Role reversal tonight. My boss tried telling me I was doing something wrong, and that my shortcut wasn't any shorter, and I was having none of it. How ironic.

He said I "killed" the board cards before pushing the pot. I immediately offered to bet him that I did no such thing. He elaborated. "You left them face up, but they were all piled up, and only one was visible. They should be readable while you're pushing the pot, dropping the rake, moving the button, etc."

We jawed (amiably) for five minutes over this. "Who needs to read 'em? I don't touch 'em until I've killed all the losing hands, and once the losers' cards are mucked, what do they want to read?", etc.

I really got hot when he suggested that I shouldn't even touch the board cards before moving the pot, because it's not necessary. "If it wasn't necessary, I wouldn't do it!", I blurted. He thinks pushing the cards over and around the board is superior to moving the board cards out of the way.

He finally offered a compromise: go ahead and move them if you want, but leave them in the same order, and readable. I relented, as that doesn't seem too unreasonable.

That's ridiculous. I go so far as to specifically train new dealers to swipe the board with one hand, then come back and push the pot. It helps make pushing the pot extra smooth.

I get tilted whenever I see a dealer trying to move the pot around the board/stub/muck. Like you said, as long as the losers are dead it's irrelevant.

I have to laugh at "keeping the board in the same order". If a player doesn't know what the winner is by then, they would have asked.

That's all well and good until one of your dealers on autopilot pushes the pot and kills the board, however there was a forgotten all in player that still has hole cards.

Now everything is one big pile of muck, and nobody remembers exactly what the board was.

Killing the board should be one of the last things done. The order doesn't matter, but what's the problem with pushing the 3-5 board cards out of the way?

You're getting tilted by watching dealers do it right. Maybe not very efficient, but if there's a problem it will be fixable.

I really hope you don't mean mucking the board. It should remain face-up until after the pot is pushed. Then and only then can you be 99% sure that the hand has concluded properly.

It took me my first time of pushing a pot to someone when there was still someone else in the hand for me to learn that lesson.

(That said, I have no problem mixing them up into a face-up pile, but keep them separate from the muck.)

Another bit of mild silliness from my room that I'm soon leaving:

The 2/5 NLHE and 5/10 PLO games love red chips. The only time any of the staff even volunteers to sell green is when the buy-in is more than 500, regardless of how many reds are already on the table or even in the player's stack. If the buyin is 500 and nobody says anything, you can guarantee a rack of red is on its way.

My view on any game is this: One or two stacks of the "blinds" chip, the rest in the next chip higher. That's all that's ever needed in any game, and even that is sometimes too much. Buying a rack of reds in a 2/5 is like buying a rack of whites in a 1/2.

As a dealer, I've pleaded with chip-runners to bring greens, but nope, they come back with racks of red. As a chip-runner, I do what I can to bring greens, but yesterday I had a player specifically ask for a rack of reds. There are MOUNTAINS of reds on this table, pots take forever to count and push and re-stack.

I tell ya, these level games are the worst for player sophistication. They don't know as much as they think they know, and they're too high on themselves to listen to anybody else, either. Give me a 1/2 or a 10/25 any day over a 2/5.

At what point did he suggest mucking or killing the board? What he described is 100% accurate, the dealer should swipe the board with a hand to get it out of the way so he can push the pot. It is still there, face up on the table, to be retrieved if needed.

I disagree with you about this when talking about $2/$5 NLHE. I think $5 chips are ideal. I think mountains of chips are ideal. I like pots that look big. And really its not hard to handle red chips for this game. It shouldn't take forever to count chips. I broke in dealing a $2/$5 game where cash didn't play and the no chips above $5 played. It was great.

I never heard the term swiping the board. The way he described it made me believe he's killing the board. If that's not the case, then sorry and obviously my comment doesn't apply.

Of course I don't mean to muck it. You guys don't have much faith in me after all this time I see!

Also, for the record, killing the board before pushing the pot is a top 3 bad dealer pet peeve of mine, as I'm sure it is for everyone else too.

Thanks. The bolded is what makes YTF's floor comment so ridiculous. The order of the board isn't of much consequence if a dispute arises now is it?

Just making sure. It did seem out of character. But every dealer I see kills the board before pushing the pot. Hell, the other day a floor was dealing because we were short, and on the hand before I pushed in he didn't push the pot to the right person. He blamed the player for not acting like he wanted the chips, therefore he didn't know where to push them. The board and all hands had long since been put in the muck.

Agree to disagree, then. Would you want people betting $60 in whites in a 1/2, the same way they bet $300 in reds in a 2/5?

Tho' my view lately is also shaded by our abysmally small tables. These tables would be tight on a stud game, yet we squeeze in ten players, have a curved cut-in for the dealers, fully padded rail in front of the dealer, AND a tray that's inset a few inches beyond that. Each table is slightly different, and on some of them there's not even two card-legnths of space between the tray and the betting line across the table, which itself barely gives enough room for the player to keep his cards in front of his chips.

