It is amazing what we take for granted. Thanks very much for "opening" my eyes to some of the things that I as a player take/took for granted. Ran in to a few instances of apathy in my travels this past week, but nothing such as you describe.

I would have gone in to the tank had that last issue occured to me. Thanks again for the info!

Pretty much everything said above is pretty spot on. This part here is not correct:

It's dead if he solicates and recieves help/information on the hand. There are very few ways to kill a hand in a tournament and showing to a player that does not have cards is not one of them. Since you said the other player already folded, this hand is in fact live. The floor should be giving a warning to both players as we all know, small rooms just hate to give penalties in tournaments for fear of being player unfriendly which is total bull. I've had my share of problems in the same room you mentioned and the floor's response the last time was "Well, sometimes the dealer announces it and sometimes they don't, we're real laid back here" (regarding a player that had raised verbally but not loud enough for anyone but the dealer to hear it from the 1 seat.)

@photoc

It's dead if he solicates and recieves help/information on the hand. There are very few ways to kill a hand in a tournament and showing to a player that does not have cards is not one of them. Since you said the other player already folded, this hand is in fact live. The floor should be giving a warning to both players as we all know, small rooms just hate to give penalties in tournaments for fear of being player unfriendly which is total bull. I've had my share of problems in the same room you mentioned and the floor's response the last time was "Well, sometimes the dealer announces it and sometimes they don't, we're real laid back here" (regarding a player that had raised verbally but not loud enough for anyone but the dealer to hear it from the 1 seat.)[/quote]

I disgaree with your statement that "It's dead if he solicates and recieves help/information on the hand. " I have never seen the penalty for violation of one player to hand rule be a dead hand. And this would not be an appropriate remedy

I actually have seen it in more than 1 place, especially in a tournament because they are not just playing against that table, all the players in the tournament have an interest in the hand and the penalty should be more severe than a cash game.

@photoc

And a very appropriate penalty in a tournament would be time away from the table.

The problem I have here is that you rarely see a player solicit help? more often then not the player may flash his cards to his neighbor (out of the hand) not seeking help, just synpathy -- then the other player sees the card and opens his mouth.

Who was the worst offender here. It wasn't the guy who flashed his cards (i agree he shouldn't do that, but in reality that is a part the current poker culture so pretending all of a sudden that now it is terrible offense is out of line) -- the greater offender was the chuckle head who opened his mouth.f the penalty is that the hand is dead, he isn't punished the other player is, and maybe chucklehead wanted the hand to be dead so now you are giving chucklehead exactly what he wanted.

TDA Rule #31 - A player who exposes his cards with action pending may incur a penalty, but will not have a dead hand. The penalty will begin at the end of the hand.

Locally where I play (in AZ) this rule is enforced with a one round penalty with no warnings from what I have seen.

TDA Rule #12 - Players are obligated to protect the other players in the tournament at all times. Therefore, players, whether in the hand or not, may not:
1. Disclose contents of live or folded hands
2. Advise or criticize play before the action is complete
3. Read a hand that hasn’t been tabled
The one-player-to-a-hand rule will be enforced.

TDA Rule #8 - A player must be at his or her seat by the time all players have been dealt complete initial hands in order to have a live hand. Players must be at their seat to call time.

Although not stated in the rule, any reasonable person would assume normal dealing occurs, meaning a dealer does not hold on to last card to allow a player to return to table. To me this could even be considered dealer-player collusion.

TDA Rule #1 - Floor people are to consider the best interest of the game and fairness as the top priority in the decision-making process. Unusual circumstances can on occasion dictate that decisions in the interest of fairness take priority over the technical rules. The floor person’s decision is final.

“Best interest of the game and fairness” – it may be implied, but application should be to all players and not just the friends of the staff.

TDA Rule #7 - A penalty MAY be invoked if a player exposes any card with action pending, throws a card off the table, violates the one-player-to-a-hand rule, or similar incidents take place. Penalties WILL be invoked in cases of soft play, abuse, or disruptive behavior. Penalties available to the TD include verbal warnings and “missed hand” penalties. A missed hand penalty will be assessed as follows: The offender will miss one hand for every player, including the offender, who is at the table when the penalty is given multiplied by the number of rounds specified in the penalty; for the period of the penalty the offender shall remain away from the table. Tournament staff can assess one-, two-, three-, or four-round penalties or disqualification. A player who is disqualified shall have his or her chips removed from play. Repeat infractions are subject to escalating penalties.

What penalty can we give bad floor people and poker room managers? Well, if in fact the TDA rules are in effect (and posted), I would think the gaming commission has the power to sufficiently spank these unruly individuals. However, they cannot do anything unless they know about it.

Thanks for the info in original post. The specific examples seem hard to believe but the cameras don’t lie.

The dealer "holding" the last card is unacceptable. The dealer is delaying the game to benefit a specific player. With the blinds going up at the rate they do, it is unfair to everyone else in the tournament.

I know all poker rooms should follow the rules, and blah blah blah, things aren't fair, people should know what they are doing. But the tournaments you are playing are the lowest limits possible, the rooms are not the best.
If I play at the Stratosphere, I expect that they got a bunch of Donkeys running the room, and I should only play there for fun, to get drunk, or to have a laugh. I don't expect to have professional poker floor managers. I mean come on, the room has 6 tables, and it's in a closet.
The Sahara tourney is a crap shoot, it's for locals that want to play a cheap tourney, and for tourists that are playing their first tourney ever. I've seen the dealers there, it's a break in house, and some of the floor are idiots. I don't expect a professional atmostphere here, again it's for fun and if you win, thats a bonus.
Green Valley is a locals rooms, they rule. We all know that.
You can't expect all rooms to be sticklers on the rules, it's just the way things are. They don't wanna piss people off or make floor decisions they just want to make money. If you wanna play a tourney where you're not going to see unfair policies, up your play. Otherwise you have to expect it, not saying it's right, but it is what it is....

@vegasdealer78

This response is precisely the attitude that the original poster is rightfully criticizing.

If locals feel they deserve special consideration to the point where fairly standard and understood rules are ignored, then they should go play in a home game somewhere where they can make and break all the rules they want.

I think any player or any dealer should be able to expect a professional atmosphere in any casino's poker room.

I doubt we would all agree on what that means, so I don't know how we can all expect to to get it.

You're right we should expect that all the rooms are preofessional, but I'm saying it's not going to happen. I've excepted it, and if I want to be in a professional room, I play at the ones that I know I'll get professional service.

VD78 made a very good point. It is the harsh reality of Vegas poker rooms. Not all rooms are held to the same standard, nor all all rooms catering to the same clientele.

On this forum, we have the Imperial Palace Specialty Games manager as a forum member, and he gave an honest reason as to why they do not follow basic tournament procedures when coloring up chips.

@IP Poker

Some rooms are run by poker people, with long standing experience in the business, whereas some rooms are run by former pit people or other non poker experienced management.

Once you play in a few different rooms, you will disocer right away which rooms are run by poker people and which ones aren't.

VegasDealer - I really couldn't disagree more. If you put $1 down on a table game you have every right to expect every rule to be enforced, the staff to be professional and the game to be run correctly. Think of it this way - change the game to say, BlackJack. Who in their right mind would say, "Oh it is okay that the dealers can't count to 21, don't know how to pay BlackJacks correctly and don't follow the double down rules - it is just a piddly little low limit room." Absurd.

well live in that Fantasy World then....

With all due respect, people who accept this garbage is what allows it to continue. Any gambling establishment that can't run a game properly and professionally shouldn't be in business.

I don't think VD78 and oski necessarily contradict each other. Oski is saying how things should be. VD78 says how things are. If things are how they should be this whole thread never happens.

I also agree, but they are in business and will continue to be. All we can do is choose to patronize rooms that are run professionally.

As long as enough people throw money towards the casino they will stay in business. Thankfully there as sites such as AVP that can help educate everyone, especially tourists. Maybe the old saying "buyer beware" applies here some.

Those who have lurked on this site for any length on time knows TI is the "Cheers" of poker rooms for many AVP players. Each place of business will have a reputation and run things as they may, which is certainly their right.

The locals can attest to the realism of poker in Vegas to help us less educated, and in the case of the original post, I think it was great that we have more information should we be faced with a similar situation.

Poker may be low dollar to many casinos, and low dollar tournaments might even be less of a concern. However, I find it hard beleive that since gaming is regulated, that any discrepancy is not addressed or handled properly. I would think same goes for cashier being short money. People can lose jobs, and potentially gaming licenses could be at stake, or am I way off on this?

Most anyone reading AVP is going to know the reputable rooms where the floor will be competent and the staff professional (and some people who don't care and want to have fun, probably aren't using the net to research anyway). So thankfully we have AVP and some great guys giving their time to make the site work so well....thanks again.

Actually he didn't say they don't follow basic tournament procedures. He said they use different procedure then many poeple here are used to. However it is not really an unusual procedure historically (in the past I frequently saw this done in small tournaments) and I am not convinced that it is necessarily a less fair procedure either.

I hardly think its is fair to say that the IP poker room is "less professional" because they use a procedure where they round up chips to color them off rather than race them off.

which brings us back to my point before --- that we will not all agree on what professional behavior in a poker room is.[/quote]

This kind of fundamental and willful form of slimy incompetence is exactly what provoked this thread recently... The Worst Management Play in Poker ...and the ridiculous incident leading to it was very, very much like what the original poster of this thread suffered through, and it happened in the room of one of the dealers who's posted here.@Mrs. Lederer They do not. In the overwhelming majority of cases they are disgusted by this kind of inexcusable corrupt sleaze, just as you are.

We know exactly what it means, and it's not complicated. The only reason it might not always be agreed, even though we really know what it is, is because someone occasionally finds it personally convenient to ignore it. None of this is a close call:

@VegasDailyPlayer We'd like the people we pay to run run the game for us to do so with integrity according to widely understood standardized practices and not to make stuff up as they go along for their own convenience because they don't want to be bothered. That is not fun. Not for anyone. It's just not. Don't go making it up. The game does not need to be changed by y'all, and we don't need to feel at risk of being subjected to creative eccentric on the spot ad-hoc inventions when we place our chips upon the table.

@vegasdealer78 That is exactly what they are doing every time they don't feel like performing the job we are paying for. I get around more than a bit, and every time something like this has happened in my presence I know there were a number of players at the table who were very unhappy seeing it, in addition to those who chose to bring it up. The central reason this happens is because it is not the house money at risk, and that is the ONLY reason it is ever tolerated. Other assertions are slimy self-serving rationalizations. Period. It is other people's money at stake. This is the fundamental element that makes poker an attractive game, but also the unfortunate disincentive that sometimes allows third rate lackadaisical low-life people bottom feeding in the industry to get away with acting this way without drawing heat from the suits. If a casino employee indulged in this kind of sickening garbage at a five dollar a hand table game I very strongly suspect they would be putting themselves at risk of being frog marched out in handcuffs, as they damn well should be. If a player pulled the equivalent kind of crap on the pull of a twenty-five cent slot machine they would soon need the services of a bailbondsman. If the chips or prize pool at stake is of no consequence, then let the inconsequential employee pull the unimportant amount in question out of his inconsequetial little personal pinhead pocket and hand it over to the players.

People going to a casino run poker game would like to think they and their money will be respected. It is more fun that way. If you do not take the game and the players and their chips seriously, then learn to fake it. That's what we are paying for. If you can't lower yourself to do it, there is no reason for you to exist, so get out, right now. When we encounter the reverse of that, it does not help us enjoy the experience, it does just the opposite. Knock it off. Just stop it, or close the poker room. If you don't feel like at least pretending that our chips are worth treating seriously then you have no business in the business. If this describes you, please get out of it. Please.

@Local Rock Casino's are not charitable institutions, and they run these low buy-in affairs becasue it serves their business interests, encouraging people to patronize their property. But it becomes destructive of everybody's interests when they do it badly. It sucks all the pleasure and excitement of “playing in a real live casino” out of it. Just as providing a free musical performance on the casino floor might be good for business, if it sounds like a '73 Pinto long overdue for a brake job and a new muffler and makes people want to stick cocktail condiments in their ears then it becomes bad for business, and poker run in a sleazy “it doesn't matter” manner is a lounge act that really stinks up the whole joint, in spite of what some rotten apple borderline unemployable individuals sucking on the ass-end of the business may want to pretend.

If it's not worth running with respect, don't spread the game at all, and find some line of work which you can do with integrity, or at least something sufficiently interesting to you that you can trouble yourself to make a reasonable effort to fake it.

@Local Rock And to that I should add that those will also tend to be the rooms with burn-out lumps for staff who complain about their jobs and the people who pay for them, and who will be the soonest to be complaining that now they can't even seem to get one, when fluctuations in the marketplace mercifully get them fluctuated out. When your tokes don't cover the rent, and when your room flounders and you are let go and finding it hard to get rehired, don't forget to look in the mirror. For those whom it will inevitably concern.

My main reason in posting this was to make people aware that just because they are in the Poker Capital of the World it is not a perfect world. The only way that we can come close to making it a perfect world is to speak up. Next time you are at the table and you witness a problem, tell yourself "I'm mad a hell and I'm not going to take it anymore",then act on it. Call for the floor and if you don't believe that the floor has made the right decision, call for the manager, if you don't like what you hear from the manager ask to talk to the property manager and finally if you still think you are right and they are wrong call the Gaming Control Board. They are paid to look after the interests of the players and make sure they are not being cheated.
In regards to the situation at the Stratosphere, I wish now that I had spoke up right then instead of waiting to talk to the shift manager. Why did I wait? Because I truly I like everyone that works in the poker room. The dealers (with the exception of one) are always friendly(and no the one that is not alway friendly is not the same one that held up the deal), and the floor personnel make an effort to make the right decisions. The shift manager that I spoke with understood my reason for being upset and did take down my information so that the poker room manager could call and discuss the situation. Additionally, I expected that the poker room manager Larry would handle things in a professional manner. And therein lies the problem, Larry, the poker room manager, did nothing to even imply that he cared.
If players would start staying away from these rooms that have the attitude that they don't need to follow any rules, then at some point in time when the locals no longer play there and the tourist stop coming because the locals have told them its not a good room to play in. Then and only then will some of these incompetent management people get the message. As they stand in line together at the unemployment office waiting to sign up for benefits, they can remind them selfs that its not like its a $10,000.00 buy-in and all the other BS they seem to believe in.
As for vegasdealer78's comments regarding it being a lower level tournament, I have a few questions;
1) At the Monte Carlo, where you work, do they have multiple sets of rules based on the buy-ins?
2) Do the other dealers there at the Monte Carlo condone less than the most professional conduct based on the limit?
3) Does the Monte Carlo offer a lot of these "home game rules" tournaments and games?
4) Now the really tough question. Do you really feel comfortable calling yourself a professional dealer, when you rationalize the unprofessional conduct of others?
As a life long player my main interest is to see poker continue to grow and prosper. This can not happen unless every room that spreads poker respects and abides by the rules. If poker players worldwide want the game to continue to grow and prosper they must look towards groups such as the PGA and adopt a code of ethics in which the players police the enforcement of the rules to the point of imposing penalties upon them selfs. How well has the poker world received Mister No Ethics Himself Jamie Gold?
Once poker, its players, and the people who run the rooms, sites, and tournaments prove to the world that its about the game and not the money, by enforcement of every rule to the letter, will poker be excepted as a true sport. Once excepted as a true sport, then several other options present them selfs. Imagine playing in televised tournaments where instead of all the advertising dollars going onto the bottom line of the casino profit, but instead a huge portion being added to the prize pool. Imagine the casinos paying for the privilege of hosting large televised tournaments 40 + weeks a year. Imagine a poker world where the management is not afraid to impose penalties for abuse of the rules on even its top stars. Until players insist that every rule be followed at every level, poker will only be aFAD.. . Groups like the PGA, NASCAR, NBA, NFL all prosper because they require that all the rules be followed at every level.
[/code]

There is legimate basis (and established poker rules and tradition) to treat make different decisions in a $10,000 tournament and a $30 tournament.

There are two fairly standard rules used in card rooms which support this.

1) Management reserves the right to make decisions in the spirit of fairness, even if a strict interpretation of the rules may indicate a different ruling.

2) The same action may have a different meaning, depending on who does it, so the possible intent of an offender will be taken into consideration. Some factors here are the person’s amount of poker experience and past record.

