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

If that's becoming a frequent issue you might have to talk to management about it and ask them how you're supposed to handle it from the moment seat 2 moves his chips forward. If there's a clear framework how to deal with a situation where it's unclear if a player is all-in or not (which kinda defeats the purpose of the all-in button) that all dealers in the room follow, you don't have to worry about players singling you out for addressing the situation immediately. For example by asking them if they're all in and reminding them that all chips need to be visible at all times if they're not all-in.

Think it's a bit icm related a bit big blind ante related a bit whimsical and a bit mimicking other people doing it. I've done it and stalled for a 1kish pay jump.

Seems like the player should keep the 1100 but whatever.

There's zero advantage to leave minimal chips behind in cash .. except maybe .. You don't have to show first if the V shoves and a call is made. I do this quite often to see what I was up against and while most of the Players know I could have 'anything' I still don't like to show unless I have to.

My understanding is that you can't add-on for less than the table min, but I could be wrong. Any 'adjustment' to a stack must be within the table stakes. You can play with a stack less than table min, but only once you've started 'legally'. Again, my understanding and I am aware that some casinos allow one short buy between 'full' buys. GL

There are circumstances where it makes sense to leave one chip behind.

Bounty event, multi way pot. You're encouraging someone to raise rather than just call, which could put you heads up.

Near a pay jump you can lose the hand but still hang around for a while.

You can try to run that one chip up if you lose. Big blind antes actually make it easier to climb back up if you are in position. Wait for a decent starting hand then guaranteed 1BB plus several times the small chip if you win.

In a cash game, many rooms let you short buy as long as you have at least one chip still in play. I know a couple of serial offenders of this move.

Not saying that any of these make it profitable to do it, just that some people might think it's a good strategy. That, or they simply find it amusing.

For limit games where I play this is useful for my short buys.

I mean, he left chips behind and he never said all in. This is cut and dry

As described, push the pot to seat 7 and seat 2 plays on with $1100.

Seat 7 can insist all he wants but seat 2 never put out the final $1100. Seat 2 never said call of a raise by seat 7. Seat 7 never said raise nor provided dealer a chance to count and confirm a raise (plus here it is released chips that bet/play not carried ones, but that is here). And seat 2 never said all in. It is seat 7 responsibility (protect ones hand means more than putting a chip on them) to know the action or ask for clarification.

Simply put, seat 2 never did anything to put the final $1100 in play. Now if floor wants to impose a penalty on seat 2 for exposing his hand prematurely, fine. But you can't put him all in.

anywhere I have played you can add on for any amount. Why would the house prevent a $1 add on?

A rebuy means you are consuming a seat that would otherwise be available. But a tiny add on doesn't change the seat consumption, you were already consuming that seat for at least one more hand with or w/o the addon.

I agree it's a silly rule, but I have played in places with that rule.

I was playing, not dealing, but I haven't quite an an implosion as I saw last night in a long time. It was a $1/$2 game with a max $500 buy in. This guy had ~$4800 in front of him. I was only at the table a very short time so I don't even really know how good of player this guy normally was. All I know is that he lit that $4800 on fire in about 20 minutes.

I sit down at the table, first hand the arsonist gets involved with a new player who had just sat down a few hands before me. New player has ~$500. It gets to the turn, about $100 on the pot. Arsonist checks, New Player pauses for a bit and sort of touches the table, but to me, it was clear he wasn't checking. He was adjusting himself in his seat and his hand hit the table. Dealer didn't see it as a check either and continued to look at the player.

Arsonist immediately goes off on the dealer and insisted the player checked. Player immediately says he did not check and was thinking. Dealer calls over the floor. Floor comes over and asks what is going on. Dealer explains that he was waiting on the new player and that thr Arsonist insisted the new player checked. The dealer explained that he didn't see it that way and that the new player said he hadn't acted yet.

The floor is quiet and starts thing for a second. This gives the Arsonist an opening. He insists that everyone at the table saw the new player check. So I immediately speak up and say I didn't think the player checked. I couple of other players murmer in agreement with me.

Not to toot my own horn, but most of the floor people at this place know me and know that I am serious when it comes to rule calls. If I am saying the new player has not yet checked and the dealer is saying the same thing (and at least two or three other players are nodding in agreement), the floor knows the new player did not check.

He rules the new player can still act. The new player bets $80. The Arsonist is pissed off. He really wanted the other player to check. He argues with the floor. The floor doesn't budge. So he slams his chips down and starts mumbling. He is clearly not happy. Finally after a really long time of him mumbling and pouting, he says that he is all in. The New Player immediately calls and turns over top set. Arsonist lifts his cards a bit but doesn't turn them over. The river comes and is a blank. The Arsonist throws hia cards forcefully forward facedown. Later the players next to him said that he had a flush draw that missed.

He doubles up the new player, so $500 of his stack is gone.

It is still clear that he is absolutely 100% pissed off.

