Part Five: Management Issues
Game Structures
As we have seen, poker rooms need good games to be successful and good games are closely correlated to games that produce a proper balance of luck and skill. This means that the games spread in today’s modern cardrooms need to have this characteristic. If not, don’t expect them to have long-term life and when spread, expect them to be played very little.
A good example of this is the limit game Omaha Eight-or-Better. Even though this has at times been touted as the game of the future, just like limit Omaha played only for high and pot-limit Omaha, it only gets spread in a small number of cardrooms and when it’s spread, there will usually be only one game. The problem is that it’s usually correct to use the simple strategy of playing extremely tight which tends to tilt the balance of luck and skill too much towards the skill element. Furthermore, many players quickly realize that playing extremely tight is the correct strategy, which results in a failed poker game.
On the other hand, structuring games for lots of action is not necessarily correct either. Increasing action may lower the win rate of the expert players who the poker room needs to help start games and to keep them going. And the game now becomes tilted towards the luck factor, which again causes it to leave the sweet spot of the proper balance of luck and skill.
When The Bellagio first opened in the late 1990s, a decision was made to change their $75-$150 seven-card stud game with a $15 ante to an $80-$160 stud game with a $20 ante. The host of these games, and they had been a regular staple at The Mirage Poker Room before The Bellagio opened, liked to play loose and thought that this structure would be more to his liking. Plus, this would now allow them to spread $40-$80 stud with a $10 ante. But I told this person that what would happen was that win rates for the best players would drop and the luck factor would increase meaning that this decision could be a big mistake, and from this point forward, we began to see a decline in high stakes stud action in Las Vegas.
Also, playing $40-$80 stud with a $5 ante was tried in various places, but it too was not successful. Now the win rates for the best players, assuming their opponents continued to play the same way as they have been, became too high and the luck factor too low. Again, based on my observation, this game left the sweet pot of a proper balance of luck and skill, and now moved in the other direction towards too much skill and not enough luck.
The conclusion is that poker games need to be structured so that the proper balance of luck and skill is optimized. In fact, over time the different forms of poker often gradually evolve to the correct structure, and cardroom managers should be reluctant to make changes because some of their regular customers, who are looking for higher win rates, want changes made, Yes, in the short run their win rates will go up. But in the long run their favorite game might disappear and that’s not good for these players or for the poker room (that they’re playing in).
Another thing related to structure, and which was already mentioned above, is how simple is a winning strategy against weak players. In a game like seven-card stud, it’s not simple. But in a game like razz, which is seven-card stud played for low, the winning strategy is fairly simple which means that you either play razz well or you play it poorly. There is almost no in between, and this will also cause a game not to survive.
One form of poker that may be suffering from this problem is pot-limit Omaha as played in most live games. If you play extremely tight you should have an edge without having to be very good at the game, and, when you have players in the game who realize this fact, it’ll contribute to a boring no-action game. And for poker rooms to be successful, encouraging games where the correct strategy can be described by the words “boring and no action,” there’s a potential problem. Adding an ante would certainly help.
Ironically, one game where boring and no action should apply but usually doesn’t is the small stakes no-limit hold ’em games. These games may be better structured than they appear because of the fact that so many players limp in before the flop producing what David Sklansky has called an invisible ante. This implies that higher no-limit cash games may need an ante to maintain the proper balance of luck and skill, while games like the $1-$2 and $1-$3 no-limit hold ’em cash games don’t.
Another area, which, because of its extreme importance, was already discussed in detail is how large should the maximum buy-in be in no-limit hold ’em cash games. Because of this, it won’t be addressed here, but see the chapter “Buy-ins That are Too Large” starting on page 16.
Next, I want to mention what is known as bomb pots which have become popular in some cardrooms. For those who don’t know, a bomb pot is when all players agree to put a predetermined amount of money in the pot when they receive their first two cards. Then, the real betting action begins on the flop.
It should be clear that bomb pots not only change the structure of the game, but that they affect the balance of luck and skill towards luck. But they also have another much bigger problem. Bomb pots allow each player to not only see his starting two cards but the flop as well. In addition, there will be a lot of money in the pot before the real betting starts. This creates an ideal situation for players who want to collude, and because of this fact, no poker room should ever allow bomb pots.
Cardroom Managers — Missing in Action
I debated a long time as to whether to include this short chapter since I’m afraid that some people might try to use it to smear a hard-working poker room manager. That’s because this person has a job with a lot of responsibilities. This includes supervising a large staff of people, dealing with upper casino management, making decisions that can impact the play of the games, dealing with unhappy players, all sorts of bookkeeping, planning and running of tournaments, and lots of other things. But I also strongly feel that poker room managers need to be seen in the poker room they run, on a regular basis.
Over the years, I’ve known of several cardroom managers who were rarely, if ever, seen in their poker room. A few years ago, one of these left his job in a major Las Vegas casino. While this person told me (when I ran into him outside the cardroom) that he had retired, and he certainly was at retirement age, on our website at
www.twoplustwo.com a number of posters asked what he looked like. Somehow this doesn’t seem good.
When a cardroom manager just walks around his room observing every so often, lots of people notice, and this includes the poker room staff as well as the players. It’s always been my opinion that poker room managers who do this have better run poker rooms. It could be that they really are watching and seeing what needs to be improved, or it could also be that the employees begin to concentrate better on their jobs just because “the boss is here.” It could also be some of each. But my point is that when the poker room manager is visibly active, it helps the cardroom in almost all aspects.
Now to be fair, I understand that the manager cannot be in the room 24 hours a day. In addition, through phone calls and other forms of communication, he can be kept well informed of the goings on and the needs of the cardroom. But I still think that being seen is highly important.
