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

Had a first recently: Dealing our daily afternoon tourney, I had to call the floor for a player who had a complaint about a dealer on another table.

Our entire room is basically regulars. The most notoriously loud, non-stop talker was at the table behind me. It was a Sunday, and instead of his usual play-by-play hand dissection, the topic du jour was football. Well, the dealer at his game was also one of our more... loquacious, shall we say-- but on top of that, he bets on everything, so we hear about every leg of his parlays all day on Sundays, with commentary on every play as they unfold across the TVs. This created the perfect storm, and while most of the players at my table were laughing about it, one guy couldn't stand it anymore (he had been visibly tilted by this for awhile), and asked if the manager could do something about the dealer. I called the floor, and the player said, "It's bad enough we have to listen to [player's name] being loud every day, but now your dealer won't shut up either, and we can barely hear what's going on at our table because of those two." Personally, I found every aspect of the whole situation to be hilarious, and it was a great start to my day. 😃

I will admit that I wasn't thinking about Player A initially. I panicked when I heard him declare his hand because I didn't think Player B called.

Player B's actions really weren't as close to a call as I made them out to be in the OP. I mean they were close, multiple times he cuts out chips and then made some gestures, but it was something that dealers (and experienced players) see often enough. It was clear he was agonizing over the decision and deep in thought. I am sure that 99% of experienced higher level poker players would never thought he had called.

However the more I thought about Player A's actions, the weirder they were. He did it in a way that no one would ever turn over their cards. After declaring, he sort of slowly lifted them and looked like he was going to turn them over without ever revealing them keeping them facedown throughout his full forward motion. It was an awkward motion. Most poker players turn over their hands much smoother and faster, especially after declaring what they have. Then when there was lots of confusion and we were waiting for the first floorman, he never argued that the other player called. He never said anything.

When the tournament director came over he handled really well. He is an excellent TD and he showed it.

He came over and asked me what happened. I explained that Player A bet, Player B went deep into the tank, made multiple motions but never made anything I would consider a call. After one of those motions, Player A declared he had a straight and started to turn over his hand but never exposed his cards and stopped. I explained Player B never did anything after that and I stopped all action.

The TD then asked each player what they thought happened. Player B spoke first and said he was thinking and never made a call. Player A never said anything. When the TD directly asked Player A what happened all he said was "I said straight." The TD then asked him direct questions (Did you start to turn over your hand?, what did B do that made you think he called?, etc). Player A would struggle to answer, think, and then say "I said straight". The TD would repeat his question and the player would do the same.

The TD started to get frustrated and it became pretty clear at least to me that Player A didn't want to say anything, especially anything that would incriminate himself. I am sure the the TD picked up on it.

The TD told Player A that since he wouldn't answer any direct questions, he would have to rule it not a call and Player B was free to act however he choose. I was watching Player A as the TD ruled and I am pretty sure he was relieved by this, he didn't say anything at all. He was quiet.

Player B went back into the tank.

While tanking, Player B asks the TD what would happen if he called and Player A doesn't not have a straight. The TD says he doesn't want to discuss theoretical situations but it would be a penalty to misrepresent a hand in such a manner. Another player spoke up and said that since it wasn't a call, the most Player A could be penalized was 1 round for discussing a hand while it was happening. The TD shut the other player down immediately and told him there shouldn't be any discussion, but rather sternly said that there is a vast difference between discussing a hand while it is going on and angling.

Player A continues to be silent for a few seconds and then explodes (panics....). He starts saying he has a straight and the other player called and should be held to that call. The TD tells him that the ruling has been made and he should have spoke up earlier. Basically let the other player decide what to do.

After a while Player B folds (to everyone's dismay) with Player A folding his cards right behind him. It should be noted that I mucked Player B's cards right away, but let Player A's cards linger while I pushed the pot. I wanted to make sure the TD did not want to see them.

The TD then tells the table that yes, discussion of a hand while it is happening can result in a 1 round penalty. However angling by misreprenting your hand in order to get an opponent to fold is much more severe. Since everyone who spoke up agreed that Player A had attempted (maybe faked, but still) to turn over his hand, it was clear he wasn't just potentially discussing his hand. His actions were either genuine or obviously angling. If Player B called and Player A had anything other than a straight he would have been DQed.

