1/3 NLHE deep.

I am BB. 3 or 4 limps. Action is on SB. SB has been slowing game down but just a little. SB has also been active from all positions. SB is distracted, stacking chips.

Now the question…action still on SB who is now considering what to do. Dealer proceeds to pull in all the limps and BB.

How bad is this? When I say ‘Hey has hasn’t acted’ dealer is like it’s fine NBD.

Really tilted me for bit. Dealer is on my will not tip list for awhile. Don’t know how long.

Pulling in bets is not a recommended procedure unless the current player asks for it. Hopefully someday even that is eliminated.

If I'm reading OP right, SB hasn't called the BB (or raised) so it's even worse than normal.

Seems pretty bad and I'm guessing wouldn't be the only thing I see from the dealer during their down that is technically terrible/tilting.

As noted, SB has not called, folded or raised. Action has not even reached BB yet. The only chips not in the middle is the single white chip of the SB. Even the BB has been pulled in. No one requested anything be pulled in. I am actually surprised no one had put out any red chips so change wasn’t needed.

To Rawlz, yes this particular deal USED to be quite good. He has though developed multiple bad habits. He definitely likes to pull in bets wo requested and other shortcuts he thinks speeds up the game.

Very bad. Dealer inducing confusion, especially snatching that BB before he acted.

This dealer is bad. There is absolutely no reason to bring in the bets. In fact, it is outright wrong. The small blind hasn't put in enough to even bring in all of the bets.

Talk to the poker room management. They need to train/wake him up.

It is extremely unfortunate, but it seems that there has been a push within the dealer community to deal more hands per hour. While this is generally a good thing, the unfortunate part is that it has driven some dealers to do some dumb things in the name of efficiency. It has also caught on among inexperienced dealers who just do not know any better.

Yeah, that's frustrating. Assuming SB calls, if I were BB I might raise to $12 with 2 red chips out of spite and make dealer either put back all limps or kick a dollar back to all callers.

She did it because she's tilted that he's been acting slow, so she's just getting even with him.
Obviously it's terrible, and if I was in the BB telling her he's yet to act and she said it's ok, I would of asked him myself "Are you calling", "Did you call", etc. and if she has a problem with it I'd be more than happy to discuss the situation after she calls over a supervisor, but that's just me.

The best way to be petty is to say "raise to $15" and throw out 3 reds, then when everybody calls and they bring a flop, you ask where your change is.

If I had a hand better than 10-5os, I planned to. Instead, I just won’t tip him for awhile.

Might be why he (yes he) did it. Unfortunately calling the floor will do no good. ALL the floors are dual rate. I have literally never knowingly seen the poker mgr. so you call the floor who this dealer might be over the next night.

This is imo one of the biggest problems in this room. The dealers have no boss supervision. As I stated, earlier, this particular dealer used to be pretty good. He seems to have become jaded, burned out or lazy. With no one to correct him it just gets worse.

Would love to take my biz elsewhere but I expect this to be the only room in town soon. Already the dominant room. The last one competing has major handicaps and is unlikely to survive imo.

When this happens (and it is rare) the dealer will typically put back all of the limps (or bets depending on the street) when they are told what is going on.

This situation is slightly different because everyone with cards aside from the SB has exactly the $3 out there so it will only matter if SB raises or if you raise in the BB. If SB calls I would assume the bet would be brought in by the dealer in this case. If the SB or BB raise here it will be easy for the dealer to leave the raised amount out there which would have to be called (though it would be funny if the dealer failed to remove $3 from the SB's raise).

Having said all of that I would be disturbed if the Dealer didn't put the original $3 out there for each person. What I hate the most about dealers is when they make mistakes and don't own up to them and attempt to rectify them. The reason I care is that it makes it look like you have already checked back the BB. I wouldn't trust the dealer to wait for my action as the BB without having my BB in front of me.

I get why you don't want to tip this dealer but aside from this hand I probably would let it go.

Normally if I were in this situation and the dealer didn't put the bets back out there I would think about calling the Floor over and explain what is happening and why it is important for all amounts to be out there, specifically mine in the BB because I hadn't acted yet. But because of your description of the dealers also being Floors I would probably not want to escalate things with this dealer.

Not only was there no owning up to the mistake. He did not see it as a mistake. Basically insisted all was fine.

This is what tilted me the most. When I spoke up he was literally saying no problem.

If he had done this in error nbd we all error but thinking it was fine and normal I don’t forgive so easily.

This is literally what gets me angry at dealers. When they make a mistake and then pretend they didn't or lie about what happened.

In this exact spot I always call the Floor over. Because it is unacceptable for me to have a dealer who will do the same thing over and over and not acknowledge that they are at fault.

So even though he will be a Floor and hate me I wouldn't care.

I do give the Dealer the option of owning their mistake before I call the Floor over and they never do. Even though they could avoid the whole situation.

