You caused me to lose a bet on this. The brush told me I was wasting my time watching to see who counted the stub, there had been no dealers count the stub. Then you pushed in, so I bet that you would count the stub (I had seen you do it many times in the past). You didn't count the stub.

Was this in a room with an automatic shuffler? I've worked in rooms with them and without them. I never bothered counting the stub on a table with a shuffer at the table, but I did once catch two A's when I was spreading a deck when I opened a table.

One dealer who I know (and respect) told me that proper procedure is to always count the stub on any table, even if there's a shuffler, but that he's never seen another dealer bother to do it.

In rooms without shufflers, I've been diligent about counting the stub, and I've noticed the same about my coworkers. Twice I've noticed bad decks due to counting the stub down. The first time, 1 card was missing and my eyes lit up. I was downright giddy when I called the floor supervisor over to the table and announced to him that we had a sticky deck. He even blinked a couple times and then repeated to me, "sticky deck???". And a few players at the table asked me, "What, are the cards harder to shuffle that way?" Good times!

The second time, I counted the deck down, and there were 28 cards in the stub. Let's see... 8 players dealt in the hand... I dealt a flop... one player made a bet... everyone else folded... okay.... hold on... 28???.... that can't be right!!!. I was so thrown off by my own math that I actually dealt another hand and then counted the entire deck down twice to be sure that there were actually 48 cards in the deck. I've asked around and that's some kind of record, at least among dealers I've spoken to.

It was long before shufflers. Also it sounds like you need additional training in counting the stub.

Have never personally seen a dealer count the stub in a room with shufflers.

From 2011 WSOP:

http://www.gambling6.com/8-cards-mis...t-a-wsop-table

Are you sure about this?

The first place I worked with you, we had no shufflers, and I gave you the impression that I always count the stub.

The second place I worked with you, we had shufflers at SOME tables. I'm sure this is the place where you made that bet (I was only with you PT for a few months at the first place), while I was at a non-shuffler table, and it was the damned shufflers that got me out of the habit of counting it.

God help me if I ever need to hand shuffle again and reacquire that habit--but iirc we had no shufflers at my one WPT gig last year, and I was pretty good about counting stubs.

Also, LOL at you never having told me about that bet until now.

I have. Yesterday. Twice. Because the shuffler kept insisting the decks were between 1 and 12 cards short. Shuffler was replaced. Same thing. Third machine fixed it. But in between we went through one setup and two different dealers counted down two different decks. And the floor took one deck off and suited it himself--he just couldn't believe TWO machines could be wrong (even though every time it red-lighted it claimed a different number of cards were missing).

We got like 6 hands dealt in 30 minutes while all that was going on.

I don't think they had installed shufflers yet, but they might have, but they were only on a couple of tables.

Well I didn't mean counting down the deck if the shuffler says there's cards missing. Sure that's done. I've had to count down the deck when the lady put the 8 of spades in her purse.

I just meant counting the stub at the end of a hand on a "regular" basis.

One time a card went missing on a table without a shuffle machine and couldn't be found. It wasn't noticed until the game was closed for the night. The next day there was a new rule from the Table Games Director(knew nothing about poker BTW) that all dealers will count the stub on the first hand dealt and one more time during the last few minutes of every down at every table even if there is a shuffle machine. It was found out later by surveillance that the card was missing because the Poker Room Manager put a new set-up in the game and never verified the decks and the dealer didn't catch that the card was missing. Manager got a 3 day unexpected vacation and the new count the stub rule lasted a month or so and kinda just disappeared. We've always had a count the stub rule on tables without shufflers.

And this is why the dealer also got some unexpected time off. 1 day only I think.

I was TD for a bar (free) tournament. Tables were player dealt. After breaking a table I squared the deck. The ace of clubs was missing. The decks at the remaining tables were a different color so i checked the remaining decks. No extra cards in any decks. I'm wondering who would cheat a free poker game for a $25 bar tab. Giving up, I went to put the short deck back in the box. Lo and behold, there it was. That table played without the ace of clubs for 90 minutes.

Was playing in a charity game. First hand I got 9T. There was a big UTG raise and I fold. Like 5 people call. Board comes out QQAKJ. There's moderate action but nothing too major. At showdown, aces full loses to quad queens!! Wow! What a first hand!

Next hand I'm UTG and have 9 9. I make a pretty big raise because it's the kind of hand I have no idea how to play out of position. Again, like 5 people call. Flop is 99T. WTF is going on here? I flopped quads on a suited board. We'd played the first two hands with a pinocle deck.

