We do it like this. If a seat opens up during a hand and someone asks for it they get it (or draw cards if someone else asks before the next hand starts). If no one asks for it we offer it up then lock it up for the next person on the list.

Dealer: "Seat open on table 2!"

Me: "Any movement dealer?"

Dealer: "Nope"

Me: "Ok little old lady (didn't actually call her that), you can play 2 more hands and then I've got a seat for you on the main game."

Little old lady plays one hand and then gets up to move. Only then I'm told that there now is movement, enough that she could have played 5 more hands at her old table.

So early this afternoon I got a call from a guy who was interested in our 20-40 Limit feature game. Sounded like he said his name was "Elvin" but it was a little hard to hear. I told him it started at 5pm and put him on the list at something like #19. He asked about a 2nd table and I told him that it depends on how many are actually here at 5pm to determine that. He started to say something about a drug deal and he's not sure about coming in. He quickly changed that and said he was a lawyer and had a client that's a drug dealer. I didn't really have anything to say in response.

Fast-forward to 5:00. This person wasn't here by then so by procedure we delete everyone unless they've called in the last hour. 10 minutes later a woman walks up and says she's Elvis for 20-40. I was a little flabbergasted. She had a very deep voice, kinda big but not fat. I told her I could put her back on the list now and she's #7 but I had a seat for 10-20 Limit. She went and saved herself a seat, walked back past me to go get chips, and in a harsh rough tone said "Is there any AC in this casino?!?!" I told her I'd make a call to get it turned down. I wandered over to the table a bit later and she's learning some of the house and state rules, and not liking them. She bellows again about AC. Then she asks if she can take her shirt off. I grin and said no (I really didn't want her to ) She proceeds to take her shirt off but has a halter-type thing underneath. One of the players made the comment that the rules of her home game might be better. She says her home game is strip poker with a bunch of middle-aged women, not 20-somethings.

she sounds like the whitest of trash lol. funny story

She came up to me later...

Elvis: Can you get me a room?

AT: I'm sorry but we don't have a hotel on property. There's a Holiday Inn a couple of blocks away. Do you want me to get a host to come over to see if they could help out?

Elvis: What's the address?

AT: I'm actually not sure, I just know it's a couple blocks away and it's on Broadway.

Elvis: So you don't have a hotel here?


Of course this was a day that I was supposed to be gone at 5 but we were short-staffed. She walked in at 5:10.

I love when they ask me a question I answered seconds ago. My favorite;

"Hi I'm looking for a seat in a 1-2 game"
"Ok I don't have a seat right now but I'd be happy to add you to the list."
"So you don't have a seat right now?"

Fun game in the breakroom today. Determining what poker game and limit someone plays by their mugshot.

I just pushed in, there's a guy just HOWLING about a problem with his dinner. I don't know the details, but to hear him tell it:

--the food took forever
--the waitress was snooty
--when he asked to speak to a F&B manager, THAT took forever.

I have no idea if he had a legit gripe or not. He *sounded* sincere, like things were really really bad and he wasn't being over-dramatic.

It's so tough to tell, though, because at the exact same time, another player was terribly upset about the size and shape of the sinks in the mens' room.

I have real trouble caring at all about customer complaints these days, because I've heard so many ridiculous ones so often that I've become immune.

pff hahaha

Got a PM from someone who didn't feel qualified to post ITT, but passed along his observation that "complaining" seems to be the most popular pastime among poker players. I sent him this reply:

We got one guy who makes a point to say the words, "This is the worst cardroom in America," every time he plays--which is 2-3 times/week, lol. I've long since grown bored with pointing out to him the incongruity of constantly going to a place you profess to hate. He plays in the low-limit games, and insists we're the only room that has a higher rake for lower-limit games. When I tell him that's not true, that I have personally worked in multiple rooms that do that (and the low-limit games are STILL paying less rake, because they don't hit the max nearly as often), he can't process that thought, so he ignores it. His wife plays cards too, and she complains even more than him! She hit a bbj last month, I was at the next table, and from THERE I could here her complaining about the tax hit, and wondering why it was taking so long to get paid, etc.

