I lol'ed.

I have no idea what’s average, but I know that the WSOP hires dealers after completing an 80 hour course at one of the gazillion dealing schools around.

But my point was that job security is highly correlated with cost of replacement and in that regards, a casino dealer is significantly closer to a McDonalds cashier in the casino food court than a VP of said casino.

You can certainly determine if someone is bad at their job based on a single instance. In this particular case, the dealer broke with protocol several times, and exercised poor judgement on top of that, in ways that are evident to anyone that affected the fundamental fairness of the game.

To be a good dealer, you have to handle fluid situations gracefully and with good judgement. Strict procedures are put in place to protect the game, the players, and the house\dealer. In the event that a hand goes sideways, a dealer must show good judgement and calm demeanor. This dealer failed on every account.

I don't know if the dealer should be fired, but she should definitely be reprimanded and retrained.

So if a secretary makes a typographical error he is bad at his job. If my receptionist disconnects a phone call he is bad at his job. If the right fielder for your favorite baseball team misses the cutoff man he is bad at his job? Is there anyone who isn't bad at their job by this standard. We all make mistakes. At some point we all deviate from what we should have done. It's okay to be upset about a mistake. And you can reprimand people for a mistake.... But if you want to know if someone is good or bad at their job ..... I think you need a bigger sample size than one incident.

You are making the assumption that all mistakes are created equally. A better example would be if your secretary had been trained to send important documents via certified mail, but instead sent one by normal mail, then lied about it when the document did not arrive.

The dealer did not make a simple mistake of oversight or omission. She broke with established procedure twice, then compounded the error by physically overcoming a player who was, rightfully, protecting their hand. this is not equivalent to a simple turn and burn or flipped card (which would be more in line with a typo or a fielder error).

It sounds like you are saying that no one should ever be fired for a single incident. I can think of plenty of times a person should be fired on the spot. Not saying that this is one of them (because i don't know the casino, their policies, or the dealer involved), but it certainly isn't outrageous to think that a dealer that, through her inability to follow correct procedure and poor judgement, probably cost the casino a player or multiple players, should be fired.

I did not say no one should ever be fired over a single incident. I said we should not judge whether they are good at their job or not over a single incident. Sometimes you might have to fire someone who is good at their job.

I took your question to have been asked in good faith.

I wouldn't fire her. I'd definitely give her a performance write-up, and give her re-training on what she messed up on because employees sometimes miss things in training through inattention, absence, etc. If it happened again, definite termination.

I agree that this is a reasonable statement but not at all what you implied by your question earlier in the thread.

The dealer mishandled this situation to a degree that termination should be considered. And there are two reasons, (a) on an absolute scale this is a pretty serious offense, and (b) from a customer service standpoint you may need a visible sign of reprimand.

In relation to your analogies, in general, no, I wouldn't fire an administrative assistant for a typographical error. But if I worked for the UN and my admin sent a document out to the President of Niger with the country misspelled, that may be a bad enough typo - or there may be so much political pressure to fire someone - that I might have to fire even an otherwise excellent admin.

Absolutely you can tell if someone is good at their job or not from a single incident. It is all based on the nature of the mistake. This wasn't an oversight or muscle memory. She acted in a way inconsistent with correct process twice, and then escalated the issue by physically killing a hand being protected by a player. This wasn't a matter of forgetting to pull in the rake, or accidentally killing an unprotected live hand. Those are things that can be done when a dealer is in autopilot. She chose to act incorrectly, twice, then chose to disregard a player protecting their hand and not call the floor.

If you look at the sequence of events, they reflect a decision making process that fully supports the claim that this person is bad at their job.

How many DUI's would it take for you to say an Uber driver is bad at his job? How many times would you allow a surgeon to remove the wrong kidney before saying he was bad at his job?

Two paragraphs, both absurd. I can forgive you for not knowing that the WSOP is the Gold Standard for Worst Dealers in the History of Poker. There have been stories posted on 2+2 of WSOP literally putting busboys and janitors in the box to meet demand.

But the second paragraph is far worse. There are more doctors in the world than Casino VP's, too, so I guess they're equally comparable to McD's cashiers.



