This drives me nuts TBH as it violates OPTAH as you say. It is not the dealers job to instruct a player how to play out his hand. As soon as the last player checks I always say "showdown." You are simply announcing that action has ended and the best hand wins the pot. Saying "OK lets see a winner" or "turn them up" is so unprofessional IMO.

Similarly, you're telling the winning player, "You're too predictable, you have the nuts every time."

Disagree. I know it's a good-natured thing done with old nits most of the time, but still a no-no imo.

Would you rather everyone wait for two jackasses to stare at each other to see who shows first?

Every room has a rule as to who is required to showdown first. If no one shows down within a reasonable period of time, gesture to the player who is required to showdown that it is on him to showdown or muck.

Jackasses staring at each other don't hear a gesture.

It never ceases to amaze me how nitdouches try to twist and bend and outright lie when recounting a story to make the other person look as bad as possible.

Server brings nitdouche a milkshake. Nitdouche is mad because the milkshake costs a dollar more than usual or whatever because he asked for banannas in it. Yes, quite egregious.

Nitdouche's hand bumps into his own milkshake and spills a tiny bit off the side. Now Nitdouche claims that it was the server who spilled his milkshake.

Server brings Nitdouche napkins and says this exact quote "Here are some napkins for you."

Nitdouche calls over the flor and claims waitress said "Clean it up yourself". He is quickly corrected by 4 people at the table.

Nitdouche then proceeds to go on a rant about how he's being treated badly by the asian waitress because he is of latino decent.

Some people are pathetic.

I usually say "Sir" when I make the gesture.

"Show em or Muck em" works too.

There are a number of players who will simply ignore you .... but they are going to ignore you no matter what you say.

There's no showdown dance when I'm dealing.

What do you do? All action is complete and one player tables the winner. Other player sits and says " your good" and then stares at his cards like there gonna change.

You mean like they're gonna change?

I tell him "I need your cards."
If he won't give them up I'll call the floor.
In 20 years this has happened very seldom and they stare for just a few seconds.
I've never needed to call the floor.

I doubt he tried to twist the story. I bet that in his head it happened exactly the way he said it did.

So I shaved my head this week. I was turning into Combover Man, and I didn't like it, so like Walter White, when I saw all that scalp showing through, I took ownership of the situation.

I mention it here because a few of the guys at work have told me that they're considering the same thing, and for the same reason.

It was then that I realized that we don't have ANY young dealers in our room. It's all old guys losing their hair.

NOBODY is getting hired in this business with <10 years experience.

Oh, and I had to call a string bet yesterday, but it was unusual.

Player A bet 5k in a tourney. Player B had exactly five yellow 1k chips, and he picked them off the top of his small stack. Then he looked at his smaller 500 and 100 chips, and seemed to reconsider. He put down the yellows, thought about it, and here's where it gets unusual:

He picks up the stack of smaller chips, and his mouth begins to form the words "All-in", but no sound comes out. He puts out the smaller chips, then goes back for the yellows, and finally, as he picks up the yellows, he gets the words out.

I hesitated, because I really didn't want to call it. He so clearly intended an all-in bet here. But Player A asked immediately, "Isn't that a string bet?", so I had to call it. At least he didn't give me a hard time about it. And big shock, he got 'em all in (and paid off) on the next street, any way.

This is just a wee bit of an exaggeration I think. We've had a couple break-ins the last couple years.

in situations like these where it's reasonably clear what the intention of the player is, do you think the decision can/should be according to the intention of the player and not the technical rule?

off course only if there is no possible angleshoot, your situation might not be that clear, i recently was in a hand where i got it all in on the flop, the other guy had a flush draw which came in on the turn. i threw my hand in the direction of the dealer face-down when the river came a 4-flush and i immediately grabbed my cards again to see if i had a flush which it turns out i did. would you rule my hand dead? if not, would you if it would have hit the muck but the cards were retrievable?

When you do something like that, you're leaving yourself open to the whim of the floor staff. I could see that particular ruling going either way, and wouldn't object to either ruling. How would I rule it? I'd know my room's rule on this matter, and apply it accordingly.

But string bets are different. String bets are so specifically spelled out, and are so fundamentally understood by players with even a modicum of experience, that it's extraordinarily difficult to vary from the written rules "in the interest of fairness". That's why I called it here, and didn't call the floor over for a ruling (of course, if anyone had objected to my decision, I would have called the floor immediately--but everyone knows the rule, and nobody could object, not even the offending player).

Always agree with that, the rooms rule is the rule that should be applied.

This is where i tend to go against the grain.( so it seems when i try to explain my position to other dealers and quite a few players in conversations ive had).
In my opinion, in many rooms and rulebooks, "string bet" isnt CORRECTLY spelled out and is MIS-understood fundamentally by most players because of that reason.