***

Most days, I hear a player whine, "When is this place going to get us new chairs?" We have the nicest player chairs in the business, wheels, three-way adjustments, all leather, they're over $500 a pop. Sure, every now and then you find one where one of those three adjusters won't work--but it would cost over $100,000 to replace them. But that's a trivial amount, when you're not the guy writing the check.

***

Oh, and that guy complaining about the sinks? the night before, he said, "This place needs more tv's. bigger tv's!" When I went on break, I came back to this table, squatted behind the dealer, took a picture of this guy (to show my perspective), and showed him the picture. I told him, "We're going to caption this one, 'This place needs more tv's, bigger tv's!'"

It was a picture of him, seated at a poker table. Behind him, suspended from the ceiling, were four enormous tv's. The tv's dominated the photo, he was barely in it.

I've seen this guy outside the cardroom the few times (the store, the gym), he's always super-pleasant. There's something about poker, man...

And we have them here in Vegas where there so many other rooms they can go to.

I worked in a room doing a big promotion and all through the 6 months George sat in the game every day grumbling about how once this freeroll was over he was never playing in this room again. The rake was too high, the cocktail service was to slow, the dealers sucked, the floors sucked, the rules sucked, the cards sucked, the carpet was ugly, etc....

The day after the freeroll was done he was still there so I went to the shift manager .... "every day for the past 6 months George said he wasn't coming once the freeroll is over. Isn't verbal binding in this room?"

7:30 pm: "The football game hasn't started yet?"

Same guy, 7:45 pm: "The football game started already?"

***

An exchange I had with the same guy, minutes before that:

HIM: Why do they still have the Broncos game on?

ME: Because it ain't over yet!

(Broncos game ended much later than the others today, they had a long rain/lightning delay.)

You mean to say you aren't the general manager of the Denver Broncos??

We got new toke boxes yesterday! The old ones were falling apart. They had a pair of holes drilled into them, and each table had a pair of bolts to mount the boxes...but the holes eroded into shapeless, bigger holes, and boxes would occasionally crash to the floor. On a few of the tables, the BOLTS were stripped, as well. I would routinely place my toke box on the floor next to me at certain tables, and work with it there, rather than risk a broken foot for the player in the 10-seat. Not ideal procedure, but I've always been a "safety first" guy. I figured someone would complain eventually, but no one ever did.

We had a few boxes with "wings" attached to them, that could hook onto the rail. These would never fall--but you couldn't put them where those bolts were in the way (on your right), you had to mount them on the other side (on your left). These boxes were far superior, but we didn't have many of them, and it was tough to get one--and even if you could, many dealers were scared of disrupting their routines by switching sides. I put off switching for years, certain I'd embarrass myself by mindlessly dropping a toke where there was no box to catch it--but since I switched, I was delighted to learn that this is simply not a concern (I'll occasionally start to bring a toke to my right hip, but usually don't get very far with that; and I've never dropped one into a box that wasn't there).

Yesterday I arrived to find an ample supply of new boxes with those wings/hooks. Awsome! Maybe they'll pull those ancient bolts out, and it will be Wings For All, left OR right! The new wings are solid steel, not flimsy sheet metal. These babies will last FOREVER! They're even lined with felt to protect the wooden rail! Good job by YOU, Management!

I grabbed one of these things and headed for my first table. While waiting to push in, I tried hanging in on a nearby empty table.

It didn't fit.

The rail was thicker than the opening.

I tore out the felt that was glued in there (sorry, Boss). Still didn't fit. I mean, it grabbed the rail, but it didn't seat fully. Felt like it was a perilous dangle.

Aw, man.

But it never fell. I guess it's grabbing ENOUGH of the rail to be effective.

At my second or third table, shortly after I pushed in, the lock holding the bottom of the box closed gave way, and all my tokes spilled onto the floor in the middle of a hand.