So, the conclusion of this chapter is that in many ways the poker room manager needs to be a public person. Of course, he still needs to do his job, which means that he won’t always be seen. But making sure that the players and staff are aware that he’s around is important.
Bad Floor
After the dealers, I consider those employees who work the floor to be next in importance. That’s because it’s their job to make sure that the games run smoothly and that all problems get quickly addressed in a fair and equitable manner. To do this, they need a good and thorough understanding of the rules of the cardroom in which they’re working (and some rules will vary from cardroom to cardroom).
Here’s an example I once saw (and I’ve seen similar errors to this on several occasions). The game was $20-$40 limit hold ’em, someone went all-in on the flop by raising $5. The next player wanted to raise, and he wanted to know what he could raise to. The floor person told him that he had a choice of raising to either $40 or $45 which, of course, was wrong.
The error that the floor person made was that he didn’t know that the extra $5 the all-in bettor had was not considered a complete bet. On the other hand, if the all-in player had $30, given that the bet was $20 on the flop, and that the extra $10 was half a bet (or more), then the $10 would have counted as a full bet. So, the correct ruling when the all-in player only had $25 was that the raise would be to $40. But if the all-in player had $30, the additional $10 would count as a bet and the raise for the next player would now be to $50.
Here’s an example from a $1-$2 no-limit hold ’em game. Before the flop, the betting is action is $5, then $20, then the next player goes all-in for $32, and then the original $5 bettor calls $27 more. The person who made it $20 can only call the $12 raise to him and can’t reraise. But if the first bettor had bet $10 rather than $5, the next player made it $20, and the next player moved in for $32, then after the first player calls $22 more, the player who made it $20 can raise again if he chooses (not just call $12). Many floor people get confused by this (because his original raise was $10, and he got reraised $12 whereas in the first situation his original raise was $15 and he got raised $12).
Another problem that I sometimes see with someone working the floor is that they don’t complete the mission at hand. For example, suppose a game goes short, the floor gets called, and the remaining players draw for seats. Notice that the floor person’s job is not over since the players who are now ready to go to another table may not know who has priority to select a table first and, in addition, they don’t always know what table(s) to go to. This is often just a sloppy performance from the floor person, and this would often be the case, even if they’re being called to another table to address another issue.
Another area where most people working the floor, in my opinion, do a poor job is being on the lookout for soft playing and angle shots. In reality, in a cash game when two friends are the only ones left in the pot and they then decide to check it down, they probably aren’t hurting anything. (This would not be true in a tournament.) But a tourist type player who doesn’t understand what’s really going on might think there’s something wrong and either get upset or leave the game. I’ve seen this happen on a number of occasions.
Angle shots, such as stalling when it’s your turn to bet and then check raising if the player behind you then bets out of turn, may not exactly be cheating, but they shouldn’t be tolerated by the poker room. And it’s the floor who’ll need to identify these people. And as with soft playing, but even more so, this is the sort of thing that can upset players and cause the poker room to not only lose a customer but gain a reputation for allowing players to get away with stuff like this.
Anyway, when it comes to soft playing and angle shots, there should be no toleration from the cardroom for either. The offending players should be quickly identified by the floor and either someone who works the floor or who is in poker room management should counsel the offending player. And if the counseling doesn’t work, the offending person should be given a vacation from the cardroom.
Excessive Rake
When I first began to play poker in the early 1980s, the game was mostly $3-$6 Jacks-or-Better to Open Draw Poker and the time charge, since rake was not allowed in California at that time, was $0.50 every half hour. This low rake helped me to survive my initial plays which allowed me to become a regular poker player in the cardrooms of Gardena California.
Today, the rake in a game this size, which would be approximately equivalent to $2-$4 limit hold ’em, would be at least $5 (including a promotion drop), making it very difficult for a new player to survive and become a regular player. And notice that I said a “regular player” and not a professional player which would take longer to achieve.
As a result, today’s cardrooms, for a short-term gain in revenue, are probably reducing the number of games that they offer and players who participate. This means, again, that their long-term revenue is most likely lower than it could be. But the problems that high rake causes are even more serious.
To start, a high rake encourages tight play which is not good for the health of the games since it reduces the amount of action that a game offers. And as stated before, most players want a game with lots of action. The better players understand that there are a lot of hands which would be correct to play if there was no rake or only a small rake. But with today’s high rake, these players will now fold hands which in a non-rake game they would play.
This means that either the rake should be lowered, or the game should switch to a time charge. Of course, switching to a time charge still doesn’t solve the problem of too much money coming off the table, but it should help some by helping to make the game better by producing a little more action.
Another problem has to do with short-handed games. Even if the rake is reduced to account for fewer players at the table, the money collected via the rake may still be higher than a standard game simply because so many more hands will be dealt. As a result, in my opinion, rake reductions for short games should be even more than what is currently standard. In addition, notice that this possibly higher amount of total rake is coming from even fewer players (at the table), and this occurs in a situation where the cardroom would like to keep the game going. Consequently, here’s another example of today’s high rake hurting the games in the long run.
Props, who are players being paid by the house to play in games and whose main purpose is to help start games and keep games going, also have a negative effect on the rake. All of this will be addressed later in the book. See the chapter “Props” starting on page 110. For now, be aware that I think that those poker rooms that use props should try to reduce their reliance on them.
This now leads to an obvious question. What is the right amount of rake that a poker room should take?
First, we need to understand that poker rooms have a right to make a profit. If a poker room can’t do this, then expect it to eventually close. Also, the expenses to maintain a poker room vary from cardroom to cardroom. So, don’t expect the rake to be exactly the same everywhere.
