Thanks for marked card replies.

At one of my old gigs, policy was to take the card, find one with a relatively close matching back shade from the big pool of extras, do the whole "see, it's the same" routine at the table, and then destroy the old card and toss it.

Suffice to say that's not the policy at my current gig, where the entirety of each setup is supposed to be very carefully monitored. At least, that's what I learned after a very long conversation with head of security after they spent a week tracking down why the replacement deck was missing a handful of cards.

Whoops.

Doing your best and having a less-than-ideal outcome never feels good. You did everything you could, so gotta move on. I would have appreciated your efforts if I were a customer and I like would have said something to your boss to that effect as well.

Great stuff, as usual.

Works on so many levels, especially if the people it "fell flat" with were wearing headphones.

One of my few pet peeves at the table. I'm about as laid back as they come when playing cards, but I once had to tell a guy he'd lost his action in order to get him to stop doing it. That is, we were playing a home tournament and after three other people had acted he calmly and smugly said, "Is anyone going to let me act?" If he hadn't done it twice before it would have been a different story, but he had been warned previously and I know he was doing it on purpose at that point so I put an end to it.

ASM?

Assistant Shift Manager

Look obviously you started to address this in a timely manner .... and perhaps the reason you failed to deal with it was because the dealer interrupted you with his explosion ...... but one thing that really bothers me is that it seems you stopped dealing with it to go talk with the ASM. it seems to me you are almost asking for a second explosion when you leave these two at the table and go talk to the ASM.

The dealer has a point when he says you didn't his back (although he may share responsibility for that). You left him to be goaded by that player. I think in that kind of situation he can't leave that table with both of them there .....

Now it sounds like this dealer has had issues before. I'm not saying he is blameless ..... but if I was him and you walked away from that table and that player started goading me ..... I wouldnt be inclined to feel that you had my back.

One thing I have found is that there are a lot more floor people who say they have my back, then floor people who I trust to have my back. And that sometimes may get me into a little trouble .... because if I don;t trust you to have my back .... I'm more likely to take matters into my own hands....

Last nioght I tapped into what was a private sit n go tournament a bunch of guys who knew each other, but didn't know poker. The dealer in front of me explains to me that these players all are friends and they need help knowing what there options are ..... a long speech designed to tell me basically dont worry about rules and stuff to much ..... they don't care but you will have to prompt every player for every action. Her speech seemed to take way to long (she is one who I always feel takes to long to get up). All said loudly so they could hear what wonderful guest service we were giving them

So quickly I figure out that this table is one I can have some fun with .... so whenever I have a shot at one of them I take it and there is a lot of focus on their lack of basic math skills ...... "You guys obviously aren't here for the math convention" went over way better than it should have.

So when the down ended next dealer tapped me out, I decide that I would condense the previous dealers speech down to "These guys are all friends ... they all came together on the same short bus." The dealer seemed shocked but only for a moment before he saw the obvious approval from the players.

Couple times a year I deal one of these types of games in our room and it's always flat out amazing to be dealing to people who are enjoying each others' company and enjoying playing poker. It's like dealing on another planet. Venus I think.

I have mixed feelings .... on one hand its nice to be at a table where everyone is having fun. On the other hand ..... its hard to keep a game running when no one else at the table actually cares if the game is running.

Woke up in a GREAT mood this morning (smashed the biggest milestone yet on my weight loss journey today, I now weigh < half my starting weight), opened up the computer to tell my H&F guidance counselors...and was greeted by this negative post from last night on my screen, the last thing I had typed before my laptop battery died and I finally put down the computer and went to bed.

Since I'm in a great mood today, I thought, "There must be something positive that has changed about players' habits over that time." And when you think about it that way, the list is a LOT longer. I don't have a lot of time right now, but just off the top of my head:

--Nobody string bets any more, not even the newest newb, and on the rare occasions it does happen, the table no longer fights for the chance to lecture them about it.

--No smoking!

--No more drinks/ashtrays/cigarette packs on the felt.

--Working at racetracks instead of destination casinos the last four years, it's been a long time since I've had to deal with players leaving a seat locked up for an hour+ while off to eat, only to decide after eating that they didn't feel like playing poker any more and coming back to retrieve to their money.

--I'm sure there's more, but as I said, these were just off the top of my head.

I've dealt a few of those games - usually it's like 6/9 are from the same bachelor party or something similar. I don't even fight the little battles at those tables - I just try to keep the action clockwise and not horrifically off of a normal table.

Yeah, I was thinking more in terms of having to constantly get their attention to get them to play poker.

