Thursday was mass mayhem. Not just in the fact that the room was crazy, everyone seemed to be a little bit crazier and I had a major blow out on Table 5. I started my night by dealing two of our daily tournament tables, got a mini reroute when one of them broke and a 45 minute break. Time to stroll leisurely through the room and see who was where and playing what before heading down to Mangia for a meal. Did I say leisurely stroll? You have to have more moves than Fred Astaire to navigate through the bodies and chairs in the room. Not only that, no one can see me. If they could they wouldn’t walk right into me, right?

Hello Table 5. They were playing $25 ante, $25-50 NLH. Rodeen was in the 1s, always pleasant – he teased me one time that I would write about him if he wasn’t 🙂 But I believe ‘pleasant’ is just his nature. He’s placed in two final tables at the WSOP this year. Congratulations Rodeen! The 7s is Lyle Berman’s son and while I hate to tag anyone with being ‘son, wife, daughter, husband’ I don’t know his name and this is the first time I’ve dealt to him. The game was four handed when I sat down and went to five handed a few minutes later.

Everything was fine, quiet, controlled, I dealt they played…UNTIL I got caught doing my job. The 2s (later found out his name is Lee – I’ve dealt to him before but infrequently, mostly tournament time) and the 7s went to war in one pot. It started with a raise of $200, then a reraise of $1,000, then an all-in by the 7s – somewhere around $12,000.

They started kibitzing about running them twice. Hey…I ran into this noise during our tournament in April and specifically checked with our Supervisors and the word is “NO” unless it’s in the $2,000-4,000 or higher game. I don’t write the rules so please…if you see me in the cardroom don’t start on me about the high limit players doing whatever they want. If they told me to take the deck and throw it into the wall, I would when I’m dealing that limit. If you don’t get the picture then maybe you should trying donning a name tag and an apron for six months just so you get the feel of rough burlap scraping your skin when you hit those games. I stated, “You cannot run them twice.”

Begin Problem…me…I’m the problem.

Lee called the all-in bet but they were still hashing whether or not they wanted to run them twice, intermingled with arguing with me that they’d been doing it and it was up to them – not the house. In the meantime, a chip runner was passing the table and as I waited for them to decide what they were going to do, I asked the chip runner to send Pete, I was going to need a decision.

Rodeen told me they had been doing it. Lee informed me that it was up to the players to decide. I calmly replied, “Yes, Sir. And as soon as my Floor Man tells me it’s ok, I’ll be happy to do it.”

They decided they wanted to run them twice. I waited. They wanted me to deal, arguing with me about it. I told them I’d wait for a decision.

Lyle walked up to talk to his son…yup, he plays the $2,000-4,000 game and $4,000-8,000 game and whatever else he feels like playing.

Pete arrived, followed by Carmen. I asked, “Can they run them twice?”

Pete said no…that brought up a discussion and Lyle piped up with, “We run them twice in my game.”

More discussion and the final word was “NO”.

I dealt the rest of the hand. The 7s’s Aces held up. Pete and Carmen left. Here’s the best part. Lee stated, “You are the only dealer we’ve had a problem with.”

Me, “Maybe I’m the only dealer that doesn’t want to lose their job.”

Lee, “Your the only dealer that won’t be getting a tip from me.”

Gee! I’d never heard that one before so I simply replied, “Do whatever you think is best.”

Maybe I was supposed to grab my chest and feign a heart attack or fall of my chair and scream into the carpet but I did what I always do…I dealt. Calmly, professionally, running the game to the best of my ability, my voice and manner never changed. That’s what I like about me. Whatever I undertake to do, I do it to the best of my ablity without letting anyone else affect how I do it.

The 7s wondered out loud – more than once – why ‘they’ wouldn’t let them run it twice. Rodeen tried to soften it for me by making a comment that it was probably a discrepancy in the dealer knowledge of the rules. Lee’s main comment was that he wished it would be consistent…although he did add more than that to the conversation. I did push him five or six pots and and he was true to his word.

I don’t really care. If I have to sacrifice my ethics or work standards, or pride, or self for money then I need to look for that cliff in Calico Basin. I need to be happy with myself for the way I lead my life, not the way someone else thinks I should lead it. But I really don’t feel badly towards a player for wanting consistency in rules and for not tipping. That’s their choice. I made mine.