Player A was quiet the whole time. He never whined or complained about not being called. I only dealt one more hand (that hand took up most of my down), and he was quiet. My read was that he was relieved. I think that he is normally a very straight up player, but saw an opportunity to get his opponent to fold and took it, but immediately regretted it. Someone who doesn't normally look for those situations, but stumbled upon one and let the devil on his shoulder take over. I am pretty sure he won't be doing that again.

After I got up, I talked to the floor about the hand (I should have continued to push, but this was too important).

The TD admitted that he initially considered peeking at Player A's hand but realized that doing so would set a precedent and could open a big can of worms. He also was worried that looking at the hand would affect the action. He decided that since it was the Christmas season that he was going to assume everyone was acting in good faith, so he decided he wasn't going to look at the hand.

When I brought up to him that he could have looked at it after the hand was over he admitted he was too locked in to not wanting to affect the action so he didn't think about it until it was too late. He noticed that I had let the hand linger and only thought about why I did so after it was too late.

We both agreed that we really think Player A was angling. In fact we both agreed that we would bet lots of money on it, but we both recognized that it was just our (very experienced) reads, so we cannot assume anything.

Later in the day I went back and asked him how much he would bet at even odds that Player A was angling? He thought a really long time and admitted he really thought he was, but he wouldn't bet. I think that is a cop out.

I know I would bet thousands of dollars he was angling. I am that sure.

Interesting hand. Made me think for a long time afterwards.

My last couple of Fridays, my right wrist has been bothering me quite a bit. And it's been carrying at least partly through the weekend. I really notice it when I do things like turning a door knob to open the door. The rotational motion plus the grip really gets it going. I don't know if it's from years of pitching cards or from all of the hand shuffling I've been doing lately (our shuffle machines are constantly broken, and even on days when the shuffle technician comes in, it seems like half of the machines are out of order before the end of the day.) Or maybe I'm just getting old and it has nothing at all to do with my job.

We all had our schedules jumbled around for the holidays to make sure that everyone got at least a little bit screwed, even if I typically have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off, so I went home on Friday with a sore wrist, took Saturday off, and went back to work on Sunday, with the wrist still sore. Pitching cards didn't hurt at all. I don't have the perfect pitching form that they teach in school, but I'm definitely not using my wrist to get the cards out, or else I'm hardly using my wrist and the motion of dealing doesn't cause any immediate irritation. As for hand shuffling, I was deliberate about being more gentle and that didn't irritate me either.

I woke up this morning after 2 days off and my wrist doesn't hurt too much. Just in time for a new week.

So I don't know if this is carpal tunnel (never had it, don't know what it feels like) or if it's something else, or if it's even at all related to my job or if it's just because I've been opening too many jars of pickles lately.

But it got me thinking. I've known a few dealers who have switched from dealing right-handed to left-handed (or vice versa) and you wouldn't be able to tell that it wasn't their natural hand. But these dealers all made the switch before I even started working with them.

How long would it take me to make the switch, to the point where a player wouldn't immediately know something was wrong and I didn't look completely unnatural? If I tried dealing left-handed today, the cards would go everywhere, I'd have tons of exposed cards, and I'd look like a complete mess. Not to mention that I'm alo pretty hopeless with cutting chips down left-handed when someone asks me "how much is that bet?" I doubt I could even put the flop out left-handed without looking completely inept. Basically I'm about as right-hand dominant as a person can possibly be, while still having a perfectly healthy left hand.

My wrists started hurting badly about 4 years into this job. So bad that some days I couldn't hold a rack of chips with one hand. Wearing a wrist strap made it go away almost completely. It's just a 3" wide piece of fabric that puts pressure on it. You might not have the same issue, but Walmart has a set for $3 to try.

I've gotten better at counting chips left handed, but it's pretty slow going. Never tried pitching left handed. It might offer some relief, I suppose, being able to use whatever hand feels better on the day.

