Well even you probably don;t do well in a heads up $2-$4 game with a player wth a $12 stack.

Copied from Facebook. This was written by a guy I don't know - a friend of a friend. Worth a read.

I've had enough. Seriously.

This industry I've dove head first into is so stressful, so rewarding, so painful, and so fascinating.

I want to dive into a topic that I've never read or seen anybody discuss. Particularly with how it relates to dealers, poker, casinos, and the industry in general.

Depression

I've seen a decent amount of discussion about it from the poker players perspective. Young people fall into large sums of money that they aren't financially responsible enough to manage. Often times winning a tournament can be the biggest downfall for professional gamblers. Similar to the concept of "how winning the lottery ruined my life" but on a much smaller scale. Fast life, delusions of grandeur, unsustainable habit forming, etc. As a player, you can take a step back, be humbled, go broke, get staked, etc.

Staff in casinos do not have this option. They make a great living in a relatively easy work environment. For some reason, something is missing. Being in a 20-35 hours per week negative environment has massive repercussions. I worked as a dealer for 9 full years. I am almost 1 year into transitioning into a full time poker professional. I am getting a better picture now than I did before about what dealers are actually going through and suffering from. When I was about 4 years into this business, I started noticing some changes in myself. My attitude became jaded, I started caring less and less about the people around me, I became numb to the low lifes I dealt to on a regular basis. I was nothing more than a walking zombie. It ruined so many of my personal relationships outside of my workplace, because I was becoming somebody that I loathed.

I consider myself an EXTREMELY strong willed and strong minded individual. I spent most of my early 20s completely naive to the idea that depression is a real and crippling thing. I felt like everybody should be just like me and "man up" or "grow up" and just get over it. That's not reality. Dealers can never fully understand what they are signing up for. I have a lot of patience and tolerance for idiocy, and I had several mental and emotional breakdowns during my career. I wanted to quit, throw it all away, start over fresh in just about any other career no matter how much less it paid. I see so many of my friends that have been in the business for 5-10 years just leaving abruptly. I commend you for having the strength to do that.

Mentally being able to get past any one individual belittling, demeaning, and disrespecting you for 30 minutes straight IS in your job description. You absolutely know you are signing up for that. How much of that is brought home with you and weaving in and out of your daily life, is not what you will be aware of.

I wish there was an easy way to encourage poker rooms to have a stronger base for mental health counseling available to their employees. I see examples all over the place of people who are having extreme long term mental and emotional damage as a result of people who are in this industry. Some of you may actually never put these dots all together (it took me a long time to "figure it out").

If you are a young dealer, take this seriously. It's not a joke and you can ruin your life if you don't take this serious. When I see it on peoples face, I feel compelled to find a way to privately reach out to them and just let them know that somebody understands and cares. A decent number of people reading this will probably not be from the employee side of the table or not be related to my industry in any way... I would like those of you to interpret this as a reminder that you never know what battles people are really facing. Love yourself, love your neighbors, love the people that you've grown to hate. Be an understanding and compassionate human. Be grateful for all that you have and all that you will get.

Cliffs?

You'd be surprised. They don't mind the delay, if there is a spectacle to distract them...this qualifies.

Just read it. It's not that long.

I wonder if being in another industry will help make me less hateful, or disgusted with people less or if I’m already too far gone.

Dealing poker is a risk factor for depression because it's unpleasant to be harassed by degenerates.

The reality is everyone likes to think they are special. Poker dealers like to think they endure some trauma that no one else faces ....

But the reality is that unless you are a government employee protected by unions and civil service rules and a employer protected by a lack of competition you probably have to deal with customers or guests in some compacity which is really irritating ....

I have a friend who is a waitress and her facebook posts are littered with posts a memes about all the horrible things that get done to them...

It doesn't really matter what field you go into .... there are annoying people you will have to deal with and you will see stuff that blows your mind...

I honestly think the bigger factor is that you have to watch and even participate in the destruction of peoples' souls as they gamble away their possessions, families, and friendships. Even if you take a "if not me, then someone else" attitude, just having to witness that carnage can't do good things for your spirit.

That's what I thought, thanks.

"All jobs are like that" is a gross oversimplification, imo. Of course waitresses take crap from customers too--but the waitress isn't forced to sit at the table with the crazy person and listen to his nonsense/abuse for hours on end.

Conversely, we've got it pretty good, compared to say, 911 dispatchers.

