Yes, you were clear it was rarely enforced. But you only said the official room rule was " no show" but didn't mention the penalty. So what we're talking about is that you showed your cards while all in, knowing that the room rule was that the penalty officially was your hand would be killed, but were counting on the dealer and floor not enforcing it, as you had seen it not enforced earlier.

When the dealer declared your hand dead, did you just immediately say FU, or did you say why, you didn't enforce it before, etc. Then did you call the floor to get a ruling? If so, when you told him that it was unfair to hold you to the rule since it was rarely enforced, what did he say? Did he say "tough ****, rules are rules and you're wrong, so it doesn't matter what happened to other people earlier"? Or did the floor even get involved at all?

I'm asking because you seem to be putting all the blame on the dealer and sort of making the floor seem like a good guy sympathetic to your situation. But what "retraining" was supposed to solve your issue? Did you expect the floor to tell the dealer to make sure she doesn't enforce that rule? I actually find it hard to believe that if that was the house rule, that other players wouldn't be jumping up and down demanding a hand be killed every time their opponent showed their cards to someone. It's hard to think everybody just lets that slide. It's too much of a freeroll not to insist it be enforced.

So your beef with this dealer seems to just be that she enforced the rule correctly on you, and you said FU in response. The part about her flirting and entertaining is a non factor. Lots of rec players expect dealers to do more entertaining, and respond by tipping more. While shut up and deal is popular with some serious players, for most refs they want the opposite. And I think you are giving the floor (the guy who actually banned you for a year) a pass. He claims to be unable to fix her deficiencies after three years of retraining. If that's true, he could always fire her. If she is as bad as you say, why is she still there?

Anyway, all that's just me trying to figure out how it actually went down. Because it sounds like the dealer correctly enforced a house rule that you knew was a rule, you said FU, and then got banned. So she didn't actually even make a mistake in this case. She just didn't give you a break, you responded completely inappropriately, and got banned, and now are wondering if you should ever tip this dealer again for her horrible crime. Frankly, it just seems like a bunch of sour grapes after you made a dumb mistake.

But all that aside, a year is a long time, and I would suggest when you return to simply put it behind you and assess the situation anew. A lot can change over a year. I suggest just tipping her or not based on her current performance rather than carry this grudge forever. I've seen players stop tipping really good dealers because sometime in the distant past they made one mistake like a premature turn and burn. Then they lose the hand, and say that if the dealer hadn't made the mistake, they would have won $300. So they say they will not tip the dealer again until they win 300 hands from the dealer to make up for the $300 lost. That just makes people think he is a bitter cheapskate who is screwing a dealer. If you want to be the guy who never tips a dealer because a year ago she correctly enforced a rule in you, that's your call. But I think you would be better off forgetting that. There is enough tension and problems everyday that there is no need to keep old issues alive like that. Just my opinion. Life's way to short to hold grudges, especially when in this case the dealer didn't actually make a mistake. Good luck

Premature burn and turn is totally different
The cards are random

Dealers favoring certain players when making rules can go to hell and don't deserve to be tipped

Actually, at the point of the premature turn and burn, the mistake does cost the player money. Let's say it's QQ v JJ. Betting on flop and turn, but before JJ calls the turn bet, the dealer puts out a 3 on the river. It is withdrawn, JJ calls turn, and then cards are reshuffled and a J is the new river. That dealer error cost the QQ the pot. While the cards are randomly distributed prior to the cards being cut, once the deal starts there is an exact set of cards that will appear on the board unless there is a mistake made that results in a different card appearing on the board.

But the point is that in both cases a player is holding the dealer responsible far into the future for an event that happened a year ago and is not tipping regardless of the current performance of the dealer. Of course those same types of players, should a mistake happen that is in their favor, will never give the dealer the extra money that they won due to the dealer error. Funny how that works.

The OP stated that even though he was aware of this dealers tendency to enforce rules unequally, he still tipped her regularly. So his desire to stop tipping upon his return isn't because of some philosophical objection to that issue in general. Rather he just wants to punish the dealer for enforcing the rule on him on that particular hand a year ago, no matter how that dealer is dealing now. IMO that's just being spiteful.

That's a really results oriented view. It can easily go the other way. It's like when a card gets exposed on the deal. Sometimes you break up someone's Kings, and sometimes you give someone a small pair. It happens and it's random. If you're going to base your tipping off a dealer error but only enforce your punishment if the results go against you, then are you really basing it off dealer error?


hypothetical "you" btw. I know you're not talking about yourself, but your argument is in defense of someone taking that stance.

