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

As it's not a legal bet we can't force anybody to make a legal bet. As there is 1K on the table it must be matched, the guy all in must get value for the bet, no one can freeroll by just checking. So the "least wrong" is to at least need to match the 1K, or of course fold.

The big blind is in for 2k though, right? UTG is all in for less. Everyone else can A) call the 2k BB; b) raise or c) fold.

I must be missing something though.

We're postflop and don't know who is all-in for less than 1BB. It's the player "first to act" though. I assume golddog would have said if BB (or someone else) was in for 2k.

Totally missed the postflop part.

A bets 2k, B calls, C all-in for 3k, back to A

Using that logic, Player A & B would have to put in 4k since that is the minimum raise. Therefore anybody who is able to must meet the minimum.

I know the question was about NL, but imagine if it was a limit tournament and the rule was you had to complete the bet/raise or fold. There is potential for short stacks leveraging a ton of advantage in that case, e.g. limits 1500/3000, 3 or more players in the pot, short stack waits for 5th street in Stud (or the turn in Holdem/Omaha8) and goes all-in for 200. Next player to act is sandwiched and at a clear disadvantage to the player(s) behind & the short stack due to such a rule.

OK, now I'm seeing the logic behind it, with these examples. Thanks guys, good clarifications.

Never imagined this was going to generate such a set of responses. Thanks everyone for your effort and input.

So you do believe only the button should be allowed to effectively call.

Button would be the only one who could make the min bet knowing that it was actually only a call.

I am not saying this is or isn’t the rule. It is the factual result of forcing a min bet instead of allowing calls.

There are otherinteresting aspects to the forced min bet. The first is, what that bet amount. NL doesn’t have the concept of completing a bet. The min raise of an all in for less than full bet is the min raise size plus the non bet amount. Do we use that NL rule here also?

Second would be that anyone calling by making the min bet would reopen action to players who had checked before the all in. This would shift the effective button in these scenarios.

I do like prying into the reasons why a certain rule or procedure is that way it is, because knowing the reasoning helps crystallize the information so much better. I guess the best way to see this is equal opportunity. Every street, every player in a hand has equal opportunity/option to make a legal bet/raise when the action is on them at some point, sometimes multiple points. If the amount in their stack isn't able to make such an action, they are able to go all-in. If a less-than-legal all-in bet/raise somehow reopened the action to players who already declined the option to make a bet/raise, then there'd be a pretty pronounced inherent advantage for certain players, yes? Similar to having to "call for more" or having to complete a less than full bet/raise to continue.

Another way some people think about it is you "can't raise yourself". Like I bet 2k (or call a bet of 2k), a player goes all-in for an amount between 2.1k-3.9k, and it comes back to me. If I got to reraise here, I'd be raising the last legal bet, which happens to be my own, or one I already called rather than raised.

Oops. Missed that one word...

The variance in poker can be crazy. That most definitely applies to playing, but it can even apply to dealing. Downs are only 30 minutes long so they definitely qualify as short term, but it still amazes me how variable results can be even to long term players who I see regularly.

There is a $2/$5 regular who I absolutely love. We often talk off of the felt about poker and I can honestly say I have benefited from these talks. I think he has as well. He is an excellent player who wins a ton and he tips very well. He is a perfect player from a dealer perspective. He plays fast, is not only understanding, but helpful. Games run better when he is there.

I always seem to kick him in the nuts as a dealer.

Even though he is a huge winner overall, he always seems to lose with me in the box. Most of his losses are of the mundane type (he has top pair, or top two, or a set) it is obvious his oppenent has a flush draw. He bets pot on the flop and turn. His oppenent calls. Of course the flush comes on the river. He knows his oppenent has it, I know his oppenent has it. I can only sigh and shake my head.

Other times I will just wreck him by giving him the 2nd nuts and his opponents the 1st nuts.

Whatever it takes. He loses.

It started off as a joke between us because we both understand variance and the nature of poker, but it has gotten to the point now where I am afraid it will become personal. It is that bad.

Poker can be very funny sometimes. The more you understand it, the more it will confound you.

