I took that as an attempt at humor and it did make me laugh. Ideally, I'd like them to say it and mean it 100% of the time. I do realize that is an unrealistic expectation. It would satisfy me though if they still said it even with marginal heart instead of some of these strawman replies.

I am thankful for all tips I receive!
Including the old "don't walk on the left side of the road" tip.

Happy?

You don't know what a strawman is, do you...

What you specifically said was "Poker players are not employers and have no obligations to tip." So why did you say this?

If you said it because you are deflecting from the issue at hand, it's a strawman. If you would like me to explain what that means, I can.

It also fails to address the issue at all because as I said (and as you fail to refute): "No non-unionized, non-contract employee has an obligation to recieve a raise of any kind, let alone dictate the amount."

If an employee can feel slighted by getting a raise that faisl to meet reasonable expectations when their employer had no obligation to even give a raise, then what's the difference with that person and the dealer who feels slighted with a toke that fails to meet reasonable expectations?

Every time you eat in a restaurant with a server, valet your car, stay in a hotel (most people tip their maid), have a caddy on the golf course, or play table games at a casino (among many other things) there is a reasonable expectation of a tip and how much you decide on is entirely what you decide.

You seem to think that dealers take the biggest tipper and base their expectations on that guy. Here's a newsflash: We don't. It's great that there is a guy who plays $2/5 who NEVER tipes less than a redbird, even when he just wins the blinds... But that doesn't merely meet our expectations. It exceeds them and we are smart enough to know they are outliers - just as the person who never tips a penny is an outlier.

Besides, you specifically use posts here as an excuse to deliberately tip below reasonable expectations. So you realize that we have expectations and you want to deliberately tip below them to prove some kind of point? Trust me - anyone seeing your posts get the point you are making. It's not the one you intended, I don't think...

See what I just typed. Expectations are based on neither the high water mark or the low. Most of what we get on a given hand fall between the low and high ends of our "expectations." There isn't a dealer who won't agree with this.

You should know this. I mean, if you are going to go all huffing and puffing about how dealer posts in here force you to tip (other) dealers (who have nothing to do with posts in this thread, while ignoring many other posts in this thread that don't fit into your narrative) below expectations, it makes sense you would have an idea of what those expectations are. Or maybe you don't? Possibly you might want to ask this question before you change your philosophy... I mean, change your whole philosophy on tipping based on ignorance? That's almost as silly as changing it because you don't like SOME posts on a message board by people you don't know and who almost certainly are not dealing to you.


For the same reason that the employee who gets a meaningless raise that his employer was never under an obligation to give in the first place won't just say they are thankful for the extra $8 a check. We established this: It didn't meet reasonable expectations.

Okay, so you do have no idea what a strawman is...

Oh my goodness. The topic is tipping dealers and you're making off topic comparisons to other jobs. Who's the strawman again? How about the expression the pot calling the kettle black. Dude, you're not serving me in a restaurant or parking my car. Though I avoided your comparisons to other jobs because of it's irrelevance to the topic at hand, the closest I came was that poker players are not employers and have no obligations, only placating your implications. When you signed up the be a dealer you knew you were going to get tips. Your reasonable expectations should be a range of tips: big, avg, small, zero. Accept them all without disappointment because that's what you agreed to.

Except they are not off-topic. You just don't like the comparisons because they are valid (I spelled out why they were valid) and they undermine your position.

Every point I brought up is directly analagous to the topic at hand. Therefore, not a strawman. I don't see you successfully debating that point, either.

Which wasn't my contention. My contention is that all of those positions have the reasonable expectation of a tip. Do you deny this?

Assuming you do not, then do you deny that poker dealers have reasonable expectations of tips?

Assuming you do not then you can see why they were brought up.

We've been through this. I will type more slowly now, in the hopes you can grasp it:

Employers have no obligation to give employees raises yet employees still can and do get miffed when they recieve an inconsequential raise. They don't just feel thankful for it. Because they have a reasonable expectation of what the raise will be.

Poker players have no obligation to give dealers tips yet dealers still can and do get miffed when they recieve an inconsequential tip. They don't just feel thankful for it. Because they have a reasonable expectation of what the tip will be.

No strawmen. No smoke and mirrors. A pretty simple analogy that works perfectly.

So either you think that all workers should just be happy for any raises they get and that every worker everywhere who was not just content to get a meaningless raise is a malcontent, or you will agree that poker dealers do have a right to be a little unsatisfied when they push a big pot and recieve a tip that is less than what is reasonablly expected.

Please tell me which way you stand on this, but please do be consistant. You don't want to be a hypocrite...

I never signed up to accept zero tips without dissapointment. I am expected to act professionally in spite of my dissapointment. You seem to think that you can control how people think. This unbridled arrogance is stunning to me.

Perhaps the employee should consider their job performance when they receive an inconsequential raise.

When you're on my payroll we can discuss your X-mas bonus or raise. When you're serving me dinner we can talk about your waiter tips. Until then it's...your favorite...strawman. You're taking the position of a poker dealer representative here. Your representation is poor. Your underlying message is that players who tip little should tip more. If you're going to get miffed in instances where I might toss $1 a pot the same as you get miffed with $0 then I, representing a poker player, will choose zero. Do you realize you're not helping your dealer brethren? If you never signed up to accept zero tips without disappointment, and we all know that zero tips are going to happen, then sadly, I guess you signed up to be disappointed.