That guy should try dealing blackjack. Talk about depressing

wildly improbable, people suck

There is a high burnout rate in this job. I've seen so many leave for lower paying jobs in other industries because they were sick of it. If that's not an indicator of stress then I don't know what is. We see people at their worst and are severely limited in how we can react when they find us or those around us to be convenient punching bags. It gets harder and harder to feel a sense of accomplishment in this. There are certainly worse professions in this regard, but many more that are better.

Personally I'm happy for now and am getting what I need out of it but I'm also working on my eventual exit strategy.

Maybe because I play low stakes (1/2nl), but most of the dealers are friendly and most of the players are friendly. If 80% of the people you deal with are friendly even when you deal them bad luck, does the 20% of degenerate *******s cause enough problems? Serious question.
To me, hearing about how the casino treats dealers would be more depressing. I have been told where I play that if you miss a certain number (and it's not big like 5) shifts in a year you are fired. Don't care if you are in a car wreck, come down with the flu, parents die. If you are scheduled and don't show up that's it. They lost maybe 10 good dealers a while back when the poker manager decided to run this insane promotion at the same time big weekend tournaments were scheduled. The room was packed 24x7 for an entire month. Dealers were working 80 hour weeks and burning out.

You really nailed it with your 2nd paragraph. I worked in a room that was horribly run and where the upper management made zero effort to show any consideration or appreciation for the dealers. We would work 12 hour shifts and do 8 and 9 table pushes, get a 5 minute break, and then go back for another 8 or 9 tables. I'd come into work in a good mood and I'd be full of energy and smiles at the first 2 or 3 tables. By the 7th hour of work, I'd be miserable and I'd snap at players for the smallest of infractions.

In that environment, if a table had 3 friendly players, 5 players minding their own business, and 1 miserable player, I'd feed off of the energy of the 1 miserable guy.

The room I work in now is much better. Sure, there's room for improvement, but we get reasonable schedules (I'm not working from 5 PM to 3:30 AM and then expected to come in at 10 AM the next day, which wouldn't be uncommon in other rooms), the rotation is pretty fair, and they try to accommodate any kind of employee request unless there's a valid reason for them not to.

And so it's a lot easier to focus on the 3 friendly players and not the 1 jerk at the table and for me to enjoy the 30 minutes that I spend there.

It really is true - your boss and the managers in charge have the greatest impact on employee satisfaction, more than customers or hourly wages.

AMEN brother.

Yes.

Very Yes.

Last night I pushed a drunk rec player who was tipping $2-3 on smaller pots a ~$1200 pot on 1/2. Right as I'm pushing it, the floor at the desk started frantically calling him telling him he's up if wants 2/5, and after that the waitress stops by and starts schmoozing with him. Perfect timing.

Those are the times I wish I had the lack of ethics to be able to tap the table in front of him and say "Nice hand" =P

(I'd never, btw)

Oh, didn't realize it was heads up lmao

Any update Gil?

I'd like to get some opinions from the dealers and floors in this thread about conditional and/or ambiguous statements.

Scenario: Heads up on the river. Player A announces all-in and pushes all of his chips forward. The action is on player B.

How would you rule depending on the following statements by player B? Are you going to require him to call? Let's assume that he doesn't make any physical moves, and you have to base your ruling only on what he says.

Furthermore, Player A hasn't made any move to table or muck his hand. He's waiting for a ruling before he does anything.

- "I have to call."
- "I think I have to call."
- "I guess I have to call."
- "I probably have to call."
- "I can't fold."
- "I can't lay this down."

What's your rationale for these rulings? Would you rule differently if in each instance Player A interprets Player B's speech as a call and Player A then tables his hand without being prompted to do so by the dealer?

As a dealer I would make sure they're calling with those statements, though in my opinion none of those bind action. If the player who's all in snap tables their hand, that's on them. Always make sure action is complete before tabling a hand.

As a floor, my ruling would be that the player hasn't acted yet with those statements.


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As a dealer, I would ask “is that a call?” For #1 and #3 and wouldn’t say anything for the rest.

As a floor I’m not holding any of those statements as a binding call.

IMO only the first is really worth discussion. I am not sure it should be binding but, again IMO, the others definitely are not binding. The dealers responsibility on those issues to make sure the all in player protects his hand until binding action does occur and he doesn't prematurely expose his hand.