However, I believe that a mediocre recreational player should win about on-third of his four-hour sessions (of live play). And along with the structure of the game, the rake should be contributing to achieving this suggestion.
Notice that this leads to a specific point. The rake should not be the same (as it currently is) in games of different stakes. That’s because to reach the one-third estimate, the small stakes games would require a smaller rake. Of course, this will make the dealer’s job a little more difficult, but someone who’s supposed to be a professional dealer should be able to handle this.
As to what the rake should currently be to help keep the games in balance which should assure their growth, in my opinion the maximum rake in a $1-$2 or $1-$3 no-limit hold ’em should be $3, and in a $2-$5 no-limit hold ’em game, it could go to $4. Also, these rake estimates include any money that goes for promotions.
In limit hold ’em, my recommendation for games below $10-$20 would be $2, and at $10-$20, a $3 max rake should work. These rake estimates should also hold for seven-card stud. And limit games at $20-$40 or higher, should go to a time charge as most currently do.
Another point, which the above hints at, is if the poker room went to these rake sizes and ended all their promotions, that should be fine, and in my opinion would also be a good decision. Remember, the lower rake can be presented as the promotion itself. There are already a small number of well received low-limit games in Las Vegas where a $3 rake and no promotion drop (meaning that these players are not eligible for any promotions) are already in use.
Tournaments
This was one of the most difficult chapters to write in this book. Part of the reason is that poker tournaments have become such an integral part of poker, and in a way criticizing aspects of poker tournaments is essentially criticizing poker itself. But there are some important issues that need to be addressed.
Years ago, when I first came to Las Vegas, there was a bunch of small buy-in tournaments which had something like $50 buy-ins where $5 went for the expense of running the tournament, and if someone who cashed wanted to leave a tip, it was up to them. They usually had short rounds and were considered to be a good way to attract customers to the particular poker room who would hopefully stay to play in the cash games once they were knocked out of the tournament. In addition, these small buy-in tournaments were a good way to introduce players to other forms of poker.
Today, it’s different. The juice on the tournaments is a lot higher. For example, the $50 buy-in tournament today takes $10 or more. So, here again, we have another example of the rake being too high which should contribute to limiting the growth and health of a poker room.
Continuing with this theme, this all carries over to the very large tournaments. For instance, at The World Series of Poker (WSOP), the juice in many of the tournaments is roughly equivalent to third place money, and at some of their smaller buy-in tournaments it’s even higher. Add to this the juice from the satellites that they offer, it’s easy to see that a lot of money is coming out of the poker economy every year.
In the beginning, when Jack Binion’s WSOP was held at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in Downtown Las Vegas, the juice was kept low and, in my opinion, the WSOP was one of the major contributors to the growth of poker. But with the high fees of today, it’s difficult to believe that this is still the case.
Also, in the big tournaments, when someone wins a large cash prize, that money is much more likely to leave the poker economy. Notice that this is similar to someone winning a large poker jackpot prize (and jackpots will be discussed in the next chapter on “Promotions” starting on page 85).
Anyway, the above should be something for poker room managers and others to think about. While many of today’s tournaments, both the very large ones and the ones not so large, seem popular, are they really good for poker and/or are they currently damaging the business of the poker rooms?
Another issue that needs to be addressed is poker tournaments operated by third parties. Why do they even exist?
Clearly, unlike years ago when many small poker tournaments were more like loss leaders to attract players into a cardroom, today’s tournaments are designed to show a profit. I have no problem with this. But I do question when a poker room allows a third party to come in and run a poker tournament. Why doesn’t the cardroom itself have the ability to run the tournament? And why do they need help from a third organization.
The problem is that not only does a poker room need to make a profit, but the third party must do so as well. This means that the juice will need to be even higher (for both entities to show a decent profit), and this profit must come from the players who participate in the poker tournament. The bottom-line result is that again the rake for many of these events is probably too high and will have a negative long-term effect on poker, both cash games and tournaments.
And finally, to complete this chapter, we come to the idea of collecting money for the staff. In some tournaments, usually ones with smaller buy-ins, part of the juice goes to the staff. And in some of the large buy-in tournaments, a percentage of the player’s pool, often 3 percent, goes to the staff with all the juice going to the house.
Now, making sure the staff is paid a fair wage for their work is certainly fine. But at virtually all tournaments when you cash, someone on the staff when you’re being paid will ask “Would you like to leave something for the staff?” This sure seems like double dipping to me. In fact, a few years back, it was rumored that the winner of the Main Event at the WSOP did not leave a tip and in some places, he was vilified. But he actually did tip even if it was true that he didn’t leave any money after he had won the tournament. He had already had a percentage of his win allocated to the staff, which was his tip, and now he was expected to leave them even more.
Again, this doesn’t seem right. Either take enough out of the tournament for the staff or take nothing and let the players who cash in the event have the option to leave a tip, but not both. Also, this is another contributor to the adversarial relationship between the players, who often don’t like being pressured for additional money, and the poker room staff.
Promotions
Way back in the late 1980s, after having been living in Las Vegas for a little more than a year, I had a conversation with a particular poker room manager who, while always a pleasant person, didn’t run his poker room the way I thought that it should be run. “Look,” I said to him, “if you want to fill this room with players, take all your promotional money, go find the ten worst players in town, and give it to them with the stipulation that they had to play their poker at your place until the money is gone.” Of course, we both laughed, but there’s something about this silly idea that’s extremely right. The best and most successful poker rooms have “good games,” and these good games attract players, both experts and recreational players alike.
