Tuesday, December 27, 2005

So…no one wants to give me the lowdown on who these people are? I know they are bloggers or they are stowaways and managed to sneak themselves into the registry at the tournament. Someone? Send a name and a URL please. Question answered. Thanks April.

On the poker scene. I hit a $10-20 NLH game last week. Joe Hachem came up and stood by the table for a moment…obviously on the list. After he walked away, someone made the comment that he didn’t tip after he won ‘the big one’ at the WSOP. Lots of comments from different players. I finally kicked in my 2c worth. I stated that the rumor I heard was that Joe was going to tip, but another player told him not to because it was figured into the amount withheld from the prize pool by the house. The table was abuzz with noise about tournament tipping. I dealt. A few minutes later Jack said that I seemed to be awfully quiet and he’d like to hear what I thought about the whole thing.

My side of the conversation went like this (and yes, I managed to deal and talk at the same time). I have no problem with the tipping angle. I feel I’m always taken care of in one way or another…if one player doesn’t tip, someone else does. The only thing I hate about the whole % the house takes and the way the tip is broken down is the fact that all ‘dealer tokes’ are turned in (or supposed to be turned in) to the toke committee. The Tournament Directors get 35% off the top of the dealer’s toke (whether it’s the % withheld by the house or the amount that is toked by players at the end of each tournament), the personnel of the card room each receive a %, the rest of it is divided into all the downs that are dealt by the dealers and this literally goes into the thousands. Fine! But the downside of it for me is that if I receive $500 from a player for a tournament toke (while I sit at a table in the tournament area), I have to turn it in – the Tournament Directors receive 35% of that toke and the rest of it is broken down into poker room personnel and dealer downs. If the Tournament Director receives a $500 toke from the player winning the tournament, the Tournament Director sticks that whole amount into his pocket. That sticks in my throat. If we each receive a $500 toke from the same player, the director gets $650 out of the deal, and I get pennies out of it. It should only be fair that all tokes go into the prize pool fund and are disbursed to everyone.

I didn’t say any more after that. One fairly regular player continued the conversation, saying that even if someone left $15,000 it wasn’t much and didn’t really matter. That’s not true. Every amount makes a difference. They asked me what the normal % was to tip out of a big win. I said it used to be 5% of the prize, but that was before the house began taking a piece of it. Now I really had no idea. J. Kwik said he thought it was around 3%. My down ended.

In all fairness, I heard that Joseph Hachem was going to leave $75,000 and was talked out of it by David Plastik. The only thing I can say on that is if a player wants to leave a tip, why does someone have to discourage them from doing so? Tipping is part of the industry. If you don’t want to tip, don’t. But please don’t get in the middle of my income and tell people they shouldn’t do it.

Everyone wants a good dealer going through their table. With the recent boom in poker, more and more unskilled, completely new to the poker scene, dealers are being hired. Some of them can throw cards around the table but they do not know the little nuances that make up being a good dealer and mostly, they do not know or have time to learn the house rules. Unfortunately most casinos do not have any type of training for the new person coming into the field; they are just thrown into the mix and have to learn everything the hard way…that is at the player’s expense.

Dealing poker is customer service…I provide service to you, you tip me; it’s no different than dining or being served a drink. Please do not lump us all into the same ‘box’ (pardon the pun) and please do be aware that a lot of new dealers need help and graciously look for it if given in the right tone and manner. And please be aware that most of us truly appreciate a toke and a compliment and any help we can get from players that know the score. And please DO NOT discourage other players from tipping.

Off to the shower and another night at the tables. Yippee!!!