This is obviously a case where he was wrong, but most floors listen to dealers when they say "I am 100% sure xxxxx happened". I'd hate to be in a room that has to check the cameras every time a discrepancy comes up because the management doesn't trust a dealer. I hope the guy is compensated his money back at least (and maybe some comps as an apology)



ps. I would never say I was 100% sure if I wasn't 100% sure. And yes, obviously you have an anecdote about how the dealer was wrong right here and was the entire point of you bringing this up.

This plus the fact that surveillance reviews sometimes can take up to 5 minutes or more. Seems pretty extreme to halt a game and call surveillance every time there is a dispute.

Hopefully they reimbursed the player for the first bet.

Dealer wasn't wrong. He had bets from the 4 players he knew had cards.
He was 100% sure he didn't pull any bets in from the 5th player. Camera backed him up.
YTF,

Why kill his hand? No flop yet, make the pot right and bring a flop?

So two young kids in a game last night. One asks me about finding work around here. I ask him what kind of work and he says dealing. I ask him if he;s dealt before and he shrugs and then pantimimes dealing in a way which makes it clear he hasn't dealt professionally. I laugh and say "so the answer is no." I don;t want to get into the whole thing about how to become a dealer so I just tell him all the casinos post jobs on their websites.

A little while later a player straddles and when the action gets to this kid he seems really confused about why its more money to call .... I tell him again their was a straddle ... he still looks confused and asks "whats a straddle?" when the 9 seat pipes up ...."Well if you want to be a dealer your going to need to know that."

Because he didn't (appear to, although he actually did) call the first bet. No free rolling.

Yeah, you don't get to see how many bets it's going to cost and how many players will be in the hand before you decide to wade in with your suited-connectors.

And while I don't know it for a fact, I'm confident that the Absent Minded Professor was either told to give back the bet he mistakenly took, or more likely, didn't even need to be told this once it was pointed out to him what he had done.

And except for a hearty dose of sympathy, that's all the "compensation" this player had coming to him. Don't let Results Bias fool you, he's not entitled to more just because his trips "would have won" (who knows if he calls all bets to the river to catch, with bottom pair?).

Sorry Joel, you can't blame the dealer for this one. The facts I presented to the floor/shift were 100% accurate. The players protests of, "...but I *did* call the first bet," seemed incredibly weak, as he kept pointing to the betting area, where his call was nowhere to be found--and also because he didn't sound too sure of what happened either. If he said with any resolve, "I am 100% certain that I put out that call," or anything like that, things may have been different. The floor was left with my confident summary, and this player's floundering. How could he have ruled anything else?

And if you're going to reply, "Well, the dealer should be able to mentally reconstruct every action that took place up to that point," then you're asking too much of human beings. I've got enough to keep my mind occupied, just trying to KEEP UP with the action, and keep these attention-addled players acting in turn and putting in the proper amount of chips when they do. Heck, I can't even "mentally reconstruct" who has the Button! I need to put an ACTUAL Button on the table, and move it around, to keep tabs on whose turn it is to act last in the hand. If I could remember all these millions of details, we wouldn't need to have a button on the table. I also need to leave the bets out there until the betting round is complete, to keep tabs on who has bet and how much they put out there.

Shouldn't part of the blame go to the player whose chips were taken? Isn't every player responsible for paying attention to the hand and protecting his bet? I'm sure everyone here is familiar with the player who tosses out a couple chips then turns his attention back to the tv or his ipad or chatting with the player next to him until he's informed by the dealer that it's, once again, his turn to act.

This came up in a room I floor in. Dealer calls me over and says a player was doing something out of turn with his chips but what she described was not something I could justify having the guy be all-in for over $250 which is what the other player in the hand alleged.

So I say the action is on that player who folds. I figure that's the end of it.

No, the other guy goes to the table games shift manager (who doesn't know anything about poker other than she hates it and hates almost everyone who works in the poker room) who then checks the camera and it turns out the dealer didn't explain what happened correctly to me.

We fill out incident reports and the dealer writes what she told me where I made the proper ruling. The guy, who left the casino by this point, calls the shift manager and she happens to take it in the poker room so I hear the conversation and she pointedly tells him that my ruling was correct based on what the dealer told me but the camera showed that the dealer didn't describe what happened correctly so it was an incorrect ruling.

The guy is in the room a day or so later and he is still steamed and says to me "She told me you made the wrong ruling."

I told him that I heard the call and that's not what she said.

"Well, you should have went to the camera."

No, I shouldn't have. If a dealer tells me something happened and nobody at the table even bothers to chime in after I get that information, I am not going to hold a game up for 30 minutes or even longer (it takes a while to get information from surveillance). I'm going to assume the dealer is correct and move on from there.

The cameras are like instant replay in sports. They are only to be used as a last resort because it delays the game. Period.

Jeez guys I think some of you are in the wrong thread.

Back to the break room:

In 2003/2004ish Canada Day (July 1st) weekend we were having our busiest day of business since opening nearl a decade earlier. I was working swing shift, things were going great, everyone was having fun. I notice that there are groups of security gathering and all the ganing supervisors/managers are having some hushed conversations.
So my manager whispers in my ear last hand, tell everyone the casino is shutting down and please leave immediately. Huh. What's going on?