I actually agree with you about being results oriented. It can go either way, and as I mentioned in my other post I've never seen a player reward a dealer for a mistake that helped them. But I have seen players refuse to tip a dealer for months after a mistake hurt them. But while the result may be positive or negative for any particular hand, a premature turn and burn can result in a player losing a pot, just as a dealer enforcing a dead hand rule will. I was replying to the poster who said that the two situations were totally differnt because the turn and burn gives a random new card. That's true, but it is also true that the dealer mistake directly alters the outcome off the hand. So if that result is that a player loses a hand they would have won without the error, the player blames the dealer the same way as if she killed his hand on a pot he would have won.

I may have read too much into the OP, but basically it hit me like the OP made a mistake showing his hand, responded completely inappropriately, possibly not even calling the floor before giving up his hand, and got banned for it. And now he was looking for sympathy and justification for not tipping the dealer a year later regardless of whatever her current dealing performance is.

This is not an example of racism. Maybe if everything wasn't deemed RACIST when there is actually no racism whatsoever going on, the word would actually mean something nowadays. Being a cheapskate is not a race DUCY?

Do they need to check their privilege too?

Obvious trolling by Archangelo is obvious.

First, never let someone you deem a bad or biased dealer make any decisions whatsoever. Call the floor.

Second, in a special case like this, not only would I not tip, but I would consider pump-faking a tip every single time and then putting the chip back on my stack.



I have a dealer where I play that is a lot like your situation, minus the biased decisions. She just sucks in general, never pays attention, always screws up(sometimes in HUGE spots), couldn't care less and is just generally useless.
Instead of not tipping her and also having to watch her like a hawk the entire time she is there, I just skip her down completely now and take a walk. So much better.

First of all, why did this poster show a hand anyway? Was it out of ignorance of the rule?

I agree on calling the floor. From the above I took it that this is technically a correct application of a rule that's rarely applied fairly. So I wouldn't expect much relief from the floor. Still, a floor call makes them own up to an atrocious rule, so that's worth something.

It's such a terrible rule that I'd feel dirty calling this on someone else. Still, if it's happening to you, you should probably enforce it upon others when you're in the hand. If you're not in the hand.... shrug. Feels scummy but they need to realize it's selectively enforced, so I'd be so so so tempted to be the scumbag there and call the floor.

"Last week that was called on me and ! Let's get a floor ruling and then I'll know the rule going forward so I don't mess it up again. Oh, I'm so sorry your hand got killed but house rules are house rules, you know."


I've never done this but sometimes I'm tempted to take a $1 and whack it twice on a hard surface before throwing it back on my stack, as though I'm a dealer calling attention to the tip I just gave myself.

I rarely stiff in this kind of situation because I figure reduced hands per hour SHOULD (but probably doesn't) give her feedback. However, talking to the floor is much better than quietly stiffing someone.

no one is an honest mistake- and you specified a good dealer.
the other one is the dealer consistantly being bad and favoring certain players it isn't close to the same thing.

and the premature burn and turn is totally random.the dealer is just as likely put out a premature card followed by the jack on the new river as they are to put out a jack prematurely and then a different river. anyone who doesn't understand that will make a bad poker player.

Of course the new card is random. But it's not the card that would have appeared on the board absent the mistake. And it is deemed important enough to keep the original cards in play that the procedure for fixing a premature turn is to burn and put out what would have been the original river before reshuffling the turn card back not the deck. If no one cared about what the original cards were, then they would just reshuffle the cards immediately and not worry about preserving the original river. And anybody who doesn't understand that--- no scratch that, I don't there really is anybody who doesn't understand that the original river card changes when there is a premature turn and burn, despite your attempt to act that you don't.

And the two examples are the same because OP said that he had been tipping this dealer despite her previous actions. It was only because of this particular issue, where she enforced the rule correctly on him, that he decided not to tip her. It won't because of her consistently poor performance.

So what? Unless the dealer is peeking at the second card (another reason the burn helps), no systemic bias is introduced.

Because the rules are written to be as kind as possible to highly superstitious people without destroying the integrity of the game, it's important that we also validate those superstitious people's feelings of being cheated because random stuff happened and a different random card came out than the random card they think they deserved.

Got it.

