Bobby's Breakroom - for gaming employee chatter + YTF appreciation. See restrictions in Post #1

Back at my old house job I got pretty burned out towards the end. I rarely act out, but once in a while I hit my limit. Especially when players are touching me, I'm not a fan of that.

One night a player to my right was sitting low with his legs crossed and one leg sticking straight out. I'm sitting high up and his foot starts tapping me in the calf. I start asking him to stop. First subtly "Is that your foot?" while looking down, then more directly, then full on "Can you try to not kick me?" while pointing at his foot. He completely ignored me and kept on doing it. In fact, he was moving further under me and eventually he was non stop tapping the back of my knee with his shin.

Game on. Calling the floor would cost me hands and all they would do is ask him to stop which he would for a few minutes then start in again. So I wait. A few hands go by, he's tapping away at my leg, I'm saying nothing. Then the thing I waited for happened - seat 3 put a bet out that was too far for me to reach without standing up. I hook the guy's foot with my right leg then stand up on my left and move WAY over to the left to grab the chips.

Dude falls completely out of his chair and I just look over at him like I have no idea what happened. "Are you ok?" "Yeah fine."

He stayed pointed straight ahead with his feet on the floor for the rest of the night.

Anyone else have any stories of being petty on the job?

In retrospect I'm not proud of this one, but it was very early in my dealing career, and I'll be transparent for the sake of the thread.

We had a 2-4 limit game and dealing it was pretty much guaranteed to be a miserable 30 minutes no matter who was at the table. But in this instance, there was an older guy who seemingly went out of his way to be a jerk at all times. He was downright nasty whether he was winning or losing. We had a player go all-in on the flop, so the main pot was closed with about $20 in it. The jerk was sitting in seat 2 and he was heads-up for a side pot with another player. The jerk bet the turn and was called, so now there was $8 in the side pot. The jerk bet the river and the other player folded. Jerk thinks the hand is over and tosses his cards to me, face down. I didn't hesitate and turbo-mucked his cards and pushed the main pot to the all-in player.

In the moment I was incredibly proud of myself. Looking back, I realize that the jerk brought me down to his level.

I would have done the same and would have been grinning ear to ear the whole time. Anyone who lashes out like that at someone who can't defend themselves (being a newbie underling) deserves to be mocked relentlessly.

Congrats on 10,000 posts.

One day while commiserating with another dealer about the level of misery omnipresent in certain players' lives, I commented something like, "Man, I don't understand how you can be like that all the time."

The response I got stuck with me. "Don't even try to understand it. If you can understand it you'd be one step closer to being like them."

So yeah. If you're a miserable prick, that's all on you, and I'm not going to waste a second thinking about it.

I like this thread much better when its about dealers swapping stories.

Not me being petty, but another dealer.

The player involved is the miserable type that won't respond and expects you to read his mind, then complain when you don't immediately know which of his two braincells he was using.

4/8 limit, and the guy always buys in for $40. He gets down to 2 or 3 bucks, and peels out a $100 bill and sets it next to his chips. Now while of course it is the player's responsibility to declare an amount to add on (and in absence of such, the full bill would play) this dealer knows that he always buys $40 and she gives him a chance to help himself.

"How much behind?"
The player holds up 4 fingers.
"Four?"
The player continues to hold up 4 fingers.
"Okay Four behind."

So yes, the game did come to a grinding halt/argument when the dealer ruled (properly? but pettily) that it was a declaration of four dollars added on to his stack out of the $100 bill and he was now all in for that amount after partially calling the first preflop raise. She was tired of his ****.

10,000... I had no idea. And I guess this is officially # 10,000.

Here's a petty one that I'm less ashamed of and it turned out to be fairly amusing. Maybe a year ago, a kid who might have turned 21 that day and was celebrating by playing in a casino on his birthday. He's in the 3 seat and every time he places a bet or folds his hand, he barely pushes his cards/chips forward. I've thrown my back out a couple times and I have zero interest in reaching that far and I'm sure as heck not going to stand up every time, so I speak up. "Would you mind pushing your bet forward? I'd really appreciate it." The first time, the guy sitting next to him in the 4 seat pushes his chips closer to me and I thank him.