I count the stub for each deck often, occasionally i get the odd look from a player( usually a younger one) when the see me do it. Ive eased on counting a bit since the installation of the shuffle machines but after seeing this thread i am going to self impose the old house rule of twice a down. ( ill try to do each deck twice ) Its just not hard to do in flop games.

The challenge may be in the mix games where draw games are being played regularly. I recall years ago when Stud was more prevalent that counting the stub was a little more dynamic but i never had issue with it.

At the club where I play, most tables have shufflers, but a handful do not.

A month or so ago, a $50k BBJ hit one of the tables w/o a shuffler. Only problem: Turns out there were two cards missing from the stub.

Upon viewing the cameras, it was revealed that the stub hadn't been counted for some two hours... oops.

House paid off the BBJ.

I'm pretty sure I was automatically counting stubs before the shufflers arrived. That's why you bet on me, remember?

And yeah, those machines were "only on a couple of tables", but those tables were the only ones certain to be used every day. We spent at least 75% of our time in the box dealing at those tables.

Since we're telling stories about missing cards and uncounted stubs, I place I used to work caught a guy holding out cards. Three dealers got fired for not counting the stub twice in their down at that table. I'm pretty sure I was taught to count it once per down, but when I mention this, everyone shakes their head and says, "No, it's twice, everybody knows that." But I guess none of these fired dealers counted it even once, or they would have noticed the problem.

I don't get all these stories about missing cards. Non-dealers won't believe me, but if a card is missing the deck feels different. I couldn't tell the differnce now, but there was a time when I could have been able to tell by the "feel" that something wasn't right.

I thought for sure when I read your post that this sentence would include a "didn't." Good for them. Unfortunately I can see a lot of places not paying out.

If the deck contains extra cards, they absolutely should not pay it off.

However, missing cards really should not matter in whether or not to pay the BBJ.

RRoP says: I was counting the stub during a tournament once and came up short one card. I recounted the entire deck and got the right count but the player in seat 1 asked me "hat the hell are you doing, times counting down!" I looked up and there was over 5 minutes left in the level.

"Well sir, I counted the stub and came up short one card. I thought I should make sure the deck was right before I dealt the next hand."

Actually every set of Jackpot rules I have seen say that the jackpot does not qualify if the deck is not proper.

About 5 or 6 years ago there was a post here about an incident at Bally's a jackpot of some sort had been hit, the deck was counted .... it was missing a card. They disqualified the hand from winning the jackpot, but the hand still counted for determining the winner of the pot.

I want to say that Bav was present when it happened ...... because I remember some discussion with him about it ...... but I may be wrong about that.

YES bav was present! And right in the frickin' middle of it. $1400 pot, as I recall. I had the nuts on the turn in a 4-way and the river gave the only guy who covered me quads.

They did at least initially refuse to pay the HHJ. The winner threw a fit and demanded the casino manager come visit. Seems he knew the manager as they went wandering off to chat practically arm-in-arm. Rumor was they decided to pay the guy the HHJ anyway, despite the rules posted on the wall being very clear that a deck hadda have 52 cards to qualify.

Never did find that 52nd card.

Our BBJ rules say that if there are extra/missing cards in the deck the results of the hand will stand, but it will invalidate the Jackpot. No payday.

I've had this convo with my manager and we both agree that if it happened the director and most likely General Manager would be called and let them make the decision and they would probably say go ahead and pay it out because it wouldn't be worth the bad PR that the casino would get if we didn't. Never know til it happens, but it is posted right there in the rules on a huge plaque on the wall for everyone to see, so it's pretty hard to agrue the rules, but i could see a lawyer arguing the fairness of the rule because it wasn't his client's fault there were cards missing/extra blah blah blah

I have been aware of two BBJ's with qualifying hands that were not paid where I work. Both were denied because the pots in each hand were not big enough.
The pot has to be $30 to qualify.

In the first, one player suggested checking it down once he made Quad Aces and the other player agreed. The pot had $23 including rake. It was a $4/$8 game!

The second time was also a $4.$8 game but one player started the hand with only $7.

I dealt a Royal that would have paid $2600

3 way limped pot, c/c/c flop, c/c/c turn, c/c button snap checks back. Then looks at his cards and realizes he went runner runner royal. only had $6 in the pot. Must have ten to qualify. Biiiiiiig whoops

You pay of a jackpot that doesn't qualify today and I hit a much
smaller jackpot tomorrow and I'm gonna be the one getting a lawyer.