Many understand a string bet(or raise) simply as being two motions to the pot, and while that is in part what it is, the basic understanding that most miss:
A true string bet is an angle, a shot, it is intentional.
A player starts an action, with the intent of observing what is happening behind them and then changes(adds) to that action with a second action in the hopes of taking advantage of the knowledge they have gained.
THAT point is almost never considered by dealers or players when considering whether to call a string ( or verify in the dealers case) that i have witnessed in the last number of years. IT was enforced very well 18-20 years ago that i recall.

I think players use calling a sting bet way to often as nothing more than a way to save a bet on a current round when in fact they were not "strung" along by anything or anyone.

Way to often ive seen a player act and make two motions( usually pretty quick) to the pot , next to act is sitting there staring, has not moved or acted (to provide any information to the bettor) and just says. "String". ( this happens most often in limit games)
Most would agree that it is a string bet.

Even though i cant say( our house rule says otherwise and i follow it to a "T") i would not agree that it is a string.

That fact that you were 100% aware of what he did before you acted completely nullifies the argument that it is a string, in my opinion.

Now people angle by calling string bet when the intention was clear that the person was raising. This is fortunately happening less often in my experience. It is most frequent in kill pots in half kill games. In full kill games, you can't know the intention without background on the player.

I disagree with about the string bet. It does not have to be an angle or attempt to gain advantage. The purpose fo the rule is not as you suggest to prevent a player from "observing what is happening behind them and then changes(adds) to that action with a second action in the hopes of taking advantage of the knowledge they have gained."

The purpose of the rule is to define the end of an action so that the next player knows when it is his turn to act.

Now I agree that one reason this is important is to prevent a player from waiting to see what the next player does and then say "hey wait I wasn't finished yet."

But there is a difference. If the rule had as its purpose as you state .... then a bet would be made as soon as a player took any action showing an intent to act such as counting out a bet or arguably even reaching for chips.

If you understand the rule as defining the end of a players action, then you understand the onus is on the next player not to begin his action until the previous player has completed his action.

As a player I don;t really care if a player string bets if it doesn't cause another player to do something he wouldn't do if he knew the player was still acting.

But that falls into the category of its a string bet ..... but I don't care ..... not as you suggest ...... it's not a string bet.

But as a player I don't want dealers making those distinctions. I want a bright line rule for dealers. Why? Because if you tell dealers as you suggest ..... only call the rule when the player is intnetionally "angle shooting" or cheating ...... then for a dealer to enforce the rule require sthe dealer to accuse a player of unethical conduct. Many dealers simply can't stand that kind of conflict. Its very difficult to sit at a table and call a player a cheater ..... especially a regular who you will be dealing to often ... especially when you make money from tips. As a player I want the dealer to have a bright line on this issue that is free from judgment about intent behavior.

I shaved my head about a month ago .... not for the same reason, though my hairline was receding I was not yet at the combover situation. I simply got tired of my hair ..... I had slowly been getting each haircut shorter and shorter and finally pulled the trigger.

Title 31 training today. I feel like I just did one of these. I also feel like I say that every time.

I'm older than YTF, not sure about Psand but I won't be shaving my head since my hairline is right where it has been since...well, forever.

I have very long hair. It's getting gray as I approach my mid 40s, but no sign of losing it.

When I first started, I actually wore a short-haired wig because they said I needed to have short hair. I firmly expected someone high up to say "That wig needs to go" and I'd be forced to cut it but that never happened and my wig became kind of a cult figure in the poker room: Some knew it was a wig, some had no idea; some whispered quietly in the shadows wondering what caused me to wear a wig (was I bald?) while others would have no problems asking co-workers or myself.

Finally a few months back, a new dealer was hired with long hair. He just started wearing it up in a bun. By then we have a new HR and a new poker room manager and despite people wondering how it would go, both said it was fine the way he was wearing it. I never tried to have it revisited because I figured if it wasn't broke, I wouldn't mess with it. It was silly and a little bit of a pain but I got to look like how I wanted to look outside of work and that was important to me.

But the new guy blazed a trail for me! I call him the Rosa Parks of my hair...

I found this out and told the poker room manager that I was gonna do the same thing and he laughed that he had no idea it was a wig! But of course I could ditch it, he said.

The first week or so I had my real hair was funny... I couldn't push into a table without getting comments or questions. People swearing they had no idea arguing with people who said how can anyone NOT know.

Since social progress takes time, I have been biding my time for the right time to see if I can just to a ponytail. Putting it up in the bun takes a ****-ton of hairspray and time plus I cannot take it down after work without it looking like crap - it makes for EO trips to play cards not as fun.

However while watching the new WSOP, I saw a dealer with really long hair in a ponytail! So I asked my poker room manager if I could do that and he said he's fine with it as long as HR says it's cool. I spoke to HR today. He said it was room dependent but that he would get back with me.

Hopefully I will be able to start wearing a ponytail at work! I cannot have it unrestrained like the female dealers, but considering where I started - wearing a silly wig! - I won't complain...

must be nice