Good Reader Tip From Accidentally Low Tipper

Reader letters often prompt thinking that helps me with my own game and occasionally provide fodder to help you do the same, so I encourage you to write in. Don't worry that you're "bothering" me. I might not always be able to take the time for an in-depth analysis, but you'll hear from me, and if you don't, write back and shame me into a reply. Usually when that happens, I provide a much more in-depth answer than I would have the first time, out of guilt.

This issue, Lewis Kopp, a reader from near my old stomping grounds (he's from Massapequa Park, New York, and I'm from neighboring Massapequa), has asked a couple of questions worthy of analysis.

In the first, he wanted to know about tipping dealers, and told the following tale:

"I recently took first place in a $60 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament (with rebuys/add-ons) at an East Coast casino. It paid $4,100 and I tipped the dealers $100. The facial expression I received from the floorperson was clearly one of displeasure. Looking back, my tip might have been low, but I was not sure what was customary. Surely, I am aware of the standard 15 percent-18 percent for a waitress, but that seemed excessive. Can you recommend something?"

I told Lewis what most experienced tournament players know, that 3 percent is considered customary, 3.5 percent is just fine, and anything in the 4 percent or higher range is quite nice. Lots of times when I win, my brain is so fried that I ask for a calculator so I'll know what 3 percent is, and then I usually round it up a bit. Lewis had tipped 2.4 percent, which was a bit on the low side. He also could have asked what was usual (although we'll see in a moment that this approach doesn't always work). What Lewis did wasn't nearly as bad, I think, as the floorperson's reaction.

I don't know about you, but when I voluntarily give money to someone to whom I'm not required to give a single cent, and get a sour face in return, my reaction is to feel like an idiot for having tipped one red cent. The only reason I wouldn't stiff the same place the next time out is that I understand that most of the money isn't going to the floorperson with the poor judgment, but to the dealers, who rarely make as much dealing tournaments as they do dealing cash games.

How about this for an alternate reaction: "Thanks, Mr. Kopp, we appreciate it, but in case you didn't know, 3 percent (which in this case would have been a whopping $23 more – properly rounded to $25 more) is considered fairly standard in the industry. The money goes not just to the dealers, but to the floor staff, too. We're happy with 3 percent, although lots of players will tip 4 percent and even sometimes 5 percent."

That answer educates, probably elicits at least another $25, and possibly another $60 (which would have made the tip 4 percent), and doesn't leave someone who just won feeling bad on the drive home. Lewis was so new to this that he was asking me if 15 percent might be expected! He didn't deserve a sour face for that.

As for a tournament staff that puts out a "tips" jar or envelope in an event in which 3 percent has already been taken out, I think that's pretty low, unless it clearly states, "3 percent has already been taken out for the dealers, we appreciate your extra generosity."

Floorpeople should also be honest about what is customary. A friend told me about a former World Series of Poker floorman who responded to a question about what was usual and customary by saying, "Well, we gotta take care of our people; most folks give at least 5 percent, sometimes 7 percent." I had liked this floorman until I heard about that one. I lost all respect for him after that. I know a fair number of people who tip 5 percent. That doesn't make it right to tell a novice that that's the standard.

In follow-up conversation, Lewis expressed curiosity about whether everyone should tip, or just the winner. Yes, everyone should tip, if they win money. Sometimes tournaments that are anxious to spread the prize pools thin wind up giving out "prizes" that are smaller than the buy-ins. While it might be classy to tip in such a situation, I don't know that I have that much class. I'm fairly sure (but I could be wrong) that when I "won" $8,800 for finishing in the money in the $10,000 buy-in Tunica event a few years ago, I didn't tip, because I had bought in for cash. Had I won my way in from a satellite, I might have felt differently. I think the answer to such problems is to make sure that prizes always exceed the buy-in.