YTF: Floor!

SEAT 1: I'll get it.

YTF: Please don't!

SEAT 1: (sits uncomfortably, fighting urge to help, keeps reaching down and stopping himself) I feel like I should do something.

YTF: Best thing you can do, is keep your hands above the rail.

SEAT 1: (relaxes, now that he has a task assigned)

FLOOR: What's up?

YTF: I hate my new toke box.

The floor scooped up what he could, and after the hand, I was able to sweep the last few under the center of the table with my feet towards him for retrieval. He gathered them, then took the box and the money to Box Pile. He returned with a sealed box. I noticed the felt was gone on this one.

YTF: That the same box?

FLOOR: Yes.

YTF: You don't think this is going to happen again?

FLOOR: Highly unlikely. (leaves)

Players expressed surprise that we're going with the same box. "I don't care," I comforted them. "If it blows again, HE has to get down on the floor, not me!"

Later in the down, Seat 1 left me a toke, and placed near the slot for the jackpot drop. "Oh, I'd better not put it *there*, huh?"

"Feel free to use Direct Deposit, if you like," I urged. He did not get the reference, so I invited him to drop the toke into the box himself, since he's right next to it. He did, and enjoyed the experience (again, this guy likes having something to do and being involved, I guess).

"Just don't drop 'em THERE," I pleaded, pointing to the jackpot drop. "There's nothing more heart-breaking than seeing a nice big tip going down The Black Hole." The players chuckled. "yeah, I imagine that WOULD be heart-breaking," allowed one. Another noted, "Yeah, it would be nice if you could use something like that for your toke box."

"Yeah," I pondered. "You never see THAT box break open, do ya? We dealers get the flimsy sheet metal, the house's money is in a box made out of Space Age Steel!"

(huge LOL from the table. sometimes this job is fun.)

This is rare for me, but I got into a full-blown brew-ha-ha with a player the other night, at the O/8 table.

UTG raises, gets 7-8 callers. The last player to act is the BB, who fires in his call. I reach to pull in the bets, and see the BB is light one chip. I stop, point to his bet, and make eye contact with him (he's wearing headphones). I did all this wordlessly (this is an important distinction, as we'll see later).

He looks puzzled, then angry. His sixth chip had splashed into the sloppy bet of the player next to him. He angrily counseled me to count all the chips before accusing him of deliberately shorting the pot.

"Ok. But please don't splash the pot again, and we won't have this problem."

That's what I *intended* to say, but I didn't get three words out before he interrupted me and repeated himself, a little angrier. I let him finish, and tried a second time, and he again interrupted me to rail on about this. Then we did it a third time. Each time, I let him finish before I tried speaking, but he had no interest in anything I had to say--so the fourth time, I opened with, "Will you listen to me this time?"

"No! Because you should count--"

This time I interrupted him: "FLOOR!"

The game has been stopped for a while now over this, and you would think O/8 players would start howling about it, but they were enjoying the show too much, they never said a word.

BB kept running his mouth, but I'm ignoring him now. I pulled in the bets, put out the flop, and got the game moving again while we awaited the floor's arrival. He arrived in the middle of the hand, asked me what was up. "I tried asking the 8-seat if he could be more careful about splashing the pot, but he refuses to listen to me, he won't even let me speak. I was hoping maybe you could relay the message for me." Of course, the player spoke over me the whole time while I said this, and was loudly and angrily telling the floor about what a poor job I was doing, and how I should count all the chips out there before accusing him deliberately shorting the pot (which of course, never happened).

This went on for about five minutes, because the floor was a little overwhelmed by all the yelling, and wanted to ascertain exactly what happened before he could comment on it. He couldn't get these facts from the player, who was making no sense; and he couldn't get those facts from me, because the player would shout over me every time I tried speaking to the matter; and none of the other players, refreshingly, were volunteering information.

But it reached brew-ha-ha status when I heard the player demand of the floorman, "He should apologize to me!", because I literally LOL'd at that. This upset the player even more. "Look, he's laughing! He thinks this is funny!"