(these I have taken from Robert's Rules of Poker but there are various different ways of expressing these concepts. Any competeant floor person will use these precepts in decision making)

The concepts that we get from these two rules are that one, strict adherence to letter of the rule does not need to take precedence over principals of fairness. And a players experience level and past history are legitimate considerations in the decison making process.

Now while it is in fact possible that a player in the $10,000 buy-in tournament is a completely inexperienceed player with no clue. And a player in the $30 tournament may be the most knwoledgable and experienced player on the planet earth. However if you are Joe Floorman called over to make a decision about something in a $10,000 buy in tournament and you know nothing about the player involved you would be reasonable to expect that the player in question is at least a reasonably experienced player, and in the $30 tournament you would have much less reason to expect the player to be experienced.

Thus you very reasonably can treat the same situation differently in a $10,000 buy-in tournament then in a $30.

While I will concede that there may be differences in players experience ignorance to the rules is no excuse. If we are going to have different rules for different buy-ins so be it, but make those rule plain and clearly visible. Don't post the rules and then not abide by them. And who is going to set the breaking point if its not listed. In other words, how do I know when we are going to play by the rules for $10,000.00 buy-ins and when will we play by the $30.00 buy-in rules. Will it be at $60.00 or $100.00 or $300.00 or $1000.00 or maybe it will be at $73.85. See it would just make more sense for the rules to alway be the same rather than to have to figure out which rules we are playing by today.

On a different note on night while playing in the Stratosphere tournament seated at my table was X22 Mr. Quack Quack Paul McGrill (not sure how he spells his last name but everybody should know who I'm talking about). So here you have a known seasoned professional playing in a $60.00 buy-in tournament, how was he suppose to know which rules we were going to play by?

I suspect that he understands that the stratosphere's daily tournament attracts less experienced players then say a $10,000 buy in event and that he isn't shocked when the TD at the Stratosphere makes a ruling differently then the TD at the WPT event.

I certainly never heard him complain.

@VegasDailyPlayer

Guess thats because you were not there. He actually spend about 30 minutes explaining to the TD why the TD ruling was wrong.[/quote]

Well I wasn't there. But I have dealt events where he has played and I have played in an event that he was in and never heard a complaint (unfortunately i did hear him making some bizarre noises during the course of play)

perhaps you would like to enlighten us as to the issue that he had. It is of course entirely possible that his issue had nothing to do with your complaint of unequal treatment, it is possible that he was wrong, we just can't guess, and you apparently have the info so share it with us.

I think VegasDaily Player has a good point here. I played in a tourney with a ranked professional who had an issue with a dealer and started explaining TDA rules; he said lets call floor but most of table let dealer know he was a pro and dealer got wise and listened.

Played once in MGM tourney and Clonie Gowan was at my table. No problems during this event, but she is fairly vocal and probably would say something if a ruling was questionable. I also played the $120 Tuesday nite tourney at Mirage a few years back with Tommy Vu at my table (a known Vegas pro) and Scott Fischman was at a table with a buddy in same tourney. Point being these relatively low buy in events will see the occassional pro playing, and I doubt there would be any favoritism or attitude without a problem for the floor in these cases.

Another point, using the golf example, is USGA rules exist for all tourneys. As in poker there can be local rules to govern certain situations (color up on chips for poker or a free drop from staked trees in golf). I'd liked to think both poker and golf can keep a high level of integrity. I questioned a guy in tourney exposing a card with action still pending. Dealer called the floor, guy told floor he knew better, and got a penalty. Wasn't happy about penalty, but respected the decision of the floor. I respected the guy for his integrity.

I would hope if one wants to be a professional and work in a profession, then they treat it that way. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. are considered professionals as are athletes that have the highest level of expertise and perform for a living. If we have professional poker players, then those involved also need to be professional (dealers, floor, TD's, managers).

There will be exceptions everywhere, but hopefully there are that...the exception. LocalRock makes a good point that these are hopefully the ones that will be looking for jobs.

Oh so you think that because a player is known as a pro suddenly he should be making rulings? If there was a decision to be made it should have been made by the floor not a player. Just because a player is a "pro" doesn't make them qualified floor people and I have heard many of them misstate rules or not understand the application of rules.

BTW top tournament directors don't all agree on issues. Take a look at this website and how these directors often reach different decisions http://www.thehendonmob.com/tournament_ ... ction.html these guys are professionals and they don't all agree.

What is the point you think you are making?

I agree. I like to think I ama professional. I like to play at places with staffs that try to act professionally. But I disagree with the notion that my professionalism is measured by whether you like the rules of the cardrrom I deal in, and I disagree that professionalism on the part of floor staff doesn't involve the exercise of judgment and discretion as described in my earlier post. I don't believe the IP's tournament is less professional because they color up chips rather than race them off, I don't think a room is less professional because the floor realizes that its small buy-in daily tournament caters to inexperienced tourists and considers that in decision making.

I do not ever want to return to play in psands poker room. New players will not benefit from that kind of experience either. Too bad; there were some things to like about it.@Local Rock A poker room has the "right" to require all players to eat green eggs and ham, if it chooses. That does not make it a good idea.

I made my share of mistakes when I first learned, as expected, and I think it is just fine that I was politely informed that I was not allowed to do that, what the consequence was, and succinctly but courteously informed how to avoid the error. It still will happen, though more rarely, now that I know better, and I expect the natural appropriate consequence when I screw up. I don't mind, and someone who does has problems which extend far beyond poker.

A quibble with the OP. I do not think you will find gaming regulators responsive. It is my understanding that they view poker as only marginally within their jurisdiction, for the same reason that some poker staff can get away with loosey goosey let's just make it up according to however we feel about it and the individuals and what and who we like crap: because "house" money is not at issue. That is, unless you have some credible evidence that the house or their employee had a direct financial stake in the issue.

When they don't wish do the job for which we pay the rake and toke, fire them. Walk.

I reallywant to know what room psands deals in so I can never go there.
When I was 15 I got a learners permit to drive a car, but before I could get that permit I had to pass a test that I knew the rules of the road and the law regarding things such as stop signs, speed limits etc.. By psands's thinking I should have been able to have just started driving without any regard for the law or safety. At 15 I was held to the same high standards as I am today, 30+ years later whenever I am behind the wheel of a car. When I go to a different country and drive I am also expected to know their laws. Imagine my driving on the right side of the road in England, when I meet that other car head-on do you think the laws of physics will be more forgiving since I'm a tourist?
My point here is that it makes no sense whatsoever to rationalize that an inexperienced player should not be held to the same standard as the other players. We are playing with real money even if it is small amounts. If the tourists want to play fine let them play, but because we all pay the same amount to enter a tournament we should all be treated the same. Which brings up another thought, if the tourist do not want to take a few minutes to learn the rules, lets put a clause in every tournaments set of rules that says that unless you refer to this rule when signing up your entry fee shall be 150% of the entry that those who do refer to this rule shall pay. Ergo if you don't want to learn the rules you pay more since the TD's at places like where psands works are going to treat you different. We can call it the stupidity rule; if your too stupid to not read the rule we are going to charge you extra because its is going to require that the floor make decisions that would not have been necessary had you read them to start with. The extra money should be split equally between the prize money (because the players who read the rules time is wasted) and the tournament staff (because it requires more labor)

As to the Nevada Gaming Control Boards regulators being responsive, I included this part only after talking with two senior investigators. The poker rooms and the poker room managers would like you to believe that the gaming control board would be non responsive, but this is the only time that most of these managers are ever able to bluff. The casinos would love for everyone to believe this, but it just is not so. Because Las Vegas, and Nevada for that matter, rely on tourist dollars to exist the gaming control board has assured me that poker is in their jurisdiction and they do take reports of violations in procedures very seriously. They also told me that they are on call 24/7/365 so if you call that number and do not reach someone immediately leave a message and they will get back to you , to my understanding within a few minutes not hours. And yes an investigator will be dispatched to resolve the problem. Your gaming dollars are at work here.This is just like reading the rules, I made the phone calls, got the answers and then proceeded.

@VegasDailyPlayer I don't choose to publicly dump on his place. Thought about it, but I choose to keep a pretty high threshold for when and why I do that. Just a personal preference, not offered as a prescription for others. I have mixed feelings about the totality of my experience there, much of which is positive, so I'm disappointed to have decided I have to cross it off my list of places that I circulate to.

It was not his expressions of opinion in this thread that did that. But it was related to this topic. I'm perfectly well satisfied to have him dealing a table I play, and I'll say I even happen to prefer many aspects of his table manner over some other approaches taken by some other dealers, and I have pushed him a toke when I was not in a hand because I thought some token of appreciation from the table was called for in a situation not involving me that he quickly identified and dealt with before anyone even had to ask. It does involve what I saw and heard actually happening in the room, which were actions and words from the floor very closely related to this topic and your recent unpleasant experience, and though I had no personal stake in the outcome of what I saw, it was the kind of thing that totally frosts my cookies, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth and odor in the air. "Oh well, it's only a (bleep) game, so it doesn't matter."

And I feel pretty confident that none of this would ever be permitted to arise, certainly not from the same pit critter twice, if it involved a game in which the house had chips in play on the table. Any color of chips.

So, I will respond by sending you a PM with the information you want. Check your inbox. Do with it as you think best.

EDIT TO ADD: I understand there is a management transition going on there, so it's possible things could be different and a wholly different direction taken on this kind of thing. Or not. And since I left a piece of my mind on the floorweasel's desk on my way out the door, I'm not at all sure I'd be welcome anyways. I have done that exactly twice (the other time was a month before Rancho croaked itself) in my life anywhere, and now psand will know exactly who I am.

psand, I usually agree with your perspetive on things, but I disagree with the thought that a player's experience and/or intention should determine whether or to what degree a standard rule is enforced against him.

Here's a Card Player column that makes the point well: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/16331

If a player string-bets, nobody, I think, even considers deciding whether to let it stand based on whether he clearly knew better and did it intentionally or whether it's literally his first time playing live and had no clue. The rule is enforced the same either way. I don't think that other rules should be treated any differently.

There may be specific exceptions that I could be convinced of accepting, if you have some in mind, but in general I'm persuaded that strict, consistent, equal enforcement of all rules every time is what is in the best interest of the game and the players, even if it produces harsh results in some specific situations.

thanks for all the info.

Rakewell: I don't think the article you refer to is on point. It does not address the experience/inexperience aspect. The player involved was an experienced player, and the particular rule in question is not really one which leaves leeway for decision making.

Local Rock: I thank you for the kind words about my dealing even if you don't care to play at my room anymore.

VegasDailyPlayer: Just because you disagree with me, you would not want to play in the room I deal in? That strikes me as silly. Even if you are afraid you wouldn't like the decisions I might make, you need not worry, as I am dealer not a floorperson and I leave the decision making to the floor. I do what they tell me, even when I don't agree.

Your drivers license analogy is ridiculous. One because the law often does treat inexperienced drivers and experienced drivers differently. Often more harshly, but none the less differently.

Look its not about learning the rules, its about being fair contextually.

Consider these scenarios:

1) In a small tournament one player is all-in and the other two players in the hand are clearly inexperienced in casino tournaments. One turns to the other and says lets check it down.

2) In a small tournament one player is all-in and there are two other players left. A player who is recogonized as an experienced plaeyr who knows that it is against the rules to do so turns to the other player and says lets check it down.

3) In a large buy-in tournament a player of unknown experience does the same thing as above.

4) In a small buy-in tournament in a room which gets most of its business from casual tourists a player of unknown experience does the same thing as above.

I hope we all agree that this is against the rules and is a serious matter which needs addressing. You are a floor person called to address this situation:

Do you really feel that the response of the floor person should be the same in each scenario?

In the first scenario a stern warning that such conduct is not to be permitted would a very reasonable response by the floor person.

In the second scenario we know that the player knows its against the rules, there is no reason to warn him, he already knew. A penalty is warranted.

In the third scenario we do not know what the player does or does not know. You could reaosnably issue a warning here or you could reasonably issue a penalty, because the nature of this tournament you could assume it is more likely that the players here have a reasonable amount of experience (though ithere may be some inexperienced players) as such it may be more reasonable for the floorperson to issue a penalty.

In the third scenario we do not know what the player does or does not know. Again its not out of line for the floor to issue a warning or a penalty but since it is more likely that the player involved is inexperienced leaning to the warning is probably a better choice.

"Consider these scenarios:

1) In a small tournament one player is all-in and the other two players in the hand are clearly inexperienced in casino tournaments. One turns to the other and says lets check it down.

2) In a small tournament one player is all-in and there are two other players left. A player who is recogonized as an experienced plaeyr who knows that it is against the rules to do so turns to the other player and says lets check it down.

3) In a large buy-in tournament a player of unknown experience does the same thing as above.

4) In a small buy-in tournament in a room which gets most of its business from casual tourists a player of unknown experience does the same thing as above.

I hope we all agree that this is against the rules and is a serious matter which needs addressing. You are a floor person called to address this situation:

Do you really feel that the response of the floor person should be the same in each scenario? "

psand - I cannot say this emphatically enough, YES I ABSOLUTELY expect the floor to respond EXACTLY the same way in each scenario. The reasons are fairly obvious (I hope). First and foremost, regardless of the player's intentions their ACTIONS are detrimental to the player that is already all in. Frankly, this is not even close.

@oski88

I think I have mixed feelings about this point. I can understand wanting strict rules interpretation, but sometime context demands flexibility in rule enforcement. I think psand's point is worth consideration. To put it another way, there's a difference between what happens at a $2-$4 LHE game and a $50-$100 LHE game, and a similar difference between a $60 buy-in touristy type tourney and a WOSP/WPT event (or even a big buy-in tourney at Bellagio or the Venetian). A good floor person or tourney director needs to use good judgment in enforcing rules, not only to protect the integrity of the game, but also to reach a fair result taking into account all of the circumstances (including type of game/tourney and player experience level).

That being said, the rules definitely need to be consistently enforced during a specific tourney, and also consistently in a particular room for each level or type of cash game (i.e., a rule might be interpreted differently for a 2/4 game than a 50/100 game, but is consistent for all tables spreading the same game, and is consistent from shift to shift).

I understand that context matters. However, the impact to the other players at the table has to take precedence.

For example, you've got a rookie player who is first to act. Rookie does a string bet raise. Correct player's bet and move on. No harm, no foul so don't sweat it. I'm sure we can all envision similar scenarios where the rules violation has practically no effect on the other players.

However, in psand's example you've already got a player who is all in. That has to be of paramount concern when considering context, not the rule violator's experience level. In other words, the new player who is making the mistake should pay the price for gaining their education, not the other players at the table.

So your position is that intent is irrelevant. Okay here is a common tournament scenario.

1) Player in seat 1 makes a bet, a bunch of players fold. The player in seat 10 still has cards. Player 1 apparently doesn't realize that seat 10 is still in and toss his cards over face up to show either his great hand or great bluff. As soon as he does this someone says he's still in the hand and player 1 grabs his cards and tries to cover them up. Floor is called because player 1 prematurely exposed his cards.

2) Player in seat one makes the bet and everyone folds to player 10. Player 10 is thinking and it is apparent that player 1 knows he is in the hand. Player one flashes a card to player 10 his intnent is to influence the action (either get a call or a fold). Call the floor becaus ethe cards were prematurely exposed.

Do you really think that it would not be reaosnable for the same floor person to warn the player in teh first scenario, but penalize the player in the second scenario?

The thing that bugs me about the "The RULES IS THE RULES AND SHOULD BE EQUALLY ENFORCED" crowd is that they seem to want to pick and choose which rule to enforce.

They want to ignore the rules which give floor people discretion:

Management reserves the right to make decisions in the spirit of fairness, even if a strict interpretation of the rules may indicate a different ruling. (from Robert's Rules of Poker)

The same action may have a different meaning, depending on who does it, so the possible intent of an offender will be taken into consideration. Some factors here are the person’s amount of poker experience and past record. (from Robert's rules of Poker)

Floor people are to consider the best interest of the game and fairness as
the top priority in the decision-making process. Unusual circumstances
can on occasion dictate that decisions in the interest of fairness take
priority over the technical rules. The floor person’s decision is final (TDA rules)

A penalty MAY be invoked if a player exposes any card with action
pending, throws a card off the table, violates the one-player-to-a-hand
rule, or similar incidents take place. (TDA rules -- notice the word MAY appears emphaisised un the TDA website.)