I am making a conscious effort to tip less ... I hate to be a jerk, and if anyone says anything to me, even jokingly, at the local casino, I will probably go off.

No more tipping $1 when I raise and win the blinds. Sorry, that's 1/3 of the profit on the hand.

$1 tips on most hands, sometimes $2. The $5 redbirds I used to toss around? Better ship me a $500 pot if you expect one.

I consider myself friends with a lot of dealers and I hope they understand. Perhaps when finances get a little better, I will tip a little better. But right now, I'm looking at my hourly and it's not where I want it to be.

You're welcome in any game I'm dealing.

Give it a rest Lester. I have no idea what a strawman is so I don't know who is one. But if it means an idiot or a pain it the ass then it's definitely you. These guys are just giving us some insight about what they think on the inside, even as they tell us they are still being outwardly professional.

I could give you poker examples as a player of breaking the money bubble of a tournament as the chip leader and only mincashing or being way ahead at one point of a cash game, only to end up with a small gain. I could say when this happens to me I am a little disappointed even though I go home a winner. Except they've arleady give you plenty of relavant examples.

And you are right about one thing. No example that I or anybody else can think of will ever be 100% identical to the dynamic of a poker player tipping a dealer. So nothing will ever convince you it's OK for a dealer to be disappointed about a tip that is smaller than they might have gotten from other players in the same situation.

It seems like you've already made up your mind to use this thread as excuse to limit, if not stop your tipping. Since I'm not a dealer I won't speak for them to say, that's a fair tradeoff if you'll just shut up on this thread. But as a player and reader of this thread, I'm going to ask you to please stfu.

Nobody in this thread has ever volunteered to take the position of poker dealer representative anymore than you have volunteered to represent all of the players. (And as a player, myself, I'd rather you not represent me anyhow).

For what it's worth, dealers do distinguish between the players who tip $1 no matter what and the players who don't tip at all. The topic of worst players to deal to gets brought up in the breakroom from time to time. The worst players to deal to are the ones who are argumentative and abusive. Right behind them are the players who need to be babysat (acting out of turn, speaking foreign languages, talking on the phone) and slow the game down.
The $0 tippers fall after both of these groups. Players who pay attention, keep the game going, and quietly go about their business, while consistently tipping $1 a hand... I've never heard a dealer have a major gripe with any of them.

Now that doesn't mean that we're not rooting against the $1 tipper when he's heads up against someone who tips $1 or $2 on small pots and red chips on bigger pots. Of course we are. But it's not like we (dealers) are muttering curses under our breaths every time we push a $100 pot and receive $1. It's just that we were hoping for $2 or $3 (whether we *deserve* it or not).

As I've been asked to stfu - Ok, if you feel I'm a nuisance then after this post I will indeed stfu with a self ban from this thread until no sooner than 2013. Hope it's ok for one last farewell speech until then. Does a dealer speaking as a dealer not represent a dealer and is one who represents not a representative? Anyway, included in the professionalism that dealers provide (or probably are supposed to provide or claim to provide) is making players feel comfortable, right? All agree? Well I've been playing poker for years and always felt pretty comfortable. This changed around two weeks ago when I first read this thread. While I've been tipping for all these years, and observing what others tip, I'm aware I tipped towards the lower end. There are clearly enough underlying implications that I'd be perceived as cheap here in this anonymous forum though. The examples of - I'm happy with this tip but this other tip is unsatisfactory. It's not face to face but it sheds light. And now this recent post that dealers are rooting against me. This makes me as a player feel uncomfortable which is the direct result of dealers' unprofessionalism. No rational person would increase or maintain their level of tipping after being made to feel uncomfortable, at least I would think. Make sense why I concluded to reduce tips? This is also why I think it's best for dealers to simply say "I appreciate any tips", or as was perfectly said moments ago "you're welcome at my table", or "thank you". To me the long drawn out explanations with comparisons do more harm than good. And the strawman thing? Actually, until I recently read that here, I may have heard that only a couple times in my life. It's not an insult. I'm not sure I could define it, but I have an idea of it's meaning. Think scarecrow - something put in place as an imitation of the real thing. It was initially used here towards me which I thought was ridiculous. It's actually more fitting for the originator as he's the comparison maker. That's where the hypocrisy lies. He'll probably fill you in though as I am now done here.

I do appreciate any tips. But I appreciate big tips more than little tips. I still can't believe that anyone (even those who think that dealers are overpaid, unprofessional, entitled children) would find it suprising that a dealer would feel as I do (that receiving a large tip is generally preferable to receiving a small tip or no tip).

I won't go off topic on the whole strawman thing, except to say that you can google it instead of making post after post where you try to guess your way into it. (Hint: none of your guesses have been close).

This is a problem in my opinion. Just yesterday I got a sick cooler/beat and the dealer was visibly and AUDIBLY happy because the idiot who beat me was going to tip her $15 like he tipped her the last big pot he sucked out on. Believe me it affects how I feel about her and about tipping her.

