a dollar or 2 is standard on an 800 dollar pot in a 5/10 game
i tip more when a hand takes a long time, especially if its my fault
i played a pot that was about 3 k at the rio last summer, that took almost 20 mins because some tard tried to take money off the table so by the time the floor came over,heard what happened and made a ruling (of course the other player argued for ten mins of this) the dealers hole down was shot. I gave gave her either 20 or 25 bucks for that pot.

ive also tipped great dealers at the end of downs where i did not win a pot

there are a few dealers who are either awful, incompetant or just plain nasty i will not tip at all

You know you're doing it right when people on both sides are ticked off at you. Traditionally B&M is lambasted as a place where dealers gang up and shout down players, and any hint that a dealer might be wrong are pounced on. But now we find it's really the opposite, that B&M is a place where people conspire to limit dealer tokes.

The reality is, dealers who come here and post saying "the standard is to tip 2% of every pot and 10% of every HHJ/BBJ" do a huge disservice to themselves and their kin. While you may WANT $10 for a $500 pot, and you may even EXPECT it, we all know it's not standard. And those posts get pounced on.

Likewise, players who come here and tell us how much tipping stomps their bottom line and they've therefore decided to only tip the very best 10% of dealers and only $1 on big pots aren't helping their reputation. And those posts get pounced on.

Both extremes cause flame wars to erupt. Neither leads to good discussion.

(1) I think you're confusing "tip nits" with standard tipping procedure as determined by the majority of posters here. But yes, I think that if you give your actual winrate and sample size then it would be helpful to your crusade to have everyone tip more.

(2) I am neutral as a moderator toward posters. When I post my opinions on an issue, I am not doing so as a moderator; I'm doing so as a member of the community. If you ask any of the other dealers who post here, I think you would find that they believe I am very much pro-dealer, and at the very least much more so than previous moderators of this forum have been. Where have you seen me take a moderation action that was not due to a guidelines violation?

Your vague "my winrate is positive and good enough for me" response doesn't tell us whether you actually win money in the game (i.e., whether you calculate your winrate before or after tipping $3/pot and $5/down) or what stakes you play.

My first thought when I read this post: the dealer gave his buddy ridiculous tips to get everyone else to give higher tips. After they got off work, the dealer returned the ridiculous tips.

I refuse to ever "automatically" tip any dealer. It should be up to the casino's making multi-million dollar monthly profits to remove some from their greedy never-full pockets and paying their employees enough so a tip is a reward for great service or cards, not an expectation from every pot slid to a customer paying a rake and $15.00 for a hamburg. I think casino's are far lucky to get by for 70 years without altering their standard odds slightly more in favor of the player, since some are making 2-300 million a month profit and could easily give a little back for competition sake...but instead collect every red cent.

If you don't believe that you can convince even one then you believe all "tip nits" have a closed mind or you believe your argument is extremely weak.

odds have actually gotten worse in some cases, most notably blackjack

There are two way you can look at this issue. For example, there are cities that I have played in where many players do not even tip $1 per pot and dealers often have terrible downs. In a city like Los Angeles for example I have noticed that this has had an interesting effect. Players in L.A. generally get away with murder in my opinion. If you go to the Bike there is literally a sticker on the card shuffler reminding players that there is no rabbit hunting, and yet players request it all the time and the dealers will oblige most of the time because they don't want to piss off the players who already tip horribly. Many times the players won't even ask the dealer for a rabbit hunt and just reach into the deck themselves. So perhaps it can be argued that making sure the dealers are compensated well financially ensures that competent people only apply and that the games are maintained and controlled.

On the other hand, if you were to observe a city like Las Vegas I think the opposite can be said especially in regards to the lower stakes NL games. Is there any doubt that $1-$2 NL is the most over-tipped game in town? I see redbirds flying across the felt constantly in a way that you will never see in the higher games. As you play at $2-$5 NL and higher you will notice that the tips are proportionally much smaller. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that higher games are less recreational and the money on the table matters more to the players who play in those games. It has been discussed ad nauseam on this forum that to making an income at $1-$2 is very tough. So it's rather ironic that this is the game in which, at least proportionally speaking, players tip the most. Even the better win rates at $1-$2 do not offer any of it's players more than an average income at best. That having been said I think most dealers should be content with those that tip $1/hand on every hand regardless of pot size.

I'm relatively new on the board and have only read the last couple of pages in this thread, so forgive me if this is covered territory.

First of all, tipping is a lot like politics and religion. It's a personal choice and you talk about it until your face turns blue but you aren't going to change anyone's mind.

I will say this though, if you are a "tip nit" AND you are the type of person who complains about the quality of dealers all the time then you are part of the reason that dealer quality is low in some places. If you think a dealer is giving bad service and don't tip, that's your prerogative, but if you don't tip dealers that deal a fast and smooth game you are encouraging them to find another profession.

I'm also fairly confident that dealers probably talk to each other about how much they make. I'm also fairly confident that a dealer who makes less will try to emulate the dealers that make more which will also (hopefully) improve the quality of the dealers.

As you can imagine by my statements, I take both pot size and the dealer into consideration when I decide the amount I tip on a given hand.

good post, but by the same token if you are a great tipper and tip the same amount on each pot regardless of how good or bad the dealer is then you are also part of the problem of low dealing quality

I would agree with that as well.

