So i'm in a £1/2 game at my local casino and the dealer can only really be described as a bit of a dick. First incident is where i ask to rabbit-hunt a river. There is a straight and royal flush jackpot and i stupidly bet turn with an open-ended straight/royal draw and my opponent folded. I asked if i could see the river and the dealer said no. I asked the table if anyone would mind and he barked "yeah cos you know best" and mucked the cards. Ok, then!

Next thing was that we had three young Chinese kids in the game. They were friends and were obviously all pretty new to poker. In that wonderful Chinese way they just loved to gamble and seemed quite happy to keep re-loading when they had to. English wasn't their first language and so they were chatting in Mandarin. The dealer said to them pretty sternly that english must be spoken at all times. A couple of times inbetween hands they quietly spoke to each other and the dealer shouted at them and said if they did it again he was going to kick them all out the game. Now these kids were great for the game so i said that i didn't think anyone else at the table minded them chatting as long as it wasn't during a hand. The dealer again said something about us not getting to make the rules and sure enough the kids left pretty soon afterwards, to the disappointment of the whole table (especially the guy who'd tried to bluff a 4-flush board shortly before and been called by one of them with second pair, no flush ).

Now I thought if it's a cash game and all players agreed that you could kind of make your own rules. Stuff like running it twice etc, or the examples above. Is this the case, or can the casino refuse anything they want to?

You are apparently confused between a casino game and a house game. In yyour house game you can make the rules.

In a casino game the casino (and the regulator) make the rules.

Yeah, I obviously don't mean making deuces wild or anything like that but things like running it twice in big pots, rabbit hunting rivers, where all players agree?

Generally speaking, the higher the stakes the more the players run the game. If you are playing $1-2, the dealer generally will not let the payers bend the "house rules". This means the dealer will enforce all petty rules like borderline string bets etc. even if the infraction has not been called out by another player. This is necessary because generally the players in smaller games like $1-2 are not very experienced players and the constant "rule breaking" will result in arguments and a chaotic environment.

Conversely if you are playing in a $5-10 game the game will likely have several pros and overall experienced players who understand whats acceptable or not from an ettiquite standpoint. If a player who plays 35 hours per week at $5-10 in a certain casino occasionally grabs the deck to rabbit hunt the dealer generally wont say anything. If there is a string bet and no one in the hand says anything the dealer wont say anything. If people are chatting in Mandarin and no one complains the dealer will ignore it until a player complains. Generally speaking a $1-2 table NEEDS the dealer to be an authority figure. Higher stakes games dont need that and dont want it. They just simply want the dealer to deal the cards.

With regards to running it twice casinos generally have rules for specific games on how many times you can run it and thy wont deviate from that.

Larry

I know what you mean.

There are key differences between your home game and a casino game.

1. Things like running it twice delay the game and therefore the rake... Thus the casino has an interest in not allowing it even if you all want it. That doesn't mean they can't allow it .... (though in some jurisdictions they can't because of laws and regulations that dictate how the game is played). In your home game you do not share this concern.

2. The casino is concerned about protecting players and making sure the reputation of the casino is that of an honest game (as well as not endangering their gaming license). So when players "all agree" to change the rules of the game the casino still has to keep rules in place to protect the players even if the players don;t understand how those rules protect them....

i.e. No foreign language. It may be true that those three Chinese guys are good for the game .... and it may even be true that they did not come with the intention of working together to cheat. However it is true that they are just like the guys who speak English .... prone to say things that they aren't allowed to say ..... and if they a re doing it in a language the dealer doesn't speak .... then the dealer can't address it...... And even if the dealer speaks the language the fact that the rest of the table doesn't means the other players in the game have no idea if the dealer is keeping the game honest.

That’s not happening in a 1/2 game. If you bring 9 friends and tell the casino to open a table for you to play 10/20, there’s a chance they let you get away with more stuff.

But things like rabbit hunting are for home games and the English only rule is there to protect other players and the house.

As for running it twice, the casino will let you do that in time games but not raked games where they have an interest in getting in more hands. Some places allow it in raked games but charge an extra buck for it.

Agree with everyone else. The things you're asking for are generally not possible in a casino environment, even if "everyone agrees". And usually everyone doesn't, even if some aren't vocal about it (mostly because they know they don't have to be, because the casino won't allow it anyway).

Having said that, this dealer was a dick about it, according to what you've told us anyway. Sometimes a dealer has to be firm, certainly, but this one sounded mean. That is not what you want in your game even as an experienced player, let alone one with newbies who he can (and in this case, might have) drive away from poker forever. You might consider having a word with the floor about it away from the table.

