Kill the Dealer

Many centuries ago, an ill-tempered Egyptian queen received some news that wasn't to her liking, and she reacted by executing the bearer of the bad tidings. Since messengers were considered easily replaceable, they were viewed as appropriate scapegoats for the venting of one's royal displeasure. Unfortunately for those whose full-time job was conveying such messages for the ruling class, this practice caught on, and thus was born the fabled tradition of "killing the messenger of bad news."

Fast-forward to the Middle Ages, when the general attitude toward those in the heraldry business had changed. Since first-rate message service required an exceptional memory (envoys between royal courts were often expected to remember lengthy, detailed reports, and to convey them word for word), quality messengers were held in high regard, no matter how upsetting the content of their dispatches. A herald from the French court, for example, could recite a scripted insult to the King of England, complete with elaborate disparagements regarding the king's, shall we say, immediate ancestry, and although such a message might provoke a declaration of war, the messenger would be thanked for his services, sent on his way, and guaranteed safe passage on his return to France. After all, it was the messenger's boss whom the king wanted to wipe off the face of the earth, and not the messenger, and it was considered uncivilized to lose sight of such distinctions. Of course, a devastating casualty report from the battlefield could still make them lose their tempers on occasion, at which point some poor slob who was only doing his job would have his head taken off – literally.

These days, of course, we think of such a mindset as barbaric. Centuries of enlightened thought have refined us to the point where we would never dream of holding an innocent human being responsible for the events he was merely reporting – and had no hand in shaping. Can you imagine the president issuing an order to execute Dan Rather for reporting a high unemployment rate? Of course not. In fact, it's hard to imagine any 21st-century representative of the human species to be so primitive as to be incapable of distinguishing the news from the messenger – or so confused as to think that the latter should be blamed for the former.

Unless, of course, you take a trip to your local cardroom.

Isn't this exactly the mindset at work when people blame the dealer for the river card that beats them? These players who hold the dealer personally responsible for their own poor results, who fling their cards at dealers, who curse them and accuse them of multiple counts of premeditated murder ("This dealer always kills me!"), and then direct threatening stares at them, stares of bitter contempt and even downright hatred – how are their reactions fundamentally different from that medieval bully who perceived the message carrier as the source of his woes, and who sought to vent his frustrations on some poor peasant who didn't cause them?

To all of you who indulge yourselves in such impulses, listen up: The dealer is the messenger. He is not the message itself. He is not the news, nor its author; he simply brings the news. He's not the one who sent you that summons for jury duty in the mail; he's merely the one who delivered it.

The cards he delivers are not by his design, his plan, or his scheme, nor is he part of a sinister conspiracy to bring you bad luck.

Do you really think otherwise? If so, we've got a few other questions for you. When the morning edition of the financial page brings bad news regarding the value of your stocks, do you point the finger of blame – at the paperboy? If your marriage isn't working out, do you throw a tantrum at the person who introduced you to your spouse? Or curse the minister who performed the wedding ceremony? If, heaven forbid, a good friend of yours were to pass away before his time, would you blame the person who wrote the obituary?

Sounds pretty silly, doesn't it? Not to mention dimwitted and featherbrained – oh, what the heck, let's mention it.

Likewise, to perceive the dealer as the creator of one's bad outcome is to indulge in the most mindless, primitive brand of superstition, and those who allow themselves to be dominated by it ought to be embarrassed. Randomness, after all, plays a large role in the Scheme of Things – in the universe, in life, and in the short term of poker. In the long term, the percentages will prevail, but along the way, the turn of any given card in any given hand is a matter of indiscriminate chance. To view the dealer as the embodiment of mystical forces that are "for me" or "against me" is to live in prehistoric denial of these elementary truths. Honestly, sometimes we wonder what else such superstitious folk must be "thinking." Do they perceive electricity as some kind of magic? Do they think their keys fit into their locks because the gods are in a good mood and have smiled down on them? When they leave the cardroom, how do they find their way back to their caves – oops, their homes at night?

If you think we're laying it on too thick, try to imagine how thick it gets for these poor dealers. Day after day, they are taunted and mocked for the messages they carry – not from the King of England or the Queen of Egypt, but from the King of Clubs or the Queen of Spades, or whatever card it is that didn't happen to fit someone's hand. Try to imagine the toll that takes, how draining it must be, week after week, month after month.

And don't get us wrong – we're not bleeding hearts who confuse a place of business with some sort of self-esteem workshop for its employees, and we don't think dealers should be coddled or exempted from their responsibilities. When a player's interests are compromised by dealer mistakes that result from carelessness, inattention, or indifference to following proper procedure, it is entirely appropriate to register one's dissatisfaction to the dealer, and if necessary, to his supervisor. After all, those kinds of mistakes are within the dealer's power to control. But blaming a dealer for that which is utterly beyond his control – by any sane measure – is not only an irrational act, but an act of aggression, as well.

Of course, some of you who are reading this won't be convinced. You'll still be inclined to blame the dealer, perhaps a little more "politely." In fact, it may well be that appealing to the reason of those governed by superstition is itself a futile, delusional act. If so, let us try a quick appeal to your vanity instead: What image do you think you project when you whine in such an empty-headed, ignorant fashion? Do you think your fellow players perceive you as a real sharpie? As a formidable opponent of consummate discipline and skill whose play they must respect, and against whom they tangle at their own peril?

Yeah, sure they do – talk about delusional. But if getting the news that your opponents don't take you seriously makes you squirm uncomfortably – hey, don't blame us. We're only the messengers.