If the rules absolutely should be enforced, then why should that not include the rules that give discretion?

When i began playing I too was a nit who felt that the rules are the rules and there should be no give or take. As I have become a more experienced player I have recognized that this is not good for the game, that the game is more than a collection of rules. Yes there are rules which need to be enforced, but the enforcement of those rules needs to be contextual and not necessarily subject to strict interpretation.

@oski88

But here is the point. At the time this thing happened (the player says lets check it down) the damage was done. Since floor people do not have the ability to go back in time and undo the violation there is nothing we can do to undue that damage. So what should be happening here. Assessing a penalty of time away form the table doesn't undo the damage (nor would killing the offenders hand). So why do anything?

Because we are trying to prevent this from happening again. Can the floor prevent this from happening again? No. But the floor can takes steps to reduce the likelihood that it will happen again.

If the player was an inexperienced player who didn't know better, then a stern warning very likely will prevent that player from doing this again (and also other inexperienced players at the table who now know that this is not acceptable). Now in the case of the experienced player, the floor person can reasonably conclude that this player knew it was unacceptable but choose to do it becaus ehe thought he could get away with it. In this case attaching a penalty along with the threaqt of escalating penalties in the future may be better proetction from continued abuse of the rule.

Original post:

Psand, I might not have been clear with my golf example, but the driving example also applies. The point is consistency with the rules (or laws). In general, the rules of the road are well known but that doesn't mean everyone follows them. But few are professional drivers, and unfortunately the problem is so big the laws cannot be totally enforced. It is sad because many lives are lost (or ruined) by people ignoring the rules of the road..but I digress.

In the example of the pro poker player, as with most pros playing poker for a living, they probably can quote TDA rules (as can most good TD's). Half of the players at the table also knew the applicable rule, and in this case the dealer didn't. But he was smart enough to pick up on the support from the table that the rule existed, so it was a simple resolution.

I believe I heard discussion that there was actual intent in making TDA Rule #1 floor decisions are final, sort of as hey, these are the rules, BUT the FIRST rule is floor decisions are final. It also says the floor is to have the best interest and fairness of the game as top priority.

Granted there are going to be situations where interpretation is needed, but generally the rules should be enforced universally (no matter the buy in). Better for one to learn about a rule at lower buy-in level that at higher buy-in. Whether it is driving a car, playing golf (or any sport), or playing poker, it is fair to expect at least a basic knowledge of the governing rules. I think most people get frustrated by individuals "getting away with" a violation.

I get irritated when a player doesn't understand when to check down a hand, but I don't say anything while there is action. It is especially frustrating when they bet without a hand, but the rule protects the all-in player (like it or not). It is more a playing situation versus a rule, but the soft play rule prevents the more formal situation of speaking, which then would be collusion.

Psand, I have to give you credit in that you evidently spend a great deal of time thinking about and researching a lot of what you write. That shows a great deal of passion, which I think is a quality most professionals have (would anyone say Tiger is not passionate about golf). You participate enough that I know you are a dealer, but I do not know you or where you work. My point here is it seems you represent you and not your employer. It also seems like you run a table in a certain style, and at least you try to uphold the integrity of the game.

I have been in professional work situations where my employer has rules I don't like, but I adhere to them. I also have laws to follow which I find are sometime contrary to good customer service, and although I have some professional discretion, I have lines that I do not cross. My point here is for general reference that goes back to the original post; as much as a perfect world would be nice and places of business should follow their own rules, that is not the realism. Sometimes we can do something about it, and when we do, hopefully we can resolve respectfully and not in an attacking manner.

Not many places for healthy discussion in forums on the net, but at least we have AVP. This certainly has been an enlightening and thought provoking post.

I didn't understand that the colluding players had called yet. Either way, even though it probably isn't within the rules, I personally wouldn't shed any tears over killing their hands.

@Grange95 I cannot begin to express how offensive that is. If that is anyone's intent, stop spreading the game. If you were to inform players of that intent, they would stop it for you by giving you empty tables at whatever level you decide is not to be treated as real. And I repeat, if you tried to pull that kind of thing at a $2 game betting against the house, you wouldn't be allowed to do it very long and shouldn't. Any place adopting that attitude needs to be out of business. There is no legitimate place for it, and it is not a benefit to new players. They do not generally do not seek it, don't expect it, don't want that. I guess it would be inevitable, now the "nits" are new people who don't know better. Thought they were old people. Or local people. Or maybe just an all purpose derogatory term?

Is anything here a close call? Is there an excuse for any part of this:

But iIf you don't really want to run a particular game, then just don't, please.

oddly enough, one thing that hasn't even been mentioned here is that rules are sometimes more strictly enforced at a smaller game then a larger game.

The reason . . . . In the largest of games all of the players are more capable of protecting themselves.

If for example a player string bets in a $2-$4 game, I'm not going to allow it. Sometimes I get some flack for that, the other players in the hand want me to let the bet stand, I'm not any fun, they are just here to have a godd time . . . . , I still don't allow the string bet.

If I'm dealing a $50-$100 NL game and a player string bets, but everyone involve din the hand doesn't car and wants the bet to stand, well that bet is going to stand because these players know what they are doing and don't need protection from me. And players in thiose big games expect to be allowe dto run there game the way they want. thats why a room will allow those guys to run it twice while they don't permit that in the smaller games.

Local Rock, I'm not sure what part of my comments sparked that last post. I'm not suggesting that the rules don't apply at all to low limit games, or that anything goes. I'm simply pointing out that a floor making a ruling might reasonably and justifiably interpret a rule less strictly or technically for lower limit games which are inherently recreational games. By contrast, a more technical or strict interpretation might be entirely appropriate in the context of a high limit game which is more of a "professional" or "for profit" kind of game. Certainly there are particular rules which must be enforced strictly at all levels, but many rules allow a floor to take circumstances into account in making a judgment call, and my point is that the level of the game is an appropriate consideration for those types of judgment calls.

@psand Yes, and it's coming from two drinking buddies while seven others cringe, and I've seen table empty out and then the replacements empty out again when the two squeeky "your no fun" boys are have free reign.

@psand Oh goody, now I get to be inconsistent. In that case it makes perfect sense to me, for the reasons you've outlined. All players are well equipped to protect their own interests, it is truly the fully understood consensus, and players know that is what the role of the house will be going in. I can't find a reason to quibble or interfere.

@Local Rock Yes, and it's coming from two drinking buddies while seven others cringe, and I've seen table empty out and then the replacements empty out again when the two squeeky "your no fun" boys are have free reign.[/quote]

And some times its all ten seats. And i've seen a whole game empty out because the dealer wasn't letting them have fun.

Different people play the game for different reasons.

@psand Yes, and it's coming from two drinking buddies while seven others cringe, and I've seen table empty out and then the replacements empty out again when the two squeeky "your no fun" boys are have free reign.[/quote]

And some times its all ten seats. And i've seen a whole game empty out because the dealer wasn't letting them have fun.[/quote]I have never seen that. Only the reverse, but they tend to be more quiet about it as they trudge away, driven off by the funhouse guy, with or without a sidekick. But I take your word that you've seen what you've seen. Maybe it has to do with where I go, even though I may think that does include some of the places that would really be prone to that. I think the most "loosen up dealer what's wrong with you you're just spoiling the fun" guys (always male) I can remember seeing at one table was three. I also felt quite sure that each and every one of them was not at all surprised that the dealer felt compelled to restrict their fun, and more than once I thought there was a pretty good chance they'd have been disappointed if they didn't get a rise out of it, and felt there was more than a tiny little chance they were even used to getting themselves tossed from places. And yes, they play for many different reasons, and fortunately, most of the reasons do not tend to be actively disruptive of other people's reasons. Only some.

@Grange95 The quote in the box was what pushed that button.

@Grange95 That sounds reasonable, if you're talking about something like a smiling "now we don't do that like that in a casino boys and girls, please do it this way" type response by way of gentle warning & guidance, as opposed to just flat out blowing off some basic rules, or coming down hard on someone right off the bat in a way that is unnecessarily humiliating to someone who may not know as the only option.

But, what I'm really concerned about and find a whole lot more often is a burn out case who may say something when asked, then warn again ineffectually, then just bag it cause they don't feel like it, when someone clearly knows what they're doing is out of bounds and disruptive to play of the game, they've been informed, there's no reasonable room left for misunderstanding, and they clearly just don't plan to respond to any notion that anyone should tell them what they can do and how they can do it. Dealer is burned out, dealer feels floor doesn't want to hear about it anyway, probably because floor really doesn't want to be bothered, dealer gives up, game sucks. New dealer rotates in, lather, rinse, repeat.

Actually, I don't happen to personally care about string bets (perhaps related to never playing NL?) but sometimes what matters about rules is not what they are, but that everyone gets a reasonable chance to know what they are and that they are not an elusive personalistic moving target. They can be presented differently with discretion, but please don't just decide that "one player to a hand" for example will just be ignored and nothing said, and I probably don't get to care that a creep just pointed out to his buddy that it's a three suited board, or that he folded a king, or whatever, if I say "aw let him keep making string bets tonight" because I don't see may play hurt or my enjoyment spoiled by that one.

I didn't see a lot of complex, subtle, arcane, subject to fine degrees of interpretation type stuff in the OP. What I saw in it was what I really see in the bad rooms or with some bad staff on a shift in a room that's not paying attention, which is "we just don't give a shat, cause we don't have to." And people do go home unhappy from the atmosphere that results when this permeates the room. And that unhappy 2-4 player may not be a low value customer.

see you may not actually be as unreasonable as you'd like us to believe. You agree there is room for discretion, you agree that some times infractions of the rules should garner different responses.

So what exactly are we arguing about?

@psand Why thank you psand, of all the compliments I've ever received, I can honestly say that one is....here right now. How nice to know that I'm not totally unreasonable for the outrageously nitty notion that I should actually be able to know pretty much what rules will be applied in a poker game, that it's best for folks not to make up their own or just decide to ignore them, and..

@psand ...that they actually should garner a response. "It's not the WSOP" is not a response. "It's only a 4-8 or 2-4 game" is worse than not a response. And it's downright bizarre when it occurs in a place that does a major part of it's business on that very kind of thing, which surprise surprise, is where the problem lies. Do people commonly encounter this at the smaller stakes tables in a room that spreads a lot of big games? I could be wrong but I suspect it's less likely, not more.

Is this okay? Contextually subtle?

In responce to VegasPlayer. The Monte Carlo is a great run room, we have management that knows poker and the room has been open since day one. We did not open during the poker boom and had to put a bunch of donkeys on the floor the run the room. That is what I'm trying to convey. Poker grew so quickly that rooms opened up with people that don't know poker, and based on that information, if I go to the Stratosphere or Bally's I expect that Dealers and Floor don't know Poker from a hole in thier ass. Yes, It's not fair, Yes, I should expect things to be run correctly, Yes, I deserve calls to be correct, BUT if it doesn't happen, I'm not surprised.

Just now catching up with this thread, but would like to mention something that apparently has not been brought up.

Because of the rake structures utilizied by poker rooms (generally 10%/max $3-$5, sometimes 5%) the casino makes about the same money per table, regardless of limits. Around $100-$120 per hour, per table. If time charges are $6 per half-hour, it works out to roughly the same amount.

So if the low stakes players are paying the same amount for their seat at the table, why should they be expected to tolerate sloppiness and a lack of integrity on the part of the poker room policies and staff? Or perhaps a better question----why should they want to?

Sorry to interrupt the banter, but I couldn't help it.

The TDA rules are like the Federal Government.

And the floorperson is like State or Local Government.

The TDA rules are in place to protect the overall game, but the floorperson can still tweak it to his or her liking, and we see it all the time.

Just like the crazy laws where the Federal Gov't says one thing and the local jurisdictions say another...(gay marriages, marijuana pharmacies etc.)

Casino poker rules will never be enforced evenly...thats for online poker.

I played very bad in several rooms during my recent first and maybe only trip(Sept 17-21),around 5 or 6 on the strip, and the best one as far as the dealers are concerned was at TI. The worst was at the IP and Harrahs......all I can say about "some" of there dealers is WTF....???? Only got to play at TI one night, and really made a special trip because of this web site, glad I did.

Oh, foregot to mention a stripper/hooker tried to get me to get in her car outside the TI on my way in, pretty cool. Needless to say my response was "Lady, I'm not getting in your damn car"

@vegasdealer78

VegasPlayer should love the Monte Carlo. Its almost Mandalay Bay like.

for a great read about Mandalay Bay and there unwavering adherence to rules:

http://www.thepokerforum.com/ashleyadams16032906.htm
http://www.thepokerforum.com/ashleyadams17041406.htm

You've got to be kidding. Ever try to stop someone from openly soliciting collusion at your online table? Ever try to stop them from speaking a foreign language?

There is no rules enforcement online -- I guess thats uniform though.

Local Rock,

My statement to you was not meant to be an insult, in fact I was glad that we had found some common ground. You first seemed to fall into the rules must always be enforced the same camp, but you do seem to acknowledge that can be room for discretion.

I don't like when floor people make decisions not supported by the rules or fail to enforce their rules, however I recognize there are some areas where strict enforcement is not appropriate, there are other rules where there really is no leeway.

I prefer to have floorpeople who do not apply rules out of a rote memerization of the rules, but out of a understanding of poker and the reason and logic behind the rules, with that understanding a floorperson will be able to excercise sound discretion when appropriate and also know when strict adherence is appropriate. I am very fortunate to work with some floor people who have been in thsi business for a long time and have terrific understanding of the game and the the rules.

@psand Not to worry. I do not and did not feel personally insulted. I really dislike a widespread (not necessarily here in particular) tendency to quickly make one who expresses a concern or makes a request out to be a "nit" as an all purpose way of disparaging them to dismiss the substance of the matter. It's easy, and I find it generally a meaningless epithet that often obscures rather than describes. I don't feel individually slighted in any way. The OP's account of the Sahara floor's statement to him that "you seem to be the only one having a problem with it" is an example of something I find completely disreputable, dishonest, and lazy, as a general matter. I actually think I'm one of the least likely people around to have to worry about this being thrown at me individually, or to feel any need to take it seriously if it was, because in actual practice at the table my list of things over which you'd ever hear me calling "floor" is so short and infrequent that the label would be ludicrous. In fact I'm pretty sure I have never called for the floor in your house, for example, and made a request of a dealer to say something to a player exactly once there in the past year. She promptly did so, that was all that was needed. There are plenty of things I really wish folks wouldn't do, but my general default attitude is to expect some of that anyway and just go with the flow most of the time on most things, keeping my own personal list of things to really concern myself with pretty short. I just dislike the general idea that it can so easily degenerate into "that person over there who did say something should just shut up about it or something is wrong with them." Well, he said it, but I was sure thinking it, and so was he, and she, and he.

@psand I'm not far from it; I can smell the marshmallows roasting over that campfire from here. Though I only rarely choose to initiate an issue at the table, I'd definitely tend to give brownie points to places that consistently do something very close to that.

@psand I think the most useful form of discretion is simple courtesy in how the matter is presented. I don't find lots of new players at the tables expecting differential treatment in a substantive way; if the normal action is simply taken in a way that does not make the player feel personally ridiculed, that is generally all that is needed for most to feel fine with the experience, and the actual effect on the hand is often less significant to these new people who it is presumed one is taking care of this way. Changing the substance in a personalistic manner is a form of help which I find likely to be counterproductive, unnecessary, and generally unwanted in most circumstances. That is most apt to create and perpetuate the problem it purports to solve, and nobody is likely to be well served by that. It just looks and feels weird and uncomfortable, creating an atmosphere that doesn't pass the smell test, regardless of intent of those doing it.

I'm not even remotely one of the most experienced players around at all, and don't feel especially well qualified to do this, but in the room I play most often I do end up getting deputized at the table to help B&M newcomers with some of the most basic parts of their live play table etiquette, maybe just because that staff knows I don't mind doing it and the dealers often have their hands full, and this is what leads me to feel confident about saying this. I think those new folks usually expect, don't mind, and often even appreciate correction when first finding out what is expected at the table, so long as they don't feel publicly humiliated in the way it is done, and the outcome for their hand is often not what's at the top of their mind. I don't have the sense that they want to get the "lite" version of how you do stuff at a live table. Many of the rest of us enjoy our small stakes recreation and competition better with the consistency of basic commonly shared expectations than with an individualized moving target.