I've noticed that in the room where I play, the dealers often remove the white chips from the pot and replace them with the blue $2 chips. I know even myself, there have been numerous occasions where I wanted to tip $1 but i tipped $2 because i didnt have any white chips. I'd bet farm that the dealers do this on purpose, and they make more $ bc of it.

You're too timid. Simply toss the dealer a $2 and say, "chop that, please."

Do you guys tip the cashier when you cash in your chips? I usually tip a dollar.

This. Bigger pots, which are often the fault of horrendous/lazy/inattentive/"Hollywooding" play on the part of the players, cut into the number of hands that can be dealt per down. If you throw a $1 in these scenarios, you're often giving them less than they'd have gotten dealing 2 or 3 small-to-medium sized pots in that time period. "A dollar or nothing" is a pretty robotic, uncreative boring way of going about it IMO. Then again, this is the B+M forum, where that method of doing things is pretty standard.

Which ones? 1/2 NL "pros"? I feel bad for all zero of them.

This happens regularly at CaesarsLV. I recommend you try to keep a supply of $1's in your own stack. As well, if it comes down to it and you do need to tip and have no singles, toss a $5 chip and say "chop that, please"... looks just a tiny bit less cheap than chopping $2.

Or you could go with aversion therapy. "Sorry, I don't have any singles to tip with--I'll get ya next time". I'm not that mean. But if a few people took to doing this I bet they'd stop trying to pull all the singles out of the pots.

Local club. 6/12 and 8/16 LHE games use $2 chips.
When drop was $4, no $1s in the pot.
Drop went to $5. Dealers noticed fewer tips on tiny pots due to the increase.
On normal pots, the $1 change in the pot meant players did not have to ask the dealer to chop a $2 chip. So the dealers noticed fewer $2 tips.

Of course, the Management was not to blame.

I agree it's pretty hard to make enough to cover expenses playing 1/2 NL live.
But playing 3/5 ($200 NL) for a living is certainly possible if your living costs aren't that high (i.e. live in room for rent, eat mostly the free casino food, etc).

Are these grinders supposed to tip dealers like some of those overtippers who are playing recreationally?

Or should they look out for themselves first? I'm sure these grinders would like to tip really well but if they do they are reducing their bankroll/ life roll.

A multi millionaire recreational player tipping $5 every pot in a $200 NL game isn't going to hurt his life roll. A grinder doing the same would ultimately send him to the L.A. homeless shelter.

I actually meant that no one realistically does it for an extended period of time because of the circumstances surrounding the lifestyle. There aren't any long term 1/2 NL pros, it's the world's biggest myth.

Monetarily, each person's need for money is different. Person in Situation X might be able to make $9 hourly and cover everything, whereas $40 hourly might not be enough for person in Situation Y. So yes, it is possible for people in certain walks to of life to make more than enough playing 1/2 NL live for a living. But do they? No, I would imagine virtually no one does.

As far as 2/5 or 5/5 NL, might be a little more realistic, but I'd still imagine there aren't many doing it. As far as whether or not they should tip a ton, yes, they should probably watch it more than the recreational player. That doesn't mean they should be stingy and robotic about it. Also, it doesn't affect people's bottom lines as much as they think. If you're making enough playing live poker for a living to live a healthy lifestyle, tipping a bit extra here and there is not going to turn them into a losing player.

I disagree with tipping not affecting a player's bottom line as much as they think. It all roses if you are killing the game but what if you are break even or barely beating the game? Last month I was playing the 5/10 NL. For that month I played around 100 hours and ended up tipping close to $500. And I was running bad most of the month and ended up losing $14,000. Imagine if I was running good what that tip amount would be. Even at $500 per month that's $6,000 a year tip amount you will never see again and can't use to try to win your money back in the future if you have a bad year. BTW, for reference I tip what I consider is the norm based on what I see other players tip at the casino I go to.

Tough to predict how much you'd tip over the course of time, or what you would have if you "ran good". Also, having tipped $X doesn't always mean you'd have $X more in your stack at the end of the night had you not tipped it at all. Could be more or less, no way to ascertain this.

Many people tip nowhere near as much as they think. I've seen some wildly ridiculous figures here thrown around for what people tip at lower limits, and feel they're inaccurate.

If someone is break-even or barely beating the game, then they're not a pro and they'd make considerably more by becoming better at the game than they would saving money by not tipping.

Just because somebody is losing money doesn't mean they aren't a poker "pro" IMO. It just means they suck at poker or run terribly or both.

If you try to make a living by playing poker then you are a poker pro imo (a successful one or not is another story).

Would you say a person isn't a small business owner just because he is losing money in his business? Then why would you say a player who is trying to make a living by playing poker isn't a poker pro just because he is currently losing money.

BTW, I'm not advocating even pros to not tip dealers. But by tipping excessively it is -EV considering they are counting on poker for their main source of income.

I fail to understand how someone is a professional poker player if they're a losing player over a long term sample. Variance kicking you in the teeth for weeks or a month? Could happen. But over the course of many months, years? Makes no sense. Where does their income come from? How do they survive?