Think we partly are in it for that unpredictable drama, trying to smoothen it out some with skill. Dealer remains absolutely unguilty though, the poker gods maybe too 😉

When I opened a new room we had one 2/5 (or 5/10 when it ran) reg who absolutely crushed the game for the first year and a half. I never once saw him even have to rebuy a single time. Once he got down to about $100 and of course built that back up. He was not a nit either, so his winning sessions were big wins.

Then suddenly it was like a switch was flipped and nothing went right. He was getting sucked out on, his bluffs were getting called but his value bets weren't. Not that I'm a great judge of player abilities, but it didn't seem like he was playing any worse or anyone else playing better against him. A couple of months of this and he moved on to another room.

Good and bad runs can last for a really long time.

I just had my best down I have ever had monetarily as well as professionally from a satisfaction aspect.

It was a Forrest Gump situation though because I will admit I was an idiot and took a huge unnecessary risk. I was dumb. Absolutely no doubt.

We have been running some higher limit games than we normally do. Great. They are generally auto toked which means a decent but not great down, but lots of potential. If I deal lots of crazy hands I can make a lot of money.

So there are a couple of players who I know in the game because they always play in our highest game. What I mean by "know" is that I have regularly dealt to them before. They know they are getting a halfway decent dealer and they appreciate it, but other than that they really don't care about me.

In this situation my job is just "shut up and deal". No encouragement of action, no talking at all. Just get out the cards and let them run the game and dominate the conversation.

I am perfectly OK with this. In fact oftentimes this is my best game. I really don't want to talk. Great, just shut up and deal.

So as my down progresses there is not much of note, theybare all watching the WSOP on TV and the action there dominates the discussion. I am just shutting up and dealing. It has been a good down for me. In addition to the auto toke, I have gotten quite a few redbirds. I have no complaint.

The player in seat two has been taken a little bit of a beating. It is clear it started well before I ever sat down. Anyway, he starts to attribute his bad run to my dealing. Not aggressively and he never crosses any line. He never says anything that every dealer hasn't heard at some point. Furthermore, it is fairly clear that he is half joking. He is getting frustrated at the cards he is getting and expressing it, but it isn't personal. I know it. I am 99% sure he recognizes I am not controlling the cards.

A couple of the other player pick up on his frustration. Of course they are going to start needling him over it. Why not? Again, I want to make it clear that it was clear he wasn't really blaming me. He knew better, but just needed to express his frustration.

So it goes on for a few more minutes and the othe players start encouraging it. There are comments about me cold decking him, etc. It culminates with him losing a pot where he misses a flush draw or such. He says something to me like "Why do you keep teasing me?" as he disgustingly throws his cards forward.

I hesitate a second or two, then decide what the hell.

I loudly say in response to his question "I just don't like you....".

There was a really long pause. Uncomfortably long. I thought that I really messed up.

Then the whole table explodes in laughter. Everyone is laughing uncontrollably. One player then throws me a $25 green chip. Everyone follows at the table and throws me either a green or black chip. They all love my burn.

I was still nervous about the target. He could go to the floor and get me in trouble. I looked at him. As I looked at him I pretty much decided that if he escalated, I would admit to what I did. I was out of bounds. No doubt. I thought (hoped???) that he would take it in the playful manner it was intended, but I was wrong.

He sat there and after a few seconds he smiled and threw me a $500 chip. As he did it he said "That was good, just don't fuc%ing do it again". I knew that deep down he wasn't really blaming me for his crappy cards. It was clear at least to me, but I may have read far too much into the situation.

I made about $1k that down. Good for me. It will never happen again.

I also risked my job.

Now I am fairly (99%?!?!?) sure that I wouldn't be fired. I have no doubt that if he made a big deal out if it that I would suffer. I know inwould have been reprimanded. I would have pissed some people above me off. I like to think I have built up enough goodwill that I would survive, but you never really know. I will fully admit that it was utterly stupid of me to speak up. No amount of (reasonable) amount of money is worth it.

I literally could not help myself. I was really sure he was half joking and I was in a playful mood, so I spoke up. I was stupid, but lucky.

