My friend and fellow grinder who is a waiter served some local dealers. They tipped him $1 and left a nasty note saying how "The service was good but you need to know we make our living from tips so how do you like being tipped only a $1?.

The dude(my friend) is in his 20s and grinds 1/2 and is trying to beat the game. Our ****ty ass casino takes up to $7 per a pot ( $5 for the pot + $2 for BBJ) and it's really hard to beat this game.

There are several awful points I want to make:

1) it's grinder like us who get the dealers hours when there's only a few tables. The only reason the casino can hand out so many hours a week to it's dealers is because of grinders like us.

2) grinders like us always tip, it may not be much, it's generally a dollar to a pot, but if we're putting in 30 hours a week, that's consistent money.

3) If we tipped more, we wouldn't be able to build our bank rolls and survive variance. They would lose a customer in the long run. We can't tip more even if we wanted too.

I really feel for the guy because we're both in the same situation, we work lame dead end jobs and playing poker to supplement are lives. A few of these dealers really make me mad. I feel they are entitled. They don't understand what it's like trying to build a bank roll when you have $7 in rake + tips.

The fact that they are so angry at the grinders is sad. I don't need dealers treating me or my friends like ****. I tip you! I give you a table to deal at when there's a list of players, and they need one more, I'm that reliable 7th or 8th. You would still be in the break room if I didn't show up to the casino today, like I do everyday.

Hard to believe that a pack of dealers that deal to your waiter friend would do that if he tips a buck a hand (or something close to that). If they did, then the solution is pretty easy - never tip those particular dealers again and save several hundreds of dollars each year.

Not saying anything about tipping more than a buck because I think that's fair, but if that one dollar per pot thing is keeping you from being able to pay the bills, I'd think that getting an actual second job would be more secure than playing poker for a living (and you'd probably make more money).


With that said, these dealers are scumbags and you should never tip them again.

Why do you care?
Are you there to make friends with the dealers?
If you give what you consider a fair tip and the dealer doesn't like it, it's his problem.
Next pot, tip him the same.

If I am friends with a dealer, then I might care what he thinks. But all the other ones? I don't care what they think of me. If they can't live off of a table full of tippers like me, they should find another job.

As a former table games dealer, you can't imagine the sheer joy we felt when going to a bar or restaurant and finding that our bartender/waiter/waitress was also the same grouchy complaining dirtbag who was a "regular" at our casino and never tipped anyone...ever. Of course, we gave them the same experience they gave us...

The only feeling that beat it was going to another joint with the guys on my dice crew and seeing that the stroke-job that liked to make us work our asses off for free all night was a dice dealer himself (albeit a terrible one). The "oh ****" look on his face as he recognized who we were was priceless, his face turning red because he knew he was about to get stroked harder than he had ever been, for free of course, and that we now knew where he worked and he would now be seeing us regularly. We made sure to spread the word to the other dice crews at work that our "pal" was also a dealer and which joint he was working at so they too could join in on the fun...

There's no way I believe your friend saying he tips 1$ a pot at 1/2! Why would those dealers teach him a lesson if he does what is totally standard tipping? That would be absurd. Either he has been lying to you (do you think that's possible?) or there is something else that's missing in your story.

LOL, there's just really NO WAY he is tipping 1$ per pot. Have you ever played on the same table with him? If not, you should, and then please come back to tell us about your observations.

PS I'm actually surprised that some people readily accept this story and call the dealers scumbags etc. It makes absolutely no sense for a group of dealers to behave that way with a completely normal 1/2 tipper!

@pokerhontas, for the purposes of discussion it doesn't matter if the friend is lying. We know from all the good dealers who post here on 2+2 that a good dealer would never be anything but grateful toward a player who tips $1/pot. But not all dealers are good, so there might be dealers out there who are vindictive and unprofessional. I take oldschool at his word because it makes for a more interesting discussion than if his friend is a stiff or the story is completely fabricated.

Pretty funny all around. As others have said, just don't tip those dealers anymore. I can almost guarantee that any dealer who reads 2+2 wouldn't even seriously consider doing something like this to a customer of their room.

Your friend should talk to his manager if the dealers show up at his restaurant again. A good manager would figure out a way to democratically exclude stiffs or come up with ways to make them feel unwelcome enough that they won't return.