I should concede though that some places, ahem maybe ones themed as desert vegetation for example, might tend to draw a little more than their share of patrons carrying around a rather inflated sense of personal entitlement, if you know what I mean, and that could be a particularly tough group to introduce to the concept of "rules."

@psand I've had exactly one substantial conversation with any floor person there, ever, beyond exchanging courtesies when buying in and cashing out, that substantive exchange did not pertain to any ruling directly involving me, and he seemed to find it most important to inform me how experienced he was and how deeply he understands such things on a higher level, while also informing me that I must understand that games on that side of the house are not to be taken seriously. The more he persisted in his recitation of the superiority of his deeply nuanced understanding, the less comfortable I was with the idea of ever being subject to any exercise of his discretion. That is my opinion of that, and we will have to agree to have a different point of view. Maybe I'll consider trying the room again after giving it a few months more rest, or not, I dunno. I have found things to like about it over the past year. Though I can't imagine that graveyard floorman would enjoy seeing me, any more than I'd be joining his fan club, after I made no secret of what I thought of the matter on my way out the door.

On the other hand, I should mention that I've also seen a floor there use exceptional skill, good sense, and patience dealing with a really difficult problem involving a disabled gentleman, and I was impressed.

@psand [/quote]I agree. I don't think there's even effective means for preventing collusion with oneself in three hands under three accounts at the same online virtual table when playing under the supervision of an outfit comprised of a mail drop and telephone forwarding service rented in the People's Republic of Kumquat. In spite of anything expressed in this thread, I'd still prefer to take my chances at the worst managed of the local live casino venues any day.

@servotron81

I meant how the pots are distributed, dealers holding on to cards, mucking your hand incorrectly.

This is an excellent point, but if you look at the rake in portion to the stakes then the players at a low stakes game should expect even greater integrity. Additionally, poker rooms make most of their money off the the low stakes games (more tables playing 1-2 and 2-5 than 5-10 and 10-20 etc) so even more reason that the house treat them with the same respect as the higher limit games.

As to the examples that psands showed, my answer is YES the rulings should be the same no matter what. I would believe the only fair way to handle a situation where a player asks another to "check it down" should be to disqualify that player and if the other player agrees they should be disqualified too. Any time a player has ever asked me to "check it down" I have always asked that either the dealer or the floor explain to that player that what he is doing is considered collusion.

Someone talked about how when they first started playing they too thought that the rules should always be enforced (or something along that line). Wow, I have been playing for over 40 years and prior to moving to Vegas I dealt for an underground game for almost 20 years. What surprises me, is that this illegal underground game was operated in a more professional manner than what I see the licensed poker rooms of Nevada being operated. Additionally, I never ran into these kind of issues when I played for 16 months on the delta of the Mississippi, or on any of my several (30+) visits to AC.

What my main complaint in my OP was that rooms are not following their own posted rules. I agree that each room has the right to have its own house rules, but they should know their own rules and follow them.

One thing for psands to consider when you are talking about a new or amateur player. I think of poker as a sport, and therefore by definition in sports; any player who receives or plays for money is considered a professional. Many players in amateur sports have had their amateur status revoked because of receiving monetary consideration for their participation in a sporting event. So any player who wishes to sit down at the poker table and play for real money should conduct them selfs in a professional manner. I do not care what the buy-in or the stakes, if you sit down to play KNOW THE RULES. If you do not know the rules or how to play, just about every casino offers classes. Anybody who thinks that it is doing a service to the novice player or to the game of poker to not hold them the strictest of rules is grossly mistaken. The long term success and longevity of poker depends on a strong set of rules that are strongly enforced. Again I go back to golf as a primary example, the USGA writes the rules and allows for local or course exceptions to a limited number of the rules, but it does not allow any exceptions based on a players experience. The rules are the same for everyone at that course. And even the elite in golf are held to the strictest enforcement of those rules. I do not remember the golfers name but several years ago a very well known and famous golfer was the apparent winner of a major tournament, but when he turned in his score card he had made a honest mistake and signed an incorrect score card. A penalty as prescribed by the rules of golf was assessed and his opponent was crowned the champion. Another player while trying to hit a ball that was under a tree, laid down a towel upon which to kneel as he could not stand up and be able to swing at the ball. A television viewer saw this on ESPN Sportscenter and called the tournament. Yes, a review of the tape revealed that the player had laid the towel on the ground to keep from getting his pants dirty, but this is considered "building a stance" and a violation of the rules. Because the player had already signed his score card and turned it in without assessing himself a penalty he was disqualified. Bad for the player but great for the sport because it showed that all players must abide by the rules even if they are not aware of the rule.

@VegasDailyPlayer
I think this paragraph sums up the thread quite well. And I agree 100% with parts of it and vehemently disagree with other parts, and I think that's why there's been so much discussion here.

I agree that if you're going to sit down and play any game (not just poker) for any stakes, you should know the (house) rules. And it doesn't matter if it's the 10c/20c game at Joe's house or the $540 daily tournament at Bellagio. Yet, reality is we all know that many players don't know the rules and certainly nearly 100% of novice players don't know etiquette and TDA rules. When was the last time you played a tournament and didn't see at least one player violate the rules (usually a string raise or exposing a hand)?

I have not taken a poker class in a casino, but I'd be surprised if they help much with the stuff we're talking about. I'd expect them to cover the basics of a cards and bets in a limit game and etiquette/rules points like acting in turn and "one player to a hand/collusion". And that said while most experienced players know acting in turn and one player to a hand are rules, they don't understand what those mean. The same people who "know" those rules if asked directly, will stand up and push their hand a bit forward when getting ready to go for a smoke break or openly comment on the community cards -- "I folded 96" on a 6-6-9 flop.

To the second part of your statement, I agree the success of poker depends on enforcing the written rules and having every player believe the game is fair and equal. The "pros" and "regulars" have enough edge of novice players without playing under a different set of rules. However, the success of poker also depends on continually growing the base of players. If you create an environment where new people, who are already intimidated by B&M even if they've played online, are frequently turned off because of all the nit picky rules, you can eventually kill poker (or make it much less successful and profitable).

While you want to enforce the rules, sometimes the right way to "enforce" them is to make players aware of them with some explanation or warning. In a 2/4 limit game or a $25 buy-in tournament, the first time someone string raises or says "who has diamonds" when the third diamond comes on the turn, a warning that "you can't do that" and a word or two why seems appropriate to me. How do you expect these people to learn other than by playing in a B&M casino. At the same time in 5/10 NL or $500 buy-in, I think it's reasonable to expect people have played before and expect them to know the rules. I also think those playing in the game have a greater expectation of rules enforcement rather than reminders. I realize that does mean the rules are "different" for small stakes and big stakes, and I'm OK with that as long as it just means beginners get cut some slack. That does lead to the question where do you draw the line? While I can't give a specific answer, I think each casino knows whether a given game is an experienced crowd or a bunch of beginners -- 4/8 is entry level at Bellagio but a serious game at TI.

So to the general issue, I believe rules should be enforced. And repeatedly allowing violations because it's a smaller game is just WRONG. But the "grace period" before you take serious action depends on the game (stakes and location).

I have something alone from the original post that i would now like to revisit.

This doesn't have to do with whether the application of the rules must be unerringly the same in all situations. It has to do with the very real possibility that one of the decisions the OP complains about was in fact correct.

If we take this at face value we have to agree that the floor acted incorrectly. The reason we have to agree that is the case is this phrase "But the floor allowed the dealer to fumble through the muck and pull out what may or may not have been player B cards." What the OP is saying here is that the dealer had no knowledge whatsoever which cards belonged to Player B and pulled two cards out at random (which conviently where winners) and assigned them tlayer B. That would be outrageous.

But I'm highly suspicious of this. I have never seen anything like this, I can't imagine this happening, why would a dealer pull random cards out of the muck? My spidey senses are tingling. . . it just doesn't sound right.

So maybe there is another posssibility which makes sense to me which may have been interpretted by the OP in the way that he presents (By this I don't mean that OP is lying . . . I have no reason to believe he is lying, but OP is limited by his own perspective . . he can not have seen through the eyes of the dealer, he can not have known what the dealer knew or thought)

Let us suppose then that the dealer did not say to himself gee I thin'll pull two random cards out of the muck and see what happens. Let us suppose the dealer said to himself, gee I didn't mix those cards into the muck very well there they are . . I am 100% certain that these are player Bs cards right here on the edge of the muck, I just put them there myself and there is no doubt in my mind.

Now the floor person comes over and the dealer says these are Player B's cards . . . I am 100% certain that these are player B's cards. In that case it is my opinion that the floor should allow those cards to play. I would like the floor to ask player B what those cards are before they get flipped up (if the dealer hasn't already done so) so that the other players can feel more assure dthat the correct cards were pulled, but I want to make this clear, if the cards are identifiable and not irretrievably mixed in the muck there is no reason to declare them dead in this scenario.

I know many people believe the muck has magic powers and can kill hands, but in well run card rooms that is not the case. Merely touching the muck is not a reason to have your hand dead.

And in this case Player B had the best hand, so how is it that Player A got screwed?

now again if OPs account is actually what happened I would agree with him taht it was a bad decision. But when i hear that story i find it very unlikely that all parties agree thats how it happened and the story that make more sense to me and find more probable is in the lines of what I have stated. [/quote]

I have been following this thread for a while and have agreed mostly with what you have said (psand), but your last post is just frightening. While I stand behind the "cards speak" rule, player B clearly mucked his hand. It should not matter why he mucked his hand because he certainly did. Now I understand that the muck does not have "magical" powers, but where is the limit? If those cards hit the muck they are dead. Period.

Of course it should matter. It is obvious in this scenario the player released his hand because he forgot that there was an all-in. In my room it is actually a matter of policy to protect a hand in this scenario.

There are lots of reasons a player may mistakenly release a hand and this is a common one. Another is where the player is in seat 1 and the remaining player is in seat 10 and the player doesn't see that seat 10 is still in the hand.

we are not talking about a situation where a player facing a bet throws his hand away and then wants it back. We are talking about a scenario where the player is not facing any action, and his act of tossing away his cards and asking for them back don't cause another player to take an adverse action.

FOr example if when Player B tossed his cards in, Player A jammed his cards into the muck in a mannerer that was irretrievable, I would not then allow Player B to have his cards back, because his actions then prejudiced the Player who acted only because of Player Bs actions.

I just don't believe that a decision that awards a pot to the player with the worst hand is generally a good decision.

@psand

Neither do I, but where do we draw the line when cards hit the muck? I definetly think if the cards did not make it to the muck then the hand should be considered live. I'm with you that there are different sides to every story and from of OP's perspective the cards were "fumbled through the muck", but they were in the muck. Who is to say that those may not have been that player's exact holdings? Different perspectives do not play in to this also?

Pardon me for a brief intermission just to state the obvious, in case anyone out there reading this board doesn't already know: there are an awful lot of really well run poker rooms all around Las Vegas, and a place full of unskilled or indifferent or sloppy or sleazy staff is not commonplace at all. Back to the thread.@AdRock As the official shop steward of Local 702 of the IBLN (International Brotherhood of Local Nits) I'd like to say that for more than 98% of the things that come up I'm very comfortable with it when that approach is taken.

And now for the other 2%:

@psand

@double_e5 This is very interesting to me, and what is most interesting to me about it is: how could the other players at the table reasonably be expected to feel comfortable with what they are seeing as this is done? How could the integrity of this be sufficiently transparent?

@double_e5

Neither do I, but where do we draw the line when cards hit the muck? I definetly think if the cards did not make it to the muck then the hand should be considered live. I'm with you that there are different sides to every story and from of OP's perspective the cards were "fumbled through the muck", but they were in the muck. Who is to say that those may not have been that player's exact holdings? Different perspectives do not play in to this also?[/quote]

This is what i don't understand if you agree that the cards could be live if they didn't touch the muck, then why would merely touching the muck be the difference. It goes to the theory of the magical muck. One second they are live, then they touch the muck and they are dead? One simple question Why?

BTW, my position on the matter of cards whicha re identifiable being retrievable is consistent with Bob Ciaffone's in Robert's Rules of Poker

where under the section on dead handss he writes

Cards thrown into the muck may be ruled dead. However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved and ruled live at management’s discretion if doing so is in the best interest of the game. We will make an extra effort to rule a hand retrievable if it was folded as a result of incorrect information given to the player.

Now we are getting in to the grey area of what is "in the best interest of the game". Here is the statement of why I interpret the rule was written:

We will make an extra effort to rule a hand retrievable if it was folded as a result of incorrect information given to the player.

What incorrect information was given in the OP's case?

@double_e5

It doesn't say that the only time a hand is retrievable is when incorrect information was given, it says that in that instance extra effort will be made (don't ask me, I'm not sure what kind of extra effort one can make, perhaps he means that such an an occurrence should be treated as especially important in determining the best interests of the game).

In any event ceratinly think the best interests of the game are served by having the best hand win, rather than allowing the worst hand to win by virtue of a player mistakenly believeing that he had already won the pot.

W

these two statements make me even more sure I never want to play where psands deals. What ever happen to the rule that it is every players personal responsibility to protect their own hand? Are you telling me that in your room that if a player tosses his hand in and it hits an unprotected hand both hands are not dead? I go to the B/M to play poker, not have the dealers and the house babysit the players, which is what you are saying they do

Local rock I wish I could agree with this statement, I really do, but I think its more like several really run versus an awful lot. To me "an awful lot " would mean most of the rooms, but the more I play the more it seems like that only a handful have staffs that are knowledgeable. Unfortunately, these seem to be the high end rooms that cater to the player with large bankrolls. Heres an idea that some room could pick up and run with- how about a room that caters to the average Joe who does not have a bankroll that can support entering tournaments everyday that are in the hundreds of dollars. A room that offers tournaments with buy-ins under $100.00 several times a day and staffing them with dealers and floor staff actually know what they are doing. While I am in this fantasy world, lets make the staff friendly, and would actually realize that the players are who keeps the doors open. They could all be hooked up to monitors that whenever they said something like "it's not like its a $10,000.00 buy-in tournament" they would receive an electrical shock that would knock their shoes off. And each time they made some other asinine comment the voltage would increase so that by the fourth or fifth time they would just vaporize. OOPS I started getting to deep in that fantasy.

I will agree that I am comfortable with 98% of thing that come up but 2% is just too DAMN high. I think 1/10 of 1 % would be a reasonable number for the room to strife for, but as it appears some rooms are happy with 50% or less.

@psand

I think we are getting off base with the OP, but with how the rule is written, I think that it is there to stop angle shooters from miscalling their hands to undeservably win a pot.

I don't think we are ever going to agree in this situation, so let's just agreee to disagree. Rules are interpreted different by many people in many different facets of this world. Just look at our judicial system. Very open to interpretation. Hell, I'm a huge baseball fan and look at how every MLB umpire interprets the strike zone. No two are the same.

Absolutely they are not necessarily both dead. I have never seen the scenario where a player who tossed his cards in and had them hit another players unprotected cards then wanted his cards back, so everytime his this has happened the tossers cards were dead because he wanted them to be dead. If the cards just touch the other unprotected hand and it is obvious to which are which (this is the most common situation) then why would the unprotected hand be dead. Just because they touched another hand? I can't think of one reason to call this hand dead. I certainly wouldn't want to play in a room with such a rule.

Now in the unusual circumstance where the hands become "confused" and the dealer is not certain which cards belong to which player this is a different matter. I have seen a floor person ask each player to whisper their cards to him and then he recreate dthe hand form the intermingled cards. (my preference if the floor is going to do this is that the hands be written down and then shown to all players after the hand). I have no objection to this practice in principal, though I also would not object ato a room calling the hand dead in this instance because of the appearance that this could be used dishonestly.

what? If the dealer knows which two cards the player throw in there is no problem. I suggest that in this scenario I would have the player announce what his hand was solely so that I don't have to hear you complain later. Because if the dealer knows what the two cards are and they match what the player said your only theory on how something can be wrong here now requires that the dealer somehow knew the location of the cards he wanted to give to thge player, pulled them out, conveyed to the player what those cards were. Highly unlikely. Now if the cards don't reasonably match what the player says he had I have no problem killing the hand under the theory that the dealer was mistaken about which two cards they were and the cards are in fact irretrievable. I wouldn't require unyielding precision -- if the player says I had A Q and I don't remember the suits and the cards are i Q thats good enough for me, if he say had the Ace high flush and don;t remember what the second rank was, and the two cards in fact give him an Ace high Flush thats reaosnably close enough. the player says he has no recollection whtsoever as to what his hand was, I could easily be content to kill the hand and feel that it was very likely not the best hand players don;t usually forget when they had a strong hand.

