Blogging about a blog
I am about to blog about another person’s blog. Yep, I am a retard.
Aaron’s Baseball Blog, which I don’t usually read but was linked to by another blog I do read on a regular basis, covered tipping when playing at a poker room here. Its a nice detailed trip report which I really appreciated, but his tipping comments just surprised me.
Its a long trip report, so here is the tipping section.
One thing I experienced that I wasn’t expecting was the tipping. Apparently a player is supposed to tip the dealer after every substantial pot they win, which seems absolutely ridiculous to me. First of all, the dealer has nothing to do with the cards you are dealt. They shuffle the deck (and sometimes a machine even does it for them) and deal the cards, but unless they are cheating they have no say in who gets what cards. So why should I have to give them a buck or two out of what is usually a pot less than $30? It makes no sense.
Yet the dealers all expect it and, for whatever reason, the players buy into it. At one point we had a dealer who suddenly started dealing extremely slowly, passing out each card with an exaggerated motion and sort of lofting them through the air to each player. Someone asked him why he was dealing so slow (there was a bad beat jackpot that ended soon) and he said, “I don’t deal fast if I don’t get paid.” Now, keep in mind that this guy is obviously “getting paid.” He has a job as a dealer in a card room, for which I’m sure he makes a decent wage for the skills required.
But there he was, performing horribly at the job he is being paid to do, and he is doing it on purpose. And why? Because the players at the lowest-stakes table in the entire place had the nerve not to “tip” him $1 every time they won a $20 pot. Of course, immediately after he said that, people began tipping him, which is even more ridiculous. In what other line of work can you intentionally perform horribly, tell people you are performing horribly because you aren’t being given extra money from the people whose experience is lessened because of your horrible performance, and then expect them to immediately begin giving you money.
If I was more of a jerk I would have gotten up from the table and told someone in charge what was going on, because I honestly think the dealer’s actions were a fireable offense. If you are paid to deal cards and you have been hired because you presumably deal them well, you should be fired if you intentionally deal them poorly while trying to blackmail the customers out of money. I was under the impression that people get tipped because they work hard, but apparently they just work hard because they get tipped.
Here is a guy who has probably been blogging about poker longer than I have known hold’em existed, and he has never heard about the standard tipping in a poker room? The rake and tipping seem to be a common complaint for low limit live players. Not because they are against tipping, but at low limit, a $1 tip/pot plus the rake/time charge can take a hefty bite out of your winnings.
Sounds like one of the dealers was being a jerk, but I am sure if Aaron didn’t know about the rule of thumb about tipping the dealer, most of the table had no clue either. There is the old saying about the squeaky wheel. If you are the dealer, how do you tell the table that tipping the dealer is common curtesy, and provide them a simple guideline on how to do it without coming off like a jackass?
I cruise fairly often. Tipping is a large part of the expense, and they lay it right out for you. They have standard tipping guidelines for everyone you see everyday, your waiter, his assistant and your room steward.
It would be nice to see something like this in a poker room. Actually I would love to see Party have a couple guidelines, “No teaching at the table. Bad play is too your advantage.” and “No bitching about Party at the table. Go bitch in a forum where someone might care, but at the table, people want to enjoy loosing their money.”
Tangent time. During my marathon play I ran into two teachers and a comedian at one table. The comedian and I had been sitting there for a while, and the two teachers sit down within 10 minutes of each other. The comedian won a pot with a flush, and teacher one tells him that he shouldn’t be playing shit hands like that. The comedian’s response was “It was suited.” Now I don’t know this guy, but his hand was something playable given the situation, and teacher 1 was just being a dumbass.
So the next lesson is for me. I have big cards, see the flop and hit. Teacher 1 is behind me, and I don’t think he hit, so I want to suck him along for the ride. I check, he raises, I call. I play this to end, the same way, sucking him along all the way to the river. Teacher 1 informs me that was a stupid way to play that hand. Teacher 2 tells me that maybe that would have been the right way to play in a 15-30 game, but not in 1-2. Teacher 1 points out that it was just a stupid way to play that hand, not matter what the situation. Now, Teacher 1 didn’t flop shit, and hand been playing tight, but aggressive, trying to steal on any weakness. I could have raised from early position with a couple of high cards on the board, which missed him, and he would have been out. I easily made three extra bets off this genius.
Third lesson, when I learn the comedian is a comedian and not just some fish. Teacher 1 is in middle position and the comedian is on the button. Lots of people in this pot, probably 7 total, no raises. It plays along, and Teacher 1 and the comedian end up ready to show, don’t remember if anyone else was still in the pot, but big pot at this point. Teacher 1 shows top two pair or something not that impressive. The comedian shows the Ace high flush. Now here is the lesson. Teacher 1 says “I am going to give you some advice. That is something I would have played when I first started playing, but its not something I would have played in that hand. After a year of play, I have learned that being suited doesn’t mean anything, and you can’t just play Ace rags.” Now the comedian’s response? “It was suited.” Teacher 1, “Yeah, but being suited doesn’t mean much. You are only going to hit your flush .08% of the time.” So the comedian calls from the button with Axs, 5.5 bets in the pot already. He proceeds to flop the flush draw, hits the flush on the turn. He certainly didn’t play the flop wrong, he might have missed some bets on the turn and the river, but it looked like a thing of beauty to me.
Lesson four. Teacher 1 and Teacher 2 bust out in under and hour. I actually think it was under 30 minutes. $50 down the tubes each. So learn from the comedians.
The best thing about that tangent, I have probably already posted that story.