And have I mentioned the drop slot is sometimes mounted practically in the middle of the table, extended beyond the front of the chip tray? Also, there's barely any padding under the felt, which on some tables feels like sandpaper.

On top of that, the legs under the table extend in such a way that the 1 and 10 seats need to be right next to the dealer, otherwise there's no room for their feet. We're talking wide wooden legs that extend out at an angle.

Whomever designed these tables clearly hates poker.

Since they're all different it sounds like they were repurposed to poker from a table game. Is it an old casino that didn't always have poker or is it card club that may have bought used table game tables?

pfap, I think your rational side lends you to not care if it's 12 measly green chips or if it's three stacks of reds. A lot of players prefer "bigger pots" like that and it adds to their excitement and enjoyment of the game. It psychologically feels better scooping a giant pot, rather than "hey, i won 3 chips" and picking up 3 black chips I agree with your view on wishing we'd use the largest denomination that makes sense. I hate when people use a bunch of small chips when they could easily make the same bet with less chips, but I do understand how others would disagree.

My last trip to Vegas I was somewhat caught off guard at the table games after years of only going to the local indian casinos. The local casinos will pay off a $50+ bet in reds or a $200+ bet in greens with the same color, until they are extremely short in their rack, and do not even typically keep a stack of their $500s in the racks, even though it is allowable to bet up to $500 per hand.

I was playing next to a guy recently who was betting 2 hands at max bets and had every black chip in the dealers rack. The dealer was having to pay off $500 bets in green as they scrambled to get a fill. They even asked him if he was going to color up because they were debating about ordering a stack of purple in the fill instead of more than a rack in black. But then again there are many other areas where the pit games could be better run.

No, but thats becaise the games play very differently. Players in a $1-$2 game are going to bet $200 far more often then the $2-$5 players are betting $1000. And more importantly the $1-$2 game has a lot more beginners who absolutelly can't handle o count chips ..... you know the sort... if they are going to bet $50 they are going to line up the chips individually and count them.......

I don't generally announce bet sizes until asked unless I know it's against a player that always asks, but if they push them forward after counting them out in piles of two red chips, I always announce it: "Five stacks of ten"


I don't really do it to embarrass them, but I secretly hope it does and that they stop doing it. I just do it to get a little internal chuckle from myself.

NL, I agree. PL, the 1/2 players are the worst about this; with the 2/5 players, you've got a chance.

And I'm with you on the chip denominations, too. While I agree with everyone who says, "but the players want mountains of smaller denominations", I disagree with WHY they want them. It's not to make the pots look bigger, it's to make their STACKS look bigger, and more intimidating.

I was dealing a final table once, and the TD brought some rarely-used 5k chips during the break, and instructed me to color up many of the 1k chips on the table, as there were way more than needed out there (the blinds were up to 10k-20k and soon going up to 15k-30k, and everyone had a few-hundred 1k chips in their stacks). And every single player who saw what I was doing barked at me if I took "too many" of their useless 1k chips, and left them with puny-looking stacks.

I don't watch tv poker, but I caught a glimpse of some EARLY ROUND ACTION of a recent WSOP, and everyone had a mountain of chips in front of them. One guy stole the blinds/antes, and it took the dealer 2-3 pushes to get all the chips to him! He was only halfway stacking that pot when the action was back to him on the next hand! WTF???

Yeah, "swiping" isn't a term I've heard before, either, but there's no better word to describe what we're talking about.

The floorman in my story kept using the word "killed" to describe what I was doing, and I pointed out that we seemed to disagree on the definition of killed--that to me, "killed" means "buried irretrievably in the muck". By leaving the board face up, it was still "tabled", and if anyone still want to read it, I'd be happy to spread them back out. He allowed, "Ok, you didn't 'kill' the board. But you 'destroyed' it!"

This floorman is the nittiest floorman in the history of floormen, and I've worked with some nitty floormen in my day. And when I say that, I don't mean "strict about following procedure", as I expect that from every floorman. I mean he's the guy who pulled me aside to chastise me about bellowing "ANTES, PLEASE!" once to get the attention of a table full of players who had tuned me out. "Really? I've been doing this 13 years, and every floorman I've ever worked with has seen that it was a harmless joke--until you!" And he stood his ground, so I don't do it any more. Heh, actually, his suggestion of patiently tapping the table in front of the zoned out players until they anted was one of the biggest favors anyone has ever done for me: now, instead of getting frustrated that no one is listening to me, it has helped me stopped worrying how long it takes to get the next hand out! Thanks, SuperNitFloorGuy!

(I want to point out that despite my complaints about this guy here, I still have plenty of respect for him as a floor. These are teeny, tiny issues in the grand scheme of things, and I'd still rank this guy over 95% of the floors I've worked with in my career. I love the floor/management staff where I work, and now that I think about it, it's been a long long time since I could say that. It's almost certainly the main reason why my current job is far and away the best job I've ever had in this business. And no, this isn't ass-kissing, as I learned last night he doesn't read 2+2.)