In fairness to Dealers this does not happen often. Maybe 3 or 4 times in 18 years.

And yes, I would also not tip this dealer moving forward until they apologize and let me know they will correct their behavior (which is never).

never dealt, but i don't understand why this is a big deal - we know what everyone put in, if sb or bb raise it's a pretty straightforward process either way

Loss of easily seen information. I was maybe evaluating it from my tournament experience, with continually varying blinds, which would make this even worse. I would though take my time, maybe ask some clarifying questions etc, no time saved.

not only can it be confusing but it can also influence action, at least that was the logic behind it being out of procedure in the room I dealt in. we weren’t even supposed to say how much more to call unless asked, we were just supposed to announce the total raise.

I think it can also make it more confusing for the players at times so I don’t even consider it much of a time saver. also for me, I think dealers should try to limit repetitive reaching motions as much as possible, so having to do in two motions what could have been accomplished in one does add up over time.

This is key.

When I am raising as a SB or BB it matters how many players are in the hand pre-flop, or post flop how many players called the original bet. With limpers pre-flop my raise size from a blind will typically be 4.5x + (number of players who limped)x

In this case the only way to know that is to look at who has cards. Some cards may be hidden. Depending on the seat you are in you may not be able to see the cards (like if you are in seat 1 or seat 10 next to the dealer) especially if the dealer is leaning forward.

Recently I was in Seat 1 and didn't see that Seat 8 still had cards because in collecting the cards from seat 9 on the other side of the dealer, who had folded out of turn, the dealer blocked my view of Seat 8 and I assumed Seat 8 didn't have cards because seat 9 had folded, seat 8 had no chips on the table in front of him, and I made a raise (3-bet jam) and it got me knocked out of the tournament because seat 8 had KK and just called the original raise (I did have AJo so I had a 30% shot at surviving)...

UPDATE to show the attitude…

Same dealer tap in, loose, active game. I am not put of this hand so not positive on exact details. Btn straddle, I believe SB raises to like $25 few calls (I fold), btn makes it $75. Dealer, with no one asking pulls in the $25s. Worth noting btn has been frequently raising his btn straddle AND no other dealer has been pulling in all night.

While pulling in here is not as bad, the btn makes a comment about it and ask why dealer did it. Everyone folds, which is unusual in this game, but the discussion between btn and dealer continues. Dealer is insisting pulling in bets is standard everywhere.

Btn says none of the cardrooms he plays in do that. Dealer, condescending, says well those are cardrooms, you are in a real casino now. I am shaking my head like yes you are correct to btn. I am in 10 seat, btn is in 3 so dealer can’t see me (more bad procedure as he is completely distracted from the current hand and action) as he is focused on S3.

S3 says, you never see that in the WSOP plus “he”, as S3 gestures toward me, knows it is against the rules. Dealer: who says against rules where S3 says S10. Dealer looks at me and says oh that’s because XXXX (uses my name) and you use tournament rules. I also mention no other dealer has done this tonight, which he says is because they are all wrong/bad.

This is hilarious because dealer absolutely knows I play exclusively cash (my last tournament was a free roll about/over 15 yrs ago) and he knows the default rules I have referred to previously are RRoP. I respond, no, it is not against the rules, but it is a not normal or is a less common procedure for cash or tournaments.

Dealer continues with some mildly smart@ss comments, S3insists he is correct, I just shake my head and chuckle while continuing not tipping him. This was really hilarious when he has to push me a $1000+ pot a couple hands later.

But dealer is so dug in now it is laughable. If I get the chance and somehow he doesn’t pull in, I might sit there until he says it is on me. Then I go, I am waiting for you to pull in prior bet/calls.

This is a 'top' No-No for a Dealer IMO .. and I will let them know immediately most of the time.

While reducing the visual of 'who has cards' it also provides a visual sort of Pot Odds. I just tell the Dealer to do less work .. if there's a raise then they have to pull in more bets.

Yes, if the 'action' Player requests them pulled in then that's a different story. GL


PS .. I guess as an expansion on this topic. How many Dealers put out the next street before pulling in the bets?

Let me use my KITN (kicks in the nuts) scale for this.

SB: 2 KITN for slowing the game down.
Dealer: A maximum 5 KITN.

Although I am not a fan of the way the described dealer runs the game, one thing to remember is tournament rules do not have standing in cash games. Hence why they are called tournament rules.

Many inexperienced players fail to understand that.

Unfortunately, many rooms now use TDA rules even for their cash games.

No one involved was new. But it really is not even a rules question. It is a dealer procedure. As noted, I am a cash game player anyway. Pretty sure you won’t find a room where this is a documented procedure for cash or tournaments. It is a shortcut that this and other dealers think saves time. It might save time until it doesn’t. I really doubt with the questions and issues it causes if it really saves time.

Ah! No!!! I can't use my esoteric knowledge of hyper-local rules to angle my opponents.