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

For me, it's that move low stakes players do when they're folding their blind. Rather than simply throwing their cards in, they take an inordinate amount of time sliding their cards under their bet and pushing it forward a half inch.

All that energy expended slowing things down and making it more difficult for me to collect everything. Some lift the back of the cards way up, exposing them to half the table in the process.

The guy who carefully counts out his bet, stacks them up neatly, and then pushes them forward to topple down over the betting line, so that I have to pick them up and reorganize them to get a count.

I'll admit these are nitty, but I'm on a roll.

The guy who sits next to the dealer and turns his chair sideways, either facing away from me, so the back of his chair is right next to me, and it makes me claustrophobic, or facing towards me, which kinda creeps me out.

Another one is any player wearing sunglasses. Bonus points if they're mirrored.

I literally was gonna post about this exact thing not too long ago. Feels like it's getting more popular. There's a lot of things that players love to do to "help" the dealer that are just minor inconveniences.

Another is the guy that helps you by throwing his bet/blinds into the center of the table. Usually in a 2/3 or 7/8. The problem being they wait until you're already reaching and .001 inches from the chips. They'll grab them and rainbow them over you. Thank man, biiiiiig help.

This thread would double in size if I listed every petty thing that annoys me. In case you're wondering "Rawlz, have you considered that you're just an *******?". The answer is yes, I have considered it and decided that that is in fact the case, but some of those people suck too, dammit!

1/2 game a few weeks ago, I tell the lady next to me in seat 8 that she's the big blind. She doesn't post it, so as I'm pitching cards I tell her two more times, while tapping the felt in front of her, and she doesn't post it. Finally I've finished dealing and tell her a fourth time she's the big blind, while tapping the felt in front of her (this woman is literally sitting six inches from me). She says, "Ten!" and throws out two red chips. I say, "It's not on you, you're the big blind." She yells, "Well why didn't you TELL ME?!" I literally throw my head back and laugh, and laugh, and laugh. A lady in seat 5 who's watched the whole thing unfold also finds it hilarious, so we get to share the moment. It started off as just another mildly annoying hand, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it.

It always amazes me the people who ignore the dealer and then blame them. I have had too many instances to count where I tap the table in front of a player multiple times and say it is their BB, and then they finally see it, panic, look at their cards and fold, then get mad at me because they thought I was indicating the action was on them. Somehow it is my fault that they fold after I say 3 times that they are the BB.

On the other hand, we have a semi-reg who gets pissed off when the dealer starts dealing before the blinds are posted. He thinks that there is a reasonable chance the person in the BB might not want to post and leave the table instead.

He isn't completely wrong.

Except if he had his way the games would slow down to a literal crawl.

I have often thought about entertaining his view point and not start dealing until all blinds are posted. I know it would completely irritate the rest of the table who would wonder why I am waiting to deal. Furthermore it would hurt my bottom line.

So I don't do it. Still, I think about it sometimes.

Since I play PLO and have dealt at rooms that have it as a regular game: My main pet peeve is definitely players that never directly ask you what pot is, even though they want to bet pot or know what it is to inform their bet size. They make forward motion with chips then ask what pot is, or say some number close to pot but clearly in questioning manner. First off, waste of time. Second, you should be held to that number you just said but then I look like an *******.

We've got a PLO reg who's definitely played more hands of PLO in his life than I've dealt in my life. And I've dealt a lot of PLO hands. We'll call him "Joe".

5 players see the flop, and it gets to Joe.

Joe: (dramatically). Pot!

Me: One-Hundred dollars.

Everyone folds except for one other player, who calls the $100. I put out the turn card.

Joe: (dramatically). Pot!

Me: (As I roll my eyes). Three-Hundred dollars.

This is compounded by the fact that they always pause for dramatic effect first and you don't know where it's going. It might go near the pot, directly into the pot, into someone else's stack, or some of them simply drop it back down so you have to reach again.

I had one reg who would often be in the 5 seat and would always grab his chips right before I could get them, hold them in the air for a few seconds, then drop them straight down. Every damn time. I lost my cool one day and spent a down yanking them out of his hand instead of waiting. I'm not proud of it, but he stopped doing it.