Players being who they are are universally going ape**** about how much bull**** this is but are eventually ushered out..after making sure we knew they wanted to reserve their seats. It didn't take too long & the announcemebt s were coming across the PA to evacuate immediately. Managers are rushing to lock the trays and telling us to go to the parking lot, no time to hit the lockers.

So what was going on? We had a bomb threat. And an abandoned bag. The bomb squad came and we had all been instructed not to use our cellphones and that we couldn't start our cars (for some reason?). So we're all standing at the far end of the employee lot, the customer lotis blocked off by police... and players keep trying to get through the employee lot!

So the bomb squad robot eventually blows the bag up (it wasn't a bomb), we all get overtime (shifts ended hours ago) and get a big thanks from the big boss the next day.

And players were pissed that their seats weren't saved when we reopened!!!

He's a dealer telling a story to other dealers, which is what this thread is for. It is not for players to come in and comment/question them on rulings.

Since the question about Suit's ruling ended up being a full discussion with both dealers and players commenting, I moved that discussion to a new thread in the main forum, per Suit's request.

Yes and any time I try to argue something like this in a normal B&M thread, I'm called an idiot.

I think I can top that

I ended up on Long Island to deal a 1k freeroll tournament for what ended up being a online poker training based pyramid scheme involving Montel williiams.

Turns out that doing all your advertising for something in NYC for something in Long island at 7pm on a weekday isn't the brightest idea in the world, so we had about 10 dealers, 12 players, and a few people running the thing.

They gather up the dealers and hand us our promised pay and tell us that we can leave if we want to, or play (they reduced the prize greatly) or work. I decide to deal since the traffic going back probably isn't much better and figure I have a better chance of finding another game to work/play in by not taking the cash and bouncing.

After a thrilling presentation that actually involves a slide that looks like they copied from the wikipedia article on pyramid schemes, we break out into a few tables for a super turbo tournament, one of the dealers with her envelope of cash sits across from me in seat 5. The TD announces that the button will be in the 3 seat, so I tap the table and ask her to post the big blind and she says "what's that?"

About 2 years ago, two younger guys came to sit at my table. They were clearly not very experienced at a poker table. They struggled with basic rules like OPTAH, had problems following the action, and handled their cards and chips as if it was the first time they had seen these objects.

Finally, after a few minutes, one says to the other "Come on, John, you should know better. We do this for a living."

I'm perplexed to say the least, and before I can decide whether or not I want to ask, somebody does it for me.

"What do you guys deal for a living"

"Oh. We deal casino."

Yes. Casino. They deal it.

That was B&M; B&M is dead. Long live LCP.

I lol'd

I once had to do the bomb threat/evacuation thing. It was after midnight on a week night. After 10 mins, it was clear that players weren't going to wait around, they either went home or to play at another casino. But management refused to let any dealers go home, convinced that we would not lose a single game. They finally relented after a frustrating hour or two. When they finally reopened, long after I went home, they had zero poker games.

Tonight at work a player was complaining about a promotion we are running and asked the dealer not to deal him a BBJ hand because he didn't want to pay taxes on it. I refrained from pointing out to him that he is required to pay taxes on all poker winnings. I can only imagine how well that conversation would have gone.

"I'll tell you what. I'll take the money and pay the taxes for you"

Another first for me tonight: 3-way showdown in O/8. All three silently table their cards. A and B are seated to my right, C to my left. I read A's hand and announce it, then B's. I turn to look at C's, but he is already gathering up his cards, and he mucks them. It's a chop between A and B, so I push the pot. As Im gathering the cards, C stops me, and calmly informs me that he had a better low, and his hand was tabled.

This is the second time this week** this has happened in our room. We need a rule that says if you throw your cards in facedown before the dealer has read your hand, then you never tabled them, or you're conceding the pot, or something.

(First time was low-limit O/8 jerks being jerks; this time was higher limit, and no one was a jerk at any point.)

And the rest of the table saw & agreed right? (fingers crossed)

You'll be glad to know that the language for a "tabled hand" was changed at the recent Poker TDA summit to include "remain face up through the reading of hands." The new official rules will be released end of July/early August.

The three players involved in the showdown never said a word. The others all launched into debate. Fortunately, the push came and I didn't have to hear it.

I followed up with the floor later. He said Player C did table his hand and did hold the best low, so they counted the bets that went in, told Player B that he needed to ship $X to Player C, and he did so without a word of protest. Higher-limit players "get it".

At this point in the conversation, I again expressed my frustration at this happening twice in our room in a week. He stopped me. "Wait--I thought YOU mucked his tabled hand."

"No, he did. At the time I called you over, I wasn't sure whether I did or didn't. But when I thought about it later, I realized that NO WAY would I have mucked his hand without seeing if he could beat a 7-low."

Floor rolled his eyes as a way of venting frustration, having to have made a ruling with incomplete information. So I asked him, "Would that have changed anything?"

He considered that. "No. I guess not."

(Thanks for the TDA rule update. Funny that I've never heard of this problem before, but suddenly it's now widespread enough that they're taking action on it.)