Besides pandering to the superstitious, the other reason to make the original river into the turn is this: Even if the dealer is somehow peeking at the second card (original turn) and then fouling the action, at least one of the original cards is preserved. Obviously such cheating is still consequential (especially in the era of big-bet poker; in fixed-limit, it's harder if even possible to force someone to fold before their draw comes in), but it does mitigate the impact of the cheating ever so slightly.

But such cheating is almost impossible; in every other case, you have no reason to feel aggrieved any more than you would send the dealer a thank you note if the replacement river card won you a big pot. It's just randomness.

I'll try one more way of explaining the point I am trying to make, and then stop because I really don't know any other way to describe it. I know that the new river card is random, and the player has just as good a chance of winning vs losing based on the new card. But the point in my QQ vs JJ example, is that when the original river is revealed to be a three, that meant there was a 100% chance the QQ was going to win that hand absent a dealer error. It's locked in. There is no more betting, and the card sequence has already been determined.

So when the dealer makes a mistake, and the river card is reshuffled back in, and a new one dealt, there is longer a 100% chance the QQ will win. Absent the mistake, the QQ DOES win. With the mistake , the QQ MIGHT win or might lose. So yes, the dealer mistake absolutely cost the QQ the hand in my example. It doesn't matter that at one point earlier the three ended up on the river by random chance. That chance had already been set once the cards were cut and dealt. So to pretend that there is no change to the chance of the QQ winning because the new river card is random is simply wrong.

No one is talking about long term stuff like whether the new card helping or hurting balances out over the long term. We are talking about that particular hand, where the effect of the mistake is absolutely known. And that is why some players hold that against dealers and stop tipping them. It is about what happened on THAT hand.

Just like with the OP, where he said he had continued to tip the dealer despite her repeated examples of favoritism. But when the dealers selective enforcement finally affected the OP personally, is the point where he decided to stop tipping. It was based on one particular hand, not the overall problem. The OP noticed the problem before, but didn't stop tipping the dealer until it affected him negatively. Just as in my premature T&B example, a player stops tipping a dealer when the mistake affect them negatively on that one particular hand.

Everyone understands what you mean. You're just wrong, sorry. If no one knows which cards are coming, they are still random. There was never a 100% chance of anything, because no one knew what card was there (unless the cards were marked or there was other cheating going on). Saying in hindsight that there was a 100% chance of something is meaningless, because you could apply that to anything. Like the card was always there, but there was always a 100% chance that the dealer would make a mistake, so the QQ was still always going to lose.

My point is op already should have stopped tipping her before this fiasco

But my point still stands-an honest mistake is totally different than a dealer deliberately trying to **** me

It's a bit like going to a strategy forum to argue for results-oriented thinking.

"Well, sure, you say I should raise my set of jacks for value because I'll get many calls from worse, and I agree that's true for many of the other hands he could have, but they don't matter to this hand. He actually had a set of aces. You don't understand! If I raise the second-nuts for value there, I'll just lose more money. WHY DOESN'T ANYONE UNDERSTAND ME?!"

There was also a chance that QQ was going to lose originally and the mistake would help it. It's random, doesn't matter.

Was I unfair or not?

This happened in side games. Maybe once or twice during the series I'll unwind with a couple of drinks after a long session and sit at drinking stakes rather than at the bar.

Semi-cliffs:

-2 guys are super wasted, playing slowly and/or out of turn.

-One of the dealers is moaning, hating life, visibly growing more and more irritated and short with the players as the down wears on (we were getting in like 7 hands a down, which I was padding dealer tokes by $5-$10 at their push, depending on how difficult their down was, due to this).

-I acted reasonably quickly, but I was ****ing with people which was cracking the table up and likely adding to the chaos. I was right next to the dealer in seat 1, fwiw.

-Dunno if I was supposed to be a sympathetic ear or if he felt I was part of the problem, but he turns to me and says, "I ****ing hate drunks" and I didn't quite make out what he said besides the F word, so I asked, "What?" He nastily responds with, "What are you deaf? Do I have to text it to you?" while making an aggressive texting gesture with his hands.

-I just wtf laughed at the dude and before I could say anything, he gets tapped out (I withhold my 'feel bad for you having to deal this table' supplemental toke) and I asked the push what he said and he tells me after I incentivise him (had dude just repeated what he said instead of rage tilting at me, I would have likely given him a brief word of condolence and a $25 parting toke instead).

-A few days later when I'm in my real game, a far different game in every respect, he taps in. There are no drunks in the game, just your average sourpuss, hard-to-please triple draw players. I'm not sure he recognized me.