If it's a S&G, does it matter? Your hourly is the same either way. Kick back and enjoy people enjoying themselves.

That said, I've gotten frustrated at these kinds of games when dealing free casino party gig S&Gs at peoples' houses. So, uh, yeah.

Well thats not entirely true. Somehow I don't think im supposed to just sit there doing nothing. If we all did that it would b we the cheapest open bar ever......

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Even when dealing that style of cash game you're going to have a heavy number of airballs. Relax and have fun. They are.

lol nice

Long time lurker non-industry worker. I've really enjoyed your posts/stories from both an educational and an entertainment perspective. I've also heard about your weight loss journey and wanted to congratulate you on this milestone.

Procedure question. I currently keep my muck on the left and the pot in the middle left too. My burn cards slide under the pot as I burn and turn. On the river I burn and turn and then take the bottom card off the stub and place it on top of the stub on top of the muck. i then slide the burn cards directly into the muck pile. What is your procedure? What is standard? My room is asking us to begin spreading the stub in front of our tray and leave the burn cards under the pot until the outcome is determined and pot is pushed. So basically i have muck pile, stub, and burn cards all separate. I loaned my copy of the industry standard poker dealing book to a co-worker and never got it back. Curious to know what it says as well as what you all do. Thank you!

The way they are telling you now is the standard. If you put the burns in the muck..... what happens when someone says you didnt burn?

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Except that for the sake of brevity, I didn't discuss the several minutes I spent at the table trying to keep the two at arm's length from each other before I left with the two at a (sadly temporary) impasse.

And enother thing: The issue was that the dealer went on the offensive. The player was not blameless but the dealer escalated the confrontation and kept at it when I was telling both of them to drop it.

You know, sometimes the dealer is at fault. And sometimes I manage to do my job right.

I'm not calling you incompetent, nor do I want to argue with you. I do want to suggest that looking at this from another perspective may give you some insight on a better way to handle something like this in the future.

As a dealer I can't think of anything worse then the floor leaving me to deal with an abusive player. In fact the first time I ever got written up as a dealer was the result of my response when the floor stood by doing nothing while a player kept calling me an *******.

I get that the dealer handled this wrong. And that distracted you. But there were two issues at that table......

First a player was being abusive to a dealer.

Second the dealer responded unprofessionally and inappropriately.

Lets pretend for a minute that only the first thing happened. What were you going to do? Tell the player "bad doggy" and then walk away? If so you were about to handle this badly. At the very least the player should have removed from the situation. I think that player ought to have at least the night off (longer if there is history). Even if you aren't going to do that he should have him up and away from the table at least till the end of the dealers down.

So why does the second thing change any of that? It doesn't. If you get the abusive player away from the table, you can leave the dealer at the table and deal with him later ..... he isn't going anywhere. And he isn't fighting with the other players. The game can go on until the next dealer pushes and then the ASM can deal with him. Where I work, he is getting SPI and then fired.


Again ... I'm not trying to argue with you..... I just want you to be able to see another perspective.

I played some 2-5 nlhe tonight. When I play I prefer to just stay quiet, not make waves, and not let on that I'm a dealer.

Fast forward to the point where we had 4 side pots totaling about $3000 with a break in dealer in the box. She was clearly overwhelmed and out of her element. I jumped in and basically took over for her, calculating the side pots, and identifying which player was playing for each various side pot. "you're in for this one, you're in for this one, and this is the working pot."

At what point will you guys step in?

Fwiw, I was one of the all in players and was motivated to protect my money.

I won't step in until I see an error being made. But if I see a new dealer start to panic, I may try to calm them down (especially if I'm in the 1 or 10 seat). (its ok. take your time, breath etc)

Years ago I would be quick to jump in, but I'm older and wiser now.

Let me elaborate. We had 2 players all-in preflop. One for $70 and one for $155. Plus 4 more callers. The dealer started with the first all-in player (seat 3) and cherry picked her way around the table taking $70 from each player. At seat 9, she got stuck because that player had called with 7 green chips, and she couldn't figure out how to extract $70 out of that bet. I kept quiet through all of this. But then she forgot to come around and get $70 from seats 1 and 2. This is where I stepped in the first time.

Then we had action on the flop (another all-in player, with 3 more live players betting a higher amount). So we needed yet another side pot, with still another working pot. Here, the dealer wanted to combine the new side pot with the original preflop side pot. So I felt compelled to step in once again and explain, "No, that side pot is for that guy. We need another side pot for this guy. And a working pot for these 3 players."

She managed to stumble her way through the rest of the pot without any additional help, though I suspect that it would have been dicey if one of the deep stack players hadn't swept the entire pot.