Bolt,

My pitching hand wrist used to hurt off and on, but frequently. I figured it was just part of what I had signed up for in life. While on vacation once for a week or so it started hurting again and it was a strange revelation of "now is not the time when this should be happening" so I started paying more attention to it. Long story less long, I figured out that the main problem was that I was curling my right hand under my pillow and laying on it while sleeping. Once I realized that it was not a big deal to fix, just a case of "hey stop doing that!"

Just something to keep in mind that it's possible the solution isn't even related to cards.

As far as off-hand dealing goes. I tried that twice when it was hand-for-hand in a tournament and there was another table that kept taking exceptionally long. The idea was quickly abandoned.

I can't imagine ever pitching with my left hand. But I have no wrist, arm or shoulder pain, even in my 50's. Sometimes lower back on a long day.

I’m curious to hear some opinions on which places I should consider dealing at next summer in Las Vegas during the WSOP time. I dealt for 11 years in Florida but I haven’t dealt since March of 2022 aside from a few times at private games. For the past 18 months I’ve worked in an office for a small company that manufactures and sells fuel tanks for large commercial generators. This job is by far the most laid back office environment I’ve ever experienced but I have zero desire to work in an office any longer.

I just turned 50 a few months ago, my youngest kid graduated from high school last May and is away at college. My longtime gf works from home/travels and would be open to coming on the road with me when she’s able to. My plan is to become a traveling dealer starting with the WSOP and going from there. So please feel free to share any information that might be useful for deciding which summer series to go with and any other tournament series throughout the year.

Seems like you should try learning the thumb dealing euro method first of you decided to change.

Thanks, that’s very helpful information. I talked to another dealer yesterday who has dealt the WSOP for several years and I’m definitely leaning that direction. Not having to fly out to audition is a big plus. What are some of your favorite tournament stops other than the WSOP? I’d prefer to be east of the Mississippi the rest of the year if possible.

Some of the good spots are hard to get into. You have to know who to contact and when there are openings they'll go with people they know. For WSOP circuit, Turning Stone and Cherokee are good. The Florida stop is probably good but I haven't been able to crack into it yet. Hollywood Hard Rock is great, and I've heard good things about National Harbor, Choktaw, and Beau Rivage. Honestly, starting out just take any jobs you can. Show up, don't bitch, help things run smooth and more jobs will come. Get on all the Facebook dealer groups and set up an alert on Indeed for poker dealer because some things show up on there.

I have dealt every Potomac Poker Open that they have run and it has been interesting seeing it evolve over the years. I am fortunate that they allow me to come when it runs. Last several times they only opened it up to dealers who previously worked the event.

When it started there were dead spreads, low toke rates, and tons of confusion. But the people who run it are great at what they do and as you heard, it has become a good event to work. I love working with them and hope that I can do so as long as it runs.

At this point I am the only non-traveling dealer who deals it (it's a perfect storm for me: I have a MD license through my on call dealer job and I take PTO from my FT salaried position to double dip; it's a rare stop that pays for rooms and their EDR is pretty good and open 24-hours so expenses can be kept low).

"Celebrating" 20 years on 2+2 this month so here's a post of random bullshittery that happened today. You've been warned. Nothing interesting lies in the post ahead. So don't read it.

Tournament break and the TD and I are as always attempting to contain our immense excitement that comes from running poker tournaments. As I had just called out an open seat TD comes over and somewhat bemused asked if it was the 1 seat, who had lasted all of a single hand today. Yes. Yes it was. And for some reason I see fit to say

"Remember you are dust, to dust you shall return. I think that's from the bible."
TD: That's pretty metal line for the bible. Along with JESUS WEPT!
Me: I always thought **** was getting real in the bible whenever they would bring up jawbones and asses.
TD: Yeah Jaws and Asses were my favorite discussion topics in Sunday school.
Me: Unlike Sundays around here where all we get are

Later during the same break TD gestures to my table
TD: You down two?
Me: Yep. down two.

2 second pause...

TD: Down to what?
Me: IT. We're down to IT. And I'm not talking Stephen King.
TD: ... Well that's good, because I looked and we're all out of Red Balloons.
Me: Ok... just give me whatever Lucky Charms we've got left.

Little did I know that the director of the entire poker room, the boss of my boss's boss, was standing behind us.

