Grouching. I hate it when we don’t cover all procedures and protocol in any poker room…make those procedures known to all new dealers coming in…work on it ’til our brains dry up and blow away…just to make the poker environment more relaxed and easy to work in for players and staff – yup, that would definitely include dealers. I don’t know how it can ever possibly be enforced or worked out…remember we are dealing with mankind here…but it would be so sweet just to have the person you’re following in the ‘line up’ knowing and doing their job.

It goes like this:

I hop into a six handed $30-$60 Holdem game on Tuesday night. The player in the 2s has a lot of chips and starts reaching for a rack. It’s his Button and it’s a $6 Time Collection. He’s entitled to play the Button without paying time but then he has to commit to playing and pay or hit the road. He passed on paying time, meaning he’s leaving.

Another player jumps in with, “You can’t leave when you have ‘the rock’!”

The rock? Sounds like a movie with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage but what it means in poker lingo – chips double the amount of the Big Blind are held together by a rubber band – and in some cases must be put out in front of the player for the next hand but in this case it meant the person that had it, had to Straddle the Big Blind and force the bet to an automatic raise of $60…also allowing the player to have last action – after everyone else called/folded, this player had the option to raise.

I was in shock that this was even going on in this game. It’s not our procedure.

The Button player played the hand and won it and decided to stay for another round – he paid his time. Someone asked what happened if he decided to leave with it. I piped up, “This is not something that’s set out by house rule and no one is bound to play with the rock in this game.”

The 6s stated that they had been playing that way for two hours and he had put the money up to start it.

Skip was handling the podium right by our table and as he paused to look at the game, I nodded at the table and asked, “Are you aware of this?”

He said, “Yes, I know you have seats open.” Woops! He did take another look and disappeared for a few minutes. He came back and informed the table that ‘the rock’ had to come off. Big blustery argument, especially from the guy that started ‘the rock’. The statement was made that another table in the room had it going also.

‘The rock’ definitely came off of the game I was dealing and I got through it with very little hot air blowing in my direction. The 6s ended up leaving a few minutes later…he was unhappy with the house decision.

I can’t help but wonder who the dealer was that let it get started a few hours before, if in fact it did start a few hours before. Two hours seems to be the standard line from poker players when something’s been in progress. But why would the dealer just allow it to happen? Our procedure is that if there is any change in limit/blind/ante, etc., the Floor has to be called to approve the change before it can go into effect.

Look for a continuation of this problem in tomorrow’s post, the dealer this type of thing happened to didn’t escape as easily as I did…sorry but I’m out of time right now.