"I could get mad, if you prefer," I offered.

By now, the floorman had had enough. "Let's put this behind us. Let's just play cards." He admonished neither the player nor me.

Sure enough, the player soon scooped a huge pot. You know no tip was coming here, but stiffing me wasn't hurtful enough, he had to add the "I'm saving so much money!" speech--which was laughable, this guy stiffs more often than he tips, any way.

But for the remainder of the down, he didn't splash a single chip. He went overboard making sure *his* bets were the most-neatly-stacked bets on the table.

That, alone, was worth the dollar.

I love this thread. Really brightens up my shift.

Man me too lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Boy this week has been rough, just a nonstop b**** fest from our players. As I have mentioned I work in a small room that competes with two other larger rooms in our city and as a normal problem with a smaller room that is fighting an uphill battle to keep players and attract new players.

Normally I look forward to football season because business picks up and in a month the snowbirds come back to town and money is to be made. Our room decided to roll out a brand new promotion for football this year that mainly benefits players who play during the week however this has backfired because 1. we took a few promos from the week which has hurt traffic and 2. our grumpiest, nittiest players are the only ones taking advantage of this football promo. Basically without giving too much details (mainly I dont want to give away where I work) gives players who play during the week extra football squares. Well Sunday night for the final game we only had 2 tables going and it was filled with just a non stop bitching from players as far as promos and squares and what not. Normally this doesnt get me down because complaining is normal at a poker table but with only two tables and virtually everyone complaining and not tipping it brought my mood down. When every down is the same depressing situation it wears me down.

Well I guess I was wearing my displeasure on my sleeve because my shift manager pulled me into the office to see what was up. I went on a minor rant for a few minutes basically telling him I was worn out today with the overall mood of the room. This shift manager is someone who I very much respect and he always seems to put things into prespective and offer reassurance and insight. To put things into proper context he told me about how his wife (a doctor) had to tell a 45 year old man who came in for a routine check up on Friday that he had cancer and only had a few months left to live.

It is amazing how quickly everything is put into prespective and that no matter how "tough" my job seems at times that in the grand scheme of things it is not life and death. If I make a mistake it is no big deal, tomorrow is another day. I am lucky that a guy like me who barely graduated high school can land a job where I can live pretty dam well and put extra food in my belly and extra money in my bank account. Even on my worst days in this industry it is still better than a lot of peoples best days.

Sometimes you just need that extra mental check to keep yourself humble and thankful.

YTF's story about the brew ha-ha reminded be about an incident a year or so ago I had with a player.

Now to start off the player in my incident is a fairly nice guy, who normally has a very good rapport with players and dealers at the table and is generally a good person. However this person is a well lack of a better term a very stingy, almost cheap, person. If a dollar is involved he becomes very cut throat. And when it came down to it I did not handle the situation as well as I should have

Well sometime before I showed up for the day this person had his hand killed by a dealer and lost a decent size pot. He then was very critical of every dealer and making verbal notation of every mistake that was made.

Well I push into his table and after about a round or so I did not move the button and it was not noticed until significant action of the following hand. And as luck would have it this same player was forced to pay the big blind twice. After the floor was called and the ruling was made that the hand had to be played and this player unfortunately had to pay the big blind again. Now a normal player would grumble and rightfully so but with this guy (remember he is very stingy and a extra $4 is like kicking him in the teeth). He would not let it go. I apologized for the mistake but he would not drop it.

A few hands later he is still steaming about the mistake and says if this were a 20-40 game (this player use to be regular in our 20-40 until it dried up) the dealers would pay attention more and not screw up all of the time. At this point I am biting my tongue but keeping quiet but a hand or two later he brings up how un-professional we all are and that we dont try hard because we dont deal higher games.