Lewis made another good comment. He said he had a hard time envisioning Chris Moneymaker tipping $75,000 after winning $2.5 million at the WSOP. I told him such a tip would indeed be appropriate, but the situation was complicated, because Moneymaker had sold 40 percent of himself (20 percent to his dad and 20 percent to a friend). In such situations, I think the player and backers should agree in advance that in the event of a score, an appropriate tip will come from everyone's share. (I don't know what happened in Chris' situation; my guess is, he tipped little, because money was already taken out by Binion's, which would have been appropriate.)

If the players involved haven't thought things out that far in advance, I believe the winner should pay the full tip. Casino employees shouldn't be stiffed because of backing deals. The winner should simply give the backers 97 percent (or 96 percent, if he tipped 4 percent himself) of their share. If the backers balk, well, the permutations start getting complicated.

Lewis' second question involved an old column of mine, wherein I had discussed the relative merits of going all in with A-K suited against A-K. It was a hypothetical situation I'd created, because it assumed you knew your opponent had exactly A-K offsuit and that he wouldn't fold.

I took the position that when it was late, a good player would not want to risk his whole stack with this small edge, because the A-K suited hand was only a 5 percent favorite. Lewis wrote, quite insightfully:

"My area of interest is in your example of A K vs. A K. I understand your point of mentioning the small 5 percent edge and how it is not worth risking your full chip stack. However, what I believe is missing from this example is that while the suited player has a small edge, his chances of losing the hand are extremely small. The offsuit player can win with only either four hearts or four diamonds on board. Given the overwhelming likely outcome that they will push on the hand, I would think that a strong bet is in order."

As I wrote in my response to Lewis, "Nice catch!" I was so caught up in explaining the principle that you don't want to risk your whole stack with small edges (unless you are a relatively inexperienced player who needs to gamble) that I missed the forest for the trees. Lewis is right. While the edge for winning is fairly small, the A-K offsuit wins the hand outright 2.17 percent of the time, and the A-K suited wins 7.16 percent of the time. That means that of the hands in which there is a decision, the A-K suited is a 3.3-1 favorite, and that means it's clearly correct to make the play.

My excuse – and probably the reason I didn't get a lot more mail about it – is that I had created an impossible hypothetical situation. It's quite unlikely that you'd get a look at your opponent's cards, but what makes the hypothetical so impractical is that it's so hard to know for sure that your opponent will call. Naturally, every time you get him to fold, the play is right by a huge margin.

For honest players, the situation comes up only when an opponent has inadvertently flashed his cards. Don't be leaning back in your chairs trying to spot your opponent's cards! That's cheating, whether you like to think of it that way or not. Every once in a blue moon an opponent might inadvertently expose, though, and when he does, it makes your all-in move trivially easy. You'll split most of the time, you'll win nearly three-fourths of the decisions, and you'll win more often than you may think when your opponent folds, because A-K is not such a hot all-in calling hand. It is an underdog to each and every pair, even those rotten little deuces.

True, it's not much of an underdog unless it's up against K-K or A-A, but if you're not anxious to play coin flips when you're a small favorite, you sure aren't when you're a small underdog, and every time a television announcer calls one of those A-K vs. Q-Q hands a "coin flip," I want to scream at the TV, "I don't know about your coin flips, but mine win more than 43 percent of the time!"

You make up for those situations when you find yourself all in against someone with A-Q (or worse), and because the all-in bettor is quite often hoping to win with his bet rather than his hand, you will find yourself up against hands weaker than A-K quite often. This part of the equation, then, isn't so clear.

If you do happen to accidentally spot your opponent's cards, you can thank Mr. Kopp for knowing the right play: Move in, baby, and fast!

Andrew N.S. Glazer, "The Poker Pundit," is Card Player's tournament editor, and he writes a weekly gambling column for The Detroit Free Press. He is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Poker (Alpha Books, September 2004), Casino Gambling the Smart Way (Career Press, 1999), and Tournament Poker With the Champions (Huntington Press, spring 2005). He is a consultant to www.PartyPoker.com, and welcomes your questions.