I have found that frequency that an UTG player erroneously puts out a big blind and has to be told they are not in the blinds ("You get to look first, I hear there's an advantage") who immediately forget to out out their big blind when they're supposed to the very next hand is paradoxically high.

I had a doozy as a player a few weeks ago. I am posting it here because I have been thinking about how I would have handled it as a dealer. Somehow the dealer screwed up, but I am not so sure a vast majority of dealers wouldn't have screwed up as well. I don't like how the floor handled it, but I couldn't come up with a better solution either. Just a mess.

The situation: A ~200ish person tournament. I think the blinds are 300/600. Far from the money.

Button is in seat 6. Small and big blind are obviously seat 7 and 8. I am in seat 9 and am not involved in the hand.

The problem children: Seat 8 is some foreign old man who doesn't really speak English. Multiple dealers have tried to communicate with him and have done so somewhat successfully, but it is clear it is all limited. He can also be best described as randomly spastic. Preflop he will tank for a few seconds, then either randomly grab a chunk of chips and messily toss them forward or violently flick his cards forward into the middle. There is no rhyme or reason, I guess it is just some random nutrino hitting some trigger in his brain than guides his decision. His chip stacks are a mess and barely sorted.

So far he is up a decent amount of chips, but it is obvious that will change. He isn't good. He is just agressive and random (but not random in a good strategy way).

The other problem children are seats 2 and 3 they are friends and are spending most of their time talking about the upcoming Superbowl and watching some show talking about the Superbowl. They have roped seat 1 into their conversations. Between the 3 of them they are not paying attention to the action so they often act out of turn. They have been warned by multiple dealers but no floor. The vast majority of the problem is that they are not paying attention, a small part of it though is that they are also acting after seat 8. Seat 8 often tanks for longer than expected, since they are talking they do not know where the action is, just that it has been a while so they assume the action is on them and panic and act.

A shitshow for a dealer and I am in the middle.

I have been consciously trying to act fast after seat 8 just to lessen the problems with seat 1 never knowing when to act.

Back to the hand (finally). Seat 8 is UTG and goes into his usual tank. He finally spasms and grabs a stack of chips consisting of mostly 100 chips with a few 500 chips sprinkled in and slams it in the table. Dealer has to count it and announce the bet. As he leans over to count it, I quickly fold and slide the cards under him towards the middle. I want to make it clear to the other side of the table that I acted.

It takes the dealer a few seconds to sort the chips and then count them. There are 14 black 100 chips and 4 purple 500 chips. He loudly announces the bet as 3400 and then double checks his work and puts the chips into an easily viewable and countable layout.

As he leans back there are a mess of folded cards on the other side of the table and 3400 in chips in the middle. He gathers all of the discarded cards and it looks like the action is on seat 6 (the button). Button thinks a bit and then folds as do the small blind and big blind.

I am only half paying attention to the hand now as I have folded. I am interested in seeing what seat 8 does for strategy purposes, but not too deeply. I am half paying attention to the hand and half looking at my phone.

The dealers awkwardness catches my attention. He announces 2 players in the hand and taps the table like he is going to put out a flop. He pauses though and it is clear he isn't sure. Just a different rhythm than he normally does. I can see him looking around the table so my attention perks up and I look around. It looks like seat 2 and seat 8 have cards.

Eventually he puts out the flop. Flop comes out, seat 8 tanks and then eventually checks, seat 2 thinks for a second and then checks.

Dealer taps the table, Burns a card and then starts to turn over the turn. Seat 3 immediately speaks up and says wait! He still wants to act.

It turns out he still has cards.

He is one of those players who keeps his cards in his hands and they can be hard to see.

He says he wanted to bet 3000.

To his credit dealer immediately calls over the floor.

Floor comes over and asks what is going on. Dealer starts to explain and as he is doing so, seat two starts talking and says that he opened for 1700 and seat 3 called and then seat 8 called.