Or lets paraphrase a little what you want is a staff that follows the rules you want and enforces them the way you want. I for one do not think this would be consistent with a room of knowledgeable experienced staff.

Certainly I don't object to you wanting to play in such a room. We each have our own preferences and you should of course play where you are comfortable. However I promise you this, if you find your fantasy room you will not get a shot at this donkey's bankroll, cause I certainly don't want to play in room run according to your preferences.

@psand Interesting. I'd strongly prefer that casino poker rooms seek to avoid Karnac the Magnificent Floorman moments, but if this is going to be done, perhaps it could reduce the level of discomfort to see that additional step.

Nope. If someone mucks their hand, their hand should be dead, no questions asked. If the muck was a mistake, 99.9% of the time it was almost certainly due to operator error (i.e. not paying attention to what's going on.

I don't disagree with that statement, I just don't know why you think that making an error is a reason to kill your hand.

Misdeal or no misdeal ?

Hello AVPers , I have a question for you guys.
I was at my local casino in England on Friday night playing the normal $20 “multiple rebuy for first 2 hours” NLHE tourney. 70 runners.
To cut to the chase – I reach the final table with 103K as chip leader.
After the small stacks have pushed I’m sitting on 120k with 5 players left.
Blinds are 5 & 10k , soon to be 8 &16k, 3 players have 30k or less, but one guy is raising every pot and taking 15k, he is up to 100k and I am looking to snap him off.
Then this hand.
He raises to 30k again , I go all in with QQ.
He calls
I pick up my card and throw them into the middle of the table, where QQ75 appear. I am confused as this is not Omaha. Then I realise that I folded 75o the previous hand.
I then see that opponent has shown AA.
I call a misdeal as my 75o has not been collected and only 50 cards have been dealt. Opponent disagrees.
Small stacks are motionless studying the incredibly interesting felt – hoping to step up a spot.
The floor is called and decides that my hand is dead and my chips are over the line.
I call the casino manager and ask for a ruling. He agrees with floor.
I ask for rules and we spend 10 mins reading them and find no ruling to back up the decision.
5th pays $550 and 1st is $2000+, so I am fighting my corner.
Eventually he says “I am in charge and my decision is final, you have lost all your chips”
I point out that I have the other guy covered and should get 17k back, which is agreed.
I say lets run the hand out of interest- and of course a Q spikes on the turn .

My questions is – What would be the ruling at TI, Orleans, PH , MGM or any other Vegas game?

See you in Vegas on 11/28/07.

I would say that would be a misdeal. How can the hand take place if you didn't have all the cards. But, they may say to chop up the pot.

My point exactly.
They never said that I was keeping cards back. Why keep Q7 or Q5 waiting for another Q when Aces are better, it doesn't make sense.
But if that had been brought into the debate I would not have been happy.
Their point was that it is the players responsibility to ensure cards are handed in at the end of a hand.
So in future I can keep my card knowing that my next hand is dead - as in my unfortunate example, and then fold 4 cards --- I'm sure my fellow players would be thilled to play with 50 cards in there deck.

There can never be a misdeal at this point in time. (there are circumstances where a hand is invaildated and money returned but that is not a misdeal)

If I am reading this correctly you had 4 cards, which include the two you "folded" last hand (i'm confused at how this happens since if you folded them would have expected them to be swept away from you -- I would understand more if you had won the last pot and somewhow your cards got buried in the pot and never collected).

there was action before you brought to light the fact that you had 4 cards. Though I don't doubt taht you did not know you had four cards, I can't for the life of me understand how that could reasonably occur. I mean if you have four cards and you have held them and looked at them how can you not know that you have more than 2 cards.

Had you immediately determined the problem before there was any action, this would have been a misdeal. However by waiting until there has been action you have no placed yourself in a position where your hand has to be called dead. Otherwise you know now get a free shot at the pot, you raise all in the other players fold you tos the carsd into the muck and take the pot, but if you get called you flip over your hand and announce misdeal -- it puts you in a jackpot situation where you can only win.

As a general rule a hand that doe snot contain the proper number of cards is a dead hand. I see no reason not to enforce this rule in this instance.

The second issue is that of deck not consisting of the proper number of cards. First there is a rule that " One or more cards missing from the deck does not invalidate the results of a hand." The reasonm for this rule is to prevent the situation where a player sees a card is missing (lets say he sees a card on the floor) and now freerolls by betting aggressively, if he wins he doesn't say anything, but if he loses -- oh look a card on the floor give back the money ---). But in your case there is another problem we don't know that the deck was only 52 cards, that is your supposition based on your belief that the way the this was occurred was that you still have your cards form last hand. But that is only your supposition, we don't know if maybe cards stuck together during the deal, or if for some reason the dealer dealt an extra hand and you inadvertently swept iot in with your own hand.

Don't know the rules, but what psand says makes sense. You can't have a misdeal after action.

I still don't understand exactly where the 75o came from. Sure you folded it last hand, but even if the two cards didn't get mucked, how did all four cards get flipped over? Did you have four cards in your hands and not see the "back" two when you peeked at them? Is there something different about English card rooms that would allow this to happen?

Even if the ruling is right, it's terribly unfortunate.

I don't know where you get the idea that I only want certain rules followed or enforced "the way you want". The whole point of the OP is that rooms are posting rules and then not following them. I want every rule enforced equally across the board, novice or pro the rules apply the same. If you don't know the house rule (the posted or published house rules) tough s*** , you should have taken a minute while you where waiting to read them. And if your a local that plays there everyday, no cutting you any slack either because you of all people should know the rules.

psands you really scare the hell out of me with this one, (then why would the unprotected hand be dead.) What part of unprotected are we not understanding? Why do I keep seeing rules in tournaments and house rules that say it is the players responsibility to protect their cards at all times? When you say "obvious" obvious to who? This isn't the craps table where there are four sets of eyes watching every move, this is the poker table where you only have one set of eyes (the dealers) watching over the table. The opportunity to distract the dealer and the table while switching one or more of the cards, to me this is enough reason to kill both hands as well as other reasons.

Now I will say that I do agree with your assessment of mincers question, but I too am confused as to how the player; 1) retained the cards from the prior hand (the only other way I could see this happening would be for mincer to have been in the BB the prior hand and stated that he folds to a raised uncalled hand, and that the dealer somehow did not collect the cards.) 2) Did not notice having four cards. 3) How the dealer missed seeing the cards on the table when dealing the cards.
The cards sticking together while possible seems improbable and how does the player not notice the extra thickness of the cards? I know some may say this is BS but when I used to deal I could feel when there were cards missing from a deck. Its just like how you learn how a stack of chips feels and how many are in the stack. A few months back while dealing a series of tournaments here in Vegas I remember sitting down on a push and starting to riffle, on the second riffle I stopped and started counting down the deck. A couple of players asked what I was doing and I told them that the deck did not feel right to me. Sure enough, there was only 51 cards in the deck. When I started looking around to find the missing card, I found it still in the tray with the other deck. Some how when setting up the trays for the tournament the Ad had been put in with the other deck. How the prior dealer missed seeing it was missing when she spread them prior to dealing the first hand is also a mystery.
The floor was called and informed of what had transpired, their ruling (as expected and correct) was that all action stood. All players had player with the same advantage/disadvantage. Without my having felt the deck being short they would have played the whole first level with only 51 cards as decks were only changed when the blinds changed.

Here's what i mean by obvious and this is the most common situation. Action is on player in seat 2. I as the dealer am of course watching that player.e toss his cards in to muck them and they graze across the unprotected cards of the player in seat 11, while I am watching them. I see them at all times and it is clear and unambigioto me which cards belonged to the player in seat 1, they have not intermingled and there is no shred of doubt to me which cards belonged to which player.

BTW, this morning I killed a hand belonging to the small blind because I was unable to tell which card belonged to which player. small blind was in seat 10, and an early position players seat 2 decided to muck his cards before I had finished dealing. I was looking towards the 9 seat where I was dealing the final card when a card that was discarded came flying into the hand of the small blind, since i wasn't expecting this card to come flying in that way I missed it and it went right into the small blinds hand and I had no way of knowing which card was which. I swept the whole mess into the muck. If I had seen the card clearly and knew exactly which one it was I would not have killed it. (the outcome of this hand was that someone shouted misdeal and flipped up their cards I shouted no misdeal but everyone started throwing their cards in face up - I mucked all the cards that were tossed in and pushed the pot to the one player who had kept his cards. he then gave the blinds back to the players involved.)

Just when I'm about to say good job, I get to the last line. Are player allowed to pass chips at the tables where you work? Sure, I realize it was only $1 and $2 most likely, but if you allow $2 to be passed why not let them pass $20 or $100 or $1000. This gets back to my whole thing about letting the little things slide, who decides at what point the little things are longer little? Why not just not allow it at any level and then there is no problem. We could also get into the whole table stakes issue but lets not go there.

If I am reading this correctly you had 4 cards, which include the two you "folded" last hand (i'm confused at how this happens since if you folded them would have expected them to be swept away from you -- I would understand more if you had won the last pot and somewhow your cards got buried in the pot and never collected).

there was action before you brought to light the fact that you had 4 cards. Though I don't doubt taht you did not know you had four cards, I can't for the life of me understand how that could reasonably occur. I mean if you have four cards and you have held them and looked at them how can you not know that you have more than 2 cards.

OK, as I remember seat 2 has raised to 30k again and I have said "take it" after tanking with 75o in BB.My cards are behind my 120k stack for protaction. I am watching him stack his chips thinking I have to take him on.
Next hand QQ and I put them down and push my stack two handed after his raise. Thinking about this , I must act the same and handle my cards in the same way because when I pick them up and flip them.There are 4 cards.

The rest has been told.
I am over it and have moved on to the next game.

@VegasDailyPlayer

Just when I'm about to say good job, I get to the last line. Are player allowed to pass chips at the tables where you work? Sure, I realize it was only $1 and $2 most likely, but if you allow $2 to be passed why not let them pass $20 or $100 or $1000. This gets back to my whole thing about letting the little things slide, who decides at what point the little things are longer little? Why not just not allow it at any level and then there is no problem. We could also get into the whole table stakes issue but lets not go there.[/quote]

Under the circumstances of the hand it would make no sense to stop the return of the blinds here. You can give all your rules are rules nonsense, but this hand called for allowing the return of the blinds (and by our rules players are allowed to pass the the amount of the small blind). There is a time to let common sense prevail. We had a player lose his hand and his small blind in an unfortunate manner and a host fo players toss there cards in because they thought it was misdeal and the beneficiary of this little clusterfuck of a hand was gracious enough to give the blinds back there money .... I'll tell you what... If I'm playing in a room and this happens and the dealer objects to the return of the blinds, I'm racking up my chips and leaving.

@psand So, what I want to know is: did the other players get cheesed-off at the dealer, or at Mr. Dealer Helper who shouted "misdeal"?

When I said there was no misdeal people momentarily looked abit upset but they got over it real fast. The only player indicated anything more than mild annoyance was the SB whose hand got mucked, but even that passed very quickly.

@VegasDailyPlayer

While I will concede that there may be differences in players experience ignorance to the rules is no excuse. [some deleted]

On a different note on night while playing in the Stratosphere tournament seated at my table was X22 Mr. Quack Quack Paul McGrill (not sure how he spells his last name but everybody should know who I'm talking about). So here you have a known seasoned professional playing in a $60.00 buy-in tournament, how was he suppose to know which rules we were going to play by?[/quote]

Ahhhh... ignorance of the rules >can< be something of an excuse. That's why tournament directors (TD's) sometimes use warnings as educational opportunities. With all the talk here about making poker friendly for the "average Joe" (AJ), I'm surprised that this isn't blatantly apparent to everyone. AJ may not be aware of the many rules, some intricate and subtle (just look at this thread, for example) of "Real, Live, Vegas Poker". Does anyone really think that they should immediately upon sitting down to their first (or second or fourth) tourney be held to the most stringent of standards? Great way to drive new players away from the game, that. You'd think we'd all want to be as welcoming as possibly to "new money" coming into the game. Plus, from what I've seen, most AJ's are eager to learn, and want to know how to behave at the table, how to raise properly, when it's OK to (and not to) talk, and all the other things that have been discussed here. But even reading the rules thoroughly may not get them to that point. I don't believe in a second set of rules, per se, but this is where the TDA's rule #1 comes in. The TD needs to have the experience, and more importantly, the judgement, to make the fairest possible ruling in every situation they come into. If a TD, or for that matter their shift/room manager, does not have that capacity it will show quickly and as players we can apply some negative reinforcement by not returning, calling the GCB, elevating a situation to the Casino Manager on duty, etc. I've been involved in thousands of tournaments, as both player and TD, and I would be hard pressed to give a definitive rundown of every (or any particular) possible "gray area" decision I've been called to make or seen. Each and every one is unique, and needs to be addressed with the information on hand at the time, including the read on the players involved, the dealer's rundown of who/what/when of the hand, what was seen personally of the hand, the rules as posted (and/or TDA as appropriate), the type of tournament, etc. The driving focus >should< be to get it RIGHT, and make sure a decision is as FAIR to all as is possible. Does that sometimes go against "the printed rules"? sure. Not often, but it can. In the end, I'd rather be counting on the integrity of a good TD than an inflexible set of rules.

Regarding Mr McGrill: as a seasoned professional he almost certainly understands what to expect in a given situation. I'm sure he's been there before and seen it before.

LM

After reviewing my original post I am having a hard time figuring out where some people are assuming that any of these situations involved any novice players. Secondly, one point that most people seem to be missing is the lack of concern on the part of the floor personnel as to what is fair. Is it fair to allow a player who mucks his hand to have it returned only once that he realizes that he mucked a winner? (i.e. the Green Valley Ranch incident) Sorry, but my thought is that the player should have been playing more attention. Can I now wait until after all the cards are out tell the dealer I didn't really mean to fold pre-flop, so I'll just match everything that everybody bet, give me my cards back and then push me the pot. Should a dealer and the floor allow a regular player to hold up the game while he goes and smokes, talks to his friends, and scratches his ass just so that the player will not get mad that you folded his big blind? (And hey don't forget that if we let this player have every advantage when he wins he will tip us good- thought going thru dealer and floors mind) (i.e. the Stratosphere incident). Lastly, why don't we make poker a team sport where we allow those who have folded to see their buddies hand and advise him what to do? Not that it matters that those that folded have knowledge of what cards are gone, lets just team up and get to the money so those dealers and floor people can get a big tip because we are the regulars and that tourist money will keep flowing in the door because they never go home and tell anybody about how they got screwed by the dealers and floor. (i.e. the Sahara incident)

Remember anything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Maybe thats why none of the poker related magazines have letters to the editor. Ever noticed how Cardplayer, Bluff, Poker Player, etc. do not allow letters to the editor, somebody might actually say something negative about an advertiser and God knows they can't let that happen. I will give Poker Player publisher Stanley Sludikoff props for speaking his mind about the WSOP but then how many ads do you see for any of the Harrah's owned properties (don't bother looking because the only one I found in the Oct.1 issue was for the Caesars Classic).

In none of the incidents did the floor or the poker room manager ever bother to ask the players involved if there was anything that could be done to make the Victim feel any better. No offer to look into the matter and see what needed to be done to prevent it from happening again. Just the attitude that what ever happened is okay by them because the poker boom is here and no time to pull their heads out of their ass to look around and see that it might not last forever.

VDP, you know I do agree with a substantial part of the substance of some of the issues over which you've raised concerns, though perhaps not quite all of them in every particular and I may not see them as being nearly as broadly pervasive as I gather you do. Still, I do think problems you've identified are real at some places, and they really do matter. So, I said that to ask, and I hope I'm doing so while communicating the collegial tone that I want: are there some casino poker rooms around Las Vegas in which you DO feel comfortable playing?