I'm certain that there will be backlash for that last sentence because tipping is by definition at the discretion of the customer. But if it's verifiable that a particular customer or group of customers stiffs on acceptable or better service, I'd probably make them reenact the Chinese Restaurant episode of Seinfeld by telling them continually that their table will be ready in five or ten minutes until they give up and leave.

"Seinfeld?...fawww!"

Hand them back the note with your reply of:

"Actually, I appreciate your tip very much and I'm glad that you liked the service I gave."

That should let them know that $1 per drink(just as $1 per pot) is totally standard, acceptable, and appreciated, and if they still give you a hard time and/or react any way but understandable, then that my friend is on them, not you. Can't please the whole world.

ehhmmm...

...from another thread by OP:

(http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/ne...ply&p=43273225)

I imagine "minimal" is 1$ and "if you have to" is for pots of $700 and more.

I guess "your friend" was lying, after all.

So imagine you tip $5 minimum each pot and $20 on any pot over $300.

@pokerhontas, it might be nice if you'd provide an opinion to further the discussion instead of playing interwebz sleuth regarding a point that doesn't matter to the discussion.

I don't get what you're trying to say, Angus. Who tips 5$ at 1/2 and 20 for pots over 300?

You don't?

Then maybe you should stop quoting irrelevant posts, drawing unfounded conclusions, and calling people liars.

I think whether or not the story is true matters.

My opinion? Well, if the story were true, I'd never tip those dealers again and I'd probably even switch casinos (if possible). If the story isn't true, i.e. if "the friend" does not tip or very, very rarely, I can understand those dealers teaching him a lesson. Is it PC? No. Would I prefer to be friends with those dealers or with OP's friend? Definitely with those dealers!

Those dealers will be your friends only as long as you pay them money. Once the money stops, the friendship ends. My Mom told me about those kind of "friends". And used an unkind word for them.

I look for something else in a friendship.

I'm really sorry, Angus, but I really don't understand what you're trying to say. I realize you're someone with an enormous wealth of knowledge and experience and I'd really like to know what I'm missing here.

Friendship has nothing to do with money. I wasn't thinking of "befriending them as my dealers". I was thinking of what kind of person I'd prefer to be friends with, *not* having met at a poker table. What I would like about those dealers is the fact that they had the guts and the political incorrectness to give OP's friend some of his own medicine. I prefer people who sometimes do something "impolite" to "people who treat them badly", instead of meekly taking their **** and not retaliating when they get a chance for it. That's all. But maybe I'm taking this way too far here. If I am, I apologize and will retreat from this thread.

It was so nice ... we went almost 2 months with no posts in this thread.

Who had to wake up the sleeping giants???

Pokarhontas is being attacked for no reason. His comments are fair. The story about the $1 revenge tip makes zero sense if the guy's grinder friend tips $1 every pot he wins. It cannot possibly be true.

It's one thing to say "I don't buy it, that's a pretty standard tip". Posting it several times, and digging up a random old post to accuse the guy of lying, and making up the friend gets a little riduculous.

And thinking the story "cannot possibly be true" is silly. There's a lot of jerks in the world, a lot of bad tippers, and a lot of poker dealers. I wouldn't be surprised if those groups intersected.

I tip entirely way too much, but Im ok with that. I give 1-2 for every pot and some larger pots I will tip more. But as a kid, I worked for tips so I overtip just about all people who work for tips(assuming I feel they provide a good service/do a good job)

I don't think it's silly at all. I really don't think it's possible. If it is, that'd be the most bizarre scenario I've ever heard of in my life. An enormous percentage of players tip a standard $1 on any small-to-medium size pot. It's a rote action which this thread proves is prevalent. These dealers at the eatery would have had to go out of their way to write down an insulting message to someone for standard activity, which would be netting them $25-$30 an hour to begin with. I don't buy it.

Any way you look at it, the dealers would have to be complete morons to do this. Now he can stiff them with impunity whenever he plays and there is not a thing they can do about it because cameras cover everything they do. On the other hand, they can never stiff him again because that would require ordering food from him which, under the circumstances, is probably not a great idea. Basically violated two cardinal rules:

1. Don't give a stingy to average tipper reason to become a non tipper; and
2. Don't screw with people who handle your food.

Let's spend 100 posts questioning the veracity of this dude's story of vengeful dinning dealers...

WGAF?

Either a) the dude is lying or b) the dude is not lying. In either case, neither reflects poker players or dealers as a whole.