guy who DID make special rules just for certain players. I'll never forget the day, when we were booking offshore, and this one player would call up at Crunch Time to put in his $5 eight-teamers, which take forever to call out, especially when you're still trying to decide which eight teams to put on there, and you're telling the clerk, "Gimme, um, um, uh, the Packers....and...hmmmmm....um....um...." The phones are going crazy, and this clerk could be using this time far more efficiently, so my friend tells the clerk, "Transfer that player to me when he's done betting."

When the call comes up front, my friend greets the bettor, "Hello, Mitch? Yeah, this is Wally, the supervisor here. I wanted to tell you, we got a NEW RULE here. It's called The Mitch Rule! We're not taking any more $5 parlays at crunch time! We've got people trying to bet real money at this time, and we just can't afford to lose a clerk for a half-hour for a couple of $5 parlays. You can call us any time, day or night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week...but not between 12:30 and 1:00 on Sunday afternoon. And we got a website, if you've got a computer, you can bet online any time you like, even at crunch time! Got it? Any questions?"

I knew we'd find a way to leech more offshore sportsbook stories out of you.

Don't bother with silly special rules that allow him to be an attention whore, which is probably exactly what he's seeking anyway. Just tell him he's no longer welcome in the poker room.

Found out today that the new Shufflemaster Deckmate will shuffle a deck in about 30 seconds, and it will also have card recognition. Red light will alert the dealer and will display which card is missing once the button is pressed. It will use a camera, not UV coding, so no special cards are needed. It will also suit the deck on command.

Should make for some interesting conspiracy stories...

Used those several years ago.

It's great having a machine suit decks for you.

Did everything you say and spat out 2 cards at a time (or 4) that I handed to each player in turn.

Is this something new that just gives a shuffled deck for the dealer to pitch?

A few years ago this technology started being used at the Pit games. From your description it sounds like you were using a shuffler designed for the pit games that was just modified for use at poker.

I assume BO is talking about a modification of the current deckmate design which would still just hand off a shuffled deck to the dealer to deal in a standard manner.


I think this is a mistake. The benefits of this technology in a poker game are extremely limited. So now I can suit a deck in 30 seconds instead of 90 seconds ..... big deal. Now if the machine thinks a card is missing it can tell me which card ..... big deal....... (If you want to provide actual benefit have the camera look at the back of the card and identify which cards are no longer good because of markings)

On the other hand this technology not only will feed conspiracy theories ..... it is an actual potential security breach. If someone can get access to the machine and switch out the programming they could certainly cause a bad beat jackpot to be hit. This is not far fetched as these sorts of cheats have been used on slot machines/video poker where the security of the machines is far more guarded.

If I was a poker room manager I would not want to go to these new machines.

I love the way your supervisor handled this. Just curious, how did Mitch respond to this new rule? Would love to hear more sportsbook stories.

Search the 2+2 archives about 4-6 years ago, and look in Sports Betting for a thread with my name in the title and the words "The Well", which was their title for Ask Me Anything threads back then (people shout questions down the well, and this was my turn in the well). It's got all my best stories in there.

But I'm pretty sure this was the first time I posted "The Mitch Rule" story. I LOL'd when it happened, and I LOL every time I replay it in my head, "It's called The Mitch Rule!" I also heard him once explain "The Kevin Rule" to a guy named Kevin, but I can't recall now what that was.

EDIT TO ADD: How did Mitch react? Predictably. He said he understood our position, agreed that we were being very reasonable, and promised to comply.

The very next Sunday, he called the betting line at 12:55 PM.

When you call the betting line, the clerk doesn't pick up the phone and say, "Hello?". Instead, he/she greets you with, "YTF Sports, account number and password, please?" You know this question is coming first and foremost, and you routinely provide the info, and they type it into their computer.

Usually, at this point, if the account number and password match up, the clerk resumes the conversation with, "Your balance is $XXX.xx, how can I help you, sir?"

Well, we put a little "alert" note on Mitch's account, so when a clerk typed in his number and password, the screen went red, and in big white letters they saw, "IF THIS GUY CALLS AT CRUNCH TIME, TRANSFER HIM IMMEDIATELY TO THE FRONT." At this point, the clerk can X-out the alert pop-up and proceed. Since this call came at crunch time, the clerk did not read him his balance and offer to help, but rather, "Please hold for a supervisor, sir," put him on hold, and told Wally and I who he had on the phone.

Wally picked up, of course. "Hey there, Mitch! Remember our little discussion last week?...Yeah, I know they're about to kick off, and you're eager to avoid getting shut out, but let me ask you something: do you own a computer? No, huh? Well, it looks like you're out of action on these early games, cuz we ain't taking your bets until after they kick off...Don't be mad at me, you had ALL WEEK to get down on these games, we put the lines up on TUESDAY, and you ASSURED me that this wouldn't be a problem..."

Then Wally bent a little, and softened The Mitch Rule from 12:30 to 12:40. Mitch called in every Sunday for the rest of the season at exactly 12:40. And if the call wasn't complete by 12:50 or 12:55, we had to threaten to hang up on him, and we may have actually done it once or twice.

Found it for you, cuz I knew another thread that had the link:

http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...0&fpart=1&vc=1

I'm re-reading my posts in that The Well thread. Here's an addendum to one of the stories, don't open it until after you've read that thread:

I remember finding and reading that thread a year or so ago...absolutely one of the all-time great threads from one of 2+2s all-time storytellers.

Thanks for the link, YTF. I truly enjoyed reading the thread.

My favorite: The Filly story.
I also went to youtube and found a Roxette song to listen to while I was reading. Meh.

We have a chip runner in our room who can suit a deck in under 40 seconds. I've timed him and it's uncanny. If he comes to a table that I've just broken I'll give him one deck and I'll suit the other. I'm usually about 2/3 of the way through sorting the deck into two piles of hearts/spades and diamonds/clubs when he'll hand me his finished deck.

He does it "In hand" then ?
Im pretty quick with that method( i can suit a deck faster than most who use the separate the suits on the table), but 40 seconds is pretty stinking fast.

You should try to get a video of it !

He suits hearts/spades and clubs/diamonds "in hand" meaning he just sorts through the deck and pulls the hearts and spades to the front of the deck.

Then he fans out the two groups on the felt and suits it in the "traditional" manner. The speed really comes after he puts the cards on the felt. He's able to pick out the cards in order in a rapid fire motion that is truly a gift.

I routinely can suit a deck in about 2/3rds the time of the typical dealer (I'm done, he's got two suits done).

But I once worked with a guy (Steele in Tunica) who just plain embarrassed me in a race one day. He would just spread the entire deck face up (no presorting) and pick out the cards he needed, and he'd be done before I had two suits done.

The weird part of the story is that if you know Steele, he puts on this Simple Country Boy air, and you can't imagine him being quick at anything! But he's risen from dealer to floor to even manage a room or two, he's certainly got something on the ball, and you'll never meet a nicer guy.