Dealer starts to correct him, but it has quickly become clear what happened. Seat 2 and seat 3 each threw in 1700 prefop. It looked like one 3400 call of seat 8's inital raise. Seat 2 thought he was raising, seat 3 thought he was calling a raise. They had absolutely no idea what happened on the other side of the table.

Floor is absolutely flabbergasted. He doesn't know what to do. A simple premature burn and turn is the least of his problems. The pot isn't correct because players have put in different amounts.

It is obvious he is uncomfortable. His inital response is to force seat 2 and 3 to throw in an additional 1700 each ruling they just called the inital 3400 raise of seat 8. He was then going to do the premature burn and turn and let seat 3 act.

Not pretty I don't like it at all, but what else can be done?

Seat 6 (the button) then speaks up. He says that he thought only two players were in the hand so he folded his pocket pair preflop. If he knew there was 3 players he would have called and it turns out he would have hit a set. He even says he had 7s 7d and could be verified in the muck.

Floor realizes that everything is messed up and errors did affect future action. He shakes his head. It is obvious that he is absolutely hating his life right now. He sighs, and declares a misdeal. He tells the dealer to give everyone their money back and redeal the hand. Seat 8 goes crazy. He turns over his hand and shows AA. Seat 2 and 3 start complaining. No one is happy (rightfully).

Obviously it is terrible anytime a floor has to declare a hand a misdeal and a redo. That isn't a solution. It sucks.

I don't know what I would have done otherwise though. It was messed up all around.

As for the dealer, obviously he messed up, but I am not really sure I fault him. He leaned over to count a bet and then afterwards saw a bunch of discarded cards and a call that happened behind his back. I think 95% of dealers screw up this hand. I told the dealer this afterwards. He was a mess and it clearly rattled him and seat 3 and seat 8 were absolutely pissed at him. In fact, to his credit, I think the dealer even sensed something was wrong. He just couldn't figure it out and proceeded with the hand.

What a mess.

To this group, my primary question is what do you rule here? I hate what the floor did, but I don't have a better answer. The secondary question is how much do you blame the dealer? He absolutely screwed up, but I genuinely do not think most dealers do better in that spot.

To be fair and honest to all, I should note that I knew the dealer. He was a fairly decent player who was torn about either qutting playing serious poker and getting a good job or ramping it up and thinking about playing very serious poker and making a living out of it. He was working as a waiter and playing $2/$5 while doing decently in his spare time. The problem is he lived in an area where his public play options were limited to a few $2/$5 games.

We had many discussions about what he should do. He was young so I suggested moving to an area where there were more games and either getting a waiter job or dealing and playing part time and see where it took him.

The whole reason I was there playing in a tournament (which I rarely do), was because I was visiting him (and getting a mini poker vacation away from my wife). As a dealer he is somewhat new (a few months of experience), but he was extremely experienced as a poker player. He knew what was going on at a poker table.

I say all of this simply because I recognize I am very biased as to the dealers actions. He obviously did not get it right, but I think most don't and I have been trying to tell him that. I am not sure I get it right.

So my bias has clouded my judgement so that is me partially asking what other dealers think.

The thing I dislike most about the misdeal ruling is that now you have no justification to give seat 6 a penalty

I just realized I screwed up the seating arrangement. I apologize. Button in seat 5. Seat 6 and 7 the blinds. Crazy man in seat 8 was UTG.

Sorry. I hope my bad description of the button doesn't dominate the conversation. I hope it is about the action.

What penalty would you give seat 6? I am assuming talking about a hand while it is still in progress . While that is sort of true, I think it misses the point that the confusing action affected subsequent players actions. Just correcting active players actions doesn't fully solve the problem. Other players acted on false information. Could he have brought this to the attention of the floor better. Yes, definitely. Is it even true? Maybe. Maybe he still folds for the overbet opening raise with a medium pocket pairs if he knows there are 3 other players. Who knows.

The point is, it isn't just about the active players. The screwups affected the decisions of other players as well.

It definitely affected seat 6, but they also have a small share of the blame and there's no way to fix it. Once his cards are in the muck, they're gone.

Disclosing your hole cards, especially when they hit the board, is bad. It was not in any way helpful information, and deserves a reaction. I'd probably just give a warning, but something should happen.

