Dealer Assistance Question

Dealer can call out the card. OPTAH is ridiculous for saying what the face up board card is when a player asks. If a visually disabled player is at the table with a hand reader either they or the dealer will be required to call out the board for them.

Players can also read out the card if asked. I’m 100% surprised no one did to be honest, whether or not the rules say they can.

Whether or not the drunk guy is holding up the game and should be asked to leave is a completely different question (though for a vaguely related reason I guess). If you’re letting him play though, then he is entitled to know what the board cards are.

Agreed and thank you for the thoughts. That's something that did come up is the scenario around a visual impairment and adjustments made. Which was then countered with...
he didn't need it read every time, just some of the time, and he was given plenty of choice to move to a chair to help.

And the biggest debate point then became... we all know that at times a player can misread the board and mistake the 8 of clubs for the 8 of spades (even sober people do this every once in awhile).
By the dealer reading that single card out, does it cross the line of aiding that player?

Maybe he wants the position offered by being in whatever seat he is in. He shouldn’t have to sit in the 5 seat in order to play the game. Nor should anyone else.

No, it is not an advantage to have the card read out. Everyone can ask for the card to be read out if they are unsure about it.

Where did the dealer even get that idea. He or she needs correcting.

I play in a room where the player pool avg age is measured in epochs vs years. It's very common to have a player need a board card read out loud. Dealers and players will assist. Never heard a complaint. People will also move if a player needs the 5 seat to sit close enough to the cards.

Just bc you're competing for cash doesn't mean you shouldn't exercise simple human compasion.

Similarly, some players need help stacking chips. Both my thumbs are partially paralyzed, and sometimes I need help. Others have Parkinson (my guess) and their hand shakes are too violent to stack chips. Players help so that the dealer doesn't get slowed down.

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Dealers sometimes get weird ideas in their heads like this. This one needs a talking to by their boss.

I guess no one called the floor to ask their stance on the matter? Can't imagine telling somebody what card is on the board violates any OPTAH rule, if they ask.

That's partially what brought me to post this situation here.. floor was called and there were a variety of differing opinions on the manner to either side. Such a unique scenario that the floor didn't have a clear cut answer either and would research it further. Hoping this thread will help with the decisions made in the future.

As for the general "nitty-ness" of the situation and decision needing to be made... I've also seen debates about:
Player 1 makes it $50
Player 2 goes all in for $137
Player 1 asks "how much more is it for me?"
Dealer: I can't answer that, the wager is $137 total.

If at all possible, I'd try to find another room to play in. I've played in a room where a regular had problems seeing his own cards. He would pick them up and everyone could see them if they wanted to. The players just looked away when that happened. Anyone looking would be shamed in leaving.

In all of the rooms I've played in when a Dealer is asked, they will always say out loud what the card is. I have never heard anyone complain about it.

Many times the dealer has also moved the entire board close to the person asking as well.

One time at Foxwoods a guy who had fallen off a 3 story balcony in college was playing in the 5 seat. He was basically blind in one eye and could see only a small circle out of his other eye. So like he was looking though a microscope. Soon after starting the tournament, we (the players at the table) realized that when we did things like tap the table or push chips forward without saying anything, that this player couldn't tell what happened. So we all agreed to say what we were doing when it was our turn to act. Not only to speed things up, but so that the player in question would have the best opportunity to know what was going on. While I was at the table not one player complained. I felt very proud of what we had done, and I have no idea how it ended because I was eliminated before Seat 5 guy.

Sounds like the dealer was clueless, or wanted the drunk to lose for whatever reason. The other players were taking advantage of a drunk guy, but that wasn't enough of an advantage so they wanted to force him to play without knowing what all the cards were.

While unrealistic, it would be cool if the floor sent the drunk guy home.

I mean, fair enough the dealer gets the rule wrong, but the floor should absolutely know what the rule is. If he doesn’t know, call the shift manager. There shouldn’t be a situation where a ruling can’t be made and the floor defers to the judgment of the players.