It's ok for you to root for the other guy, because, you aren't very smart. If you were smarter you'd be rooting for the $1-2 tipper, because, he's there everyday and that $1-2 per pot adds up to much more than the $15 the idiot gave you who plays maybe twice a month and only will run hot less often than that.

Dealers just don't understand simple math I guess.

Oh... and visibly and audibly you should be rooting for nobody, if that wasn't obvious to you before.

Was it not obvious to you before that the poster did not mean rooting "visably and audibly" but internally? Please tell me you're not another player who believes that what a dealer is merely thinking is somehow relevant to anything?

The dealer who WAS rooting externally was extremely unprofessional. But that is different than what the guy here was saying, I am pretty sure.

No, I'm saying it's ok to have internal thoughts and root for anyone you want.

However, if you're going to root for anyone, if you were smart, and in the general scheme of being righteous about things, you should root for the regular, good, winning player, regardless if he tips you $1 or more or not.

And if you were SUPER professional... like... master doctor surgeon hitman status... which I don't really expect from anyone... you would be entirely neutral.

To clarify, my response to bolt was not entirely directed at him. The point about rooting for the guy who's going to tip more, was.

I was just describing an incident where a dealer took it too far. (visibily and audibly) and trying to express the fact that in all respects... including the dealers bottom line in $/hour/day/week/month/year... the dealer doesn't seem to know who they should be rooting for.

Id doesn't matter who I root for. If you're going to tip me a buck a hand every hand. and you are a daily regular. Of course I am internally going to root for the guy who I have seen for the first time that will ship me 3 red birds if he sucks out on you. He likely won't be here tomorrow. You will be, I'm still getting my buck a hand tomorrow, and the next day, and the next week, etc etc

I kinda figure that's how some dealers think... and to be honest... I see where you're coming from... you see 1-2-3 red chips and are like... yo, the reg is gonna tip me $1 forever anyway so like why not get the $5-15 now? but that reg is smarter than you think and he doesn't like it at all. Maybe that's why so many people take a no tipping attitude.

I don't know anymore.... I saw someone I consider an expert player win thousands of dollars of pots over the last few nights and tip so little that anyone would think he was a douche. (he won maybe 6k over a few days and tipped $1 on $1800 pots) I didn't say anything of course. He seemed to be assured of himself and knew what he was doing.

Just to clarify, these are the times I have visibly and audibly rooted for one player at a table.

1. We have a regular player who I have singled out to give "extra luck" too on multiple occasions. She is in her 90's, is a sweetheart, and is a $1 tipper. All of the regulars and semi-regulars know who she is and love and admire her. Every time she plays I hear someone comment that they hope they can still be getting around and mentally alert if/when they get to be her age. My "extra luck" to her is always said with sincerity, but also in a tongue in cheek manner, which no other player could ever take offense to (and so far no player ever has).

2. We pay an hourly high hand bonus to the players. If I've dealt one of the players the hand that is sitting atop the high hand leader board when I get pushed off the table I will look at that player and wish them luck that their hand holds up for the rest of the hour.

As for the long term/short term thinking in rooting silently for a big tip or a small tip... I guess I don't understand simple math. I could swear that 8>1 but maybe I'm wrong now that you say it. I should probably shut up about math when I'm at the tables and hope that nobody catches me butchering a side pot calculation.

On a more serious note, there's always another big tipper on the way to replace the short term big tipper sitting at the table in front of me now. Just like whenever a $0 tipper stops playing in my room he's replaced by another $0 tipper the next day. Just this past week we had a European player tipping $8 on every winning hand (even the small pots). He was in town just for the day and I'll likely never deal to him again. I pushed him 5 winners. How long would it take me to collect $40 from a TAG $1 tipping reg? Maybe 2 months? I collected that much in 30 minutes from one player. On the outside I was the face of professionalism and neutrality. On the inside, every time he tabled a winner my brain shouted out "Weeeeeeee!"

Sorry I don't like that. It's begging for a tip.

And any time you wish a player good luck it's like wishing bad luck on all the other players.

Yep when you wish someone luck its begging for a tip. I actually think its chapter 7 in poker dealer handbook. As for rooting for other players,yea silently in my head I have. Most of the time I am rooting for the reg that I see everyday but sometimes that reg is a 0 tipper or a d bag. Then yea I want the other player to win every time. If they tip me nothing its worth it if the reg is 0 tipper. If your a reg and a 0 tipper you are not liked that's the bottom line. If you are 1 a hand no matter the size of the pot your fine no dealers really complain. Now if your an over tipper red birds or more every hand you are beloved. Now if anyone has a problem with that take it up with the over tippers. Don't take it out on dealers.

This is true and is why its so annoying when dealers say "good luck all in" when someone is all in. If they are wishing them good luck its like saying to hell with the rest of you.

I know its just something people say but it shoudn't be said.

And tip begging goes on with a few dealers where I play. When pushing even a small pot they say "good hand, good win, well played" etc.

So this "reg" can now read my mind and tell what I'm thinking?