Of course I make my living on the generosity of poker players. I have worked games that had 25c rolls on the table and the quarters were used in the rake. Many a time I received a .25 tip and always said, “Thank you,” rapped it gently, and put it in my pocket – except for one time (that’s another story). Also we used to break our rake down to 50c increments in some games, and many a night I went to cash out with a bucket because if was filled with halves and quarters.

The days of the quarters and halves are pretty much toast in the bigger rooms. Unless of course a player brings a roll to the table with him. It’s nice to get a buck instead of 50c, and it adds up to a much better total at the end of the night. But that’s what this is all about, watching a dealer get a .50 toke. It’s funny in a lot of ways and not too funny in other ways.

I signed the E/O-play last week and got to play for about two hours, then I was picked up and dealt the rest of my full shift – OUCH! My body was grouching at the end of that day, I thought 3 a.m. would never come.

But back to the 50c toke. When I first got in the game, a dayshift dealer or one that works a split shift was in the box. She’s a regular room dealer, not a tournament dealer, and honestly, I couldn’t spell her name if I had to, so I won’t. The game was pretty sparky and gamble, gamble was going on. I was in the 2s and posted, picked up K-10, and at least six callers saw the flop which was Q-J-? with two clubs.

I called a flop bet, it got raised, all of us called the raise. I made nothing, the 5s had K-8C and called the river when an 8 hit, I’m sure it was because of pot size. The 6s won the pot with Q-9C, it was huge by $4-8 standards.

The 6s had an almost empty roll of halves beside his chips and as he was pulling in the pot, talking to the 5s, he threw the dealer a coin.

The dealer stopped completely. She looked at the coin, finally picked it up and laid it in her hand, and leaving her hand open to everyone, she leaned over and peered at the coin. I kid you not, this process took at least one minute. She then picked the coin up with her other hand, holding it between her thumb and finger, continued to stare at it, and asked something like, “What is this?”

The 6s was still jabbering and stacking. Her actions had no effect on him because he wasn’t watching her.

She finally took the coin and put it into her pocket, without saying thank you, and decided to go ahead and dealthe game. She made such an issue ofit and stopped the entire game for over a minute and a half.

If I had received the coin, I would have immediately rapped it, said thank you, and went to the next hand. My reason? The next hand will make me money and if it doesn’t, the next one will, and why should I notify everyone that they can get their own roll of halves and tip with them, and a tip is a tip for which one should say thank you.

Her reasons? Perhaps she was trying to embarrass him, but how can that help the situation?

Towards the very end of her down, she had a split pot between two players. If the pot wasn’t $50, it was very close. She had $3 on the drop slot for the rake – that is correct if the pot is $50 – and when she split the pot, she had an extra dollar (it goes left of the button) but instead she took $1 off the rake and gave each player even stacks. Umnhhh….that’s wrong. If she over raked, it’s wrong, if she didn’t, she’s wrong. Nuff said.

In some ways, everything is funny. In some ways…NOT!