My question pertains to verbal altercations only. Rudeness, swearing, etc. In every case I've seen the floor comes over and tells both parties to chill as if both are equally at fault. In many cases one of the parties is clearly at fault and the other is innocent, called the floor and is complaining about verbal abuse. Yet, both are lectured like little children and told to chill out or else.

Is this a social trick to appear neutral to gain more compliance from the guilty party?

It's because the bold is almost never the case. When I get called over to this, I rely on the dealer to give me the information and most of the time both parties are at fault. Usually it does get started by one of them, but I like to tell them that I don't care who started it and I don't care who is being the bigger jerk. If they can't act like adults, then I'll hand out empty racks.

Players get lectured like they are children when they decide to act like children.

Maybe they want to rake both players and don't give a damn about verbal nonsense.

It is often the case.

Who often barely speaks English (would likely fail any ESL test) and is spacing out half the time? LOL.

Why not? Shouldn't the person who starts being verbally abusive be punished? How is punishing the victim as well just? Sounds like you just go the easier route. This is like putting both the attacker and the victim in prison after a physical fight if the victim fights back in self-defense. It matters a whole lot who attacks first in physical altercations. Why doesn't it matter to you?

They certainly do want to keep raking as many players as possible. Valid point. But try cussing out the floor. See how that works out. But if you're a player - meh, you're both little children, you're both at fault and you need to ****ing chill out. So a floor's human dignity is worth more than a player's? Profit doesn't make things right that are morally wrong.

Based on this post, I don't think you are as often the innocent victim of random abusive language as you think you are

Hey Olaff, chill out.

Nice try at ad hominem and assuming what I think. The post is not even about me. It's about how the floor deals with verbal altercations at the table. Regardless of whether I'm involved or not.

Not in my experience and I’d be willing to bet most people with a decent amount of flooring experience would agree.



You’re exaggerating by quite a bit. Who do you expect I listen to? The players involved who will never admit fault and just point fingers?



A physical fight and a verbal confrontation really isn’t a fair comparison. If somebody punches you, I understand why you would fight back or defend yourself. You may feel it’s necessary for several reasons including your own safety. If a player tells you “Nice river you ****ing idiot. Only a ****** would play a hand like that”, there’s no real reason you need to retaliate.

OK, OK, you seem reasonable. Yes, asking the dealer makes a whole lot of sense and is of course the best person to ask and I was exaggerating the quality of their "info" (but not by much!

Now, let me tell you that I've seen situations where player A says: “Nice river you ****ing idiot. Only a ****** would play a hand like that”, player B says NOTHING back, calls the floor and complains and... the floor does the "you guys better chillout" bull**** routine like they're both at fault. I've seen similar one-sided scenarios and the subsequent floor "handling" of the issue in this manner many times. One party is clearly in violation of the room rules. There are usually rules against verbal abuse, cussing, berating play, etc and the other is clearly the victim. Yet, the floor treats the perp and the victim as equally at fault. How is this fair or moral?

Floor staff, just like the management in any public establishment, have a duty to efficiently run a safe establishment. In the heat of a dispute, there just isn’t enough time for a floor to come over and conduct a little episode of the people’s court or judge Judy and hear from everyone to figure out who is at fault. That’s not the priority. A safe efficient operation is.

Agreed. Let's take a bar or a club. Let's say some drunk dbag tries to start ****. Usually... he will get thrown out. The bouncers/mgmt will not tell both parties to chill and act like they're both at fault. This is not rocket science and no Supreme Court level litigation is needed to determine fault.

No, it's a management strategy. Spending time getting a "Well, then what did he say?" recap from the dealer or other players for the sole purpose of turning to one of the involved players and saying, "I want you to stop it." isn't really a good use of everybody's time.

Actually, that's generally what happens, at least as I remember it from my younger days. If the bouncer doesn't witness the altercation and comes across two patrons fighting, they both get thrown out or told to cool it. The bouncer doesn't hold a little trial to make sure that justice is correctly meted and only the initiator is warned.

You are right, that is bull****.

But when one guy starts something, and it becomes a shouting match, they both are now at fault.

Typically when the incident happens the dealer has been there for at most 30 minutes and has been trying to tune out anything but what is happening with the game. We don't know if you have been going at it for the last 10 hours or if it was truly out of the blue. Floors know this so they aren't going to expect us to be fully informed judges. Sometimes we feel like we do have enough to go on but it's hard to get them out of this mode so about all we can do is hope things settle down and go talk to the floor after our down.

so they **** the victim and let the perp get away with it because for various reasons it makes business sense. got it.

note that player b says nothing back in my example so there is no shouting match. and yes, i've seen this many times.

Actually this IS the way it is a lot of the time. Floors just want to end disruption in the easiest and quickest way possible , cause THAT is really their job. Now you and others may not like it. It certainly is not always fair. BUT it is not going to change and there is nothing you can do but eat it or rack up.