You used those specific instances to make a broader point, and it is that broader point which leads to the discussion.

But if you want to discuss these incidents we can:

I have already discussed threen Valley Ranch incident. I wasn't present don't know what happened. I suspect my analysis is correct based on your post, but if I was present to see it then I might have a different take on it.

My take on the Stratosphere incident of the dealer slowing his deal to allow a regular to return to his seat. I don't disagree with you that this should not have happened. That being said it very well be the case that the dealer would have done this for any player he saw returning to the game, that doesn't make it right, but I would suggest that it isn't necessarily fair to equate the dealers doing this with the dealer showing favoritism to a regular.

I do have a question. You say that the manager said he doesn't like the TDA rules. Do they post that TDA rules apply or have you just made this assumption? I remember when the standard rule was you had to be back in your seat by the time it was your action.

As for the Sahara incident. I hate the Sahara I think there floor is extremely incompetant. I do know that they do not use the TDA rules. I certainly agree the floor persons reaction here was inappropriate.

I do disagree with you on a significant point.

I do not know what the Sahara rules on this are however I have never in my life seen a rule that a hand is dead because of a violation of one player to a hand. In tournament play typical penalties are time away from the table (the TDA rules for example use this). In a cash game the penalty (if a penalty stronger then a warning is deemed appropriate) is that you are asked to leave. While there may be some circumstance where killing the hand is deemed appropriate I have yet to see such an instance.

In your instance it would be particularly inappropriate because the real villian in this hand was the player in seat #4 who opened his mouth.he Player in seat #5 may have changed his mind all on his own before he mucked his cards, why should his right to do so now be forfeited because the other player said something unsolicited.

Now I agree that players should not show their cards to other players even if they are out of the hand, however this is so commonplace that it can not be treated as serious offense (and it really isn't all that seriou in itself).

"Of course it should matter. It is obvious in this scenario the player released his hand because he forgot that there was an all-in. In my room it is actually a matter of policy to protect a hand in this scenario. "

psand - please tell us the room you work, heck even send me a private message, because I never want to play there. This is no comment on you. Nearly every place I have ever played the first posted rule is something to this effect "It is the players responsibility to protect their hand." I don't care to ever sit down at a table where the house starts trying to interpret how, when and why a player mucks his hand, then enforce some unwritten set of sub rules about when it is actually okay to muck your hand because it isn't really mucked...at the discretion of the house, of course. Terrible. No thanks.

@oski88
I have very strong mixed feelings on this. TDA Rule #1 (and while this may not be a TDA tournament the sentiment should apply to other tournaments and cash games as well) is:

@TDA Rules
It doesn't feel fair or right to me that a player who mucks his hand or even intends to muck his hand (e.g., he tries to muck but the cards hit the dealer and flip face up) should be declared the winner of the pot. Does it take "two cards to win"?

It also doesn't seem fair or in the best interests of the game that a player with a flush should lose to a player with ace-high because the former didn't see the latter still had a hand. This holds doubly true if it were a tournament near (or past) the bubble and all-in player should have busted out; in this case, it affects every player at the table not just the two in the pot.

On a related vein, say on the river I bet, you call, I say "straight" and you muck your two pair. Someone asks to see both hands and I actually show a lower two pair than you do or my straight has a hole. Should I win the pot? What if I contend I asked "straight?" or honestly misread the board? It's certainly not in the best interests of the game to reward me for angle shooting.

@AdRock

Although we do not come across this problem too often, angle shooting is something that TI does not tolerate. If a player miscalls his/her hand (causing another player to fold) and it happens to be discovered that it was miscalled, (s)he would lose all rights to the pot.

Whether intentional or accidental, angle shooting will never be rewarded in our room.

@TI Poker Jessica

Although we do not come across this problem too often, angle shooting is something that TI does not tolerate. If a player miscalls his/her hand (causing another player to fold) and it happens to be discovered that it was miscalled, (s)he would lose all rights to the pot.[/quote]

It is a pretty standard rule that a player who intentionally miscalls their hand causing another player to fold at showdown loses any claim to the pot.

It is impossible to accidentally angle shoot. Angle shooting is intentional behavior. This is another place that a floor persons judgment comes into play. When a player who has never been a problem before, has always acted honestly and straightforwardly miscalls his hand, a floor may be more inclined to treat it as unintentional conduct. When the guy who is always trying to pull something does the same thing the floor may assume it was intentional.

@oski88

Perhaps you misunderstand, you seem to think that a player would not be permitted to muck in this circumstance.hat is not what it means for us to protect the hand. Simply in these circumstances the dealer should be making sure the player who is releasing his hand understands that there is another live hand and a pot to be awarded. If the player stillwants to muck his hand we won't stop him. There are two circumstances where our policy is to protect the players hand. One is the situation where the player has won a side pot but realeases his hand befor ethe main pot is awarded. The other is where the big blind releases his hand even though there has been no raise.

This does not contradict the rule that players are responsible to protect their hand. The point of that rule is to make it clear that a player has no recourse where the player fails to protect his hand, that does not mean that failure to protect a hand requires the hand be killed.

And I would rather play in a room with such a policy.

T

Sure there are and they are mentioned in the original post. Places like Belligio, Binions, Caesars, Golden Nugget, Venetian, and Wynn all do a great job when it comes to running tournaments. I have not had a chance to try the Station Casinos, TI, MGM, or the Mirage. (however at both the Mirage and MGM I no longer play live action because at the Mirage I sat at a table where two players were verbally abusive to each other and cussed each other across the table for over twenty minute with no action by the dealers or the floor. and yes the F bomb went off about fifty times. Left a comment card for the manager but again no response. And at the MGM the first time I went there to play I didn't even get out of the parking lot until I witnessed one of the security guards yelling and screaming the F bomb and GD at someone that they were 86ing. really professional). But, those that do a good job in running tournaments also are charging over $100.00 in entry fees and add ons. While I don't mind to pay that sometimes it gets a little expensive if you play 5 or 6 times a week.

WOW, psands the more you write scarier it gets and we still have a week to Halloween. Its the players responsibility to make these kind of decisions and not the dealers. If I was ever in a pot and the BB went to fold his hand and the dealer didn't muck it, I would go ballistic. If a player is not paying attention then it is not up to the dealer to interfere, again
Poker is an individual sport not a team sport its hard enough to play the individual players without them receiving outside help.

Here again since you were not there you do not have a prospective as to what went on. The player had plenty of time to return to him seat, but he stopped to talk to someone at another table. Also, I never have had them hold up the tournament for me to return when I am late getting back from the break (I used to go spend my breaks at the craps tables, but I never came back and found them holding a card til I got back. So what if it was 10 or 15 minutes? Who is going to say what is a reasonable amount of time? If you can justify 45 seconds why not 15 minutes? ) And had you seen how long that dealer held the card I think even you would have been upset and that is saying a lot from what I have read.

Again you seem to miss my point here. I'm not saying it was okay to hold the card. Just that it doesn't follow from that incident that it was favoritism for a regular. your comparing it to your 15 minute trip to the craps table isn't on point, as the difference is that in one instance the player was in sight of the dealer on his way back (even if he had made stop tpo talk) in your instance you are clearly not in a spot where the dealer expects you will be right back. Again I'm not saying this is right or you shouldn't be upset just that it isn't necessarily bias towards the regulars based on what you posted.f something else happened that supports the bias argument then that is something i don't know about.

As to things that upset me. There are many decisions at a table that have upset me as well as other issues.

1) Dealers who stop dealing to chat with players. Even though I prefer that dealers not converse while in the box, even I am guilty of that occasionally -- but if you have to do it don't stop dealing.

2) Being forced to sit 12 handed throughout an entire tournament at the Sahara. Even as tables were breaking the TD decided that we woudl stay 12 handed all the way through.

3) One day at Mandalay Bay I saw a terrible terrible decision. Before they had betting lines on the table the policy was if chips went in front of your cards it was a bet. So this player had a chip on top of his cards a s a protector, when the action came to him he decided to look at his cards agian, as he peeled them up the chip slid forward past the edge of the cards and it was ruled to be a bet.

4) having a dealer ainions who was obviously stoned off his gourd (got out something like 6 hands that down it was a tournament).

5) I am very annoyed by rooms which are unwilling to protect an existing game ---- they open a new game of the same limit shorthanded and don't make it a must move game. Then next thing you know your game is shorthanded and breaks while the new game is full.

6) I hate when dealers congratulate players "nice Hand" or something like that. And even worse is when they get overly happy and excited over a high hand jackpot (it would be different with a bad beat where everyone is making money on a share). Dealers please someone just lost that hand lets not make it look like you are happy about that.

7) I hate dealers that don't care for proper procedures. Look we all make mistakes but I see far to many dealers who constantly roll the deck, don't put the burn cards where they belong.

And if you really want to get me going all a dealer has to do is spread the damn pot because some chuckle head player asks him to.

@psand

It is impossible to accidentally angle shoot. Angle shooting is intentional behavior. This is another place that a floor persons judgment comes into play. When a player who has never been a problem before, has always acted honestly and straightforwardly miscalls his hand, a floor may be more inclined to treat it as unintentional conduct. When the guy who is always trying to pull something does the same thing the floor may assume it was intentional.[/quote]

I was referring to the miscalling of a hand being intentional or accidental. Bad choice of wording on my part.

@psand

This is where our rooms differ. Yes, the floor person's judgement always needs to come into play when making a decision, however there are some rules, such as this one, that are pretty cut & dry. In our room, a player will lose the pot if it is discovered that they miscalled their hand - it does not matter if it was accidental. It's just one of those things that a player will have to learn the hard way should they find themselves in this situation.

Noone likes to be the bad guy and kill a player's hand for something like mistakingly miscalling his/her hand, however angle shooting is something that is not tolerated at the TI. We do not want any of our players to ever feel taken advantage of and will protect them from such behavior. We're not here to babysit our players as someone had mentioned - we're here to protect the integrity of the game.

I also just wanted to mention that I agree that every decision should be handled in the same way, regardless of the limit spread or the players involved - HOWEVER, every decision will have it's own set of circumstances that need to be kept in consideration. There are so many different factors that can effect the outcome of a decision being made.

I would cringe if I ever heard a floorman say "This is just a ____-game" when making a decision, as that is a terrible attitude to have in this business.

Bottom line: In my opinion, all of the circumstances need to be taken into consideration when making every ruling and not necessarily just the player's reputation or the limit of the game being played. We are here to make decisions in the interest of fairness. Where does it say that we rule in the interest of fairness from [blank] stakes and higher?

@psand For any poker room management type folk cruising around here I want to highlight this, because this one really matters more to me and happens more often than a lot of the rules and procedures type stuff we've been prattling on about. It may very well be different for no-limit and possibly for some high-limit players, or not, I wouldn't presume to say for sure, but I play the common small stakes fixed limit games, and many who regularly prefer them consider those games unplayable when the table is too short, and they're just no damn fun at all for the rest when the lists are managed in a way that keeps them chronically short handed. If I'm out looking for the competitive challenge of trying to cash out a few chips to the good the math doesn't work on a short table, and if I'm out for an entertaining diversion the listless shuffling of the blinds around uninteresting small pots spoils the fun for the glum bored folks at a short handed table in small stakes fixed limit, compounding the problem for everyone. It feeds on itself. Multi-handed pots encourage more action, for both rational and emotional reasons, and a series of little orphan pots with no prospect of getting fat and happy when they grow up discourage it.

I'm quite happy to take a "must move" seat, since it means I'll get to move to a table that is being maintained as a full ring game. I'll cheerfully take my place on a list for the same reason. I'll hang for a while with a table that got temporarily short because a tournament started, because I assume there is a reasonable prospect that it will fill again, and that folks running the room will be doing their part to help that happen. But if a room regularly tends to run more tables of small stakes fixed limit than they have players to fill them, then I just can't play there. It's no fun, and not rewarding.

I'll choose to rack up and take an inconvenient trip to a place with less comfort or perhaps a higher rake rather than plod along indefinitely in an anemic short handed game, and when the table breaks as others decide to do the same and the players get discouraged from returning, the house won't benefit. I don't really understand why it regularly happens in some places even as there are enough players to maintain some full games. I assume it must have something to do with not paying attention or not understanding that it's a problem.

@VegasDailyPlayer Yes they are. My mistake in overlooking that.

I don't mind playing shorthanded. The problem is that then the shorthanded game breaks and suddenly I'm out of a game after playing for 6 hours, meanwhile the "new" game is full of players who came in to the room in the past hour.

Yup, it sure does happen that way. And for me, I'm left out in the cold as the new arrivals get the fuller table, generally without an option for me to move from a short game to the full ring game, so I'm essentially forced to contribute to making your table break down, and there you are. I'll do my part to help a game start, but I'm not holding the fort without resupply from the folks managing the room. If I stay on the property at all it will be time for me to take a dinner break and to put myself on the list behind the seated folks who got there six hours after both of us. But I'll probably just mosey on down the road.

Well you may say this, but aren't you "babysitting" a player here.

I mean suppose you have some old guy in the three seat who has been having trouble seeing the cards all night. He's got top pair and on the river he thinks he's got a flush, but the last card was a club not a spade and he doesn't actually have a flush (in fact a flush is not even possible). He announces he has a flush and his opponent tosses away his cards. Then he flips over his cards and his opponent complains that he didn't have a flush and claims he folded two pair (we have no way of knowing since his cards were mucked). Now your going to kill this players hand for miscalling his hand when it is pretty apparent it was not intentional -ecause your not here to babysit this player.

But what about the chucklehead who tossed away his hand without waiting to see his opponents cards. Aren't you just babysitting him now.

It may be your rooms policy to do this, but its a bad policy. A room would be better off hiring experienced people to make judgment calls then hiring inexperienced people to apply black letter law.

@psand [/quote]

Oh how I love the way you attempt to misconstrue everything I say. Our staff IS full of experienced people, and if you think we don't use our judgement than apparently you did not read what I wrote carefully enough as I just pointed out that EVERY decision will be faced with it's own special circumstances that will need to be kept into considered.

An inexperienced player miscalling their hand on accident is not a special circumstance. That is what I was trying to clear up from your post - just because a player is inexperienced is not an excuse to let them bend the rules. In that case, would you allow an inexperienced player to string bet simply because they are new to the game and were not aware that all bets had to be placed in one motion? I would hope not, but you should take the time to explain the proper way of placing a bet so that it would not happen to them again.

Granted, I shouldn't say NEVER, so I will correct myself by saying miscalled hands will HARDLY EVER be rewarded in our room, if at all.

(1) Say a player miscalls his hand causing the better hand to fold without showing. Both players are in the wrong here. One player caused a player to fold by miscalling his hand, and the other did not protect his/her hand and their rights to the pot. Which is worse? In OUR opinion, the player angle shooting is a far worse mistake than not protecting their hand, and that is why it will not be rewarded. It's a dirty move, simple as that. Sure, there are SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES that would result in a split pot at most, but I can't think of any right now where a player would receive the entire pot after causing another player to fold the winning hand by miscalling his hand.

I consider 'babysitting' our players to be something more along the lines of pushing back the big blinds cards to them after they have folded when it is their option, etc.. A player's cards should never be pushed back to them once folded. A dealer may remind them they are in the big blind at most, and if they do not retrieve their cards on their own, they should be placed in the muck.

Protecting our players from angle shooters, is not babysitting.

Lastly, I just wanted to mention that I realize you have a grudge against almost everyone linked with TI Management, which I do not understand. On that note, I am done contributing to this post as I do not wish to feed your fire any longer. You're a smart guy and I know you understand what I am saying, yet you constantly choose to argue and twist words and have attempted to belittle our staff, when there was no need for that. Our rooms have different policies. GREAT! Most rooms do. No one was trying to convince your room to take on our rules, or vice versa. I was giving insight to a certain topic that was brought up so that everyone would know how things are done at TI. Isn't that the point of this topic? To make player's aware of things they should know & how certain policies may differ from room to room? Best of luck to you PSANDS!

It is you doing the misconstruing here, I was not suggesting that your poker room doesn't have experienced people. Nor was I suggesting that you don't make the best rulings possible.