This story illustrates the idea that those cardrooms that offer promotions design them to benefit weaker players and not the pros. However, if the weaker players benefit, then it should also be obvious that, in most cases, the pros should benefit as well since much of the money that goes to the weak players will, in time, end up in the hands of the strong players (less rake and tips which will benefit the cardroom). Notice that this is the sort of thing that makes poker rooms successful. Let me give three examples of promotions, one good, one neutral, and one bad.
First, a common promotion that many poker rooms have, is a reward for making certain hands of value, usually four-of-a-kind or better, and sometimes the reward money goes up based on the strength of the hand. And who gets this money?
Well, if you understand how different people play poker, it should be obvious that in most cases the weak players play more hands than the tight, strong players. And the more hands you play, the more likely you’re to make one of these high-valued hands. It’s also my guess that about two-thirds of this promotional money will go to the weak players. Consequently, in my opinion, this is a good promotion for a cardroom.
Second, I’ve also been in cardrooms where they have seat drawings. I won one recently when my seat was randomly drawn. While this was certainly nice for me, having the money go to me, from a cardroom’s perspective, is similar to putting the money in a wood burning fireplace and burning it.
Of course, recreational players also win these drawings, so this is not the worst promotion there is, and I would give it a neutral rating. Not good, but not that bad either. However, if it was up to me, random cash drawings would never happen since there are better ways to distribute the promotional money, and again, these better ways should assure that a higher percentage of the promotional money goes to the weak players.
Third, many poker rooms have a promotion where in one form or another, they reward/pay players for playing a certain number of hours. It can be something like $100 for playing 20 hours in a week, and, if you play a full 30 hours, the reward will go up to $200.
Another version of this is when players, after putting in enough hours (and sometimes certain hours will count double), will earn a spot in a free-roll tournament. This of course has value, and in terms of expectation is similar to giving a player money.
However, there’s a big problem with this type of promotion. The majority of the money is going to the better players and not the live ones. That’s because the better players, and not the recreational players, are the ones that tend to put in a lot of hours.
So, here is a common type of promotion which has the effect of making the games tougher and should be long-term detrimental to the poker room even though it might add a few extra hours of rake. And promotions that reward players for putting in a lot of hours should not be offered. My guess is that poker room managers have never thought through the damage that promotions like this do.
And this is for poker room managers. If you have been offering this type of promotion, it may be difficult to never do it again. But your future versions of this type of promotion should at least be scaled down and the money saved can now go to other promotions which help to make the games good.
There are three other quick points to be made:
1. Certain promotions may induce the recreational players to play even worse than they normally do. This idea was brought up by our poster Corto Montez. He pointed out that certain promotions may encourage the recreational players to play poorer than they normally do. An example might be playing any ace in an attempt to win an aces full getting beat jackpot. But is this good?
While it certainly may improve the short-term win rate of the best players, I doubt that this is beneficial for the poker room or these better players in the long run. That’s because the balance of luck and skill may be thrown off which might mean that high quality games won’t last as long as they should.
2. Poker rooms need to consider the clientele that their promotions will attract. Again, going back to the late 1980s, one of the poker rooms that I played at offered a promotion where the first person who played 500 hours on graveyard shift, regardless of the game he played, would win a substantial amount of money (and I’ve forgotten the exact number). Also, if more than one person tied by hitting the 500-hour mark at the same time, the promotional money would be split. The idea was that this promotion would add one or two more games on graveyard and through the rake easily pay for itself. And it may have done exactly that.
However, this cardroom was located in a very nice casino and this promotion attracted many “low-lifes” who were probably desperate for money. And while I don’t know for sure, it was my opinion that even though an additional game or two was occupied by players trying to win the promotion, it also had the effect of chasing more desirable players (and pit customers who wanted to play a little poker) out of the poker room. So, in that sense, it had the opposite effect. That is, instead of creating more games, it cost the cardroom business and most likely contributed to its closing a year or so later. (Of course, the manager of this poker room, probably due to his extensive resume, went on to get a better job.)
Another example of attracting the wrong clientele probably occurred in the Desert Inn Casino (which has now been replaced by The Wynn Casino). For those who don’t remember, the Desert Inn, while small by today’s standards, was a beautiful casino that had a high class wealthy customer base. Anyway, one day in the mid-1990s I was in the Desert Inn and their headline entertainer that night was none other than the great Frank Sinatra, one of the last times that he played in Las Vegas. In addition, you could tell by the way people were dressed in the show line that these were the type of customers the Desert Inn management would want.
However, there was also a small poker room in the corner of this casino and that night they were having a $12 buy-in tournament. Needless to say, the people coming into the poker room were not of the same status as those in the show line. In fact, it was my opinion that if the casino management at The Desert Inn understood what the poker room was doing, there would be no more $12 tournaments. This might be an example of a poker room being run wrong because poker room management wasn’t evaluating things properly, and a few months later it was closed down.
3. Think about where the money is going. Here is an example of something already discussed. In one of the poker rooms I currently play, they have a promotion that pays $599 for anyone making a royal flush. Now even though royal flushes are rarities, it seems to me that the best players and the worst players are almost equally likely to make one. That’s because everyone plays hands like two suited cards where both cards are a ten or higher.
But what if this promotion was changed to a straight flush wheel (ace-deuce-trey-four-five of the same suit)? Now the weak recreational players who play too many hands are more likely to get the promotional money since a poor player is more likely to play a hand like trey-deuce suited than a strong player.
Of course, making this change is only a small difference, but these small differences can and will add up. Plus, making this change should be easy to do, and I doubt that any of the players would object.
Next, I want to address jackpots when a terrific hand gets beat that offer large payoffs for the loser of the poker hand. At first, this might seem like a good promotion since the jackpot winner is more likely to be someone who plays too many hands. That is, the more great hands you make, the more likely you are to get one beat. But there is a problem.