I wasn't really talking about overt player preferences ..... certainly some of them are really particular about weird things.

Last week I pushed into a $4-$8 game. I noticed the guy in the 10 seat had about a stack of red, and maybe a stack of white. I decided not to say anything, as he still had some white, might win some more and it may not be an issue.

But then another player at the table needed some chips, so when the chip runner came for that I directed him to the 10 seat. But the guy told the runner he didn't need anything. Ok, I'll wait and see maybe the guy will win some or he's getting ready to leave .....

So a couple hands later he's lost all his white and started using red. Everytime he bets red I change it out for white, and I call over the chip runner, as the runner arrives I tell the player, "I've got to ask you change those to white now."

He tells me no ..... and I want to rip him a new ******* ..... but I stay calm and behave myself ..... I call the floor.

When the floorperson finally arrives .... (I've continued dealing, he's continued betting red, I've been changiung them up as they are bet .... I haven't argued with him ..... I think I'm doing everything exactly as I should) I simply tell the floor that the player in 10 seat doesn't want to get white chips ...... The player's immediate response is "I want this dealer written up ..... I can play with whatever chips I want."

The floor says to him, well let me get you some white chips, and the player refuses. The floor in trying to be diplomatic tells the player that white chips are recommended, and the player takes this as "not required" the floor walks away saying "I'll be back". I continue to deal to this player with no discussion about the situation and then the floor comes back and tells the player that he spoke with the shift manager and that he will have to change up the chips to white chips. But as he does so the push comes through.

About an hour later I see the graveyard shift manager over at the table, he's got the player up out of his seat .....and they are talking ..... I'm not sure if the guy was still demanding I be written up, still arguing about wanting to use red, or if he had a whole new issue ......

I just couldn't believe that this guy actually thought they would write me up for calling the floor about this.

I'm clueless about limit, why is this such a problem, using reds in a 4-8 game?

In reality, having one player use reds isn't an issue. The problem is if you let him, you have to let everyone. Then it's an issue. You can't make change for everyone at the table all the time or the game slows to a crawl. Not good for anyone, players included.

I guess it slows the game down having to make change?? We don't spread limit here and likely never will, but when I've played limit (in YTF's room) they're pretty strict about what chips you bring to each game IIRC. I grabbed some $2 chips to go play 8/16 but turned out the seat wasn't actually available so I went to a 4/8 game to dink around while I waited and the dealer wouldn't let me sit with the $2 chips at all. I had to change them to blue chips($1). YTF correct me if I'm wrong. It was a few years ago, but I remember thinking it seemed to make more sense to use $2 chips in a 4/8 game, but what do I know about limit... FWIW this was even before I started working in the bizz

How does one push a several thousand dollar pot to the 5-seat in this manner?

We have a no flop, no drop rule. If I ever deal in a place without it, I know I will not rake a lot of pots before I get the hang of it.

Saw this today. 1/2NL UTG raises to $8 and UTG+1 re-raises to $16. Everyone else folds to UTG who folds his JJ face up and says "there's just not enough money in the pot to play these". FWIW UTG+1 showed 66 with the funniest look on his face. Classic.

Last week I nearly lost my mind while suited up with a dealer who I actually liked a lot and had zero problems with until this happened.

The dealer made a mistake and had a premature turn card. So I went through the routine, had the dealer lift the card out but leave it face up, let the action play out, and then he put down the true river as the new turn card.

A player bet and the other guy in the hand furiously folded his hand, slamming it on the table face up. He did not throw it at the dealer and the cards didn't land off the table so I was prepared to walk away but then the player started cursing at the dealer.

I immediately went to step in and actually completed the phrase "You will not talk to one of my dealers that way" when the dealer exploded on the guy, making for a screaming match. I had to say aloud to the dealer "______, please, I got this, I'm right here, let me handle it" but he was livid.

I spoke to my ASM about this and before that conversation ended, the dealer and player got at it again, and again the dealer was the guy making most of the noise while the player was by now just passively aggressively goading him.

The push was coming through just then so all three of us went to an out of the way table. The ASM told him that he needed to control himself at the table, that he was unprofessional, and that this was the second time he had to say something to him about the same thing.

The dealer just started yelling at the ASM and then blamed me for "not having my back" when the player cursed. I was stunned because I will always back up a dealer in public and make any corrections in private, but I didn't even get the chance while standing right there because the dealer went ballistic.

The dealer was sent home for the night and the ASM absolved me of any responsibility but I am still bummed about the whole thing.

When I was in NH, where the biggest bet allowed was $4 and the biggest cash game offered was $4-4 limit, they used $4 chips! Having dealt in places that use $1 chips and $4 chips in such games, I can tell you the house makes more money using $1 chips, as the bigger-looking pots lead to more action which leads to more rake.

Also, remember that poker players suffer from OCD, and one player having different color chips from everyone else knocks the universe off its axis for an OCD sufferer.

Here are some fun non-poker pics to illustrate this point.


http://www.buzzfeed.com/samir/things...cd-self-insane