Proliferation Problems

I turned 65 a few weeks ago. At that age, I am supposed to be thinking the world is going to the dogs, and yearn for the wonderful days of yesteryear. However, being a poker player, one has to acknowledge that times have never been this good. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that finishing 276th in a poker tournament would be an accomplishment, or that poker books several years old would be selling even better than when they first came out. Life is wonderful. But being a curmudgeon, I have to find something in poker to grouse about. Hence, this column.



When there is huge expansion in a sport, there are not enough trained people to staff all the new facilities. For poker in the last couple of years, I have seen some unbelievable actions taken by poker dealers and floorpeople. Let me start with the dealers. Here are some things that I saw at this year's World Series of Poker.



The chips in front of a player are not supposed to be handled by the dealer. This goes for both tournament and money play. At my table, when we were coming off a break, the dealer reached into a player's stack before the player arrived and did some change-making. It appeared to me that the dealer had made an even trade when he made change. But when the player got there, he became very upset, and said he was missing about $12,000. A floorperson was called, and there was a big to-do about it. The upshot was that the player received $12,000 in chips from the house. He had more than $300,000, so the extra chips in his stack were not critical, but it was still an unpleasant thing to have happen. Had the dealer not made change when the player was absent, the incident never would have occurred.



Early in a tournament, I was sitting in the last seat next to the dealer. A player had a big chip from making a rebuy. Saying nary a word to me, the dealer placed the chip in front of me and proceeded to help himself to change from my chips. I, and many other players, do not like to have only a few chips in front of me. It makes me feel poorer than I am, and also means I may have to make change when betting, instead of putting in the proper amount right away. If I feel the need to bluff, I would much rather pick up a stack of chips and smoothly cut them into a pot than throw one chip into the middle and ask for some change. If I have lots of chips, I will change up a bigger chip – someone needs to do it – but not if I have an average amount or less. I had less than the average size stack when the dealer helped himself to my chips without permission, so I handed him back the chip he had given me and asked for my own chips back. He gave them to me without objecting out loud, but shot me a look that said, "You're really being a jerk about this." I returned the glare.



It can be extremely important in no-limit hold'em tournament play that you know how much money a player has in front of him. You can ask; the normal phrasing used being the familiar, "How deep are you?" With a bad dealer, instead of hearing the answer from the player, the dealer pre-empts the answer and tells you. Unless the asking player is handicapped in some way, I do not think the dealer ought to tell him. For example, a guy like me who stacks his chips in neat little columns needs only to move his hands out of the way and give the player an unimpeded view. Also, sometimes when you ask, you are contemplating what to do and want to get some kind of reaction out of the opponent. For example, maybe a guy who says "not much" will be minimizing the risk to you and is hoping to get called. What I am hoping to point out is that this is a player-to-player situation in which the dealer seldom needs to interject his presence.



On top of everything else, the dealer sometimes makes a major mistake in the count. Does the player who receives misinformation from the dealer have any redress? No. Am I obligated to speak up if the dealer gives out bad info on my chip count? Probably not, but sometimes the misinformation is hurtful to me rather than helpful. For example, if the dealer answers that my stack is "about 10 thousand" and I have closer to 20 thousand, I can be damaged if bluffing, because the player is presumably more likely to call a smaller amount. If I have a big hand, and the dealer says I have 20 thousand when I have only a little more than 10 thousand, the player may be intimidated into folding. Notice that if I correct the dealer, my opponent gains information simply by virtue of the fact that I chose to speak up rather than remain silent. Dealers, I know you mean well, but it is not your responsibility to automatically answer for the player in this situation. Most of the time, your silence is golden.



During this year's WSOP, I experienced an incident with a dealer that is the first of its type in my whole poker career. I was sitting next to the dealer and made a bet, and a player asked me how deep I was. Instantly, the dealer reached into my chips and started cutting out stacks! I told him to get his hands off my chips. He had the effrontery to tell me that the dealer controller (DC) had told the dealers that this was what they were supposed to do in this situation. I went up to the DC after the hand and inquired about this, as I could not believe what he said. The DC was Susan Phillips, who knows her job well. She reassured me that nothing of the kind had been said to any dealers, and that she would have a word with this fellow as soon as he went on a break.



A few minutes later, Tournament Director Johnny Grooms came over to the table. He called me aside and said that it had been reported by the dealer that I had used a forbidden word to describe his hands. I admitted that in my anger, the word had been used. Johnny told me I would have to take a short break from the game. This was the first time I had ever gotten a penalty suspension from a tournament.



To show you how my mind works, I am curious whether the word I said was in this context used as a participle or a gerund. I know that my good friend Max Shapiro will be able to tell me. He knows English very well – and perhaps hears that word on occasion from you know who …



There is an expression, "There is no such thing as a free lunch." The poker boom is a feast, but it is not completely without cost. Many of today's dealers need better training.

Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books, Middle Limit Holdem Poker (available at www.CardPlayer.com), Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Holdem Poker. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons: e-mail [email protected]. His website is http://www.pokercoach.us/, where you can get his rulebook, Robert's Rules of Poker, for free.