And by the way, the second situation as described the dealer absolutely should be telling the player how much more it is to them if asked in turn. Sounds like bad rulings are endemic in this room.

I have found more and more players getting silly about the OPTAH rule.

The other day while dealing a $5/$10 game a player raised to $30. Then the food runner came over and they were deep on discussion. Another player re-raises to $110. It folds back to the inital raiser. She finishes the conversation with the food runner and the food runner walks away, but it is clear she is unhappy/confused by what the food runner told her. I tap the table in front of her and say "The action is on you. It has been reraised to $110." She looks at her cards again, thinks and then folds.

After I push the pot to the winner, one of the other players complains that I was helping out the player play her hand by telling her that there was a raise to $110.

I told him that I was just trying to keep the game moving by letting her know what was going on while she was distracted. He then said I was helping her. She might do something different if I didn't tell her the action.

I just stayed quiet and moved on, but internally I was thinking WTF? It wasn't like I said "Action to you, there is a flush draw on the board". If I would have just said the action was on her we would have waited a bit while she got her bearings and she probably would have asked what was what anyway. Besides, it is literally the dealers job to announce bets. Saying it has been raised to $110 was part of my job.

I have seen players start to turn their hand over before the action is complete and someone stop them and say there is still action and then another player complains about OPTAH.

It is getting ridiculous.

A lot of poker players are insufferable and I'm becoming convinced that they are only at the poker table because it's the only place they'll be accepted in a social setting. Dealers have to put up with a lot.

A debate ensues about why or why not the dealer could speak up and verbally state the river card to the player.

That's a lot of mentally disabled people clustered today in one place.

I see this at the table more frequently than in the past, only theory I have is that these online poker “courses” or “study groups” that target newer younger players (that many experienced players are not purchasing) are teaching something to the effect of “use every minuscule edge you can find when playing live.”

I bet ages of the players likely to admonish a dealer for telling a player the raise amount in a cash game would have to be 21-30, if they are older then they are the insufferable bunch that know better but chose their actions to tilt people around them.

I play regularly in a 100-200 mix where if you are eating/talking/distracted you can ask how many cards your opponents drew and for a recap of the action, and if you put out a raise you can pull it back if you didn't realize the game changed or misunderstood the action. The difference is its basically the same players playing every day. No one is taking advantage of anyone, or angling the raise rule. Everyone wants the game to go regularly and don't want someone to lose a bunch of money in a hand due to a mistake and quit playing.

Public game are much more cut throat. In regular home game the idea is to shear the sheep so they keep coming back, but in public games players want to slaughter them before someone else can.

This should be no big deal. I've played with one totally blind person before (RIP Hal Lubarsky) and several near blind people, in both casinos and home games.

Beyond this OP -

Generally the players can make out the hole cards by putting them close to their face, but they either can't read the board cards at all or are likely to make mistakes about them very often.

At least twice I've volunteered to be the guy to read the board cards when I fold preflop and the blind guy is in.
I've also discussed it with the dealers.

I think it's perfectly fine to read the board cards as they come up, including the three on the flop.
"9 of spades, jack of hearts, three of clubs". But you should not group them in the way they are announced, as that could effectively violate OPTAH.
Definitely don't say something like "King, Ten, Deuce, all diamonds".
Don't say something like two cards are clubs or there are two Queens on board. Just read each card as before. Those things are for the player to figure out, and if the if he forgets previous cards, read the board again, but don't answer questions like "how many cards are hearts?".

I played with Hal Lubarsky in Vegas after he was profiled on ESPN.
Had no problem until his partner started saying things like "turn is the 10 of diamonds and now there are 3 diamonds on the board" or "river is 5 of clubs and now there is a possible strait" loud enough for everyone to hear.
Would have no problem with him saying board is now 9d 2d 5c 10d or board is 3d 4h 9s kh 5c
It annoyed me but I didn't complain.