Wow, do some people go for this stuff? Just a while ago I got called to the table at showdown. A player says the dealer burned twice before the turn. There are 4 burn cards so I apologize and tell the table the cards will play as dealt, that if they observe an error they should point it out when it occurs. At least the player promised to never return when I wouldn't give him more comps (I actually gave him 2 hours worth when he played just over an hour )

The regulars in my card room have gotten into a rather annoying habbit. Limps round to the BB, I look at the BB waiting for them to act.

BB mumbles "#*%# raise".

Me: "Raise..?"

BB: "I SAID NO RAISE!" while glaring at me.

Me: *thinks to my self* "Well talk properly then, or even better, just say check."

Edit: Also, the ammount of times someone says all in, or pushes all their chips in. I announce "All In!", then the next player to act, or when it folds round to the BB, they go "All in...?" or "All in 'ey?". Sometimes it's obvious that they are asking it as a question, sometimes not so, but it puts me in a very tough spot every time. People just don't think.

Ha, yeah. That's just like the pinky check followed by looking away from the table. If you ask if it's a check, you get yelled at. If you assume it's a check, you get yelled at.

Tonight at a tournament, blinds went up to 200/400. I repeated it several times, and they were posted correctly. I had a bit of a conversation about it with a newbie, explaining that the blinds were up, and what they were.

Folded around to a guy with huge headphones. He throws out 600 and turns away. I tell him it's 800. I tell him again. I wave at him. I lean over and stretch out my arm and wave some more. Finally he goes "huh?" I tell him he owes 200. He says he didn't realize the blinds had gone up.

I told him that was because he was wearing headphones and didn't hear the extensive talk about it, nor did he bother looking at the bets on the table. I don't know if he heard me or not.

In your room is this verbal declaration binding?

every single street as I bring in the bets and put up the next card(s) I announce the number of players. Yet there are people who every single street have to ask me how many players......

But my alltime favorite are the people who everytime they are the Large Blind will say "dealer is the button right". When I hear that I assume that the player thinks the button is in the wrong spot so I start rechecking .... but then it turns out they didn;t think it was wrong at all ..... they just ask EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY ARE THE BLIND.

When this happens to me, I usually crack, "You guys tune me out, like my kids!" Also, I stop announcing every little thing, and speak only when necessary. I find that helps, when they're tuning me out.

One night I got a little mouthy, but for some reason, I figured (correctly) I could get away with it, so I removed the filter completely. $2-4 limit:

ME: Two, if you like 'em....raise, make it four...Six! Six now....six....

SEAT 1: (puts in $2)

ME: Six.

SEAT 1: It's six?

ME: Yes, that's why I keep saying "six".

SEAT 1: Who made it six?

ME: (figuring the horse is already out the barn) The guy with the six chips in front of him.

As it was happening, I knew it was a one-time deal, I'd never get to do it again, so savored every moment of it.

I literally do this almost every day.

Yeah, no surprise, I can over-narrate a game. Less can be more.

I have to bite my tongue on the "the first guy with X chips in front of him" line, because it's never taken well.

If you just tell the player who raised, you've handed the guy a fish. If you tell him "the guy with X chips in front of him" you're teaching him to fish. Doesn't mean he's not a slow learner, of course.

I do the same except, if the number of players has not changed i don't repeat it on the next street.

This makes perfect sense to me, yet when I hear it it still sounds at least a little bit snarky.

That's standard afaik.

Its such a habit with me that even if I'm dealing a heads up game I find myself doing it.

Pet peeve of the day: In our room a 1/2 game straddle is $5 (instead of 4) to help speed things up and reduce the need for change every hand etc. So whenever the straddle is posted I announce "Straddle, 5 to go!" and yet almost every single time (I am sure I am forgetting some random time it did not happen so I can't say unequivocally that it is every time) I get one or more yahoos that put out $2 despite my multiple repeats of "5 to go".

Better yet, someone will call with a $5 chip and then ask for their change when they fold to a raise pre. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH....

/venting

Action is on player in the 6 seat. He's got a handful of chips, he fumbling to get 'em out, we still don't know if he's calling or raising, suddenly:

Something from my left is flying at me!

Oh, it's just a $2 chip, a player on my left wants to tip the waitress $1 and is requesting change with an urgency that, in real life, is usually reserved for emergency room medical dramas.

I swivel my head back to the right to rejoin the action. Our chip fumbler in seat 6 has, in fact, raised, and seat 8 is calling. Now seat 9 points to the bet in front of seat 6 and asks, "Isn't that a string bet?"

"I don't know, I didn't see it."

"What do you mean you didn't see it?"

"While he was betting, someone on my left threw something at me, and I looked away from the action for a moment to see what was going on."

"But the dealer is supposed to watch the action!"

"Sure, in a perfect world. But in THIS world, sometimes my attention is called away momentarily, I can't see all things at all times, I'm a human being. You need to 'protect yourself at all times' in this game, and not rely on the dealer to protect you. If you see a string bet and the dealer doesn't call it, you should speak up."

"What do you think I'm doing?"

"I mean, stop the action and speak up BEFORE the next player acts on it. I can't back it up now."