First, notice that for a promotion to be good, the poker room needs for most of that money to go back into the poker games. But does this happen when a large jackpot gets paid out? I think not.
But what will happen is that someone will buy a new car, perhaps make a down payment on a house, or come up with another way to spend a large amount of money. This probably isn’t good for the poker room.
(I do understand that an extremely large jackpot that’s well advertised may attract some additional players who might not normally come to the poker room. However, I don’t think this makes up for all the extra money that’s coming out of the poker economy compared to the more normal sized promotions where the money will often be recirculated.)
Now some cardrooms seem to realize this, and they try to spread the money out to a number of players. This includes not only the winner of the jackpot hand, but perhaps all the players at the table, or even more.
As an example, and this goes all the way back to the mid-1980s, I was once playing in a California poker room which had a promotion that anyone who made a straight-flush wheel in one of their California Ace-to-Five Lowball games (which was a form of draw poker with only two rounds of betting) would win a big prize. However, as part of the give-away, they also gave money to everyone who was playing in one of these games at that time, and one day when this jackpot was hit, I received $100 for playing in a similar game.
Needless to say, this type of promotion is better than just the straight jackpot give away, which is rarely done anymore, since some of the money will go to live players who will just bring it back to the poker economy. But in my opinion, it’s still a poor promotion.
Another important idea to be mentioned is when is it best to offer these promotions? Many poker rooms will offer them on their slow days in an effort to attract more customers. At first, this seems logical since on certain days there will be a lot of empty seats and tables in the poker room, and its management should be aware of this. But who’s now going to get the promotional money?
The answer is that it’ll mainly be the regular/tougher players who show up on the slow days, and so the promotional money will again be going to the wrong place. And part of the reason for this is that the poorer playing recreational players, who’ll show up on the busy nights, won’t have the money to play on the slower days since they were losers on the nights they did show up. The conclusion here is that this means that the promotions, where lots of money is being given away, should happen on the busy nights so that a larger percentage of the weak recreational players get it, and this is probably the opposite of what most poker room managers think.
By the way, while not the main subject of this book and will only be briefly mentioned here, in games like poker, which are based on probability theory, many things will be counterintuitive to many people, and the idea that promotions should be held on the nights when you don’t seem to need them is certainly a counterintuitive approach that doesn’t seem right. But that’s the way many things related to gambling/poker work, and I suspect that many poker room managers who have read this chapter may begin to rethink exactly how they’re doing their promotions.
Another possible good promotion, which was suggested by our poster Ian Maguire is to give some of the tournament players, who perhaps make something like a high hand during a tournament, a voucher that would only be redeemable after playing a certain length of time in a cash game, and the cash game could be targeted to a specific form of poker. And as Ian Maguire stated when referring to a cardroom that had this promotion, “This had the effect of peppering the cash games with people who had no idea how to play them.” The regulars appreciated this more than if the promotion money was just handed out in cash, and the receiver of the promotion just might discover a new game (such as those suggested by David Sklansky in the “Appendix”) which he may want to play again.
To finish these ideas in this important chapter, and to recap some of the above, I believe that promotions can be an important part of what makes a poker room successful. But the promotions need to be done right with the emphasis on the money being returned to the players going mostly to the right people. This will help assure that the games stay good, and as was pointed out at the start of this chapter, it’s good games that attract players to a poker room and allow the poker room to thrive.
When a poker room is doing well, the manager is often concerned with things like having enough dealers and getting new games quickly started as the lists fill up with players. But when things begin to go bad and the cardroom starts to lose games, the promotions will often start. And many of the promotions that will be implemented, as seen above, will do even more damage to the business model of the now struggling cardroom.
And to finish this chapter, I want to tell the greatest promotion story I ever heard. It was told to me by the late Norman Berliner who was also an excellent seven-card stud player.
Back in the late 1970s, before I was playing poker, Johnny Moss, the first winner of the Main Event at the World Series of Poker, was the manager of the poker room at The Dunes Hotel and Casino. A standard promotion that they had was to allow players, with a coupon that was easy to get, to purchase $22 in chips for only $20. One day a casino customer who had come into the room did this and promptly ran his $22 up to over $50 when he decided to cash out.
Somehow, he found out that Mr. Moss was playing in a big game just a few feet away from the table which he was playing at and this customer decided to tell Johnny that if it wasn’t for the promotion, he would have never played poker and would not have more than doubled his money. Supposedly, Moss then said, “That coupon is good in this game too,” and he then proceeded to somehow talk the customer into sitting down in his game and buying in for $1,000 for which he received $1,002 in chips since Moss honored the coupon. Needless to say, this person quickly lost his buy-in in the big game.
Cannibalizing Games
A thriving cardroom with lots of games will also have a variety of games that will satisfy the needs of its many customers. This includes both limit and no-limit hold ’em, seven-card stud, other forms of poker, and games at several different stakes. But the poker room also needs to be careful as to exactly what these stakes are, especially when starting a new game.
Specifically, the brush needs to be careful about possibly breaking games already in progress, and this is true when he starts both a smaller game and a larger game. For instance, if the poker room currently has no-limit hold ’em games with blinds of $2 and $5, it should not start a game with blinds of $3 and $6 because it may break a $2-$5 game, and if you’re a player in the game that gets broken, you probably won’t appreciate this.
In addition, even if you start a larger (or smaller) game of the right size, it can still break a game that is currently going. For instance, suppose in a $2-$5 game the majority, but not all, of the players are on the list to play $5-$10, and now this larger game gets started and the $2-$5 players on the list for the $5-$10 game now all go to it. What happens to the remaining players in the $2-$5 game?