To be fair, I actually think this helped the player. I think he was falling into a victim mentality. He was letting his bad run of cards affect him even though he should know better. I think my comment woke him up or reset him to look beyond the bad run of cards and just continue to play well.

It was still a really stupid gamble on my part though.

Any 'personal' comments from a Dealer can be taken both ways. Some Players don't want you to 'help' a tilted Player .. they want them to continue tilting.

One thing that I find can be effective is to ask this Player "Thick or Thin cut?" a couple of times. But even that can torque over another Player who insists that you 'changed the deck' in favor of one Player. GL

Had a strange one.

Cash game. $2/$5. Button in seat nine. Small blind seat 1. Big blind seat 2.

While pushing the pot and collecting the cards between hands I tell seat 2 that he is the big blind. He doesn't hear me. He is deep in conversation with seat 3. Furthermore the cocktail waitress is there. She has his drink.

I pull the next deck out of the shuffler, cut it and start to deal. As i pass seat two with the first pre-flop card, I again tell him that he is the big blind. It falls upon deaf ears. As I pass the second card out, I again try to get his attention to let him know it is his blind. I continue for the rest of the table.

By this time, the waitress has moved over to seat 8 and is trying to drop off his drink. As I finish dealing the preflop cards ending on seat 9. Seat 8 has picked up his cards and started to look at them. He is wearing earbuds so he cannot hear the waitress behind him.

So as I deal the last card to seat 9, I look at him (seat 8) and nod towards the waitress behind him. I am trying to indicate that that someone is waiting behind him waiting on him. He semi-panicks and thinks the action is on him. He briefly glances at his cards and slightly pushes them forward. I stop him and verbalize that the action isn't on him, I was just trying to let him know the waitress is behind him. I push his cards back to him despite the fact they haven't even crossed the line and his hand had never lost contact with the cards. He pulls them back and turns and deals with the waitress.

I turn to seat two (who still hasn't posted his big blind and is lost in conversation with seat three). I pound on the table in front of seat two and again tell him it is his big blind. I look at seat 3 and tell him that the action is on him.

It takes them a minute to gather their wits. With me repeating what I said a couple of times, they finally figure it out. It takes a while though. Seat two finally posts. Seat three thinks a while and then limps. Another player or two limp with a fold or two mixes in. It gets to seat 8. He limps.

Seat 9 goes off.

He says that seat 8 was folding out of turn earlier, now he is calling. He insists that it should be a fold. There is some discussion and I call over a floor.

Floor comes over. Seat 9 rightly complains that seat 8 folded out of turn earlier and now he is limping. I explain to the floor that earlier I tried to tell him that the waitress was behind him but that he panicked and thought the action was on him so he tried to panic fold.

Seat 8 finally speaks to the floor and acknowledges what happened earlier. He said that he panicked and was going to fold, but that after he realized the action wasn't on him he re-evaluated his hand and was calling. He also commentd that it didnt even occur to him that it was the same hand. He was just acting in turn on his hand and wanted to call. To be fair to seat 8, he told the floor that he would accept if he ruled that he folded. He wasn't trying to act maliciously. He just re-evaluated his hand not in a panic.

The floor discusses the hand with me, and I clearly explain to him that there was confusion between seat 8 and myself about action, but that he was panicking and that it was a while ago. Without controversy, I would have forgotten about it. Ibbarely realized that it was the same hand.

Floor rules that seat 8's hand is still live and he he can either call or fold. No raise. Seat 8 calls. Seat 9 grumbles then folds.

Flop comes, someone bets, seat 8 folds. No more controversy.

Later, seat 8 admitted that he had a mid-mediocre borderline hand. In a panic he was going to fold it not knowing anything about the action. However after seeing multiple limps, he wanted to play it. He wasn’t trying to angle, if fact there was so much time between him panicking and when he was actually supposed to act that he didn't even realize it was the same hand.

Seat 8 was a semi -reg. I am 100% sure he wasn't angling. I have seen him in other past confusing instances pass up an opportunity to take advantage of his oppenent and clarify any action.

