I have a very definite opinion on tournaments and jackpots. They kill the live action. Lots of you would disagree with me but that’s ok. Yes, tournaments bring in players and help build business…so do jackpots. But when they are over, a few walk away with the money that the masses scraped together to build the prize pools. The masses go back to work or start grinding again to put a bankroll together. It shows in poker everywhere, like a seven year drought in the Corn Belt.

Hey, I’m not knocking tournaments. I just think there are too many of them now and everyone wants to be a ‘poker star’ so the live action isn’t as good as it could be.

This last week, even tho the WSOP, is in progress and we normally get all of their night action, the room has been quiet until around 10 to 11 p.m. Last year this time we were much busier. I think everyone’s got ‘tournament burnout’.

I like the mix of tourist and local and being able to visit and run the game vs. the ‘tournament’ stress level of noise and confusion coupled with players that want to tell me how to do everything when I’m in the box.

At one point during the tournament, I thought we should have a clipboard, hanging on the back of the Dealer’s Chair, that stated all the new rules for that game and we would be required to read and initial it before we could deal. Of course, these rules created by the players and subject to change at any moment, in which case, reading them before you sat down really wouldn’t do any good. Yes…I’m being sarcastic. It does border on ridiculous at times when someone comes in from out of town and tells you how to run your game, how you should put up the flop, where you should place the burn cards, how much and long you should scramble, and whether or not you should give change back to a player. I wonder how I can cope with ‘game flow’ when they aren’t around to tell me how to do it! Oh my!

But this doesn’t only happen in tournaments. I slide into the Dealer’s Chair on table 1 which happens to have a Shuffle Master installed. The game is $400-$800 Mixed. Half way through my down, a conversation starts between Curtis and Todd. It goes something like this.

Curtis, “I wish the dealers would scramble the deck before they put it into the shuffler.”

Todd, “They are supposed to.”

Mark, “Scramble the deck,” as he looks at me.

I reply, “Ok!” without looking at him because he’s one of my LEAST favorite players in the w-h-o-l-e world.

I did not make any comment about the fact that they think the dealer is supposed to scramble before putting the deck in the Shuffle Master. None of them were present at our training session so how would they know what we are or aren’t supposed to do? The answer is, NO! We are not supposed to scramble unless a player requests it.

A few hands later, Mark told me to scramble again. Again I complied. I then asked Todd if he’d seen the results of taking a fresh, sorted deck, placing it in the Shuffle Master and then spreading it face up to check the mix after the shuffle was complete.

He said, “No!” Followed by, “Does it do a pretty good job?”

I said, “It’s a great mix.”

He asked me if dealers were supposed to scramble and I said, “No.”

Curtis jumped in, “The part I don’t like is when the dealer’s pick up the deck to put it in the shuffler, they expose the bottom card and I wonder if it can be tracked somehow through the machine.”

I was really surprised at the statement and asked, “You mean, I’m doing it?”

He replied that all the dealers did.

Sorry but his concern is not even in the realm of possibility. It’s more likely that a dealer, shuffling the deck would expose the bottom card when the deck was picked up and squared to shuffle, then shuffled, and the card could be tracked, then tracking it in the Shuffle Master.

The following night I was dealing $800-$1,600 Mixed on table 1. I was asked for a scramble a couple of times by players but none of them were the same players from the previous night.

Don Z. said, “Isn’t it funny? We might find out that we still get the K of Spades three hands in a row in Razz with the machine and, after all these years, find out it really never was the dealer’s fault.

Mike W. firmly stated, “I’ve never believed it was the dealer’s fault.”

I vote for Mike.