I have kept quiet until now but I have reached my point to where I snapped back him telling him that I am sorry for my mistake but dont ever call into question my professionalism or my integrity towards my job. I do the best I can no matter if I am dealing a 20-40 game, a 4-8 game or a .25-.50 game. Now as hard as I try I am a f****ing human and will make mistakes. (I know not the best choice of words but I am pretty hot at this moment). Most everyone in the game is pretty shocked right now because a majority know me and know that I dont get this fired up like this and have never seen me this hot before. I then make a comparison to truck drivng (this player use to be a truck driver and since I had family who use to truck drive I know a little bit about the industry) that if he missed a drop off or pickup time or got a ticket for improper load or speeding that it didnt mean he was un-professional it just means he made a mistake.

Now he snaps back saying he never made mistakes in his job and expects other to be professional and not make mistakes in their jobs. To which I shouted back that he is full of crap and every one makes mistakes in their jobs whether they are truck drivers or dealers or that guy who in charge of that rocket that blew up (a NASA rocket blew up earlier in that week)

At this point a break dealer showed up to give me an early push which had not happened to me before or has happened since to give me a chance to cool off. I once again apologized to that player (mainly to the table) and said to him that if you expect perfection from everyone you will be very dissapointed with life.

To finish up, a couple days later this player approached me to apologize for his comments about being me not being professional and that he was out of line and I once again apologized for snapping back the way I did. The good thing out of all of this is that he has since been pretty understanding of mistakes made by dealers and is not so quick anymore to bash a person.

2006 was the year I dealt the WSOP, it was also the year they decided that all tokes would be pooled. So tip boxes were attached to the cash game tables .... with Velcro.

It wasn't uncommon to see them laying on the floor. They were left out to be emptied periodically (Im not certain how often they emptied them but I never actually saw it happen so I assume it was once a day on graveyard.)

management never once responded when I asked them why there money was locked into a secure box and mine was held in lace with Velcro.

Good day everyone!

You will probably notice immediately that I am new here. I am a former Craps/Roulette/Carnival Games dealer from the East Coast where I dealt a little over a year, about 6 years ago. I am now in class to become a Poker Dealer in a Mid-West casino. I have a long-time love for the game of Poker, and have been a student (and player) of the game for the last 7 years. I have "experience" dealing Poker in home cash games, tournaments, charity games etc. I am trying audition early in my class so I can move the process along, especially given how long it takes to get your gaming license in my state. I am also unemployed at the moment, which is also motivating me.

I have the utmost respect for all of you (fellow?) Dealers and Floor Supervisors. Over the past 6 months I have read virtually every post in this thread, and I have both cringed and laughed out loud. (Especially nodding at you... YTF.)

I hope to be able to contribute some stories to the thread in the future.

Best wishes!

-MZo

P.S. - I feel a little nervous posting here, because some of you are already legends in my mind. (LOL)

some day, I'll see a sentence that starts, "I was at the WSOP..."...

...and finishes with something POSITIVE.

The last time I saw/heard a sentence like that, the event was hosted by Jack and Benny Binion.

Great post about putting the job in perspective, Gil.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but my gf is a 911 dispatcher (don't say "operator"! she'll CUT YOU!), and one day, she invited me to come check out her workplace. I sat in her cubicle, and was provided a headset to listen in on the phone calls that came in. Most were a joke, like, "OMG, there's a HAWK on my front porch!", or, "When I go for out for my daily walk, there's this dog inside one of the houses on my street that barks at me!", and you can't decide if it's funny or sad--and suddenly, the next call isn't someone speaking to us, it is instead the soundtrack of a woman being beaten. She dialed the numbers, was unable to talk to us, and prayed that was enough that rescuers could come find and save her.

I told my gf that I would never come home and complain to HER about MY job again.

(That said--she was out with my friends and I last night, and I told my brew-ha-ha story to another dealer who knows the player in question, and he responded with a similar story from this week--and my gf listened to both stories with her jaw hanging open.)

Mind if I ask where on east coast you dealt table games? Cause I broke in as a table Games Dealer myself on the east coast.

You obviously don't have to answer if you don't want to lol