Scenes From a Poker Tournament

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.