My first game of the night was table 7. Andy and Doyle. Todd, Doyle’s son, was sitting behind him. Andy’s had a sweater sitting with him every night. When I walked up to the table, his sweater said, “Yes, he does remember you. I read your site and really enjoy it.”

I was waiting for Marcia to finish the hand so I took a moment and asked his name, said ‘hello’ and shook his hand. Craig is Andy’s sweater. Andy said ‘hi’ and we visited a moment as I spread the deck and got ready to deal.

This is the biggest limit game I ever dealt. I had one blank moment, about 10 minutes into my down, when I looked at the $25,000 and $5,000 chip constituting the Big Blind. It just struck me as strange. I was wrong in the earlier post, I said ‘6 chips, 12 chips’. It was three $5,000 chips for the Small Blind and a $25,000 and $5,000 chip for the Big Blind.

Andy brought up the subject of tipping…it’s all put together in a ‘pool’ at the end of the entire play, just like a tournament. I thought it was great that he would even think of me/us in that respect. We visited a bit about Montana, camping in N. Idaho, and a few off and on conversation spurts. Craig prodded him to stop talking and focus. Andy said that’s why he’s wearing the ear plugs and head phones is to keep his concentration when he plays.

Edited post! Andy specifically asked me if he could tip me. He said that he knew the tip was given at the end and split between all the dealers, but could he tip me? He asked me to check with my Supervisor when I left the game.

Now for all of you that don’t think a dealer ever gets a bad beat, I think this is a terrible beat.

I went to Suzie and asked her if Andy could tip me…told her that he had inquired about tipping me personally. She stated that he could not, that it was a ‘tip pool’ just like a tournament.

As I went by his table, I told Craig that the answer was ‘no’ and he said he would inform Andy.

A few nights later I found out that Ted F. and Jennifer and a few other players had been tipping the dealers with $5 chips and they dealers were keeping them. I was fried to put it mildly. I went to Suzie and stated that I must be the only dealer that couldn’t take a tip and keep it. She expressed her concern and told me she was really sorry but when she made the statement to me, she felt that all the tips were going into a pool.

I told her that I really didn’t need an apology but I need someone to tell Andy that I could receive a tip from him. I certainly don’t want to tell him because it makes me look cheap and like I’m soliciting a tip. I am not. I just feel that if all the other dealers are keeping tips given to them and then receiving part of the ‘tip pool’ it’s fair for everyone to receive the same consideration.

I honestly feel that Suzie made her initial statement to me, believing that that’s the way it would be handled on each shift. No animosity or anger towards her, just slightly miffed over the whole deal, but I’m already over it…after a few ‘damn, hell, ugh!’ kind of things.

I noticed one thing in particular that he does each hand. After he looks at his cards, he places his hands on the table rail for a few seconds, complete standstill, then designates a raise or a check/call. He’s giving nothing up that way. He had the barricade racks of $1 chips and moved chips from stack to stack during the play of the hands.

Most of the game was fold, fold, fold, raise/fold. They only went to war on one hand. Andy raised pre-flop, Doyle raised, Andy raised. The flop was A-K-blank, three bets went in. Blank on the Turn, Bet, call. Blank on the River, bet, call. Andy won the pot with A-6 Off and Doyle showed K-Q Off.

Doyle played a little longer and then said he was too tired and had Todd take over. I dealt a few hands to Todd and Andy and got pushed. I heard later in the night that Andy was S-T-U-C-K! While I never root or de-root anyone that plays, I would like to see him come out ahead on one of these sessions.

The rest of my night was poker, poker, poker. I’m off to watch the rest of the WPT that I started yesterday at this time…then Sleep