"Call the floor!"

The floor comes over, and agrees with the player that the dealer should be watching the action. Rewinding, he rules that seat 8 must take back his call, seat 6 must take back his raise, and the action is now on seat 8.

Seat 9 smiles smugly. Whatever, I don't care if the guy raises or not, I'm not in this hand.

Later, on my way to the break room, the floor stops me to discuss this. He wants to emphasize that the dealer should watch the action, as if I were watching tv or something when the string bet occurred (by the way, there's no mention yet of "two motions" by the string bettor, it's entirely possible that they called a string bet on him because he didn't put his chips out smoothly enough, that the hesitation involved is the entirety of his "offense", and he didn't know the rules well enough to defend himself without my help).

I explained about having my attention called away for a moment by a yellow blur flying at me, but he shook his head to indicate that wasn't justification for not watching the action.

Now I lose it. I've still got control of my voice's volume, but not its tone. Without raising my voice, I'm screaming at the floorman, "So you're telling me that when she's on the mic saying, 'YTF, do you still have a seat open?', I should not take my eyes off the action for even a moment to glance around the table to see if all my seats are full? And I shouldn't look at her to answer, because my eyes need to be on the action 100% of the time? And if a fight breaks out at my table, it's somebody else's problem, because I can't take my eyes off the action for even a second??? Is THAT what you want???"

All this screaming woke me up.

Yes, woke me up. Nothing in this story ever happened, it was all a dream. Seriously. Look what time I posted this, I'm never awake at this hour, but I am today. For what seems like the tenth time this month alone, I was woke up by such a dream. It's always unreasonable players giving me a hard time. And I seethe, that such dreams dog me, that I can't make them stop, that they cost me sleep, that my job follows me home.

Yesterday I was awakened by such a dream, the player in the 1 seat was really riding my ass about something, I forget now what it was. I woke up, screamed in my head yet again that this needs to stop, and went back to sleep. I swear to God, the same (fictional) player was waiting for me in the 1 seat, I ended up getting out of bed about four hours early because this guy wasn't going to let me sleep!

And here's the strangest part of all of this: I'm currently working in my DREAM JOB as far as this nonsense goes! Nothing that happens in these dreams, ever happens in real life! I'm currently dealing to the nicest, best-behaved, most respectful players I've ever had the pleasure of serving in my career! And the floor staff I work with is even better!

It is such a joy to work in the room where I'm working now, it really makes these dreams inexplicable, which makes this situation even MORE frustrating. As an illustration of this, I had to dream up fictional players in these dreams, I don't have any real life players dogging me in my dreams, because I don't have any real life players dogging me in my real life job! Have ANY of you ever worked in a poker room where you didn't have a regular who drove you nuts? Well, I work in such a room, where no such annoying regular exists.

So why can't I sleep?

Dude, I thought this was leading up to your telling us you were back on the road looking for work again but at the same time, I could not see you talking to anyone in the way you describe. But then I've never worked with you.

I work in a room with very low turnover and great customers. I consider it my dream job as well.

I don't have dreams about it however.

Possibly the dreams are foretelling something to come.

you've been dealing for a while, yes? and you generally feel pretty comfortable in the box, not nervous about running your game?

when i first started waiting tables some years ago, i would have dreams of tables that were impossible to take care of, for w/e reason. often times nothing that i could control. i think it was my brain's way of practicing for scenarios it thinks it might see. but it went away after about 8 months. i feel like its something you should get over eventually.

Cool, YTF will only have to put up with dreams like this for another 7 months and 28 days! (Maybe)

You need a Vacation.

When they arent paying attention still love the classic

"What would you do if it was on you sir?"

and when Ive pushed the pot and they are stacking their chips still holding their cards I tell them,

"Sir we have a new rule here, you have to turn your cards in at the end of the hand."

Just sayin.....

Its pretty clear that you are insane. Years ago I heard a definition for psychotic, which seems to fit here --- "divorced from reality".

You no longer are capable of telling reality from fantasy. What you think was a dream is in fact what really happened ....... the poker room with "no annoying regulars" is clearly a fantasy. You should seek immediate psychiatric care.

It's okay, we're here to help.

"Nurse Ratched? Mr MacMurphy said something about a baseball game? The World Series?"

Every time I'm in a cardroom during baseball's World Series, and we have to remind the floorman to put the game on, I use that line. Nobody ever gets the reference.

Sorry, missed the rest of the post while I blacked-out at the sheer nittery of wanting to break a $2 ($2!!!!) chip for tip change for the waitress....

Glad to hear this was all just a dream - I'd have had some difficulty keeping a straight face and calm demeanor with either player 9 or the floor if this ever happened to me.

Ummm.....I am very grateful when I get to break a $2 chip... If I wasn't breaking that chip .... I would be getting nothing.

If I ever dealt a game that had a $2 chip I might be able to agree with you on this for myself - but for a waitress who just carried the degen's free alcoholic beverage over in a skimpy outfit I'd be ashamed for him...

But hey, maybe that is just me. It's more that he would go to the effort to break a $2 chip just to save that $1 than it is the difference in the tip too.