The next hand, same thing. "Hey, would you push your chips closer so that I don't have to reach so far? I'd really appreciate it." After 3 or 4 requests, I realize that this kid just isn't getting it. So I start short dealing him. I'm pitching everyone else's cards right up to the rail, except for the 3 seat. I'm not even pitching the cards anywhere near him. I'm just placing his cards about 1/3 of the distance between me and the player. It's comically/obnoxiously short. And the kid in the 3 seat still doesn't get it. Without a word or a complaint, he just stands up to retrieve his cards, while the guy in the 4 seat (who's still pushing the kid's bets into my reach can barely stifle laughter.) The entire down went like this.

And, yes, the kid definitely spoke perfect English. To this day, I've never seen him in the room again and I still have no idea what might have been going on in his head.

Congrats! Here's to the next 10k.

Another petty revenge story I have was a tournament. There was a player who the postflop action was on him and I wasn't sure if he knew it. He was looking across the room, then staring down into his lap (maybe into his phone???? Unsure). In cash games I am pretty aggressive about letting people know the action is on them (it affects my bottom line), but even when I deal tournaments I am probably more aggressive than 99% of other dealers. Even though it doesn't directly affect my bottom line, my thoughts are that if I was a player I would prefer more hands, so as a dealer I try and get out more hands. Simple customer service.

Also though I am aggressive, it is because I think that I am pretty discerning. I pay attention and I am pretty good at reading when a player is paying attention and when they are not. I know for a fact that I am more accurate with this read than most. Also, when I have to remind a player it is their turn I am always very polite and gentle about it. My go to is to say "Sir, I hate to interrupt you if you are thinking, but I just want to make sure you realize the action is on you."

99% of the time if the person is aware it is their turn they will nod and I will say "Then take your time".

Anyway, back to this tournament. An early hand in my down and the player looked like he wasn't paying attention so I used my line on him. He went off. He said that he knew it was his turn and he didn't appreciate the distraction. He could have stopped there and it would have been fine, but he continued. He said that he was acutely aware of everything that goes on at the table and he didn't need me to tell him when it was his turn. He said he was more aware than any stupid dealer (his words).

Ok.

So I apologized to him and said I was sorry for interrupting his thinking and I will not do it again.

That just seemed to set him off even more. He then says that everyone else at the table is also more aware the action than I was and that I am just a dealer so I should not say anything and just move cards and chips.

I had literally just been there for a few hands and had not said a word other than to announce raises (which is room policy). I am not even sure if I said "Hello." when I sat down.

Ok. Whatever. I look around the table and none of the other players want to say anything. That is fine. I am very good at customer service so I can provide exactly what is requested.

For the rest of the down I do the bare minimum to control the pace of the game. I still call out all bets and raises (because it is room policy), but I do so in a very subdued manner. I don't look or gesture at players pre-flop to help them know where the action is.

Play slows to a crawl.

Most new dealers think that dealer speed comes from moving fast and efficiently. That helps, but only at the margins. Most of the time is spent waiting on players, not the dealer. So anything a dealer can do to help the players play faster makes a bigger difference in the number of hands dealt per down. The biggest difference between the dealers who get out the most hands per down and the ones that get out the fewest is that the faster dealers will be more active in controlling the game and moving the action along. Subtly letting players know when it is their turn will greatly speed up the game, even among experienced players.

The player basically told me not to do any of that and no one else was willing to disagree so I completely stopped controlling the game. It was a tournament so I didn't personally care how many hands were dealt in my down. So the fact that action slowed to a crawl was fine by me.

The cherry on the top was the very last hand of my down. The player who had the outburst was in the big blind. There was an early preflop min raise with two other late callers. Action got to him and getting great odds he called the min raise from the BB.

Flop comes out and the outburst player in the BB checks. Early player bets. The next player thinks for a significant amount of time and then raises. The third player goes deep into the tank. He thinks for a very long time. It is clear he has a decent hand and wants to play but he is facing a bet and a raise before him. After a long minute or two (or three) he finally folds.

Action is on the outburst guy in the Big Blind. My down is done as the next dealer taps me and I give him the down card. The Big Blind is just looking into his lap. This goes on for a minute. He finally looks up and looks around the table and then starts to look at a TV accross the room. It is quite clear that he doesn't realize that the action is on him. I don't even think he realizes he still has a hand. He folded in his mind when he checked 3 minutes ago.

I am not going to say a word. He made it quite clear I was not to control the game and let him know action was on him. Malicious compliance at its best. I will sit here as long as it takes.