I'm not really certain why Chris, and now you seem to think that I am disparaging the TI poker room. I think if you look back at my posts you will see that fairly consistently say that overall i like the room and the staff. That doesn't mean I have to agree with everything you say, so when I disagree with you please don't take it as an attack on you or the room, it isn't. What have I done to disparage your room. Lets see as best as I can tell I objected to the fact that the thread on TI turned into a chat thread instead of an information thread. don't care if you guys want to chat, but there were places for it. Thats not an attack on your room. Thats not an attack on management. Thats a complaint about people posting chat in the wrong thread.

for sometime now I have meant to get around to dropping by to talk to Chris, because it has become clear to me that he (and now you) have the perception that I am disparaging the room and its management. Nothing could be further form the truth. And when someone asks me about the TI poker room I have positive things to say about it (now obviously if they tell me that they are looking to play $15-$30 limit I don't recommend TI).

Back to the issue at hand
What I was saying (and I think is the tenor of my posts in this thread, is that I would rather play/ and work in a room where an experienced staff was free to use and did exercise some discretion in interpreting and enforcing rules as oppose dto a room where the staff believes all situations must be treated alike regardless of the specific circumstances of the game.

Here the distinction need not be experienced or inexperienced. Here I am talking about intentional conduct vs. accidental conduct.

Clearly an experienced floorperson such as yourself understands that sometimes players intentionally miscall there hands in an attempt to get a player to muck a better hand, but sometimes players make honest mistakes (in my example before we had a player who trouble seeing the cards mistake a club for a spade). I think it is extremely reasonable to treat the situations differently.

To use your string bet example, if inexperienced player grabs a stack of chips puts them out, comes back grabs another stack, I'm absolutely going to disallow the second stack and explain the string bet rule to the player. But if that same player only has one stack of chips and he picks them up and goes to put them into the pot (past the betting line or whatever rule the room is using) and a single chip falls of the top of his stack before he gets the rest of the stack out there and then he reaches back to get that last chip and put it out there with the rest fo the bet, there is no way I'm calling that a string bet.

Well there are a couple of things. First being that we have no way of knowing that the player folded a better hand (unless the hand was so bad that nothing could be worse). You are taking the players word for it. Beware that this leaves open a possible angleshot of its own.

Second the phrase "It's a dirty move, simple as that. " suggests that you are talking about the situation where the player knows his actual hand and deliberately miscalls it. In that circumstance I absolutely agree with you that this was far worse than the player who tossed away his cards without seeing the other hand. And that player deserves not only to forfeit the pot, but to be invited to leave the poker room.

But lets talk about the other circumstance (and no its not a special circumstance . . . its a different circumstance) this is the circumstance where the player made an honest mistake. then you ase which is worse? Well thats a no brainer the guy who tossed his hand away was worse. Neither deserves to be treated as a criminal. But here I am not giving the pot to the guy who tossed away his hand unless the player who miscalled there hand had a hand that could not win (then we are looking at a split pot).

I don't see a whole lot of difference here. If one is acceptable I don't see why the other wouldn't be.

I just figured I'd weigh in with my 2 cents, not that anyone needs it

Do I wish that every card room would apply rulings consistently, across the board, regardless of stakes? Yes.

Do I expect this to ever be the case? No.

Can I deal with the fact that, since I play low limits, many players will not know the rules and be given the benefit of the doubt in certain instances? Yes.

In the room where I usually play I've seen new players get away with laughable offenses. ONE TIME. Then they are firmly and politely told what they did incorrectly and how to avoid doing it again. I also have never seen anyone else at the table at the time be anything less than supportive to these new players. The regulars also know enough to make sure they are protecting themselves when there's someone at the table they don't know.

Special note to TI poker room Jessica. Everything I have read that you have written leads me to believe that I am going to love playing at the TI. I agree with almost everything that you have said. (I never agree with everything that anybody says, so you are doing great for me to agree with almost everything LOL.) As you can see from my past posts psands scares the hell out of me. I think some of the things that he/she has said regarding how their poker room is run is enough for me to make sure I never play on the South side of West Flamingo. I think the part about handing back a players cards that folds from the BB ruined any chance they ever had of getting any of my business. (I played in a tournament last night and a player in the BB folded before the UTG player, the dealer mucked their cards, as he should have, once the player realized he had folded his BB he just said "what an idiot I am", I was nice and did not agree with him out loud, but I did want to stand up and applaud the dealer for following protocol). The more I read of other posts from psands I do get the idea that he/she does hold some grudges against certain rooms. I do not know for sure, but I would guess that the reason for this is that these room hold a higher standard and therefore have decided against employing certain people. Looking forward to playing in your room very soon. I will try to take a minute to find you and introduce myself. I do know several of your dealers already from having worked a tournament or two with them, and they all seem to know proper procedure and protocol. Very refreshing to meet people of this caliber. It also says a lot that almost everyone if not everyone that works there has been there since the room have been open.

One other note on angle shooting. What is your take on when a player asks "two pair?" and a player mucks, but it seems clear to the dealer and others at the table that it was "two pair?" and not "two pair"? Then, the player who clearly asked if the other player had two pair reveals a middle or low pair and the player who mucked says they had a higher pair? The key words hear are clear and clearly. Should the player who mucked have any recourse (I have my own opinion on this, but want to hear your take. I also can't wait to hear what psands has to say about this situation I'm sure it will be a hoot.)

When I made the original post I never expected that it would draw so much response. I would like to thank everyone for taking an interest and posting their thoughts. The number of readers and posts has been amazing. As I play in more rooms here in Vegas I will be adding more of my opinions. And I will be bringing to the carpet any room that really upsets me by their apathy. Lets all try to help these rooms get it right the first time, if they know they are on watch, then they just might make an effort. And for those that think I have a negative opinion about every room, please reread my posts because those room that do get it right the first time do get props from me. Then there are those rooms that I am just too damn scared to step in to, not because of the competition, but because of what I have read from the people that work there.

Gamble Big, Bet Hard, Ram and Jam that Pot, but when I take your money don't hate the game or the player, hate the math.

Ironic that in both situations that some impropriety occurred the benefitting player got their money in completed dominated, and in a cruel twist of fate the Poker Gods bailed them out.

Poker is a fickle mistress. Still it is really messed up if you're sitting there with 77 and the other guy has QJo and the other guy tells him to fold (since he already folded the same hand) or something like that.

@VegasDailyPlayer

I would like to try to answer this one, but the written word is so much more difficult, at times, to say something so here I go:

First and foremost, our English language, or is it the use thereof, is so bad that so often we fail to use full sentences such as, "Do you have two pair?"

Our use of an inflection to ask a question is so minor that people often do not realize they are being asked a question, especially in a room that can be noisey.

When a person asks, "Two pair?" and the other player mucks their hand thinking the person said they have two pair then the player that mucked their hand has failed to protect their hand and unfortunately the player that was doing the asking will win the pot. This is assuming there is enough of a witness testimony that the person was asking and not stating.

Above all things, it is the player's responsibility to protect their hand. (This statement is said with the understanding of all things already stated about ways in which a poker room will aid in the protecting of a player's hand.)

First and foremost you are greatly mistaken. I don't bear grudges against rooms, or people for that matter. If there there are rooms I have been negative about it has been the Sahara and Mandalay Bay. And I have given my reasons for not liking those rooms. And I have never worked at or applied to work at either establishment.

I actually find it odd that my dealing consistent with my poker rooms policy scares you. Wasn't the point you started making about even application of the rules. Would you prefer you dealers make up there own rules and policies, or do you want us to be consistent. There are rules and procedures at every poker room that I may not agree with. At two rooms I worked in I was instructed by the floor to spread the pot for a player who requested it. Even though I know this to be wrong, when I am dealing in those rooms I will do it, because that is what the managemnet has told me to do.

As for my rooms policy of protecting a hand from the big blind or from a remaining player when there is an all-in I can see both sides to that issue. And I find either policy acceptable, as a player I certainly wouldn't be upset by a room having this policy or not having this policy. As a dealer I do what I am told. would have thought you would respect that.

As to your evaluation of my dealing. I have dealt at 6 rooms on or near the strip (including the WSOP), I have not been fired from any on those rooms. I have not received any sort of discipline.

@TI Poker

I would like to try to answer this one, but the written word is so much more difficult, at times, to say something so here I go:

First and foremost, our English language, or is it the use thereof, is so bad that so often we fail to use full sentences such as, "Do you have two pair?"

Our use of an inflection to ask a question is so minor that people often do not realize they are being asked a question, especially in a room that can be noisey.

When a person asks, "Two pair?" and the other player mucks their hand thinking the person said they have two pair then the player that mucked their hand has failed to protect their hand and unfortunately the player that was doing the asking will win the pot. This is assuming there is enough of a witness testimony that the person was asking and not stating.

Above all things, it is the player's responsibility to protect their hand. (This statement is said with the understanding of all things already stated about ways in which a poker room will aid in the protecting of a player's hand.)[/quote]

One reason that I might be suspicious of this player claiming that it was a question, as say opposed to a deliberate attempt to mislead, is that usually a player asking if you have two pair asks becaus eit will take two pair to beat him (top pair top kicker) In this case he had a lower pair, why would he ask about two pair?

@psand

I would like to try to answer this one, but the written word is so much more difficult, at times, to say something so here I go:

First and foremost, our English language, or is it the use thereof, is so bad that so often we fail to use full sentences such as, "Do you have two pair?"

Our use of an inflection to ask a question is so minor that people often do not realize they are being asked a question, especially in a room that can be noisey.

When a person asks, "Two pair?" and the other player mucks their hand thinking the person said they have two pair then the player that mucked their hand has failed to protect their hand and unfortunately the player that was doing the asking will win the pot. This is assuming there is enough of a witness testimony that the person was asking and not stating.

Above all things, it is the player's responsibility to protect their hand. (This statement is said with the understanding of all things already stated about ways in which a poker room will aid in the protecting of a player's hand.)[/quote]

One reason that I might be suspicious of this player claiming that it was a question, as say opposed to a deliberate attempt to mislead, is that usually a player asking if you have two pair asks becaus eit will take two pair to beat him (top pair top kicker) In this case he had a lower pair, why would he ask about two pair?[/quote]

For me, this will come down 100% to whether there are people who agree that the player was asking. I have seen many times when a player is asking they generally are asking what they are afraid the person has and are often taken by surprise when they are still beat but by not what they thought the person had. (I've done this and seen it many more times as a dealer.)

How would any of you dealers handle this situation if you were floor managers for the shift?

Here it goes...

2 players (player A and B) in a big NL hand, and the river card is dealt.

The pot is big... and player A leads out with a pot sized bet, about $900.

Player B goes into the tank for about a minute, lifting his cards, flicking them, typical pre-fold antics.

Player A is motionless.

Player B says "If I fold, will you show?"

Player A nods yes.

Player B says "nice hand," as he scoots his chair back and starts to stand up.

Player A shows his cards to the table and reaches for his bet and the dealer starts to push the pot to player A.

Then Player B says, "I call". Flipping over his superior hand.

Its a pretty easy call to make in my opinion, but it got many mixed reactions from the table.

I'm awarding he pot to the player B. But if player B has a history of antics like this I'm bringing him some empty racks because hes done playing.

Otherwise I'm keeping a close eye on him.

@VegasDailyPlayer

I have actually been called over for this type of incident in the past, and if in the dealer's opinion player A was asking if player B had two pair (in a questioning tone), then player A would not be penalized for revealing a lower hand. You see this a lot at the tables, and it IS the player's responsibilty to protect their hand. In my opinion, this is not angle shooting, but carelessness on player B's part for pre-mucking, especially when it is clear enough for the dealer and multiple players to interpret player A's tone as a question.

Just like we try to protect players from angle shooting, we don't want to encourage player B to take a shot at player A in the above incident by mucking, lets say a missed draw, and complaining that the only reason he folded a better pair than player A showed was because all he heard was "TWO PAIR".

When making any decisions on my shift, I listen to everything the dealer's and players at the table have to say and make the fairest decision possible - even if it goes against a standard ruling, our rules are simply our guidelines; and the TI management's goal is to make fair & consistent decisions in the best interest of the game, at all times.

Thank you Vegasdealer for your post! I am glad to hear that you willing to checking out our room again. You can find me Friday nights - Monday nights on graveyard (1am-9am). Looking forward to meeting you![/b]

Wow--it looks like I get to disagree with both Jessica and Psand at the same time!

Let's be sure we're clear about the situations. In Case 1, it's abundantly clear that Player A is an angle-shooter who deliberately miscalled his losing hand in order to trick Player B into mucking the winner. In Case 2, it's abundantly clear that Player A made an honest mistake (such as thinking he had a flush when none was possible, because his bad eyesight caused him to mistake a club for a spade for the 10th time in the night). In both cases, player B did not wait to see A's cards, but simply folded his cards face down and the dealer put them in the muck, following which A showed his hand and B realizes that he threw away the winner.

It seems that both Jessica and Psand are saying that they would give A the pot in Case 2 (because B should have protected his claim to the pot by waiting to see A's cards before mucking). And it seems that both are saying that in Case 1 they would award the pot to Player B (or, perhaps, split it), on the grounds that A's angle-shooting is a worse sin than B's failure to protect his hand. (Whether A would be asked to leave is a separate issue from who gets the pot.)

I have four sets of poker rules available to me that address this point (the TDA rules don't, really), and only one of them agrees with awarding the pot for either Case 1 or Case 2.

In The Professional Poker Dealer's Handbook by Paymar, Harris, and Malmuth, p. 18, we find this (emphasis in original):

1. Players must protect their own hands at all times. This
may be the most important rule in all of poker. A hand may be declared
"dead" if even one card touches the muck or if another player's card touches a
hand that is not protected.... Although the dealer should be aware of only
mucking discarded hands, a player who fails to take reasonable means to protect
his or her hand usually has no recourse if the hand becomes fouled or if the
dealer accidentally collects an unprotected hand.

While it is not necessary for the winner of a pot to show the hand if there
were no callers, it is suggested that the player protect the winning hand until
the dealer is actually pushing the pot to him. The dealer should not ask the
player to relinquish the winning hand before pushing the pot.

The same concept is expressed in Cooke's Rules of Real Poker, p. 75, rule 11.10:

A player with a hand he believes to be the winning hand is responsible to
hold onto his own hand until the pot is awarded. No player with an interest in
the pot should release his hand to the dealer until his portion of the pot has
been pushed to him.

Finally, we have "Robert's Rules of Poker," most recently Version 10 (found at numerous places around the Web, such as http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/poker/rrpprinter.php):

Cards speak (cards read for themselves). The dealer assists in reading hands,
but players are responsible for holding onto their cards until the winner is
declared.

The only exception I can find is the new Krieger/Bykovsky "The Rules of Poker," which, after language similar to the above, adds this:

5.23: Any player who deliberately miscalls as a ploy to induce an opponent to discard his hand is unethical. The player committing this breach of etiquette should forfeit his interest in the pot, although the decision ultimately is made by the floor supervisor, not the dealer.

Note that NO source would recommend splitting the pot.

So Jessica and Psand, are you aware that your position appears to be the minority view, and until the publication of Krieger's book recently, would have been supported by no standard rule book, as far as I can tell?

I'm also curious as to where you place the "burden of proof." In my statement of the cases above, I just specified that it was "abundantly clear" one way or the other. But what if it isn't? Do you start with the assumption that a miscalled hand is accidental (so that the pot goes to A), and have to be persuaded by the evidence that it was deliberate and award the pot to B, or do you start with the assumption that it was deliberate (with the pot therefore going to B), and have to be persuaded otherwise by the evidence in order to conclude that it was actually accidental and award the pot to A? Put another way, if it isn't perfectly clear one way or the other, who gets the pot?

Finally, do either of the rooms you work in actually have the rule governing this point formally adopted in writing? If so, could you share the wording of it with us? I'd be interested in how it compares to the published sources.

For the record, in case anybody cares, I think it makes most sense in this situation not to distinguish between Case 1 and Case 2 in terms of who gets the pot. (Whether you eject Player A is another matter, though.) I don't think Player B's responsibility is any different in the two situations. It doesn't make sense to me to, in effect, tell all the Player Bs of the world, "If it appears to you that when an opponent calls his hand and might be honestly mistaken, do not muck your cards before seeing your opponent's hand. But if you think he might be trying to trick you, it's safe to muck, then look to see what your opponent had." That seems like ludicrous advice--but it's exactly the message that you're conveying by making your rulings as you propose.

