Things in general

with a few stops to look at the high points along the way.

I ran into a friend of mine that was cashing out of the $50-100 NLH game on table 5 when I was on a break. It was such a great visit until we were interrupted to argue about the casinos stand on the UIGEA. I don’t even want to go into the full details of that conversation but someone that was standing near by was listening to our visit and invited themselves in. We never managed a word in edgewise after that and I finally excused myself to get ready for my next down. The friend had told me about Barney Frank’s stand on the UIGEA and told me to search it up on YouTube. Instead, I found this in the PokerWorks forum today – he did it for me – thank you so much!

Joined: 28 Jun 2005
Posted: 06 Mar 2007 18:37 Post subject: Barney Frank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-UpI1Ct-dgDelete this post

Since i had some time, i figured id save you the time of digging this up.

Every once in a while when i need to be inspired, i watch this clip. It makes me think that MAYBE not everyone’s an idiot.

*****

I have complained many times about dealers and brush people in poker roomsand nowI have to add one more complaint to my list – same brush person in all instances. While dealing $2-5 NLH last week, late night, my game was down to six players. There were other short handed games in the room and the table I had just left had three to four seats open shortly after I moved out of it (not because of me, just because of the hour and the ‘go bust’ frequency that game creates). Table 36 was short handed but instead of anyone handling as it should have been handled, it broke up and the game I’d just left filled up.

Our brush person stood right beside my game and I repeatedly told him I had four seats open, then it went to five seats open, as he stood there with the list board in his hand and allowed the game in front of me to fill up. We got one new player; that game got four. KEE-RIST! The brush person informed me that we would get the ‘next player’.

Thisbrush isthe same one that told me there was no list on a NLH game I was dealing and when I invited a player into my game that wanted a seat, this brushbrought me a new player and told me that I WAS TRYING TO CUT THE LIST. In other words, there was a list when he told me there wasn’t one.

When I told the brush that we should have gotten a few of those players (and no, I didn’t just pounce on him and act like a bitch about it, the players in my game were all making noises and ready to pounce on him), he asked me if I had a minute to listen to his explanation – over the table where all the players could hear. I said that the players were probably interested in listening to why. Miami Don was in this game and even though his blog post doesn’t relate anything to do with this, he was privy to the whole thing and completely understood my frustration.

The brush person walkedaround behind meand announced that the reason the other game filled up was because a guy that was raising in the blind on every hand just picked up and went to the game and everyone else wanted to play with him so they went too.

NO SHIT???? What about everyone at my table that would have liked the option to play with the blind raiser?

And the normal routine for a game that breaks is that everyone must draw a card for table and seat choice. But that didn’t happen, the players just got up and went to their game of choice. Here I would have to state that the dealer in that game should not have dealt those players in unless instructed by the floor person since that game was right in front of me and my prodding that we had seats open should have alerted that dealer to the fact there was a problem. If the brush person couldn’t figure it out, the dealer should have grabbed a clue.

Oh fucking well, now that the damage had been done, the brush person told us he had seats in other games for everyone and he could break our game. GEE! Is that yet another solution? Let’s break a few more games since we aren’t in the business of running a poker room.

My game players elected to play for a few for more minutes until another player left our midst. Then they were off to a new table. And they didn’t draw for seat/game choice either, even though I spread the deck for the draw. The brush just sort of pointed them in the direction of other games with seats open. The fact of the matter is that the game on 36 should never have been allowed to break – that’s why we have ‘transfer’ lists.

Of course I got rerouted because my game broke. I ended up dealing $5-10NLH about an hour later and had two seats open for10 minutes, after telling the same brush person that I had seats open. Apparently there was another $5-10NLH game and I have been under the impression that these are must move games. Perhaps I’m totally wrong here and if it was that way, maybe that rule changed. I got two players froma broken $5-10NLH game. About three minutes later, the brush walked up with a play-over box and a player and just put the box over the chips of a guy that hadn’t even missed a blind yet (and the player had justreceived a fresh drink delivered by cocktails), and told me that this new guy was playing over.

I retorted, “He hasn’t even missed a blind yet!” as I motioned to the seat.

The brush gave me ‘the look’ and said he’d take care of it. Yes indeedy folks, he sure did.

As soon as the new guy posted the BB and played one hand, the original player came back to take over his seat. The new guy was fried. He said he was approached by the brush to play over.

And an hour later I watched the same brush hand a play-over box to a regular 7 Card Stud player as the regular headed to a stack of chips in the $20-40 Stud game. The regular put the box over the chips and started playing. The problem with this drill is that the brush person is supposed to count down the chips of the absent playerand verify itwith the dealer, and then cover the chips. But again, what do I know? Maybe all that has changed according to the day of the week or the hour of the shift.

I make mistakes. Usually I compound them, the first one starts a chain reaction and then I’m good to go for another two or three within a few seconds or minutes. It appears to be Murphy’s Law of dealing as I know other dealers state the same thing happens to them.

But…when you do the same thing, shift after shift for eight years, how can you not know what you are supposed to do in the circumstances stated above? OK…never mind.

*****

Suzie Lederer is our swing supervisor for the next few shifts. It’s been forever since we worked a shift together in Vegas, many in Aruba but not in Vegas in the last few years, but it is a pleasure to have her with us again even if it is short term.