Yeah, it was for a player. But since you mention it: we got dealers who call for TWENTY dollar fills! Their OCD is worse than the players'! When I get called for one of these, I want to hit 'em in the head.

Some go even further: they won't need a fill if they never accept that $20 to begin with! "Oh, you'd like to buy $20 in chips? I'll summon the chip runner!" These dealers need to be thrown down a well.

One thing I've noticed is many dealers can't adjust to changes in circumstances. They worked in a room where they had to get a fill if they had any cash and now they will do that in every room they ever work at regardless of the fact that it's a different system and a different rack.

(Two players pre-flop, it's up to five bets, when one stops to give a speech.)

ORATOR: Five bets? Have we even seen a flop yet?

YTF: No, but we'd like to!

So I sit down to a table thats gotten a bit out of control.... there is a flurry of profanity thrown back and forth and I get them under control ... only then to realize that the underlying dispute is a disagreement about who was better .....



Then I went and signed the EO list at my next opportunity.

EO'd last night, went out for a beer, was approached by a guy I had dealt to earlier in the night, I guess (I can't remember faces--seriously, it's bad--but his hat looked familiar!). He doesn't play often, but came in for a freeroll tourney we run for veterans for Veteran's Day.

He told me he loves poker, but hates playing in cardrooms because he can't stand the way he's treated by the other players. "I almost got in a fight last time," he pointed out.

I rarely play any more, for the same reason. I don't mind the way they treat ME--but it's heart-breaking to see the way they treat each other.

But I've long since given up on trying to get them to treat each other better. They are who they are, and they're not changing.

***

Speaking of the veterans' free roll, it's worth a post of its own:

One of our guys is a veteran, and approached the company with the idea, and it's been a smashing success since we started it a few years back. Anyone with a military ID or DD214 (discharge papers) can enter, the house put up $2k this year, and a few of the players kicked in a few-thousand-dollars worth of door prizes (gift cards, sports tickets, etc). All entrants got a raffle ticket, and those ticket numbers were called nonstop for literally hours, they had close to 200 prizes to give away.

With that context, here are my two stories from last night:

1. The veteran guy who runs this thing saw me in the box waiting for the tourney to start. He came over, shook my hand, and gave me a "Thank you for your service!" I've never been comfortable with that. To be clear, I'm all for it, when we're talking about guys who've seen combat--but I spent my time in the military on the beaches of California. I have other political thoughts about my country's eagerness to fight wars and celebrate the warriors, which I can't talk about out loud because folks see it as an attack on things they hold sacred, which adds to this discomfort...but in this room packed with veterans, I just accepted it and replied with, "You too, buddy."

Now all the vets within earshot suddenly want to chat me up, and again, I'm uncomfortable with the whole thing, but I understand I'm the outlier, so I try to weather it...but I didn't make it.

When one player asked me why I wasn't playing in the tournament, I cited our room's rule that dealers aren't eligible for promotion money (except the bbj), and added, "I'm thinking about taking a knee in protest!"

No one laughed. No one smiled. One suggested that wasn't a good idea in this room, at this time.

I never had a joke bomb so spectacularly in my life. "I guess my little joke isn't funny. I won't be telling that one again tonight."

***

2. One player complained bitterly that the thousands of dollars of free, donated door prizes weren't "as nice as last year's!" The big prizes were tickets to see the local MLB team, and this guy was grousing that last year, tickets to all four major sports were up for grabs.

AS HE'S SAYING THIS, they draw the next number for a pair of tickets to go see "The World Champion Houston Astros" when they come to town next season--and they draw HIS number!

Now he's delighted. Thrilled. He runs up to claim his prize.

While he's gone, the raffle numbers are still being called, nonstop. remember, they have close to 200 prizes to give away. The poker room sounds like a bingo hall, just nonstop numbers being drawn.

He comes back to the table with an envelope. He tears it open like a kid on Christmas morning. Out falls a piece of paper, and a flyer for a local ticket agency. I imagine the 2018 tickets aren't available yet, let alone printed, and the paper is explaining to him that he should contact the ticket agent to arrange things.

Reading the paper, he exclaims, "They only gave me ONE ticket!"