This is true, to some extent, but I don't think it's always as bad as this.
Yes, floors will usually first warn both players. It's quick, easy, and impartial, and usually both players do have some responsibility (even if not equal). This often doesn't feel right to the less-guilty party, but it usually works (in the sense of quelling the argument, even if the victim is left unsatisfied).
But, IME, if the situation then recurs, good floors in well-run rooms will often make a serious effort to learn what was really happening, and fairly often will eject the instigator, but not the victim. This is especially true if one player has previously established a pattern of offensive behavior.

Just because Player B hasn't said anything yet, doesn't mean he isn't thinking about doing something later.

Actually, when it comes to bars and clubs, it doesn't quite work that way. I worked in that field for over 20 years. With well-run bars and clubs, the staff will typically eject ALL parties involved in a serious confrontation (physical or verbal). Both parties will typically be ejected at separate times via separate exits to prevent fights outside. This is another situation where staff doesn't have time to conduct a little episode of Judge Judy and figure out who is really at fault and who is innocent. Their priority is to diffuse the confrontation. Failure to follow this procedure could get a club in trouble with regulators and expose them to liability. Imagine what might happen if staff let a patron they assumed was innocent remain on the premises, and he later punched someone. They are looking at lawsuits and suspensions. So the safest thing to do is remove all parties. If they think one party is less to blame, they may tell them they are welcome back, just not tonight.

The exception would be if staff was 100% sure who was to blame. Anyway, I fully understand why poker room management's priority is to defuse these confrontations.

Not an ad hominem attack at all, and your follow up post proves my point.

My point is that people have a bias towards seeing their point of view, and not recognizing how much they contribute to confrontations and escalations. In several of your posts, you have been offensive or confrontational without likely meaning to be so. This suggests that when you perceive yourself, or the party you are sympathetic to, to be innocent victims, often those victims are contributing to the escalation, and you may not perceive it.

For example, when a floor person tells you that they have to rely on the dealer, you immediately make a broad and unsubstantiated attack on dealers to dismiss their statement. Hard to take you seriously as an innocent victim when your first response to a serious answer is to insult and dismiss.

We all suffer from confirmation bias. We believe that a situation is a certain way, see only the facts that support that, and get frustrated when neutral observers do not share our view. I have seen floors on multiple occasions pull aside an offender. I have also seen floors issue the table wide 'chill it' directive when it is obvious that no matter who 'started it', the whole table is getting chippy. My guess is that the cases you are talking about fall more into the latter than the former, but you have a subjective recollection of the events.

When I have to deal with this kind of thing, I would say ~99% of the time it is two guys arguing with each other. 1% of the time it is as you say here...

In this scenario, I will ask the dealer for confirmation as to what Player B is saying to be true and I will only talk to player A about his behavior.

Every other time (the other 99%) I am simply not going to play Judge/Jury and figure out who started it because I don't give a **** who started it. You both are arguing and causing a disturbance in my room and I am going to ask you both to do whatever it takes to make it stop or go find somewhere else to argue. A grown man can let it go when it's time to adult. A child cannot. I will usually always hang around the area for a minute or two to see who keeps going. That person will get a final warning and if they can't STFU they are asked to leave. I don't play around when ppl want to get argumentative. You either stop or leave. I have dozens of other guests around you that I want to feel comfortable and losing you for the day won't bother me a bit.

Curious why it is that you see this so often? Either you are involved more often than not or you play in a place with a lot of really angry ppl.
Exhibit A:

Prediction: OP has 0 or 1 kids and is not a teacher.

The blunt truth is that the floor doesn't give a ****. People in general are obsessed with factual guilt, but anyone who has had to take care of 2 or more kids at a time has had to listen to a boring ass, wildly inaccurate, blow by blow story about who did what when. The floor's - and anyone's, really - desire to figure out exactly what happened is inversely proportional to the projected amount of time it will take to resolve the situation.

The blunt truth is that very few people are willing to unload on people without feeling provoked. Those "nice hand"s that you throw out when someone sucks out on you? Not as sincere as you think you sound. Just because they called a 2.3:1 bet with 2.7:1 odds doesn't mean they can't hear you whisper to your friend about all the chodes at the table. Most of the time, "I didn't do anything wrong" is better translated by, "I can't think of a specific thing that I did immediately prior to when I think this fight started."

The blunt truth is that the "ad hominem" attack you condemned earlier is spot on. You obviously think you're less confrontational than you are, and you seem to express surprise at a super common attitude among those who have to babysit. Even if you don't agree with the way they do things, the mere fact that you're surprised by it and show anwhole lot of anger towards it is indicative.

It's poker ... it depends ... But if there's one thing in poker that is pretty much universal it's that 'everyone' gets a warning. The Floor should consider who called them over and always consult with the Dealer as deemed needed. If a player has called the Floor over I don't want to put the Dealer on the spot if enough information is out there from the 'combatants'.

This is a weak phrase, but I think most Floors are going to do a generic 'fly by' in hopes that the table will settle down and get back to playing. I try to avoid the singular pronouns in these spots at least initially and explain the rules with 'we' as much as possible ... "We don't talk like that in this room." If the one of the players is a reg, then I might try to lighten up the mood with a humorous jab like ... "Did you call him down with Jack-high again?"

Certainly if the offense warrants more immediate attention or pops up again fairly quickly then a Floor must step in and control the game/players. GL