After a long time the other players start to get uncomfortable. Every experienced poker player has an internal clock in their head on how long hands should go and we were well past that. Even if they are distracted looking at their phone they know something is off.

I look around at the other players at the table and a couple of them are distressed, but none speak up. Again, I am not going to say a word. It it quite clear that the outburst player doesn't know it is his action. I start to wonder why the other players won't speak up. Do they not care about slow play? Are they not paying attention? Are they afraid of setting this guy off?

It goes on long enough that even the dealer waiting to tap me out is getting agitated. He can see the action on the table but doesn't know what is going on. He just knows it has been a long while since he tapped me.

We sit there for quite a few minutes.

Finally another player calls for a clock. He doesn't speak up to the outburst player, he just calls clock. I call out "Clock table XX." to a floor. The distracted player looks up to see what is happening, but it doesn't register with him that the clock has been called on him.

The floor comes over and I verbally describe the action to the floor without making it physically obvious who the action is on. The floor then asks the standard question if the player has had long enough to act. I loudly say that he has had at least 5 minutes to act and probably longer (no exaggeration).

The floor then looks at the outburst player and tells him that he has 30 seconds to act on his hand. He is clearly surprised that he still has a hand so he quickly folds.

It literally took at least 5 minutes and a floor call for this guy to wake up to the fact that he had a hand. Being petty, I was going to let it go as long as it took. I wasn't going to do anything. The longer it took the happier I was.

I was amazed that not a single player at the table said anything either. I don't know if it was because of fear of outburst guy or if they genuinely didn't care. A player literally had to call clock rather than tell him that the action was clearly on him.

It was the best 5 minutes I spent staring off into space. It literally made my day.

had no clue they passed :( RIP YTF

My final malicious compliance story is still a fantasy. I totally want to act on it, but to date I haven't had the guts.

We have a regular who sits in seat 9. He regularly folds early because he is on his phone/tablet. The other problem is that his folds consist of pushing his cards millimeters forward. I am sure he does it because he doesn't want to clearly fold out of turn, he just wants to do it subtly. Of course, the problem is when the action starts on the other side of the table. The action gets around to him and his cards looks like they are pushed a couple of millimeters forward and he is looking at a tablet. I am 95%+ sure he means to fold, but I think those are terrible guessing odds on whether to kill a hand or not.

When tapping into a table and I see him in seat 9, I always resolve that I am just going to take his unprotected cards whenever it is his turn no matter what, but then when it happens in real time, I chicken out. As a dealer, I absolutely abhor making myself part of the action and inserting myself into the action.

So whenever the action gets to him and I am unsure, I always clarify if he is folding. As a player, I would rather have a dealer clarify a fold rather than take my cards blindly so I try and extend the courtesy to players. Better to ask than not. To his credit he has never outright said anything negative or confrontational to me asking if he is folding, but he regularly makes it a big deal. He will often sigh or roll his eyes and make it seem like it is a stupid question.

Furthermore, (and here is the catch), he will occasionally get engrossed in whatever is on his phone/tablet and not realize it is a new hand and he has new cards. So often enough me asking if he is folding will surprise him and he will quickly look at his cards. Not too often, but just often enough that it renders assumptions dangerous.

I dream of just sitting down one time and taking his cards every time action gets to him, butbi just haven't been able to do it yet.

One day.

What do the other Dealers do with him? It's very hard to believe that no one has at least started to muck a holding and he's had to jump into action to stay in the hand.

Is it more of a 'I want it to happen' or 'I want to do it myself'? Could be both .. GL

Jim L, you can live vicariously through me.

At my first casino we had this real jerk who was a total dick to everyone, dealers, floor, players, etc. No matter what seat he was in he would always push his cards three inches forward when folding and then get all pissy when you prompted him for action. After awhile he used a card protector and his "signal to fold" was removing his card protector. And by removing it I mean have it sitting next to his cards almost touching and of course when you verified he got all pissy. At least once a down I would thank the table for properly folding their hands in a sarcastic tone, most of the times the players would pick up on that and laugh.