Well, if you can quickly fill the $2-$5 game then there shouldn’t be any problem. But just because there is a list of waiting $2-$5 players it doesn’t mean they’ll now play. Because of this, the brush not only needs to check with the current $2-$5 players to see how many really want to go to a bigger game, but he should also check with the players on the list to see whether he can quickly fill the $2-$5 game once many of its players leave.
So, the conclusion is, especially for poker room managers, if you don’t want to irritate some of your customers, make sure their game doesn’t get broken so that they now have to sit out. This is especially aggravating for those players who are losing and want to keep playing in an attempt to get even. (Also notice that this is one of the things that the terrible Must-Move Rule accomplishes.)
There’s also a corollary to this. When players want to change their game, usually by raising the stakes, cardroom management has to consider how the structure change affects other games in the poker room. A mistake here cannot only cost the poker room one or more games, but as stated above, can irritate some of the customers.
Forgetting the Regular Customer
One of the things that poker room management always needs to understand is that the majority of their players, the majority of their games, and the majority of the rake comes from the smaller stakes. Sometimes those poker rooms that have large games lose sight of this and too much attention is spent on the high stakes games as well as the high stakes players. In addition, the same thing sometimes happens to regular customers who spend a lot of time in their favorite poker room. Stated another way, giving preferential treatment to some players can be bad long-term for the poker room.
The following is from our poster MHE about his pet peeves:
Players who get away with belittling opponents, taunting them, etc. and don’t get so much as a warning, but others, for whatever reason, get warned, kicked out, etc. There are players who walk in and bypass the wait list. I see this a lot. And I’m talking about rooms that don’t allow call ahead. So, these players literally arrive and get in a game before the guy who’s been waiting 40 minutes patiently. There are other examples too of favoritism, such as floor rulings in their favor, etc.”
Today, I currently don’t know of any poker rooms where something like this is going on, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening somewhere. If you’re in poker room management where something like this is happening, it needs to stop.
Another thing to always keep in mind is that revenue from many low stakes games does match what a high stakes game will produce. So, in most cases it’s important to treat them the same. However, some of these high stakes customers may be good casino customers in other ways, and I do recognize that top casino management may want special treatment for these people even when they’re in the poker room.
But in general, recreational players should be shown the same respect by both dealers and staff that the experts get. In addition, as has been stressed in this book, the cardroom atmosphere should ensure that recreational players have an enjoyable time, especially since, on occasion, some of the regular players inevitably will come across as arrogant, abusive, or just plain non-engaging nits. And when bad behaving regs are noticed, cardroom management should privately talk to them.
As mentioned before, but it also fits in well here, “soft play” should be strongly discouraged. In a cash game if the last two players soft play it may not hurt anything relative to the other players, other than maybe allowing someone who’s low on chips to stay in the game. However, recreational players who don’t understand what is happening may think that this is some form of cheating and resent the fact that the poker room tolerates this from some of its regular players. So again, cardroom management should privately talk to these offending players.
Player Meetings
Over the years, I have attended a number of player meetings where two or more players sit down and meet with someone in poker room management. Without exception, I have found every one of these meetings to be worthless and refuse to go to them anymore.
The main problem is that the players in these meetings just want to do those things which they feel will benefit themselves in the short run. They never think in terms of what is good for poker in general, and usually have no understanding of things like the proper balance of luck and skill. And to be honest, most poker room managers don’t think in these terms either.
I’m also of the opinion that poker room managers are supposed to have a good understanding of what’s going on and exactly how their poker room should be run. But they don’t. Here are two examples concerning conversations I’ve had in the past relative to The Most-Move Rule.
The first manager, a bunch of years ago, couldn’t understand that the Must-Move Rule would break games. Her reply to me was that must-move was good for poker since it kept the games full. Apparently, she had no idea where the players came from to “keep the games full.” A knowledgeable manager, while not necessarily agreeing with my conclusion, should have instantly known what I was talking about.
The second conversation, which occurred a number of years later with a different poker room manager in a different poker room went something like this. The manager stated, “Some of our players want the Must-Move Rule and some of them don’t. So, I’m undecided about it.” My answer, “Aren’t you the manager and aren’t you supposed to know if this rule is good for your poker room or not. Are you in charge or the players?” Needless to say, this was another conversation I had that didn’t go well.
And this brings us back to player meetings. How should the manager in question handle these meetings? First, if he’s going to have them, he needs to be knowledgeable in the many procedures and policies that go on in a poker room. If he’s not, he shouldn’t have these meetings. Hopefully, this book will help in this area.
Second, why have these meeting at all? If you meet with ten different people, expect to hear ten different things relative to a particular subject that may need addressing but for which the meeting will be of essentially no benefit. My recommendation is for the person in management who handles the appropriate area of concern to talk privately, one player at a time, with the players even though this will take more time to accomplish. Also, identifying one or more players to talk to who think in the manner of this book can be helpful.
This came from our poster Gzesh:
Some nits seem to feel that they have some entitlement to behave so as to shape the poker room experience to their benefit, at the cost of losing players having a good time playing. This bent is against the best interests of the cardroom operator.
I agree.
Finally, to finish this chapter, remember the story of how The Bellagio changed their $75-$150 stud game with a $15 ante to an $80-$160 stud game with a $20 ante that appeared in the “Game Structures” chapter starting on page 72. The final decision to make this change came at a player meeting that was led by the current host, a well-liked person, in The Bellagio Poker Room. Needless to say, everyone in the room seemed to have a different opinion, and it also seemed to me that the meeting had little value. I have always thought that if I could have talked privately with the host, and being a professional statistician who understood how changes in structure could upset the balance of luck and skill, the decision might have been different.