Next hand he throws in a chunk of chips as a raise to open. It turns out to be $40. No one calls and he collects the blinds. He does the same thing the following hand, only this time someone reraises him. He thinks and then angrily folds.

Next hand he raises again with a chunk of chips ($45). A player reraises to $100 and The Arsonist shoves. Player calls and tables QQ . It holds and the Arsonist doubles him up (maybe $350). Over the next few hands he keeps raising and getting called/reraised and losing. Literally within one rotation, he loses the full $4800 (2400 big blinds).

Unfortunately I got zero of it.

It was amazing to see someone lose what was probably 40% of the chips at the table in 7 or 8 hands.

($4800) in 20 minutes at 1/2 is an inferno. I don't even see how it's possible. But hey, it sounds like the guy had fun, and that's all that matters.

It's a bit silly .. but we do have some 1/2 match tables in our area. It's just like a PLO table that's been open for hours .. the blinds mean nothing.

You'd think V would win or take down 1-2 pots per orbit to slow the fall unless these 'heroes' just weren't folding any pair and crossing fingers and everything fell into place. GL

Golden opportunity to deal around him and when he questions it that’s when you call the floor and advise “Seat 1 either said ‘You effing piece of s—- dealers need to be shot’ or ‘Deal around me’, so I dealt around him”

Nah. You get him straight 86ed for saying something like that in a room that is at all competent.

In that room he'd get a mild warning at most. There's a reason I'm not there any more.

Yeah that's sad, but I totally understand.

I had a funny one today.

I sat down at a table and my second or third hand, there was a flop, a bet and folds. As I was about to push the pot, two players who were not involved in the hand were discussing something and one of them openly asked me to rabbit hunt.

The policy of our room is no rabbit hunting.

Most rooms are like that for obvious reasons (slows the game down). Now I have practiced a technique where I can take the stub, while dropping it flip up the top few cards, push up the relevant cards up for a split second, then take the flipped up cards along with flop and flip them back face down. If done right, it takes no extra time and shows the cards that were going to come and is done in one motion. Plus, if push comes to shove, it can look like a fumble. Most players would not notice it unless they were looking for the rabbit hunt. I can play stupid if called out on it. It looks like some accidentally flipped over cards.

So these two guys not in the hand are talking and one asks to rabbit hunt. The player who asked is familiar. He is a semi-reg who I know his face, but I don't know him very well. Since the board had a straight flush draw on it and I know the face, I do my thing (straight flush never comes), and move on the next hand. The two players do nothing. No thank you or even acknowledgement.

Whatever.

In the ensuing few hands they continue to mumble and whisper among themselves.

Then the player who asked me to rabbit hunt wins a medium sized pot. Not large, but decent. Most dealers would expect a $1 tip. There is nothing. I am one of those dealers who never expects a tip. I always figure that I don't know their situation and that that one hand does not matter, I will make it up in the long run. So no biggie. Whatever.

A few hands later, the two players are whispering and not involved in the hand, and the one asks to rabbit hunt.

I look at him and say, I am sorry sir, it is the policy of this room that we do not allow rabbit hunting. I move on and start to shuffle.

He starts to get angry. He looks at me like I slapped him. He starts to say I am being unfair and I have already done it once. I repeat my speil that it is the policy of the room of no rabbit hunting.

He sputters, turns red, then gets up and walks away from the table. As I am dealing the next hand he comes back with the floorman in tow. As they get to the table, the floorman asks what is going on. The guy starts saying I wouldn't rabbit hunt for him. She immediately shuts him down and tells him that rabbit hunting is not allowed in the room.

The player says that I rabbit hunted for other players. I asked who I rabbit hunted for? He points to his friend and says I rabbit hunted when he asked (untrue, his friend never asked previously, he did).

To her credit, the floor quickly realized that this was stupid. She repeated that rabbit hunting was not allowed in the room.

A few hands later, there was a small hand, a reg I know wins the hand with a bet on the turn. He knows exactly what he is doing. 100%. There was a flush draw on the board and he bet his oppenent off it. As his oppenent folds, he smiles and asks to see the river.

It catches me completely off guard, but I quickly recover. I do my thing and show the river would have missed the flush. The player who went to the floor goes ballistic. He (correctly) accuses me of playing favorites. He asks why I showed the river to him.

I play dumb. It is one smooth move after all. No way to say otherwise.

The reg throws me a redbird while literally laughing his ass off.

It is rare, but when karma and life match up, life is beautiful.

Everything is room dependent... I recall many years ago, as a player, a dealer told another player who asked to see the river that the poker room manager was adamant about not rabbit hunting. Over the course of my many years playing there, I saw most dealers also deny such requests, but a few of them do a move (as described above) where the next card was "accidentally" shown. I thought then-- even as a player-- what a stupid thing that would be to potentially get in trouble for. So years later, when I got hired to deal in that same room, I didn't need to be told... In three years, I've never hunted a rabbit, and never will. I'm very flexible on many (cash game) rules in our small room that's 95% regular customers, but there are two hills that I will die on: 1) no phones/betting slips/significant clutter on the felt (on the rail is perfectly fine) and 2) rabbits are never in season. But again, everything is room dependent-- if it's not an egregious violation in your room, do your thing...