What if A never shows--just declares that he had a flush, waits for B to muck the winner, then mucks his own king-high quietly face-down and rakes in the chips? Now B has been cheated but never knows it. Your habit of ruling that B has no obligation to protect his interest in the pot from an angle-shooter (because you'll fish his cards out of the muck and protect it for him) actually encourages this in the long run. If every player learns that, regardless of the motivation of opponents, they must protect their hands and their interest in the pot, this particular form of angle-shooting will never succeed. When you teach, by your rules and decisions, to the contrary, in the long run you may encourage angle-shooting by making it more likely to succeed against players who have learned that the house will protect them when they didn't protect themselves.

If readers are interested in other stories in which players failed to protect their cards and/or claim to a pot, in circumstances other than a miscalled hand, check out
http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/09/ ... h-for.html
and
http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/09/ ... d-not.html

Actually the rule appears in Roberts Rules of Poker in the section on showdown

The professional Dealer's Handbook is not a rulebook and does not address many rules. the rules absence from that book is irrelevant.

So of the three rule books you actually cite. two of them have the rule we refer to. I do not have a copy of Cooke's

I will grant you that the Complete Poker Room by Chuck Ferry takes an opposite position.

So at best it is a 50-50 split on the published rule books. But every experienced floorperson i have discussed this issue with seems to agree that the hand can be declared dead if the conduct was believed to intentional.

You ask where do I put the burden of proof. Most floor people I have spoken with about this tend to consider this conduct to be intentional and will only vary from that position when there is reason for them to belive the conduct wasn't intentional. I have never heard the burden quantified as we do in legal settings, but I believe that floorpeople viewing the totallity fo the circumstances can generally get a feel for when someone is shooting an angle. Good floorpeople do not spend there time at the front desk or podium, they are moving around the room and watching the games, they watch and learn who their players are.

I agree that there will never be written a rule book that covers all possible situations.

In the case you describe, I think it's obviously different from a situation in which the dealer accidentally mucks a live hand. No, obviously 2 shouldn't be able to win the pot by killing 1's hand. But I don't see that a conclusion on that is enlightening on the question of the miscalled hand.

With the miscalled hand, whether intentional or not, opponents have a simple, 100% effective defense: let the cards speak for both hands and let the dealer kill the loser. (Yes, occasionally dealers kill the wrong hand in that situation, but that's usually easily remedied when both hands were turned up so everybody sees what they were, and the security cameras catch them as a final backup if needed.)

Putting a chip or other card protector on one's down cards is pretty close to 100% protection against a dealer accidentally mucking a live hand--at least in a couple thousand hours of play I've never seen a dealer muck a hand that was protected in that manner, so it may not be quite impossible, but it's awfully rare. So using a chip or other card protector is a reasonable thing to do. If a player doesn't take that simple, reasonable step, he usually has no recourse if the hand is accidentally mucked.

But we don't require that players take steps beyond what is reasonable. It is not reasonable to anticipate the kind of egregious action you're describing here, and guard against it by, e.g., keeping a hand firmly on one's hole cards at all times (particularly since this would cause other problems, such as everyone acting out of turn, because nobody could see who was still in the hand). Because a player doesn't have a simple, reasonable defense against this kind of aberrant action, nor any reason to anticipate that it might occur, it would be just as crazy to punish him for failing to, e.g., deck Player 2 before 2 could grab the cards, as to reward 2 for his affront.

That's not the case at all for the miscalled hand. Like the simple, reasonable, and effective defense against the accidental muck, players have a simple, reasonable, and effective defense against the miscalled hand. If they fail to avail themselves of it, it's too bad that they fell victim to either a scam or an honest mistake by an opponent, but the consequence, IMHO, has to be the same. Again, what you do to the player who miscalled the hand can reasonably differ based on your assessment of intention versus mistake, but not what happens to the pot.

BTW, for discussion of a scenario similar to yours, see
http://www.thehendonmob.com/tournament_ ... appen.html

Sorry, forgot a point.

Despite your disclaimer, you are saying that the "victim" player has no obligation to protect his interest in the pot. In the case of the intentionally miscalled hand, you're going to give the "victim" the pot whether he took the appropriate steps to protect his interest in the pot or not--right? That is, if he mucks the winner on the word of the angle-shooter, you're going to give him the pot, even if he didn't turn his hand face up for the dealer to read. Right?

If so, then the only possible conclusion is that you do not view that player as having an affirmative obligation to protect his interest in the pot, since he can fail to take steps to protect that interest, and still be awarded the pot. Your decision there transforms what I think is an obligation into a mere suggestion. If it were genuinely an obligation, then failure to live up to it would mean forfeiting the pot.

You can't say that he has an obligation if the consequences for him are the same whether he takes those "obligated" steps or not. That's a simple and straightforward question of what the word "obligation" means.

Here is the point and it seems clear to me. You have an obligation to protect your hand, but that doesn't mean that the failure to protect your hand must result in the loss of your hand.

if I'm dealing and the player in the 10 seat is putting his cards unprotected in a dangerous spot and I warn him to protect his cards and he continues to do this. Should his hand be automatically dead because he didn't protect his cards? of course not. the penalty for his failure to meet his obligation isn't that his hand is dead, its that he takes the chance that his hand will be killed without recourse.

In the case of a player throwing away his hand because of his opponent deliberately miscalled his hand that player is taking a risk. He may end up losing a pot but I don't see why you don't think that the conduct of deliberately miscalling your hand is not severe enough to warrant the penalty of losing the pot.

Do you even believe that deliberately miscalling your hand is unethical and/or inappropriate behavior?

Of course it's unethical and inappropriate. But not all unethical and/or inappropriate conduct results in forfeiture of the pot. If I swear at an opponent and call him a moron and question the legitimacy of his parentage, that's unethical and inappropriate, and may well result in warnings, expulsion from the room, etc. But it doesn't mean that the opponent gets the pot if I show down the best hand after my verbal tirade.

I don't think your argument above about consequences for failing an obligation is cogent. You seem to be thinking that my idea of "obligation" means that failure to fulfill it must result in some sort of penalty automatically. I don't think that, nor have I said that. Your analogy is a sound one: a player who habitually fails to meet his obligation to protect his cards runs the risk that sooner or later his hand will accidentally get mucked or fouled. Similarly, a player who habitually fails to take the expedient of seeing his opponent's cards before concluding that he has the losing hand and mucking it, runs the risk that sooner or later he will muck the winner, either because of an angle-shooter or because of an opponent's honest mistake.

But you can't seriously call something an "obligation" if you're willing to reverse what would otherwise be the consequences of it. If, e.g., you had a policy of returning the cards to a player when the dealer accidentally mucked an unprotected hand, then you couldn't seriously maintain that you consider players to have an obligation to protect their hands. If you shield players from the consequences of failing to live up to an "obligation" then it's not an obligation at all, but merely a suggestion.

You are suggesting that players protect their interest in the pot by verifying what an opponent says his hand is before mucking (and/or by always turning his hand face up for the dealer to read). If he doesn't do this, you'll bail him out of the consequences anyway--at least when you judge the opponent's action to have been deliberate. That is simply not an "obligation" by any reasonable definition. It's a recommendation about what the player *should* do to protect his interest in the pot, not a statement of what he *must* do to protect his interest in the pot.

In regards to the line "should his hand automatically dead...." , how many times do you warn the player? I think if after warning the player, at some point should someone go to muck their hand and it comes in contact with that players unprotected hand it damn well better be declared dead. I don't think some of these players will ever learn any other way, if then. I never realized that dealers were suppose to be baby sitters for adults (sounds kinda too kinky to me). I have seen dealers continue to place a chip on a players cards for them because they have failed to heed a warning regarding protecting their hand, however in reading the dealers handbook I do not remember that chapter. If the dealer explains to the player that they need to protect their hand and explains how to do it, then the player should be on their own. What is the old saying about leading a house to water?

One other thing that I have been seeing a lot of is players who refuse to show their hand when they are first to show after a called final bet. At one of the larger rooms the other night, a player was so bad about not wanting to show whenever he had been called it came to a point that the floor had to be called in to get the player to reveal his hand. The dealer continued to tell the player that they had to show first but the player would just hold on to their cards. Okay, lets hear how the rooms around town and the dealers handle this problem. Does it ever reach a point that the player is penalized or removed from the game for this type of action?

We already know that I disagree that just because cards touch a unprotected hand that they are dead..... But taht was not what i was talking about here. I was talking about the idea that the hand is dead merely because it is unprotected. I seriously doubt that even you would go so far as to take that position.

Inany event in response to Rakewell, I agree that the player deliberately miscalling his hand and causing a player to muck a would be winner can be handled in other ways besides killing the hand. However that is a pretty old standard rule and though it is not commonly used I suspect that most experienced floorpeople are familiar with it. As a player I would not be upset if a room did not use that rule if instead they threw the angle shooter out.

@Rakewell Hmm, this can get fun. This is another tangent, but since this has evolved into the piss and moan and gripe thread, I'll mention that I did that recently. First time I've ever done so. Was disappointed I didn't manage to get tossed.

Mullet Head is determined to imagine that someone at the table might possibly want to think about getting excited by his trashy girlfriend seated behind him. Eventually decides it must be me. Won't be moved off this hand, and continues this fantasy for about two orbits.

“Whachoo lookin' at my girl for now?”

“Huh? Bet is to you, sir.”

“Whacha lookin' at again, thaz my girl.”

“Uh, that's a bet; so were you wanting to call it, raise, or fold already?”

“Don't you keep lookin' at my woman.”

Now, the thought of ever getting frisky with this trailer dwelling alcoholic pissant's morbidly fat, pathetically stupid, sweaty, tattooed piece of rancid lard with a sore on it's neck, which is apparently accustomed to being kept chained to the back of his chair, just makes my skin crawl. But he wants to pursue this fantasy that someone at the table other than him would think of the brain dead porcine presence behind him as a sex object.

“Don't you be checkin' my lady; I'll f#@& you up, b^&@$.”

“Well sir, while you're contemplating your bet, I'll tell you that I'd rather stick my d@#% into a stinking dung heap than that particular piece of diseased livestock, but I see you keep yourself pretty trim, so if you'd like to drop your shorts and bend over the table I'm willing to f@%& you in the a%% right now while you continue to think about it.”

I never do that at the table, or anywhere else. I'm just not that way. Don't believe there's any upside to challenging a pig to a mud wrestling contest. But it's what I finally did. I'm not any too proud of it, but in the process I was really disappointed to rediscover that it's apparently impossible to get tossed from the poker room. It shouldn't have surprised me, because I've seen this type of thing go on without any response all night long at plenty of rooms of all classes in all parts of town, but I was really looking forward to both of us getting involuntarily racked up and cashed out. Didn't happen. Only thing I didn't get to hear from Mr. Vacationing Toasterbrain was the ever popular “I lost a hunert an' twenty-six dollahs in this casino so I can say/do whatever I want” after the customary weak indirect mention of language directed at nobody in particular. Mullet busted out on the next hand, and prolly went out to knock over another convenience store or pimp his chattel to get up another buy in.

So it goes.

And now I'm just venting a bit of a rant. I was treated to another example last night night in another place which is in some ways even worse. It came from a mean crude abusive and breathtakingly stupid man, clearly well into the ugly process of dying of alcoholism as well as obviously destroying himself through other means including his pathological sick gambling, fond of threats of physical violence towards other players and vulgar sexual insults directed at women serving him and making a living as dealers at his table. He also managed to vaporize more than four racks at a small stakes fixed limit table, which is really hard to do, and that is what kept the game from breaking because of him. But this one was really disturbing, even as he dumped chips and rebought, because the particular cretin in question is actually the manager of a poker room on the Strip owned by one of the two largest gaming enterprises in the world. Not one of their premier poker operations at all, but still... At least he says he is, and has been for about a month, and I'm pretty sure I believe it is true. This scene did not occur in or around Las Vegas. I played for eleven hours last night at a place well outside of Las Vegas in southern Nevada, and this character was there for the weekend. What must his room be like? Could it be related to why it is apparently not doing well and dealers have been seeking other opportunities, according to some things I've read here? I've never played in the place he is apparently working. But wow, just wow, he is in poker management, albeit not at a high level, and he really can't comport himself at a table. He also really sucks at poker, doesn't get it at all, and that is what kept everyone keeping him at the table, even though he would have gotten kicked out of a scummy dive bar on Fremont with a permanent trespass order long ago. He was worth about four fish.

If I have any point, I guess I'm thinking this is exactly the area which need not be rules based, and I'm wondering whatever happened to the concept of an enterprise on private property making a simple business decision to refuse service, simply because it is in their best interests to do so. I have the feeling that it is sometimes treated as if it requires some standard of proof or justification, rather than a simple matter of the appropriate exercise of a business judgment, and that is no way to run that particular railroad. I did once have a conversation with the shift manager of one local room affiliated with a large chain of casinos which went something like this: "How'd it go tonight?" "Not bad, but that guy sure is way over the top, isn't he?" "Yeah, he's killing our business tonight." "Well, you want to keep him here then?" "Uh, we have the authority, but I'm supposed to get it approved, or if I do it on my own I really have to justify why I didn't to cover my..." Ugh.

Wow it only took eight pages of replies and responses, but we do finally agree on something. But, by the same token if action gets around to that hand and its still laying there unprotected, I would like to think that the dealer is going to muck it and not waste time asking the player what his intentions are. Otherwise, that player will continue to slow the game down by not protecting their hand. I've seen how quick players learn to drop a chip on their hand, once they have had a unprotected hand mucked. Amazing how fast they grow up when you quit treating them like a baby.

Huh? Just because a light is shone upon the problems that we run across it now becomes the piss, moan and gripe thread?

Still waiting to hear some input regarding this part of one of my recent posts

@VegasDailyPlayer [/quote]

Back in the day when I was a dealer - this was one of the things where I did not follow the house rule.

The house rule was, the standard, last to bet or raise was to show first and in the event there were all checks on the final round then left of the button (or high on board for stud).

But as I said I refused to even state this rule and I am not saying what I did was right and would not want any dealer that works for me doing it... again this is simply how I chose to handle the situation....

Final round of betting/checking is done... no one wants to show their cards... someone at the table will say something like "Dealer! Make someone show their cards!" My response would be to lean back into my chair and say "I am not a baby-sitter, you guys want to hold up the game because you don't want to show your cards, go ahead." And then I would just sit there.

The other tactic I would use is to simply say, "Someone has 5 seconds to show their hand at which point I will assume no one wants this pot and you are giving it to me." I would then start to bunch the pot up smaller and smaller to make easier to pick up.

IF someone at the table demanded to know what the rule is I would tell them and then say to the person, it is up to you either to show your cards or muck them.

I really hated this situation, because it is so childish, that after announcing the pot is right and asking who wants the money I would just sit there and make the announcement that I am not a baby-sitter when someone would demand that I make someone show their cards.

Occasionally nothing would get anyone to expose their hand so I would call for a decision and let the manager on duty do whatever they wanted.

These situations only happened when two or more of a certain type of individual was in a game - I am not stereotyping and saying all people of this type did this - but the type that would do this fit into one of two types of categories:

Category A: older person - I want to say 50+ but it might be more likely to be 60+ (especially since I am almost 50 I hate to think of that as an older person )

Category B: grungy railbird who managed to borrow enough money for a minimum buy-in (or managed to find a sucker that would stake them in the game)

Both types are also local, regular players (or railbirds)

When this happens to me .... at the river the players both refuse to show I'll look at the player who is to shoiw first and ask them to show or muck. If they don't, the next words out of my mouth are if "If no one one wants this pot, I'll take it" that almost always gets the cards over. I've only had to call a floor for this once.

As a player I don't get involved in this nonsense. If I think I won my hand is turned over immediately regardless of who is supposed to turn over there cards first. If not I'll wait briefly, if the other guy isn't showing thenthen flip over my cards and announce what I have as though its the nuts. "Eight High....Ship It!" which usually at least gets a chuckle.

I would add that today I find its a younger crowd more into the I'm not showing my cards first thing. These are generally the same people who ask to see mucked hands.

Didn't mean that in a bad way, VDP. I think it serves a useful function. I'm in favor of some pissing and moaning and griping on occasion. I do, after all, seem to have a few posts along those lines here myself.@VegasDailyPlayer

Huh? Just because a light is shone upon the problems that we run across it now becomes the piss, moan and gripe thread?[/quote]