On the dice table after the roll
" Oh I was going to bet that!"
" Oh I was going to pay you!"
I would probably say something like that for "I would have won"

I was on a kick for a while where I would borrow Headley Lamarr's famous line. "'Head them off at the pass'? I *hate* that cliche!"

Then I got to say it five times per down.

ME: (takes toke) Thank you very much! Can I have those cards back, please?

SHARPIE: (chuckling) He wants to save them for next hand!

ME: 'He wants to save them for next hand'? I hate that cliche!

Or, if you don't want to put that much work into it, you can always try this one:

SHARPSHOOTER: Six-nine is my favorite hand! Big Lick!

ME: Ah, yes. That one never gets old! (Rolls eyes like Rodney in Caddy Shack).

Either way, people start to look at you like they're thinking, "What a dick!", so I now I just let them fling cliches as much as they wish.

Well then, I guess he outplayed you.

I say "It's never too late." If there is some laughter at the table (there usually is) I will add on "Come by next Thursday and toke me for today, I won't complain! I'll just say thank you."

I am still waiting for someone to actually come by at a later date and toke me, haha!

Had a fun time dealing 1/2 today.

Beginning of my down. Three-way at showdown. Player A tables a straight. Player B says, "It's good, unless Player C has a flush." I ask him not to talk about the hand at showdown. He tells me that I don't know what I'm talking about and that I should shut up.

"FLOOR!"

Floor comes over, Player B starts with, "Floor, apparently your dealers don't want to be taught." We shush him and I explain the situation. Floor says, "Wait, what?" Player B then accurately describes the incident. Floor says, "Oh, yeah, you can't do that. One player to a hand." Player B argues a bit, says that's not the rule anywhere else, that this room likes to alienate customers, etc. Floor says, "It's a fairly big standard rule everywhere," and leaves.

Player B continues to tell other players that this room is stupid, we don't know what we're talking about, nobody in the hand cared about it anyway, dealer should mind his business, etc. I ignore it.

In the meantime, Player B tries to straddle after getting both his cards. He tries to raise but can't seem to multiply by two. He's constantly asking what the action is, how many are in the hand, etc.

Later in the down, an older friendly regular sits down. He wins a few pots with hyper-aggression, but gets trapped by Player B in a huge pot. Old Aggro shoves for $200 on the river, Player B calls. Old Aggro clearly doesn't want to show, and Player B just sits there staring at him. Finally I'm able to get Old Aggro to show a stone cold bluff, and Player B tables the stone cold nuts.

Old Aggro basically loses it. Not at Player B, but at me for asking clarification of his rebuy. (I won't deal him in until he tells me how much he's playing, which he won't do.) Floor tells me to deal him out until they get it resolved, which makes him angrier. Player B brags to his neighbor that he slowrolled on purpose in order to get a rise out of the guy. Old Aggro is asked to leave, preventing Player B from getting any more money out of him.

The kicker? Turns out Player B is a dealer somewhere. And of course he didn't tip me at all, despite winning many hands during my down.

On my break, I found out from a different floor (shift change) that he was a pain in the neck yesterday too. I'm going out of town for a week, but I have a feeling he's not going to be let in to play again. I hope not. I registered my vote in favor of that idea, for what that's worth.

Sheesh. Some people just gotta be jerks.

<insert typical anti-tipping, anti-dealer "you should be grateful for the job!" rant here >

That sounds like a terrible down, but it also sounds like you handled it really well.

Have you found (or is it "did you find" now?) dealing in Vegas better or worse than NorCal? And I mean that both financially (if you're not willing to discuss in general terms that's totally fine and I won't pry further) and in terms of friendly players / ease of controlling the game.

You had me laughing at this part

Glad you got it out of the way for us!

We had some grumpy old fart show up to play Omaha last year a few weeks. Apparently he thought treating the staff and other players like **** was the best way to ask for a job. Turns out he was a dealer fired from another casino looking for work. I'm not sure I've ever laughed so hard when the manager asked a group of us dealers "So what do you think of so-and-so" and mentioned he asked for a job.

just curious, why do you always cut the cards AWAY from yourself?

Because thats what we were taught to do. I imagine that may make it a bit more diffciult for us to sneek a peek and control the cut..... but I don't really know.

Just game protection I guess. Probably the same reason we face the cards away from us when straightening the deck after the wash.

It is bad luck to cut the deck towards yourself.

You guys disappoint me. Not one of you can tell him for certain why you cut away?

Yeah, it's to prevent the dealer from peeking to see what the bottom card is going to be.

