I loved HSB. I was in law enforcement at the time it aired originally.

Thanks for the info. Pretty sickening stuff and it's no solace that it matches up with almost every other job market out there right now.

That's amazing.

What should be your policy on posted in competitors threads? A room that I play a lot of hours in frequently has the poker room manager taking shots at me online because he's assuming that I'm out to get him and that I'm obviously the enemy because I work for a rival. It's getting pretty annoying. Everyone from outside the situation that sees it just laughs because I try to remain as anonymous as I can to not stir the pot, but I can't help but voice concerns if I have them *as a player*

Stop posting about his room. If his room is so bad, then don't play there.

If you're still going to play there, then it isn't so bad, so stop complaining. It doesn't look good.

You aren't just a player. You work for the competition. If you really wanted to effect changes, you'd speak to the manager directly as a fellow industry employee. I haven't seen the posts, but automatically would assume that you are bashing your firm's competitor. This isn't the place to say, "XYZ poker room's service sucks compared to their competitors" in this situation.

And from an outsider's point of view, if you saw a review of a Burger King sandwich and knew that the person worked for McDonalds, how much weight would you give that complaint?

I did my 5 years in Vegas. I'm only ever going back to Vegas now as a tourist. With the constant expansion of gaming there's just no need to try and work in Vegas.

I haven't heard anything about outright rejections with the Midwest casinos, especially with the two Harrahs-owned Ohio casinos, just presuming so with Harrahs/Caesars being Harrahs/Caesars.

Plus, that would be dumb. If a person is experienced, teach them your policies! What's so hard about that? But again, I presume you're talking about Harrahs/Caesars, and, well...

Unfortunately, this is true, and isn't just confined to Oklahoma. I know when PA/DE opened up, the people with ties to Vegas tried to get people to come for the new market, and people refused to leave Vegas.

People would rather have miserable jobs in the Vegas weather than good jobs in northeast weather.

Room I work in closed Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, reopened Christmas night (thanks, Boss!). First few hours after reopen featured the craziest spectacle I've ever seen. Table after table of total silence. Nobody was chatting, nobody was talking about the weather or fantasy football, zero conversation at the tables, hour after hour.

It loosened up after a few hours, but those few hours were painful to watch.

I don't know if that "point the R towards the seat" for the button thing was in this thread, but I started doing it, and holy cow is it great!

I don't get it. Refresh us if it was in this thread?

When you move the button, point the "R" on "DEALER" towards the player. That way you know who it is in those times when it's sorta between, and you also know if someone's moved it.

Pretty solid advice, I love little tricks like this.

At my room our rake reduction happens at 6 players and it becomes $3 max, so I put a 3rd man walking button on the rake slide to remind me

Another thing I do is I always forget to wash the deck when stupid superstitious players ask me to, so I've started using a clear lamer just right in front of the bank so I'll see it when I go to square up the deck.

Lemme think of some more

Hope I remember to start doing this.

Not a big fan of this. One room I used to work decided they needed rake reduction buttons (after a massacre one night when surveillance went went hunting for dealer heads). I don't like doing anything that may alert the players about rake issues ..... Of course if your room has automatic rake reductions I guess it doesn't matter

I used to think the Rake Reduction placards were silly, but I've come to appreciate 'em. Imagine the scenario where you drop to 6 players, ask for a reduction, play a couple hands, a new player shows up and sits, plays one hand, and a player gets up and leaves. You're back at 6. But gee, because the table was at 7-handed for a single hand, the dealer is required to silently go back to full rake, and cannot mention this nor mention when the 7th player leaves that the rake is still full. So you merrily play for the next 30 minutes at full rake until someone finally notices. Or you're playing with a reduced rake, dealer pushes, and new guy isn't told so he silently takes full rake for 5 or 10 hands until someone notices.

In placard rooms, it's very obvious when I need to ask. So they may have started using those things to let surveillance know, but I find it helpful. On the other hand, putting some special lammer on the alligator that indicates the same thing without being a flashing neon "RAKE REDUCTION" bold-faced sign is a nice compromise that won't alert the newbies about rake.

You kind of make my point for me. I understand why you like them as a player...... And I don't disagree.

But I think its a bad idea from the houses perspective.

Lately I have been playing a lot on the graveyard shift. I have not even been asking for reductions because I don't want to bring to the other players attention that the game is short handed ...... I would rather play at full rake than have the game break.

This

It's subtle, nobody notices it but me, and it reminds me to alert the incoming dealer also

BBJ hit at work this afternoon. One of the two big winners, it turns out, had been 86'd from the place. Whoopsie! He didn't get paid. The other players did.

I assume that the money he would have won was returned to the players pool or was it divided among the other winners?

"I would have made a Boat!"

Me: "Oh, Sorry, Steve, I'm going to give this pot to Rachel, she would've had a full house. Honor system, here."

I assume the same, can't say for certain though. The controversy was just whipping up as I was leaving.

You know what else happened as I was leaving? I decided to quit playing poker. I don't win any more, and I don't enjoy it, so what's the point? It's going to be tough, I've been playing almost 20 years, it's a huge part of my self-image/identity, if that makes any sense. It almost feels like a divorce, and no, I'm not joking.

This deserves a thread in BBV IMO. That is awesome.

We had a couple of players in the room last night who were suspected of being underage by some of the other players. They had shown ID to get in but there was suspicion the ID was fake. One of the players started needling them saying if they hit the BBJ they won't get paid etc. They were adamant that the ID was real but the rest of the table made a couple more cracks throughout the night and I suspect they were lying.

I've got to imagine that fake IDs are a lot tougher to make nowadays than they were back in the day.

I have a couple of questions for dealers and floors. These are based on things I over heard at the table recently.

1. "I don't understand why dealers can't play here when 95% of the casinos in the rest of the world let dealers play where they work."

How many casinos let their dealers play where they work? This isn't a discussion about if dealers should play where they work but how prevalent is the practice? 95% seems way high.

2. "Dealer, I don't get lost, you can stop telling me when it's my turn." This unsolicited remark was made by a player some time back and I've never seen him since then. Apparently he wanted me to stop gesturing towards him when the action was on him but make sure everyone else was paying attention.

Has anyone else had a player object to being reminded when it was his turn?

just a player so i won't comment on 1

re: 2, i've seen players who don't like being told it's their action and respond with a very sarcastic "I KNOW THAT" (usually followed by a check or fold.) these people are generally a-holes anyway. are you reminding players verbally, or with a hand motion? i think you're much less likely to annoy a player with a silent table tap in their direction.

I see this happen from time to time, with players' reactions ranging from good-humored to irritated. ("I know... I'M THINKING!!) But IMO the minimal harm caused by unnecessarily prompting a player is way offset by the good that is done other times to keep the game moving. For every time that someone reacts as above, I think it happens several times that a player doesn't realize the actions's on them and is waiting for someone else to act, or has mentally folded without actually doing anything, and is just daydreaming (indefinitely). So just keep on doing it, please.