Seemed like everyone was having a "bad listening day" yesterday. Twenty minutes into a tourney down where every hand started with me calling for the antes at least six times (I wish that were an exaggeration), I finally asked, "When I say that, what do you guys hear?"

Immediately, everyone anted!

I miss tournaments largely because I enjoy playing the ante game with myself.

He's an ante, she's an ante, I'm an ante, we're an ante, wouldn't you like to be an ante too? Time to ante, please post your antes...

I have similar games for straddles. Sadly I don't think your method would work there because it'd be focused on one person rather than the entire table, and that's not nice.

My line is "Big and small and antes for all."

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I find positive reinforcement for antes is best. 'Thank you all for being so attentive....etc'. 'Im proud of all of you!'

*edit* so I totally missed putting an ante out while I was posting this rofl

"Hold on, I'll post my ante once I respond to this forum post about people not posting an ante."

Last one to Ante has to Ante twice.

I am sure that there are some that intentionally do not ante that are not being dishonest. When my step-father was teaching me to play poker (I must have been around 6 or 7) he told me to ante last. That often someone would not ante, to hold mine in my hand so I could clarified that I had not anted yet so that if someone else hadn't anted I would never be accused of not anteing after I already had.

That's a great piece of advice.

Now please, don't ever post it again. Last thing I need is for THAT idea to catch on, and to have multiple players at the table vying to ante last. They're ALREADY acting like that's a thing, except they're not holding their antes in their hands, ready to put them in when the coast is clear.

My favourite part of the ante game is when someone hasn't anted and someone else has thrown his in the middle. Yet I'm the idiot for not knowing whose it is because it's right in front of him.

This is basic geometry, people. The ends of the tables are semi-circles. The centre point is in front of EVERYBODY. That's how that works.

My other favorite is the guy freaking out because he doesn't have the right chip to ante, and even though I can easily change his chip from the rest of the antes, instead of just using an oversized chip he himself much search the table to find the right player to get change from, the right player is inevitably the guy least capable of quickly making change.

Don't forget the guy who takes it upon himself to get his own change from his neighbor's ante, not tell you about it, and then turn around to order food. Of course the whose ante he took is oblivious to it.

At a full table, I call for ante's while shuffling and cutting deck. Than I scoop and count 5 ante's and pull them in. Then the next 5. If one side has less than full ante I'll scoop the other side while asking for ante's again. If it's not posted by the second or third request, I will sit there with the deck cut on the table and wait. When 9 other players start asking about dealing, I'll say I'm waiting for an ante. Now it's 9 players and me waiting for an ante and they take up my cause to get the player to ante.

Also hate that guy who makes change with ante and thinks i make it easier for the dealer especially if someone else is due change. Right up with the guy who wants to call a 2300 bet and puts in a 5k chip and 3 one hundred chips to make change easier for dealer and argues or more often doesn't realize he just raised.

I used to make it right side/left side challenge for the antes. "Left side wins again! Right side, seat 9 is dragging your team down."

I used to do that for my home tourneys. Worked really well.

To be fair, at least in my experience, it's a lot better now than it was five years ago.

It's time for our annual Big Tournament, a few weeks of hosting tons of out-of-towners.

I personally had at least three last night who got paid for Aces Cracked because they sadly showed their beaten hands at showdown, even though they had no idea the promotion was going on.

(Don't blame US for their not knowing--we posted flyers and constantly made announcements, not to mention dealers calling it out throughout the room/evening...)

After close to 2 years of driving through the mountains every day for work, the score is now

Deer - 1
Car - 0

I haven't hit any yet driving through the woods of Minnesota, but I've had some close calls. It seems like one of those mathematical certainties: if I drive long enough, I'm GOING to hit one.

My brother hit one in Jersey once. If you saw his car, you would have thought he drove it into a wall.

Yikes, thankfully I saw it in time to avoid a serious impact. It mostly just ran into the side the of car instead of a head on collision. Car still runs, just looks like hell now.

Holy ****, I'm glad you're okay. Goddamn, that could have been much much worse.

So the deer lived?

Sigh, yes.

Since the car still drives I'm calling it a draw and demanding a rematch. Good luck!

Dealt another tourney hand where 3-4 people made huge hands and got it all in, and afterwards as the astonished discussion about it died down I made my standard joke, "I used to deal for Poker Stars." This joke used to get a great response, but lately, only 1-2 people seem to find it funny. I'm starting to think it might be a little dated? God help us.

My response when that happens is "I'm an action dealer." Usually gets a few chuckles.

That low limit games are no longer dominated by mind-numbing "discussions" of internet poker is a good thing.