Furthermore, is limping behind a bunch of other limps really an angle?

What kind of a-hole must seat 9 be? He must have been folding regardless; can't imagine he decided to fold because seat 8 limped in with an obviously mediocre hand.
I'm even kind of a rules nit about some things, but I can't understand people who would act like this.

I have a simple procedure that eliminates delayed blind-posting issues. After telling the offending party repeatedly that they're in the blind as I'm dealing the first cards (and being ignored as usual), I stop dealing when I get to him on the second card and tell him again. No blind, no hand. If he's still oblivious, at this point the other players are annoyed that he's now affecting their lives, as they can't get their second cards either. So, more often than not, several of them will now join me in the struggle to get an otherwise functioning adult to somehow find a way to push a damn poker chip forward. This eventually gets the job done, especially since they have no requirements to be polite in their attention-getting methods.

For the record, I don't do this to be petty. I've seen way too many hands get screwed up from the get-go because of this issue, and this procedure prohibits those problems from ever arising. It's especially helpful in our cash games, which often have someone straddling the button. Starting a hand without blinds correctly posted with a button straddle pretty much guarantees a mess right from the get-go. No ticket, no laundry. No blind, no hand...

this sounds like a routine occurrence in most card rooms. Players don't/can't pay attention to the action or the blinds, on their phone, eating, reading the menu, etc. pretty annoying but that's part of the price we pay for playing cards.

I've run into players who flat out refuse to post their blind before they get their second card. Some think they're helping by leaving a clear path, others have motivations I can't figure out.

If someone looks at their cards and pushes them forward, I'm stopping the action then mucking them. I don't care if it's not on them yet.

I used to do something similar. The problem is that you are just hurting yourself by slowing the game down.

What has helped me is that the management where I work has put much of the burden on the players. If a players who is supposed to be in the BB looks at their cards and folds to an unraised bet, that is on them. Especially if the dealer has openly announced to them that they are the blind. Every floor at my casino will make a BB post after he folded. It is up to them to pay attention.

If I told a floor that I tried 3 times to get a player to post the BB they will fully support making him deal with the consequences of his negligence. Therefore there is no reason to slow the game down. Other players prefer keeping the game moving, the house prefers more hands dealt, and the dealer benefits from more hands as well.

I don't disagree with what you said. I pretty much do the same (depending......).

In this instance there were three factors that made a difference. 1. He barely pushed his cards forward. They clearly went forward, but they also didn't completely cross the line (though they might have touched it). 2. His hands never broke contact with his cards. I stopped him before they did. 3. I felt partly responsible for the confusion. I was trying to be helpful and point out the waitress, but it is clear that it looked like I was indicating action was on him. I don't want to kill a hand based off of miscommunication that I was partly responsible for.

That said, if he had released the cards completely, I would have mucked them just out of habit (on the other hand, there was no muck yet so they would have been easily retrievable....)

Seat 9 can only be best described as a professional a-hole. Everytime I encounter him and see some of his shenanigans I always think to post about him but then it seems so insignificant later that I don't. It is always just little stuff like this so it seems silly, it is just the quantity of the stuff that makes him a professional a-hole.

One of his favorite things to do is always ask for the seat change button when he sits down. Annoying but whatever. I won't get mad at someone who is looking to get their favorite seat or is looking for an advantage by sitting to the right of a maniac. Good for them. That is not why he wants the seat change button though. He just wants to annoy people with it. He will always take the next seat that opens up. Always. He just waits to do it. So if a seat opens up, he won't take it right away. He will wait. If another player at the table asks to move he will suddenly say he wants the seat and flash the button. He only wants it after someone else is thinking about moving. Or if a new player shows up for the empty seat, he will wait as long as possible to claim the empty seat so the new player has to wait for him to move.

He used to wait until the player got settled (but hadn't yet been dealt a hand) before asserting he should get the seat, but our management quickly caught on to what he was doing and stated he waited too long and the new player got the seat. So now he waits as long as he thinks he can get away with it.

Who does this?

Just an a-hole.