DPR: "I think you two are the only ones that get your own humor."

Yeah that's probably a good point. But I did see them smirk.

Towards the end of my shift tournament tables breaking have adjusted the lineup so that I'm now following a break-in on his 2nd shift. Nice enough kid. Helped him out a little bit in the in-house poker school and I think he'll get there eventually. But again, 2nd shift ever.

I spend the entire time of the hand that I'm watching waiting to push in wondering if he's ever going to take the rake. Let's see... checking all the tabled hands... looking around... checking the tabled hands again... kills one.... kills another one.... only one hand left... is that entire pot going that way? Ooo! As a buzzer beater he changes out a red chip (with improper procedure but hey) for white and takes the correct amount of rake and pushes the pot. Alright kid we got there in the end!

I glance over and the next table he's going to go to is a 7 game mix. Oof. I push into my game and flag down a chiprunner and discretely ask if we can get him a shadow or something to help him over there. A couple minutes later chiprunner returns and tells me "(Department Trainer) says he's dealt it before." My brother in Christ I just watched this kid swim through the river Stix to remember to take a rake and he's going to go try and deal Pot Limit Double Board Dramaha? Jesus Christ. I remember my first week in the year of our lord Two Thousandmumblemumble it was enough to get two cards face down to everyone. Really throwing this poor kid to the wolves. However, I didn't stick around to watch him get scraped up off the pavement because I got pushed out to go home and faced with the choice of watching the ensuing bloodbath and going home to type up random bullshit for 2+2 I choose the obvious.

Remember I told you not to read any of this.

Just how bored are mixed game players anyway?

I switched places with a dealer once when she begged me to deal PLO for her and the pit manager was on break so I couldn't get permission. It was short handed and I knew it would break if that particular dealer sat down so I just did it. Afterwards I got chewed out and told that all dealers are trained in all games we run. Maybe you should step out from behind the desk once in a while. Maybe 1 in 5 dealers in that room could deal PLO without assistance from the players. Some can barely handle NLH. Any further into the mix games list they'd be screwed.

mod: ok, it's been a few days, and I appreciate all the constructive feedback from the community.

The majority of feedback seems to be OK with going forward with the proposed change, so I will make some edits to the OP, and we'll go forward with a new policy that only cardroom employees or other home game dealers (when appropriate to the topic) can post in this thread. For the moment we'll also allow posts from non-employees asking for advice about becoming an employee/dealer.

To date I have been pretty laid back about enforcing this and trying to determine who is and isn't an employee. Possibly I may get a little more aggressive about it going forward (e.g. temporarily deleting posts and sending PMs to confirm, asking for some sort of proof in some cases), but I don't necessarily want to promise it, I don't really have a lot of time to be the employee police. But if you have to really stretch to make the case that you should be able to post here, or if you're not comfortable explaining your role as a cardroom employee here publicly, then that is probably an indication that you shouldn't post here. I really hope it doesn't ever come to this, but if needed the mod team will make any final determinations needed and everyone will have to live with it.

re: moderation, I will have a fairly light hand when people violate this rule (either moving or deleting these posts without additional comment or explanatory PMs), but repeat offenders may get something a little more formal or get stacking penalties. Please use the report post functionality if you suspect a post/poster of being in violation of the thread restrictions, and we'll have a look when we can.

I will also move the posts from the past few days talking about the proposed change to their own thread, here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/27/ca...

To our employee friends - a concern from customers is that you try to be cognizant about posting things like ruling questions that might benefit from a wider audience response in other threads where that feedback is possible and welcomed, rather than here, and use this thread mainly for non-ruling dealer bullshitting. Of course, the decision is up to you in the end. If you don't want customer feedback about something, posting here is fine.

Thanks again to the community.

mod: as an aside, when the name of this thread was changed to appreciate YTF, the intention was for RR, one of the former mods who also worked with YTF, to write up a blurb about him for inclusion. Unfortunately that never quite happened for a variety of personal reasons.

If any of you knew him well enough to want to write something up, I'd be pleased to include it in the OP. (I noticed I still had a placeholder there when I was editing it earlier today.) Feel free to post it here or PM it to me.

