This post will consist of a few
random stories from a tournament I played in Vegas back in June. I busted out of this one fairly quickly due
to a total lack of decent hands. Because
of some of the things I will tell you about, I prefer not to identify which
tournament this was or what poker room it took place in. Really, it wouldn't be a big deal to reveal
it, but I prefer not to. To be honest,
this could have happened at any tournament I played during the summer poker
season.
You see all the rooms that run
series are quite desperate for dealers.
There just aren't enough to go around.
A lot of "retired" dealers come out of retirement to deal at
the WSOP or one of the other series around time—or both. Many dealers double up and do two full shifts
during this time. Rooms hire brand new
dealers, with predictable results. The
ones that can handle it get better as the summer rolls on. Some don't make it. Last summer I was dealt to by a high school
math teacher who was dealing to make money during summer vacation—he was
excellent. You never know who you'll run
into.
In this room, after I busted,
went over to say hello to the poker room manager, who I've been working with
thru PokerAtlas and Ante Up for six years.
He was impressed and a bit overwhelmed with how busy they were. He pointed out that another room in town was
offering virtually the exact same tournament as he was and they were getting
like 300 people a day for theirs—just about the same as he was getting for
his. And he talked about how difficult
it is to keep properly staffed for it.
He kept losing dealers. They needed the temp dealers to work long
shifts—but the dealers couldn't work longer than their assigned shifts because
they had their other job—their real job—to go to. And they couldn't be late for their real job
or they'd get fired. This job was only
temporary. It was a real challenge.
Anyway, there was one male
dealer who was bantering with one of the players. And the player had a bad result in the hand
so of course he said something disparaging about the dealer, like it was the dealer's
fault he lost the hand (not exactly a rare complaint). And so the dealer said, "If that comment
had come from a good player, I'd be offended." I dunno why, but that line really tickled
me. I started laughing.
Now, as it happened, I had been
spending a rather inordinate amount of time looking at my phone. It seems
someone was complaining to me that there was some key information missing from
PokerAtlas and I was researching it. I
couldn't find anything missing, but this person was insisting. So I was distracted. It turned out that the
person was of course wrong and it was just human error on this person's part –nothing
was missing. But it caused me to bury my
face in the phone for awhile. Which was
where it was when the dealer made that crack.
So when I laughed, the dealer was a bit surprised and he gave me a
look. So I said to him, "You didn't
think I was paying attention, did you?"
He said, "Actually, I didn't."
Now, there was one dealer at
this tournament I want to tell you about. She was super, super friendly. Perhaps too friendly. It wasn't long before I found out that her
regular gig is as a table games dealer at a locals casino, one that used to
have a poker room but no longer does. But she only started working there after
they stopped offering poker. So I dunno
where she learned how to deal poker. I
suspect she played poker even though her gig is table games.
Early on, she told us this
joke. "Why are men like a deck of
cards? Because you need a heart to love them, a diamond to marry
them, a club to beat them and a spade to bury them." Ok, then.
Then later a player was trying
to remember how the last hand had played out and asked another player about it.
But this dealer voluntarily told him who had raised, how much, how much the
flop bet was…etc. I'm not sure how I feel
about that. Is a dealer to suppose to
help out players that way? I mean if the
player couldn't recall how the hand went down, that's his problem right? Unless another player wants to help him out,
I kind of don't think the dealer should.
But the weirdest, and worst
thing I saw her do was when the a player announced "all-in" for the
first time at our table (since she had been there). As she grabbed the "all-in" button
and threw it towards the player, she immediately said, cheerfully, "Good
luck, all-in."
Grrrr.
Now I've made it clear in this
space I really think saying that is beyond stupid (see here). But I get that people like to say it or
perhaps just can't help themselves. But
for a dealer to say it? That is so
wrong.
Of course, since it's such a
meaningless phrase, it's not like the dealer is actually affecting anything or
even favoring the player who first went all-in. I didn't think the dealer was
really wishing that player better luck than anyone who might call. But still,
the dealer is supposed to be impartial, and here she was wishing one of the
players good luck, presumably at everyone else's expense.
You know, sometimes you hear a
dealer at the beginning of a tournament, or opening a new cash game—or even
just pushing in or out of a table—saying something like "good luck, everyone," which is ok, because that's aimed at
everyone. Although I often wonder how
everyone can have good luck. OMG….if
everyone has good luck, that means skill will actually be a factor! Damn.
In this dealer's case, this is
one of the reasons I assume she is a poker player. She must have gotten into that dumb habit as
a player, so it just sort of reflexively comes out of her mouth when she hears
that "all-in" while dealing too.
It wasn't a big deal. I certainly wasn't going to say anything, just
struck me as a little odd.
And that's really all of note
from this particular tournament.
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