Starting New Games When Not Ready
This will be a short chapter, but I believe an important one. That’s because what I think is a better way to call down new games will be introduced.
Presently, when a new game is called, you and some others often go to the table only to discover that there is no dealer, no chips, and no floor person or brush to help the game get started. Then after a few minutes, some of the players wander off and the new game which should have started, never happens. There’s no excuse for this.
A variation that sometimes happens is that the brush only calls enough names from the top of the list to fill all the seats at the table, but only some of these players, as might be expected, show up. Though there are more names on the list the brush doesn’t bother to call them in an appropriate amount of time, and again the result is a new game which should have started, doesn’t happen. And again, there’s no excuse for this.
What should happen is that the brush stays at the table where the new game will be located until either the game is full, or the list is exhausted. And here’s my suggestion for a procedure to accomplish this goal most efficiently and quickly when there is uncertainty as to whether all of the first nine (for hold ’em) on the list are available and willing to start the game. Call a few names beyond that first nine. Perhaps three. But when you do, preface their name with the word “alternate” and their place on the list. Alternate 1 Sally. Alternate 2 George. etc. Those alternates will, if they choose, go to that starting table and lock up a seat with something like a chip or coin.. But the alternates will not initially buy chips since they know their lockup will sometimes be picked up and they’ll be put back on the list. The alternates will officially be in the game only after the first card has been dealt, presumably five or ten minutes after the game was initially called. They’ll not make it if someone from the original nine makes it to the table a little late but before that first card is dealt. (Obviously, if eight of the original nine make it, then the tenth on the list alternate player is the one who gets the open slot while the other two go back on the list.)
If someone from the first group of names shows up a little late and the first card of the first hand has not yet been dealt, he gets a seat replacing the highest numbered alternate called to the game. However, if the first card of the first hand has been dealt, this person (who has shown up late) would then be placed first on the list. Assuming he was no more than perhaps ten minutes late. If two or three originals got shut out, they would all go on top of the list in their original order.
And one final comment. In those rooms with large games, I’ve seen the brush on many occasions, after calling a list for a new smaller stakes game, quickly get completely absorbed with the high stakes players when there was really no need to do so. So, if you’re the brush and call names off the list to start a new game, make sure that everything is in place before moving on to anything else. Obnoxious Players
One problem that virtually all cardrooms have are players whose behavior could and should be better. And when I say “better,” what is really meant are the words “much better.” This bad behavior includes being rude and belittling other players, especially those who play poorly but who have just drawn out on you, slowing down the game, and abusing dealers.
And speaking of rudeness and belittling other players, some of our posters felt that this problem is quite common towards women in some cardrooms. In my experience, I don't see much of this anymore although perhaps thirty years (or more) ago, when my time in poker rooms began, it was quite common. But if this is happening in your cardroom, it needs to be addressed.
What these obnoxious players do is damage the games by making it unpleasant for the other players, especially the recreational players who are essential for a successful poker room. And a frequent result is that a customer is lost, at least for the rest of that day or night, who is often someone who helps make the games good, which should be just the opposite of what the obnoxious player wants to accomplish. So, he not only hurts the cardroom, but he’ll often hurt himself as well by making his game tougher when the recreational player decides to leave.
One positive thing, as mentioned above, is that these obnoxious players don’t seem to be as numerous as they used to be. (Of course, this statement may not be true in a different location.) However, management should always be on the lookout for these people, and when an obnoxious player appears, management should quickly talk to them privately and get their issue solved while also stressing that their behavior must improve if they expect to continue playing in their poker room. This is especially true if they are abusive to the recreational players or point out how badly they play.
There’s also a second reason why telling a poor playing recreational player how bad he plays is harmful for the cardroom. It’s the idea that the recreational player may begin to realize that poker is much more than a “luck game” and he’ll now make an effort to learn how to play better. Thus, this bad behavior can slowly make some of the poker games tougher, even if the recreational player whose been targeted by the obnoxious player doesn’t leave. This is not a good outcome for those cardrooms which are striving to have good games.
Another thing to keep in mind is that just because a player is behaving poorly it doesn’t mean that he’s an obnoxious player. Stated another way, poker room management should also try to determine if this is a normally well-behaved player who has just gotten upset about something, or someone who misbehaves regularly. Also, if a normally well-behaved player does all of a sudden behave poorly, there may be a reason which cardroom management should become aware of.
The category of obnoxious players should also include players who regularly “tank” or stall. Now there will be times, especially in no-limit hold ’em, where players will need some extra time to think things through and figure out what the best decision (for them) should be. But some players, and there are a fair number of these in today’s games, do it excessively. And when a player like this is identified, poker room management should privately talk to that player. I suspect that if the offending player is told that if he doesn’t speed up a vacation from the cardroom will be forthcoming, the stalling and tanking will quickly go away. And while not quite the same thing, players who often hold up a game insisting that certain rules be addressed when they have no bearing on the current hand also fit into this class of players.
In addition to those who tank and stall, I also consider shot takers to be closely related to obnoxious players. While these people are sometimes polite and nicely behaved, if they become known as someone who makes unethical plays, their behavior should be immediately addressed.
A related category is the dirty, filthy, and smelly players. The poker room should also talk to them and show them the door until they clean up.
Another category of players who need to behave better is those who think the dealer deliberately gives then bad hands or never lets them complete a hand such as a straight or a flush. And while this is not a statistics book, probability theory tells us that there will be a dealer where by chance you have done your worst (and another dealer where by chance where by chance you have done your best). This is the way it’s supposed to be. And it goes without saying that players who abuse these dealers should not be tolerated.