And thanks for the note, JZ44. Very nice to hear.

It blows my mind that YTF's passing was over five years ago now. I can only imagine the stories he would have been able to share if he was around during the COVID days.

What doesn't blow my mind at all is that he still has the most posts ITT.

Dinesh. Thanks for the hard work from you and the mod team, as always.

To help prevent confusion and facilitate discussion, I would propose two small things for the continued health of this thread.

1. Removing this line I wrote fourteen years ago entirely from the OP:

2. Renaming this thread to be very straightforward and simple. I would suggest "Cardroom Employees Only - Bobby's Breakroom"

Every once in awhile I think about YTF and another friend of mine that also passed away just before COVID hit and wonder if they just were smart enough to check out at the right time.

I left a graveyard shift house job a while back due to burnout. I recently learned that my replacement burned out almost immediately and now the entire shift is being eliminated partly due to the chaos he caused. I don't know if they're going to start closing the room early (which they did sometimes anyway if they didn't have enough pit managers that day) or add early/late start times to morning and swing.

I've been on every shift possible, which, I suppose, all of us can say if we've been in the business long enough.

The last time around I was getting home from work at 7 or 8 AM most mornings and calling myself lucky if I got 4 hours of sleep during the day before my next shift. I'd collapse when I got home, wake up after a few hours, and spend the rest of the day in bed, miserable that I wasn't falling back to sleep until it was time to get ready for work that night.

Now I've been on the early swing shift for the last 18 months or so and I'm usually home around midnight and asleep by 1 AM. I'm probably making less in tips but I wouldn't change it for the world.

I don't think outsiders realize how stressful being employed in poker can be.

Don't get me wrong, at it's most basic, poker is super easy. I am pretty sure that they could teach a monkey to be 95% effective to be a poker dealer. It really isn't that hard.

Where the stress comes from is that money is involved. One simple mistake can cost people thousands.

I often try to describe it to people who work outside the industry as the equivalent of taking a 5th grade math test but doing it for 8 hours and you need to get 100% and any single error could result in someone losing a lot of money. The math is all simple. Stupidly Easy. However if you make one simple mistake, it can come back to bite you. Lose focus for one second? You can look bad. Read a bet wrong? Conflict. Hear something wrong? Conflict. Make a simple mistake on a count? Conflict.

Don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for players who have hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars at stake with a person who is paid minimum wage controlling the action. But dealing is one of those professions that is stupid easy, until it isn't and the simplest mistakes can matter a lot.

Flooring is no different. 99% percent of a floorperson's time is dealing with basic customer service. Basic rulings, telling players where to go, etc. Then all of a sudden stuff goes wrong and you are responsible (even if you had nothing to do with it).

For understandable reasons, gaming rules can be burdensome and onerous. There are federal regulations that can have a huge impact on a floorperson's career (and life) despite them having little control.

Throw in bad management or a bad scheduler and it can escalate.

Being on the house side of the poker environment is one of the easiest jobs in the world, but also one of the most stressful. It is imppossible to describe.

Yeah you have to have people on Graveyard that like being on Grave. If you don't, it's just a matter of time. I personally hated it when I had to do it. Lasted about 6 months and it was misery the entire time.

I didn't get into dealing until I was in my 30s. Even at tha,t advanced age, graveyard wasn't a huge problem for me when I first broke in. Some days, the drive home would be a real chore, but for the most part I just adapted.

Fast forward 10 years later, and I just couldn't get decent sleep during the work-week and my health definitely began to suffer. When I got home at the end of the week, I'd get home at 9 AM and would sleep until Noon. Then I'd wake up, and make myself get out of bed and do stuff. I'd usually end up back in bed around 8 PM and would sleep until about 9 AM. And then I'd be a night-time sleeper for the remainder of the weekend.

On my Monday, I'd wake up around 9 AM, knowing I had to be at work at 9 PM, and would go back to sleep around 3 or 4 PM, desperately hoping that I'd fall asleep for a 2 hour nap before my week began. Sometimes it would happen, other times I'd fail.

Graveyard shift is for kids in their 20s or for parents who have a partner who works during the day time and have it worked out where one parent is always home with the kids. Or for psychos.