Ha! To be fair, I'd rather this than a 2/5 full of Internet hotshots. A least the intro stakes causal players generally know how to socialize with others.

I'll add that it also keeps the deck in full view of everybody. If I pull towards me, my forearm will be obstructing the view during part of the cut.

During a tourney, a regular but generally quiet player shoves from the SB. BB tanks. SB asks me if he can tell the truth about his hand.

"You're not allowed to say anything about your hand."

He immediately proceeds to say that he has Aces and that BB should fold.

"Sir, don't talk about the hand."

He continues to do it, just more quietly.

"Sir, do not talk about the hand in play."

"I can't talk about it?"

"Correct."

"But we're heads-up."

"I understand. Don't talk about the hand."

"I can't talk about it?"

"Correct."

"Really?"

"Really."

"You're saying I can't talk about the hand heads-up."

"I don't know how more clear I can be."

"Really?"

"Really!"

BB calls, busts the SB's pocket deuces. After SB leaves, BB says that all the chatter gave off that SB was weak.

If he's not going to listen to my answer, why ask the question?

"Dealer, who raised preflop?", asked the small blind on a later betting round.

"I'm not allowed to help you with that," said the dealer.

"He did," said six different players, helpfully pointing out the preflop raiser.

Tonight, during my lunch break, I had a salad. I'm coming up on four bills, I *never* have a salad. Was just in the mood for one. The Chefs Salad I picked up at the snack bar at work had more cheese than lettuce, I think.

First down after lunch, I have a burn-and-turn for the first time in about 3-4 years that I can't blame on a player covering his cards and/or not stopping me in time. This one was 100% on me.

I can't believe those two paragraphs are unrelated. I'll never eat a salad again!

There's some joke here about calling for a new setup, but I can't quite pin it down!

That always happens. The next time I am at a table and someone does this, I will claim to be the preflop raiser if I have folded. Then I will say "I am Sparticus!" Hopefully others will join in...

My Dad has been playing basketball on a regular basis for about a half of a century. The only time he stretched before a game was in college and he pulled a muscle that game.

I don't blame you for not eating salad on the job going forward.

Sorry, Rapini, I didn't mean to ignore you earlier.

I dont want to get in too much detail, but it's awful for dealers everywhere. Rooms aren't getting any bigger, but the schools keep crapping out new dealers. Hardly anybody in Vegas is full-time, so no benefits or job security.

And I hear through the grapevine that the new Midwestern casinos are REJECTING those with experience because they want to train people on their policies.

Far more supply than demand right now. I'm only working because of the extremely good graces of someone else, which has turned bittersweet because his job was recently eliminated.

I was lucky that I ran away from my previous life and joined the circus when I did. At least I have some experience and skills to help me.

Reading this I recall that I failed to comment on a post made by Psandman on a similar subject. I mentioned a dealer left WinStar to go to Las Vegas and look for work shortly after teh WSOP ended and during a period of time when LV had 13.45% unemployment.

Psand offered the opinion that some people would rather be unemployed in Las Vegas than work in Oklahoma.

I guess that is possible, it was probably said in jest.

However...I had a player throw his cards at me the other day. That was the first time in the over 5 1/2 years I have worked in this large and busy room that I have had a player throw something at me in anger.

My offense? I told him, nicely, he could not be on the phone and in a hand at the same time. He claimed that he was "on call for search and rescue" and for all I knew, that call was about someone laying on the highway, bleeding. He drained his beer and slammed the can down on the tray then he racked up and left.

The incident is more notable because similar incidents are so very rare in our room.

One of our chip runners is out on medical leave for knee surgery. Her husband deals in the room. She has been off work for nearly 3 months and I overhear people, other employees and players alike, ask him about her almost everyday. "How is she?" "When's she coming back?" "Tell her I asked about her."

Southern hospitality, it's not just an urban myth.

I'll take Oklahoma, thank you very much. (I do live in Texas after all. )

Preach it.

I had a player who I did not recognize today say to me, "So you got married since the last time I saw you!"

He noticed my wedding band. He remembered I didn't have one before. I don't even know the fellow by face or name. It made quite an impression.

I know this isn't OOTV, but I just wanted to remind my friends here to set their DVR's to record the premiere of "Luck" on HBO. I've been waiting TWO YEARS for this night! Created and Written by My Favorite Person In The World, David Milch, and produced and directed by Michael Mann, who I hear is no slouch in his own right.

I've read the script to tonight's ep (thanks to another 2+2'er), can't wait to see it onscreen.

Brag: David Milch went to my high school. My 10th grade English teach wrote an episode of HSB with him.