Of course, having said THAT... 9 times out of 10, the top 3 meanest, most annoying people at a poker table with a mean dealer are still 3 players. Glass houses and all that.

The Dealer was probably rude to you because you kept asking him to bend the rules and taking an attitude, like "What's the big deal?" when he wouldn't.

In a casino, players should have zero say in the way the game is run. Believe it or don't, most of the rules have been developed for a reason, and it's really bad if the Staff start to enforce rules selectively or apply them inconsistently. The next thing you know you have a reg-infested holler-house full of angle-shooters and deadbeats, where the chances of a new player getting a fair game are between slim and none.

That may sound a little bombastic to you, but believe me, it's not. I live in Vancouver Canada, where for a little while there was an exciting, thriving poker scene. But now, the previous paragraph is a pretty apt description of the local poker rooms. It wasn't so long ago that there were a hundred tables running in the local casinos day and night. How many tables are running right now, all over town? Twenty? Less?

A room where the staff tends to favor the regs, sometimes to an absurd degree, and is comfortable bending the rules when the regs want them to, is on the road to hell. And a big part of why the Poker scene around here has dwindled and shrunk and dwindled some more is because that's the way the rooms here are run.

Anyway, Rabbit-hunting wastes time, has no effect on the outcome of the game, can confuse and tilt other players, and is generally disruptive. For these and other reasons, it is against the rules of the house in many venues.

Players speaking to each other in a foregin language wastes time, can confuse and tilt other players, and is generally disruptive. For these and other reasons, it is against the rules of the house in many venues.

Running it twice wastes time, has no effect on your real EV, can confuse and tilt other players, and is generally disruptive. For these and other reasons, it is against the rules of the house in many venues.

It is important that rules be enforced consistently and universally; waiving rules on a selective basis is disastrous in a card-room, because once the habit is established, the regs are sure to abuse it. Within hours, if not minutes, the Floor will be listening to somebody say "They let THOSE guys speak Mandarin, they let so why can't I?"

No.

Yes.

You asked the dealer to rabbit hunt, and he said no. You were then being a bit of a dick by continuing to pursue it by asking the players if they mind, because that makes it seem like the dealer has the authority to waive house rules when players say it's OK and he doesn't. But by asking you set him up to look like the bad guy. And then you did it again about the language rule. Both times you tried to undercut the dealer who was doing his job, making his job more difficult. So while you likely didn't intend to, by your ignorance of how casino rules are enforced, you ended up being the one who was "kind of a dick".

One more thought regarding the 'Can we agree to our own rules' idea. The people playing a the table are not static, they come and go. New players coming expect house rules, and react badly when informed that there are special rules that they have to abide that they never agreed to. Usually this is more around things like an agreed 'mandatory straddle'.

It also creates an atmosphere very hostile to new players when a bunch of regs try to gang up on a new player and say 'that's just how we do things here'.

I play at casino's because, among other things, the fairness of the game is better (less likely for collusion or downright cheating), and the dealers and floors are more consistent and better trained. I would not be happy to sit at a table that was making up their own set of house rules.

Also as soon as a player puts forth the proposition that it's up for a vote they are setting the dealer up to be the bad guy. Now it's not just the dealer saying no to one player it's organized resistance to the dealer who now has to tell them all no.

My favorite dealers comment the last time someone was being a dick about asking for a rabbit hunt: "I would, but I like my job too much."

Speaking as a player:

This ...


and very much this.


In 25ish years of playing poker in casinos, I have maybe met two rude dealers. Maybe. I have met uncountably many rude players.

I tell them it's duck season ... Not wabbit season....

Still hoping to get into a 5 minute battle of ....

Wabbit season...

Duck season ....

Wabbit season ....

But mostly I get blank states

FYP

Well played, AT.

Its all fun and games til someone pulls out a muzzleloader.

haha +1

I understand warding off rabbit hunters by telling them it's duck season, but I'm not getting the rest of this.

This plus OP openly and repeatedly attempted to undermine the dealers authority for running the game.

Classic old Looney Tunes cartoon.

And the payoff:

the dealer running off 3 chinese fish is hilariously bad. id be pissed at the dealer for sure. i live in canada and the chinese language never stops. id lmao if a dealer tried to enforce that kinda **** here.

chatting when not in the hand in a foreign language definitely is room dependent. as its a stupid and awful rule. id personally never play at a venue like that, and ive played at a lot of them.