Wow. I'm sad. I lost a lot of respect for you, because of this post. Really, it was there, and now a huge chunk of it is gone.

By your standards, you should be fired from 2+2.

I don't see where he said anything about the number of dealers/cashiers/VPs being relevant to anything. You may have misread what he said.

Yeah I hope that is an unintentional misreading because holy ****. ytf you don’t need to do this every thread.

That was how I took it. I could be wrong.

He referred to cost of replacement. Cost of replacement is highly correlated to supply of replacement ..... Law of supply and demand ..... So that may be the connection YTF was making ... It's not a perfect fit but it does relate

In that case YTF is making the argument that doctors are cheap to replace because there are so many of them, which is also not a very strong argument. So I hope not.

I was hoping he just misread things, but he doubled down with his most recent post while refusing to elaborate, so I honestly don't know what he meant, but I'm pretty sure I don't agree with it.

He was saying they are cheaper than casino executives .... Which is only partly true. Some doctors are easier to replace than some casino executives but both fields are actually to broad to make a useful comparison

What happens in this spot if the player 'gets physical' with the dealer in order to protect his hand?

It depends how physical, but I would not expect the player to be immune from being banned even if he is factually correct.

That depends... How big a boy are ya?

I just took exception to the notion that poker dealers are low-skilled, dime-a-dozen employees that can be trained up in a few days. I don't see the doctor comparison as any more ridiculous than the fast food comparison.

But everyone says I'm wrong (not a unique thing), so I'll shut up.

A WSOP player once used a stack of chips to club the hand of a dealer who was reaching for his cards, or to count his stack, or something that a dealer shouldn't do.

I'm pretty sure the dealer got a broken hand, and the player got a free ride downtown, and a free stay in LV's "municipal accomodations".

Did I mention this was a poorly-trained WSOP dealer?

Tangent story:

I was dealing a high-stakes PLO game once. Out-of-town player in a hand vs local OMC. Out of towner points to OMC's stack, and asks me, "How much has he got, dealer?"

OMC picked up a stack of chips in his fist, held it one foot above the table.

"What are you doing?", his friend asked, knowing the answer, but offering this joke's set-up.

"I'm gonna break that dealer's hand if he tries to touch my money!", he blurted angrily.

I just laughed, and pointed out, "I never even *reached* for it!" Out of Towner tried to protest, and didn't like it when told the rules.

BTW, this was years before he WSOP incident. Must be an old-school thing?

What was this thread about? Oh yea ...

Unfortunate spot for Seat 1 and as a Floor here I think we definitely take exception to the 'two cards to win' rule and allow this Player another 30 seconds to act. (Obviously provided that room/tournament standards weren't fulfilled overall.) It would've been a real shame if the other player had shown his hand during all of this as well.

How soon after the incident did the Dealer 'admit' and be embarrassed? Cuz if it was during the next hand or while the Floor was standing there then I have a hard time containing myself as a Floor or Player. For an employee to 'knowingly' violate such an easy spot when it comes up seems to be a cause for whatever the employer deems to be the next step, which may include dismissal.

We've been through this Dealer/Cashier thing before ... All jobs come down to training and experience. Some folks just can't remember their training even after getting lots of experience. Dealers certainly have both physical and mental demands on them that look low level or 'easy' but come with much higher expectations than any cashier would ever face IMO.

For a while I had to show most McDonald's cashiers how to ring up my wife's special meal using their 'back' menus that most didn't know even existed. Never have issues at Burger King ... Does that make BK cashiers that much better (higher skilled) or do we need to look at the training programs of the employer? GL

Many years ago a player at the Sahara broke the dealer's hand with a stack of chips. The dealer had to be replaced; the player was not asked to leave.

It depends on what kind of dealer they are are. If they are at Foxwoods (note: I haven't seen a Foxwoods dealer since 2000, maybe they are better now), at the WSOP, or some out of the way casino they can be easily replaced. I have seen and retrained dual rates that didn't even know how to cut. If you are talking about good dealers that you would want to work in your room; they are not easily replaced.

As far as a comparison to doctors; I have known both doctor and lawyers leave their profession to become poker dealers. They tended to be good dealers.