A Pitch - For the Best in Customer Service

One of the most harmful habits a poker dealer can develop is a bad pitch. Bad pitches come in a variety of forms, two of the most common being "the knuckleball" and the angled deck. The former – a pitch you didn't used to see much, but one that's on the rise of late as industry expansion continues to strain and thin the dealer pool – occurs when the cards aren't really pitched at all but are simply flung, producing a flutter effect that lifts the cards at the edges and exposes their corners. The latter practice occurs when the dealer tilts the deck at an angle while pitching instead of keeping it flat, thereby enabling players in certain seats to catch a quick glimpse of cards being pitched to certain other seats. Although the particulars vary as to which seats benefit and which suffer – depending on whether the dealer is a righty or a lefty, a "knuckler" or a "tilter" – the situation is inherently inequitable for the simple reason that the information isn't equally available. Some seats are in position for a peek, while others are in the dark.

No one, of course, pitches knuckleballs because he wants to; show me a dealer who throws "floaters" and I'll show you someone who's either poorly trained or is just all thumbs. On the other hand, some very talented dealers are deck tilters. The major temptation for tilting the pitch is that it promotes speed – enabling a dealer without proper technique to deal as fast as one who keeps it straight and low, or a nimble dealer to kick it up an extra notch. There's an irony here, in that it's often the more conscientious dealers, seeking to improve, who fall into this trap, seduced by the extra speed and crispness it seems to bring to their routine. The irony grows as these better-than-average dealers, who otherwise perform their duties quite well, find themselves lauded for their efficiency by players and floor personnel alike, who fail to make the distinction between "pure" speed and that which has come at the cost of proper technique. Although their diligence may have been misdirected, these are people who take pride in their work; is it any wonder, then, that dealers who are proud of their prowess in the box often resist and chafe at the idea that they're guilty of such a lapse?

Unfortunately, while it's true that only rarely are such slip-ups so blatant as to cause both of a player's cards to be clearly exposed, the sad fact is that it's pretty common nowadays to sit down in a game in which players in some seats are routinely put at risk by dealers whose pitch affords other players a glimpse of several cards coming off the deck – a glimpse clear enough to distinguish facecards from nonfaces and to determine their color. The disadvantage to a player whose holdings are thus partially revealed is almost impossible to overstate. The truth is, there isn't a hold'em player alive – and that includes every formidable name listed in the Player of the Year Standings at the back of this magazine – who I couldn't own if I were regularly tipped off as to the color or picture status of one of his holecards. Of course, the big boys don't need me to worry about them; observant players with table awareness tend to notice little things like when their cards are being exposed, just as they tend to put a stop to such things immediately if not sooner. It's the average Joe at the low and middle limits who's much more likely to get burned by a sloppy Joe in the box and a hawkeye Joe two seats down. But even the average Joe has means at his disposal with which to protect himself; he can keep his eyes peeled and be on the lookout for such situations. Unfortunately, there are some patrons to whom even that basic defense is unavailable – like the senior player, whose eyes may simply not be what they once were. Indeed, of all those put at risk by carelessly pitched cards, no one pays a bigger price than the senior player. It isn't just that the younger cats are better equipped to spot flashed cards than their elders, but that the gray panthers' diminished visual acuity robs them of the ability to even know that their cards are being exposed in the first place.

Any way you slice it, keeping the cards low is clearly one of the dealer's most important duties. What's often less clear, however, is whose responsibility it is to ensure that this and other dealer duties are effectively carried out. In many cardrooms, no formal mechanism exists for the monitoring of dealer performance. It's simply taken as a given that floor personnel will address any problems that crop up; the trouble is that poker's a volume business, and very little of a floorperson's time (especially in big, busy rooms) is devoted to actually watching the games. The business of supervision – of determining when a review of procedures is necessary and/or supplementary training called for – is a gray, vaguely defined area; it's often unclear just whose job it is, if indeed it's anyone's job at all. Unfortunately, without a well-defined, official channel to address such problems, especially ones that occur all the time, it's all but guaranteed the problems will remain.

Here's a case in point: The other day I walked into a cardroom I hadn't visited in about 18 months, and immediately found myself in a game in which the dealer was angling his pitch in the same problematic manner described above – which is to say, exactly the same way he'd been doing it 18 months earlier. As I waited for the blinds to pass, I couldn't help but wonder how many bets had been lost and how many outcomes altered by a year and a half's worth of exposed cards. Obviously, I wanted the flash routine to stop, but suspecting that he might take offense at a criticism tendered by someone who hadn't yet entered the game, I decided to wait until I'd been dealt a few hands, at which point I politely observed that he was tilting the deck and asked him to be more careful. His response – that I was just nitpicking because I was losing – seemed slightly nutty given the fact that I hadn't so much as played a hand, or even set foot in the place in a year and half … but never mind about that. The point of the story is that (a) poor performance doesn't fix itself; and (b) for a variety of reasons, dealers often resist being "educated" by players. In order to achieve and maintain professional standards of dealer performance, there must be communication with the dealers, and that communication needs to start with management and supervisory personnel.

Furthermore, cardrooms need to establish in-house systems for periodic review and education, as well as the opportunity for brush-ups in training. That may sound grandiose, but it's actually pretty simple; it requires neither extra personnel nor the appointment of a "dealer czar." It does, however, require that certain ideas and logistical realities of the cardroom be considered and addressed – which I'll do next issue.