Now, in the ten minutes I've known this man, I've already formed the opinion that his evaluation of this note is not to be trusted. I'm betting that he thinks the enclosed postcard bearing the ticket agent's advertising is his ticket to the game, and he keeps peering into the envelope to find a second one. He's keeps going on about it, and the other players are starting to buy his story. "Really? They didn't give you a plus-one?"

I couldn't help myself: "The next number they draw--that's your date!"

(He went back to clear this up. He never returned to the table before I got pushed out, but when I got up, I saw him sitting, and he looked content.)

FWIW, I thought the taking a knee joke was hilarious.

Thanks, pal!

Joke was not bad. But timing sucked.

Not the right crowd for that joke.

Try it in blue collar Ohio. I always forget how 'not progressive' our patrons are.

We can't just say "All vets think (whatever)...." I used to work at the VA in blue collar Ohio (Columbus), in drug and alcohol addiction, so the guys I saw are prob not representative of vets as a whole, but they had plenty of opinions about, well, everything, esp about the military and the VA.

Sure, a joke like this, better safe than sorry, but we'd lose about 2/3 of ytf's posts if he operated that way.

SO slow at work lately...last night's Daily Donkfest only drew 24 entries (usually 60-90), so it only paid the top five. Fifth place paid $154.

We got down to five, played about three hands, and someone floated the idea of a chop. One guy only had a few chips, everyone else was comfortable, so the suggestion was met with great reluctance.

"I'll take less!", offered the shorty.

"Will you take $154?", came the the first smug offer.

"I'll take $180," he suggested, hopefully.

I was shocked that no one seemed interested. I inserted myself into the conversation: "I'll give you $180 for that stack right now!" Got a few LOL's, but no further discussion of chopping took place while I was at this table.

Two hands later, shorty got it all-in pre with Ax, BB called with a pocket pair, Ace on the river doubled up my guy, and I got pushed out. I later learned he got 4th, good for about $250.

$3-6 LHE. Guy buys two racks of $1 chips from the chip runner. Unracks one, places the other on a drink table behind him. He is careful to place the empty rack underneath the full rack.

Nits leap to accuse him of taking money off the table. He points out it was never ON the table, he's well within his rights to buy chips and not put them into play. This agitates everyone, but this guy is here to agitate people. I normally try to get trouble-makers like this to play nice, but I'm at the stiffest table I've seen in years, so I'm not saying boo.

Trouble-maker reaches into his pocket and pulls out a few-thousand worth of big chips, places them on the table, "In case you were worried about it," he explains to his adversaries. He also spends time between hands pulling a thick wad of $100's, counting it repeatedly, and putting it back in his pocket. This poor, poor, pathetic man.

And I had to tell all of this, to set the scene for what happened next:

He runs out of $1 chips and needs more, and asks me to summon to the chip runner. Remember, he still has a rack of blue sitting on the drink table behind him. I figure he must know what he's doing.

Chip runner arrives, he pulls out $100, and asks for a rack of blue.

"You don't want to buy them from yourself?", I suggest? I am ignored. Nope, he wants the chip-runner to make the long walk to the cage to fetch him chips unnecessarily. Chip runner grumbles (I would too!), but does the job.

No tip for the chip runner. Unracks. He is careful to place the empty rack beneath the full rack and the empty rack on the drink table behind him (a stack of three racks, two empty capped by a full one).

Oh I see...he has a plan.

I work in a mental hospital.

It must be going over my head... What's his plan?

For some reason he wants someone to knock them over.

He's gonna claim he had a lot more big chips than they find?

To either compensate for a less than average body part or to be the biggest douche they can be. These type of people always crack me up....they sit at the smallest game in the room and claim to always play the big games and turn everything into how big a baller they are.

We have a regular who comes in once a month who buys in 6 racks at our 4/8 game all while flashing a wad of bills every chance he gets (usually it's one or two bennys wrapped around 30 smaller bills) he never goes ten minutes without mentioning the big games he plays all the time in Vegas and shows the same photo on his phone of a rack of black chips he won (probably bad beat jackpot or bought) and what usually happens is he goes broke and some point and then bitches that 4/8 is for peasants and that he shouldn't waste his time with the fleas.

I once had a kid in a $1-2 NL game take out a wad of bills about once a minute, count them, and put them back in his pocket. For the entire down, and God only knows how long that went on before and after my down.