Well one day he is playing tournament and sitting in seat five so I am hoping to make my move at some point. About halfway through the down he has his card protector sitting next to his cards and is on his phone and when the action got to him I mucked them as he wanted. Seat seven makes a call and then all of a sudden he throws in chips for a raise and a second later, "Where are my cards?!?!" I told him you had your card protector next to the cards and you always say that is a fold. Totally expecting an argument to break out, he calmly says, "Your right" and goes back on his phone. I finally figured him out not too long afterwards, he was basically a bully. He would bark at everyone but the second anyone barked back he whimpered away with his tail between his legs. So from then on when he would be a jerk, I'd be a jerk right back. A year or so later he actually told me I was one of the best dealers in the room. Im sure it was a backhanded compliment but we tolerated each other for the most part.

Unfortunately there are personalities out there that 'naturally' just need to know where your line is .. and will test you until you/they find it. We had a guy like that in a place I worked and I would just go and tell all the new employees 'exactly' what was going to happen so they would be prepared. Pretty much all of them were thankful of the heads-up. My gut feeling is that this person's golf clubs, dog or other had to absorb any excess energy that was pent up from not being able to pressure co-workers. GL

Not sure which category this falls under but I found it amusing.

I've heard it's changed, but the WSOP used to be very strict about attendance. You could not request a day off. The only thing you can do is call in that day and take a point. Late even 1 minute is 1/2 point. 4 points and you're done for the year.

I took advantage of one obvious loophole - when I was a few or even 10 minutes late I would just not clock in and sign in saying my badge didn't work. As long as I was there by the time my name was called it was fine.

Another dealer, let's call him Steve, took it further. Steve already had 2 points and needed to take the weekend off for his sister's wedding. He asked the boss but was told there are no exceptions. Come to work or you're done for the year. So Steve used another rule - get caught not taking rake in a cash game and it was an automatic 2 (or 3? I forget) day suspension and final notice. So the day before the wedding he volunteered to deal cash. Each table he went to he announced that for the next 30 minutes there would be no rake and told them why. The players got a kick out of it and tipped like crazy. After his 4th or 5th table Steve finally got pulled out and given papers saying he had to take the weekend off.

that story belongs in the wsop hall of fame..

thanks for the laugh

Good stuff.

I wish companies were run more logically where employees wouldn't have to game the system to get even basic decency.

This isn't poker, but it is casino related.

A really long time ago (early 1990's), I was a craps box person/floorperson.

The place I was working was way understaffed. Ridiculously. I was working 6 days a week with overtime most of those days. I was literally thus close to quitting. We all were.

So my sister gets pregnant and has a baby. It is literally the first of that generation in my extended family. It is a huge deal. My nephew is born and my sister asks me to be the godfather of the child. She is going to have a baptism ceremony in 6 weeks.

I go into work and talk to the scheduler and explain that in 6 weeks I will need this Saturday off for the Christening.

She tells me no problem.

So every week, I make it a mission to talk to the scheduler to insure I will have that particular Saturday off. I make sure she understands that I don't care how much I work the rest of the week. I need that day off.

Weeks go by and I continue to bug her. She regularly says I will be off.

The schedule comes out, I am scheduled to work that Saturday. I go to her and question why. She says that we are jammed and she cannot afford to keep anyone off of the schedule. I literally tell her I will not be showing up that day. This is too important to my family.

So that Saturday comes, I call into work and say I cannot come in.

I go to the Christening.

Sunday I go into work and the shift manager calls me into his office. He tells me he is writing me up because I called off. Not just called off, but basically told the scheduler in advance I was going to call off. He says this was insubordination. He says we left them short staffed.

I immediately know I have the upper hand. He has already told me his weakness.

I carefully explained what happened. I explained why I needed the day off. I explained why it was of utmost importance that I was there for my God child. I explain6that I gave 6 weeks notice and checked in each week. I tried my hardest to make it easy for everyone involved.

He said it did not matter. I hurt the company by leaving them short staffed.

He was giving me a write up that consisted of a warning. Basically it meant the next time I called in I would be under review and would be subject to being fired.

I looked him in the eye and told him that I wasn't signing it. Furthermore, if there was any blowback from this, I was quitting.

They were ridiculously short staffed. If I quit it would seriously hurt them. I gave them a 6 week notice for a single day off and it hurt them. People worked overtime. Whatever.

He tried some more bluster, but we both knew that it did not matter. I didn't care. I was already at the point I was considering quitting.

I literally asked him if he wanted a staffing problem now or later.

After it was clear I was serious, I tried softening the blow. I explained that I didn't want to be a problem, but family was far more important than this job. I would do everything in my power to make both work, but priorities were what they were. I said that I wanted to be a team player, but that it works both ways.