Just because the screwup affected another player(s) decision doesn't mean they get a do-over. Player responsibilities including knowing the action you're facing, clarifying it if unsure, and reporting errors if you notice them. In this sense, everybody from seat 2 all the way to seat 7 is partially to blame for this scenario, though the bulk falls on 2 & 3.

If seat 6 were able to whisper his cards to the floor, get them back & act on the new preflop action & have the flop redealt, why not seats 4, 5, and 7 as well? They have the same argument that seat 6 would.

Another pet peeve I've happily seen less of lately.

The guy who puts his hand out on the table as I'm pitching cards to either give me a target to throw to or to discourage/block me from accidentally pitching his card to the guy next to him.

A player recently did a rough calculation of how many cards I pitch in a year. 9-handed tables means 18 pitched cards per hand of hold'em. Figure 17 hands in a down and I do about 65 downs in a week.

18 pitched cards * 17 hands in a down * 65 downs in a week * 50 weeks in a year equals just shy of a million pitched cards each year. I think with that much practice, I can reasonably get the cards to the guy in the 4 seat without his help.

That, and when I hit their chips with the first pitch so they move their chips over right before I pitch the second one. My mind has already made the adjustment to pitch so I pretty much always pitch to the spot they chose to move them to before I even noticed they moved. If they had just left them there, it would have all been much smoother.

The first round of pitches is always worse for some reason. I'm usually dead on with cards 2+.

I’ve probably said this before but it’s crazy how 95% of things players do to “help” either do the exact opposite or are neutral at best.

Player bets 1,200
Player calls with a 5k
I grab 3,800 from the pot, go to hand it to player.
“OH! I’ve got 1,200!”
*Takes 10 seconds to retrieve it because they are shuffling their whole stack in one hand*
“Just trying to help!”

Well, you failed in miserable fashion and in multiple ways. Congrats.

I had a doozy once dealing a cash game. A goes all in for $297 on the river and B throws in 3 blacks. B loses. I kill his hand and as I'm beginning to throw $3 change he goes "Hold on, I think I have exact change." In his tilted state it takes him what feels like an hour to count out $297, which happens to be every last $1 and $5 he has. Mind you, he also had more than a full stack of green and the 3 blacks.

Immediately after I push it, he asks the player next to him if he can buy 2 stacks of red.

Don't get me started on the tournament players who do weird stuff like call a 13k bet with 28k. If I push the extra 1k's back to them, they yell that they're just making it easier for me. No, easy would be me grabbing the 13k, dropping 1k into the pot, then giving them the 12k. You're just making me do extra math and digging a 5k out of the pot.

I like when the second card slides under the first.

When the dealer reaches out to grab the wagered chips and one of the players picks up their bet and throws it forward.

I am always torn on this.

I do appreciate players (especially from the far seats) tossing in their bets. The problem is as you point out is speed. If the player isn't ready to do it before the dealer even begins to reach, then they are just too slow and are slowing down the game.

The other issue is skill at tossing chips. There are people who can toss chips that land just fine. Others toss them in a way that make them splash all over the table. A chip will go into the rack while another rolls into seat 5's stack and one goes all the way accross the table. That is not helpful.

Unless a player is both quick (like acting before the dealer) and know how to toss chips accurately, they should just sit back and let the dealer do his job.

That said, there is a tournament regular that I love dealing to. He anticipates the action so he is tossing his bet forward before I start reaching. He also knows how to throw a nice soft, accurate toss. This allows me to get fancy with my catches which looks amazing.

Unfortunately it is tournaments, so amazing dealing doesn't earn the tips that a cahs game would.

The problem is that tourney reg you like is in the 0.5% of players who actually know how to help. Even then, I've never gone to the next table and thought "I sure do wish John was at this table so he could help me!"

It's exhausting getting into this discussion with anybody but other dealers because there is always a group of players that are like "But *I* do ABC and nobody complains!" or "Well at my room there's a dealer who will ask me to do XYZ". Sure, if the dealer asks you to do something, go right ahead, but any unsolicited help is just unnecessary and does more harm than good.