I haven't had it actually be a problem, but I have noticed quite few players seem very eager to flip their cards back over. It doesn't seem to me like a big enough issue to make a new rule, I think we can classify this under once a player loses or almost loses a pot doing this he will learn.

In Omaha I have had the problem a couple of times where the two players fling their cards togther and I can't read the hands because I have no idea which cards belonged to which players .... and they seem to think I should know.

$2-4 LHE, where all the best stories come from. Three players see the flop. SB is newb, thinks he's in a home game, where no one gets annoyed by his holding up the action to make lame jokes. He looks at the flop, is unsure what to do, and jokes to BB, "Can I see your cards? It would make my decision easier. I'll show you mine, that would be only fair." Ugh.

He doesn't know that BB is the Biggest Nit In The Room. But BNITR seems to be in a good mood, and makes a lame effort to joke back. He points to me, and tells BB, "Ask him. If he says it's OK, it's OK."

Well, if all we're going to do at this table is sit around and tell jokes (I sure haven't made a dime yet, about 5-6 hands into the down), I'm in: "Me? Don't ask me, ask him," I say, pointing to the third player in the pot. "If he doesn't mind, why should I?"

The hand didn't last much longer, someone took down the tiny pot with a bet on the flop or turn...but as I'm gathering up the cards, BNITR is clearly disturbed that I didn't have his back. "Aren't you here to enforce the rules of the game?"

"Sure," I answered. "But if all the players in a hand agree to do something unorthodox like play with their hole cards face-up or make the button act first, who am I to object?"

His jaw hung open. To him, this was heresy. "You're not here to enforce the rules???"

"Sure. But if no one who is involved has a problem with something, why should I? On behalf of WHOM would I be objecting?"

He shook his head in disbelief. He wasn't sure if I was just messing with him. So I continued, "Look, Joe. One time I was dealing a NL cash game. There were two players in the hand--"

He started talking over me. I tried to keep going. "Listen to me, Joe. There were two players in the hand, and one tried adding $1000 to his stack in the middle of the hand--"

But Joe wasn't listening. He never stopped talking while I was talking. So I said, "Well, if you're not going to listen, there's no sense in me going on." So I shut up and dealt.

The silence only lasted about four seconds before a younger player not involved said, "Hey, I was listening! I want to hear what happened!"

"Yeah, me too," seconded another, followed by many nods around the table.

I normally don't tell stories in the box, but this game was all check-arounds and $8 pots, so I was actually able to not screw up while I told the story. "One guy tried adding $1000 to his stack. He wasn't trying to be sneaky about it, he clearly had no idea there's a rule against it. The other guy was an experienced player, he didn't need my help with things like calling a string bet, and he made it clear that was A-OK with his opponent reloading mid-hand. So I didn't say boo. Why should I? If everyone involved has no problem with it, why should I?"

"So what happened?", asked someone.

"All the other players went bananas. 'He can't do that! You can't let him! Get the floor!' The floor heard the story and looked at me like I was nuts, and didn't allow it. That's what happened when poker got huge 15 years ago, poker sprang up everywhere and were staffed by blackjack people who needed super-simplified rules.

"But before that," I continued, "it was incredibly common to let things go if all players agreed to it. If only two players were in the hand, the dealer would not call string bets, except at the very lowest limits. It was thought that if the other player had no objection to the raise, then the dealer shouldn't, either. If two players in a limit game were raising each other back and forth, and it was clear neither intended to stop before all the chips went in, one would just say, 'I'm all-in.' The other could then fold or call, and his call could be any amount of it, as if he had stopped the limit raising at a certain point. I can't tell you how many times I've seen that, as both a dealer and a player. Today, it's unheard of."

I then told RR's story about his calling a string bet or stopping a player from reloading mid-hand in a heads-up pot, and the opponent, a famous player at the time, snapping, "Dealer, mind your own business." And RR later realizing that the player was correct to say so, it was none of RR's business.

I told them about the two guys playing heads up who checked the river, and neither wanted to show their cards because they thought they couldn't possibly win. They were each so certain that their hands could not possibly be any good, they effectively bet on the proposition by TRADING HOLE CARDS WITH EACH OTHER, laughing all the way. They were the only two players at the table, there was no BBJ in play, so again, why should I care?

I also told him about a champion triple-draw player I used to deal to who would spot someone an extra card before the first draw to get them to agree to play him heads-up. What am I supposed to do as a dealer, say, "No, you can't do that, because....reasons."? Of course not. I shut up and dealt it, exactly the way all the players involved wanted me to. Why shouldn't I? Again, on behalf of WHOM would I be objecting?

The players were loving these stories. The newbs believed me; the regs didn't want to. BNITR wasn't even listening, because he already knows everything....but the tokes were suddenly pouring in! I ended up having a pretty decent down for a $2-4 LHE game that started out with six shoutout innings.

There was one reg whose face indicated to me that while he thought I was being credible, he still just couldn't swallow the notion of such shenanigans. So I asked him as I got pushed out, "How do you think 'run it twice' got invented???" I think that may have actually turned him around on the issue.