One player warned him to be careful, he might wear the paint off 'em.

He's using the racks to keep tally of how much he has bought-in for. He now has a stack of three racks. The top rack is full of chips, to remind him that each rack in his stack represents $100.

Geez, do I have to explaing EVERYTHING to you guys???

(EDIT TO ADD: but only two of those racks have made it into play, hence the two EMPTY racks...so he is $300 out of pocket, but only two racks deep into the game...wow, the more I ponder this, the more I see its brilliance. It's The Imitation Game, come to life! "Heil bloody Hitler!")

Sorry if this is a reply to an older comment, but I was playing $1/$2 at a casino where you can have chips in a rack, but they must be placed with one end of the rack on the felt and one end on the railing, facing into the middle of the table lengthwise. Apparently there was a bad beat at some point that was invalidated because one player at the table had his rack facing the other way, sideways. I refused to believe that but several players and the dealer all confirmed it.

It never happened. Nor did almost any of the other stories that start with "it would invalidate the bad beat if..."

GUY PLAYING CARDS, INDOORS, WHILE WEARING A WINTER COAT LIKE WE WERE WORKING AN OFFSHORE OIL RIG IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC: Gee, it's warm in here!

"You see, the key to getting thrown out is convincing everyone that you're a danger to yourself and others," he said while standing up from his chair. Tossing caution to the wind, he then proceeded to mock trip over a nearby table and careened onto the floor, flailing about like a trout that had mistakenly jumped into a canoe.


And how was your day at work?

A guy gives me a stack of pink as a tip (20 $2 chips) and says "You must get tipped well here, here you go". I said "wow thanks really, that's the biggest tip I've gotten to be honest, thank you so much." And he goes "well then here, have some more."

Needless to say I had a good day at work.

Old story:

SINATRA: What's the biggest tip you ever got?

BARTENDER: $200.

(tips bartender $300, starts to leave)

SINATRA: BTW, who was the big shot that tipped you $200?

BARTENDER: It was you, sir. Last week.

I never have to tell people to leave in my new line of work (well it isn't that new anymore).

5 handed, final table, dealing small tourney, I give a guy a high hand. str8 flush to the jack, spades. It holds. It's half of the cash game $500 high hand since it's a tourney; so, it's $250. It's a $25 bounty tourney, so every KO gets you a $25 chip.

I am hitting this guy over and over. He is making the worst calls and I am rewarding him. Finally, I deal the str8 slush. I yell, high hand. As I'm pushing him the pot another player says, "Make sure you take care of the dealer". The guy i give the high hand to is old, kind of senile. He keeps either acting like he doesn't hear the guy or truly can't hear the guy. Repeating "what?" and "huh" over and over and leaning in and if trying to hear. Anyway, the whole table kind of gets involved and a tipping conversation happens. Everyone except the guy I gave the high hand to is talking about how "You, better take care of the dealer..." "Right thing to do..." all the good stuff . I will say the guy i gave the high hand to was in seat 3. everyone else was in seat 5 - 10. They kinda were all sending bad vibes his way. They wouldn't chop because he was in it. seat 10 wanted to felt him so bad at the idea he wasn't gonna tip me.

Push ends. I do my usual "good luck high hand" speech and gesture and thumbs up and "you da man" finger points. Of course i over exaggerated it a bit this time. The table was like "good luck with that" and laughed. i go on break

An hour later they do decide to chop. Seat 10 chopped for most. I am standing behind the podium where the get cash out vouchers to take to the cashier and seat ten walks up to me hands me a green chip ($25) and declares in front of the guy i gave the high hand to and kind of the remaining players that chopped, " This is for the high hand, I think it's the right thing to do." I slowly grab for it and say thank you. The guy I gave the high hand to starts fumbling and bumbling with whatever he is holding, reaches in his pocket saying, " oh i was gonna take care of you" and he hands me a green chip. I offer to give seat ten his green chip back. he tells me to keep it. a couple minutes late a lady that chopped with them was getting her voucher and gave me a green chip as well. She said, "for the high hand" and gave me that sorry he didn't tip look. She must not have seen the two guys before. This time I just said thank you very much and put it in my box.

so yea, 75 off of a unique 250 brool story co