After some back and forth I left his office without signing the write up that I believe was torn up as I never saw any repercussions.

However, it should be noted I quit the company within 2 months. This was back in the 1990's when job security was different. However it was the best thing I have ever done.

It is one of my trigger points when an employee tries their hardest to work with their employer, but is made to feel like a slacker/traitor. Employment is a two way street. Always.

Vacation Request Form? Communicating with said Shift Manager as much as HR? ("I'm so looking forward to seeing my nephew this Saturday!")

I think you more than went out of your way to insure that you showed concern for and communicated with your employer. I've never really worked for a 'huge' organization but I've heard plenty of similar stories where the trees blocked the forest.

Buddy of mine had to fight for 'return' air fare reimbursement because he stayed a couple of extra days in a city he went to for work. All paperwork and approvals were done ahead of time, but the HR person dug in .. saying he needed to return 'as scheduled' on the job order. Luckily my buddy had anticipated an issue and showed her .. and her boss .. that he had actually saved the company almost $200 by taking the later flight AND one night in a hotel that would've been required while 'waiting' for the original flight time/date.

HR girl saw it as 'a favor' and didn't want to deal with other employees going down that path wanting their favor, thus 'complicating' her workload. GL

PS .. no Christmas cards were exchanged before or after as a result of this situation.

Question that occurred to me. Setting is a free bar poker league, but we try to follow TDA.

I've noticed that sometimes when announcing a bet, I'll add "x more". For example, let's say blinds are 1k/2k, and button goes to 3700. I might say to SB, "3700 now, 2700 more."

Occurred to me that saying the "more" part might be giving player information I shouldn't (i.e., it's up to them to do the math).

1) Should I consciously drop that from my phrasing?
2) If a player asks, "how much more?", should I tell them, or just something like "the total is Y?"

I see in RP-12 that dealers should announce bets and raises:

[QUOTE=TDA]Dealers should routinely announce non-all-in bet values as betting proceeds around the table. All-in bets will be counted only on request of the player currently facing action. Accepted action continues to apply (Rule 49). Scheduled and discretionary color-ups improve bet countability.[/QUOTE]

Rule 49 is accepted action, which doesn't really talk about this specifically.

Seems like a pretty minor thing, but is it something I should clean up?

I don't consider it too big of a deal given the venue, similar to when I deal 1/2 NLH I'm probably saying a little more than at 5/10 NLH. But I'd say it's worth cleaning up. For one thing, let's say CO raises, your amount "more" will be different for the next 3 players to act, saying only the amount allows for little to no confusion.

For question 2) I will generally say "The total is Y, X more to you". Haven't had a complaint in years dealing in poker rooms but it may be wrong IDK.

There are some here who seem to think giving a player any information violates OPTAH. I disagree with them. A lot. To the point that I think they are being idiots.

That said, I think you can do better. I think just announcing the reraise is enough. No need to announce the difference unless someone asks.

It isn't terrible, but let the player figure out the difference. This normally doesn't matter, but in extreme circumstances it can matter.

Blinds are $300/$600. Inital raise to $2000. A call. Next player raises to $3400. Everyone folds to the inital raiser. Declaring the bet to him as $3400 is different than saying it is a min raise of $1400.

Like I said, you are not playing the players hand, but you might be influencing the action, if he is more likely to call "only $1400 more" as opposed to a reraise of $3400, despite them being the exact same thing then you are influencing the game.

That said, a dealer has to balance talking about game state versus the speed of the game. Part of a dealers responsibility is making sure the game runs smoothly. If this means doing the math for a player at a low limit game/tournament to keep the game moving, then so be it.

It is a balancing act with lots of grey. Good luck.

The default should always just calling out the amount of the raise unless you really think doing the math will help the game along.

My thoughts are Dealers should only work as hard as they need to given the table dynamic. If you feel the urge to do something to keep the game flow on point then do it.

In this case here it's best to just give the bet total and let the Player ask for additional details.

The 'more' part could offer information about reopening the action. While this should be no secret, it shouldn't be offered for free unless you have a Player who always asks anyway .. again, keep the game moving.

I like "Raise to X total" or "Now X" .. although the 'now' is something you hear at auctions and may induce action! GL

Would you handle it differently for a player who always asks "how much more?" when action gets to him?

Seems he was pretty clear.