-He's competent and professional enough, better than average, handles the snowflakes well, but definitely not the holy grail dealer for technical games. He is good enough that under typical circumstances, I'd toke win or lose, though.

-About halfway in, I get dealt a sick pat against two guys who liked their hands a lot more than their hands liked them, and I scooped the high and low for a huge pot.

-I didn't give him anything there or for the down.

**** him, or **** me?

I think I see what the point of confusion is. The posters who say I'm wrong because cards are random and I'm being results oriented I suspect have missed the original comment I made that sets the context for my point. Here it is again:

The topic was about the OP not tipping the dealer in the future for something the dealer did a year ago that killed his hand. I used the premature T&B example of another case where I have seen players stop tipping dealers for months or more because of a mistake that cost them a pot. That's when a poster replied that since cards are random, that example isn't applicable, and then others joined in saying that a premature T&B doesn't cost a player a pot because randomness.

Once again, I pointed out that I was talking about a particular hand, a single event, where the dealer error caused a player to lose a hand he otherwise would have won. Of course that is results oriented. That was the whole point. The player didn't stop tipping the dealer because of the fact that he made a premature T& B in and of itself. He stopped tipping him because that one specific T&B cost a player that particular pot.

I got pushback on the idea that a T&B can ever cost a player the pot, and my position is that of course it can, and does all the time. For one specific hand, where the original river card is known, and that card is changed due to a T&B, the winner of the hand can of course change. And some players stop tipping dealers because of the impact of the mistake on THAT PARTICULAR HAND.

For those of you who don't believe that a premature T&B can cause a player to lose a hand that he would have won had the mistake not occurred, I really don't know what else to say. The next time you go all in with the nut flush on the turn, and player 2 calls with a set, but before player 3 gets a chance to fold, the dealer puts out the river and it doesn't pair the board, are you really going to say that the dealer mistake had nothing to do with you losing the pot when the new river card pairs the board?

Yes.

I had a "dead hand" called on me after I showed my neighbor my cards on the turn (he was all-in.) Same situation a down ago and she doesn't kill the hand on someone else.

Room rule is no showing. VERY rarely enforced.
Not sure why I was selected out as I tipped often in the past to her....though occasionally not after other "mistakes"

Wording made it seem like I only occasionally tipped this dealer when it was intended to mean.... that I occasionally withheld tips, almost always after other mistakes.

The show-hand-to-another Rule is the one that really bothers me with this dealer because her enforcement is a down-to-down crapshoot. And it has another no-logic basis...... If she warns "you can't show" to anyone..... the next infraction will either be another warning or a killed hand. (imho, this is the basis for me claiming dealer has a bias.)

#1 floor and I have had several discussions about this actual bias. He doesn't disagree.

((as an fyi for those thinking why she's still employeed, there is a dealer shortage because it is generally a slow room. On the one busy night per month that they are busy (because of HH bonus and casino perk night) they haul out a retired dealer that really should remain retired......))

And riverine, I'm not claiming to be a saint here. I lost my cool during a losing session. Honestly though....(and I obviously have had time to think about the whole situation), if the events unfurled identically with ANY of the other dealers in this room, I most likely don't have an issue.

While I don't see it your way, rather than just call you wrong or ******ed and declare the matter over, would you mind explaining why you think that way? I don't mean in terms of why one wouldn't blame or punish a dealer as the players I mentioned have. I understand that dealer mistakes happen, and it is a part of the game. But why do you think the changing of the river card from the one that was already selected to appear (the original river that didn't pair the board) to a new one that did, due to the premature T&B, wasn't causative in changing the outcome of the hand? Thanks.

The action between me and player 2 is over. We need a river card. Which one it is, does not make a difference because the odds do not change.

Several people have already explained their thinking. Did you read my post?

You need a river card. And while you do not know what that card is, in fact that specific card has already been physically positioned to be the river card (let's say the original river was the 5d). So unless there is an external action that changes that positioning, the 5d will, 100% of the time, be the river, the board will not pair, and the flush will win.

So I don't see this as a matter of probability of a particular card hitting. That determination was made when the cards were cut and dealt. So while the odds piece is important for players to determine actions based upon the probability of a card hitting the river (which is unknown to the player) the fact is that one particular card, the 5d, will be the river.

Therefore at that stage of the hand, a dealer mistake that alters that result is causative. Without the external action(the T&B, followed by the reshuffle) the 5d is the river card 100% of the time. Absent the mistake, it will happen, and the flush will win. So that's why I believe the T&B is causative in changing the outcome of that hand.