I've read through the rules for quite a few poker rooms as a traveling dealer and every single one stated rabbit hunting is not allowed, but most dealers in those rooms would still do it or in some other way allow it. The worst method IMHO is putting the stub where the player can reach it and look for themselves. Those players then start thinking they can do it at any time, and they rarely only expose what would have been the river. They flip the top 5 cards. I've had players try to do it without asking first during $10k buyin tournaments! Sorry bud, nobody touches my stub.

The only room I thought did it right was the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, when they had that cool room in the hallway. Players could buy a rabbit hunt for $2. 1 went to the house, 1 to the dealer.

I remember that and like it 100%.

More importantly, I think you are a million times correct that rabbit hunting should be rare (and at the discretion of the dealer, even though you did not state this).

I rarely rabbit hunt. There is no reason to. It takes either a really fun amateur game where everyone is having fun and tipping or a high end game where essentially the players run the game.

Generally it is not worth it as a dealer. No upside and only downside. I just hit upon the rare spot where I did it because I speculatively thought is was worth it. I was wrong.

I also wanted to point out that there are always ways around the strict rules of the room. I essentially rabbit hunted without being able to be caught at it.

Was that wrong in terms of the room rules. Of course. Absolutely. Was it wrong in terms of customer service? Maybe. It depends.

A good dealer knows when certain rules are able to be bent for the better good of the room and when they shouldn't be.

Was dealing at a $2/$5 game today. Late player raises to $20 ( standard for the table). Button calls, small blind calls. Big blind throws out a $100 black chip and does not say a thing for a really long time. He is a regular so I know he knows the rules. I hesitate, not because I am trying to give him time, but simply because I am confused. He has like $700+ in red in front of him. He normally would throw red to call. He threw a black which means he wanted to raise, but he did absolutely nothing to legally indicate that.

That is why I was confused.

So I declare call after a very long pause after the black chip hit the felt.

I do not have enough red in play to make change for the black chip so I grab it and look around to see if any player can reasonably change it. The reg who threw it in tells me to give it back to him and he throws 3 reds forward (added to his BB make it correct). It is clear he is absolutely pissed. He is steaming. He is a really nice reg and I have never seen him angry before so I am replaying everything in my mind to make sure I didn't screw anything up.

Flop comes out A J 3 rainbow.

Frustrated Reg immediately goes silent. The anger melts. Instantly. The best way to describe him is that he is trying to become invisible. This is a perfect description, you just had to see it in person.

Small blind checks, he checks, late player bets. Small blind calls. Action gets to the reg and he is literally vibrating. He clearly wants to raise, but he also clearly wants to slowplay.

He just calls.

A random 8 comes out on the turn. Small blind checks, Reg checks from the BB. Late position bets big. He overbets the pot. Small blind thinks a bit then shoves. BB reg doesn't even hesitate. He calls. Late position shoves for less. Hands are turned over. It is A3 in the small blind, 10,10 in the big blind, and A8 in late position.

Set of 10s fades the river.

I push the pot to the Reg. He throws me a green chip as a tip.

I obviously smile and nod to him.

Later on, I am at a different table and the Reg comes up to me. He actually apologizes. He said he fully intended to reraise with pocket 10s there, but for some strange reason he just brain locked. He said he wanted me to know that it wasn't my fault at all (I know...). He said that it was clear from my reaction that I was confused, and that I should have been.

He was initially pissed, but only at himself and not at me. He knows he effed up. I thanked him and appreciated the honesty. I told him that I am glad he Forrest Gumped his way into a set with an Ace on a fairly dry board.

Poker is weird sometimes.

Of course he tipped you a green bird when you somehow thought he had a set of Ts on an AJ38 board.

Ugh. I am guilty of posting while drinking.

I don't remember if it was an AJ3 flop and he had jacks or if it was a A103 flop and he had 10s. I really think it was JJ, but I doubted myself and changed it after typing up the post. The three could also have been a 2 or a 4.

Dealing 2-5 NL yesterday. We'll call Player 1 "Karen". Despised by most of the players and all of the staff, she is loud, obnoxious, and is quick to ask for the manager. She used to be a bad tipper but then I made a floor ruling one day that she disagreed with on a trivial situation (who has the button?) and now she never tips me.

Player 2 will be called "Hero". A polite and friendly Asian man who speaks little English but is always in a good mood and is an excessive tipper. He's been known to push me the entire pot (including his own bet) when he steals the blinds.

Hero raises preflop with KK. Karen 3-bets with 10 10. Hero smooth calls. Flop is KT8. Karen is predictably felted.

This is the highlight of my year as a dealer and ranks top 5 in my career.