Fortunately, I see very few players who abuse the dealers today. It wasn’t like this when my time in the poker rooms began. But in any case, whether it happens a lot or a little, dealer abuse by players should not be tolerated.
However, dealer abuse shouldn’t be used by the dealer as a reason to stop dealing. For example, suppose after getting a strong hand beat a player throws his cards at the dealer and the dealer feels this is abuse and that something needs to be done about it. What he should do is call the floor person, but, as soon as possible, start dealing the next hand. Let the floor person take care of the offending player.
There’s one final topic to address in this chapter and it’ll contradict some of what has been said above, and it’s the idea that certain players may have what is known as “sucker privileges.” This topic is addressed in my book
Real Poker Psychology, and this is from page 207 of that book:
Unfortunately, the idea of sucker privileges is true at all levels of poker. While I think that it would be nice if a reasonable code of conduct was enforced in the poker rooms, that's just not always the case and not doing this is probably best for the poker economy. If you're a live one, unfortunately, your behavior doesn't have to be that good, and loud obnoxious players who slow up the game for no reason at all are almost always tolerated providing they are significant losers.
This means that when considering the idea of sucker privileges a well-run poker room will have to show some flexibility, and this certainly makes the job of working on the floor tough when dealing with players who at times behave poorly. But it can certainly be done.
Inexperienced Players
One of the keys to a successful poker room is the ability to pick up new players, keep them playing, and to have them come back as future customers. An interesting thing about poker is that after playing for only a short period of time, a new player will often think he’s a good player when in reality he’s no where close. And this will help the poker room gain a new repeating customer. But he still needs to get to this point.
This usually means that as long as the novice is in a small stakes game certain rules, such as making sure that each player acts in turn, should either not be strictly enforced and/or at least politely explained to the new player why this rule is in place and why it’s actually to his benefit. Another more complex example would be the string bet rule and why it’s necessary for the integrity of the games.
Also, it’s important to make sure that the more experienced players don’t use the rules to take advantage of those obviously new to poker. In addition, if it’s a cardroom that has rules that are unique to this particular poker room, the same attitude should preside. Give some leeway to new players or even experienced players who are new to your room.
An example would be the requirement to place the complete bet or raise in chips. So, for instance, in a limit game, if the bet is $6 and the new player puts in ten $1 chips into the pot, almost all poker rooms will make him put two more $1 chips into the pot and call it a raise, while a few do require that he remove four $1 chips and call it a call. Since almost all cardrooms will call this a raise, any cardroom that doesn’t should be aware that their rule is unusual and let it slide for a new customer.
In addition, there are several common errors that a novice player will make. These include holding their cards so that others can see them, throwing (splashing) their chips into the pot, and announcing a bet or raise before it’s their turn to act but then changing their mind when the action gets to them. If any of these happens, the dealer should politely explain to the novice player what his error is and why he should correct it.
If it’s a more experienced player, it should be handled differently. Someone from the floor should talk to the player about continuously splashing the pot or calling out his action before it’s his turn to act. (However, the dealer should talk to this player about how he’s holding his cards if they’re being exposed to a player next to him.) That’s because play at the middle and high stakes is much more serious, meaning that all play should be handled in a technically precise manner with less tolerance for beginner errors.
Running It Twice
And now we come back to the idea of a proper balance of luck and skill. Unfortunately, many of the better players would like to remove the luck part of the equation that determines their short-term poker results. In many ways I don’t blame them, but if this could be done, it would mean that against the same weak competition they would win every time. Unfortunately, as we have already seen, poker doesn’t work well when this is the case.
One of the ways that this is being partly done is through what is known as “running it twice” (and sometimes more). Running it twice is when the remaining board cards are actually dealt twice with half the pot being attached to the first run out and half the pot being attached to the second run out. And I question if this is something that a poker room should allow.
Again, this all goes back to the amount of variance or short-term luck that is present in poker. For example, suppose in a certain situation your expectation is to win the pot 50 percent of the time and there is $100 in the pot. Notice that your fair share is $50. But since you’ll either win or lose the pot, when the hand is over, you’ll have either $0 (from the pot) or $100 (from the pot). But again, your expectation is exactly half, not all or nothing. So, what running it twice accomplishes is to produce results that are more consistent with the expectations that poker offers with the variance (or short-term luck) being smaller.
For the experts, assuming their competition remains the same, this will have two results. First, they’ll have a higher percentage of winning sessions. Second, again assuming the competition remains the same, they’ll be able to play higher stakes since the required bankroll (in terms of big blinds or buy-ins) will now be reduced since their fluctuations will be less severe. And this is something that almost all expert poker players would like as exactly how large your bankroll should be is something that many players struggle with (even though formulas that will help determine this number are readily available).
However, the long-term losing recreational players will have fewer winning sessions. And even though theoretically their long-term results should be the same (since only the variance has changed and their expectation has remained the same), they now may not have enough winning sessions to keep them playing, and this could affect the number of games that a poker room gets to spread.
One of the posters on our web site pointed out how poker is really one long session and the percent of winning (short) sessions that a player has should not matter. But this isn’t true. Again, one of the hooks that keeps the moderately weak recreational players playing is that they probably win about one-third of the time, and if you take those wins away from them, even if their long-term result is the same, a customer may be lost.
So, to conclude all of this, I question whether run it twice should be allowed. If these procedures cause the balance of luck and skill to tilt too much towards skill, then they will definitely be bad for poker and hurt the cardroom as well as the better playing regular players in the long run. And one way of possibly determining this is to inquire how much the better players want them. If most of them do, then they probably shouldn’t be allowed.
