The big thing that happened in the past week, that not a lot of people care about because it doesn’t involve a big name, is that a man named James Moore won the 65-and-older Super Seniors event for the second straight year, beating 1,719 players this year and 1,475 last year. Unreal achievement! Maybe the rest fell asleep?
Phil Hellmuth’s rants are legendary. I think a lot of his success has come because amateur players are afraid to get involved with him because they don’t want to be the target of a Phil tirade. That has changed with the Internet generation, who, regardless of his record, think Phil is a dinosaur and enjoy getting under his skin. My personal feeling is that there’s nothing more fun in poker than to set Phil off. If you ever get the chance, don’t be intimidated. It could be the highlight of your poker life. The following interview with Terrance Chan about his Phil experience is pretty funny:
I saw something the other day that I found amusing. I’ve never liked wearing sunglasses at the table, for a number of reasons, one of the chief being that they make it too dark to see my own cards. A Japanese guy came to my table in the Seniors event who had a pair of dark glasses on, but he had drilled a dime-sized hole in the middle of each lens so he could see his cards while still covering his eyes. Brilliant!
Poker Etiquette: If you are heads-up in a stud-type game against an opponent who’s all-in, turn your last down card up first.
Rules: I’ll speak more on rules in another blog, but in general, you should make your intention as clear as possible. A couple of quick examples:
The other day a guy made an exaggerated thumbs up gesture before tossing in an oversized chip. It was obvious that he intended to raise, but since he didn’t say raise, it was ruled a call.
If the blinds are 250/500 and it’s deep in a pot where a 500 bet would be silly and it would be obvious you meant 5k when you toss in a 5k chip, if you say 5, it could be ruled 500. Ironically, if you said nothing it would go as 5k.
Today’s main story is about dealers. The WSOP requires a huge staff, chief among them hundreds of dealers, who are the front line between players and the house. The WSOP has to dig deep to get enough dealers to fill the positions. A lot of them are very raw, especially at the non-hold ’em games. I have no issue with the inexperienced ones, as long as they try hard, which most of them do. I do have an issue with experienced dealers who think they do everything perfectly, when they don’t.
The primary thing I see is flashed cards while pitching. Sometimes it’s very blatant. I’ve corrected many dealers over the years. The good dealers take it as constructive criticism. But some take an attitude, which is very annoying. When a dealer is flashing, I watch my opponents’ eyes. If they’re following the pitch, I must say something at the table to protect myself. However, few poker players pay attention to the pitch. (If it was a table full of blackjack players, who train to see exposed cards, it would be a nightmare.) Otherwise, I’ll approach the dealer after he leaves the box and tell him the issue. Like I said, some take it well, others adopt the “I’ve been doing this for years, and don’t need you telling me anything” attitude.
Dealers are taught procedures that are designed to protect the players and the game. At least they should be. One thing is that a dealer should keep the deck horizontal at all times. The reason for this is that a cheating dealer could flash the top cards to an accomplice, thereby letting him know what’s coming on the flop, turn, or river. In a NL event the other day, I’d made a big bet on the flop and my opponent, who was in the one seat, was thinking it over. The dealer had the deck in her left hand, was loosely holding it vertically with the face of the cards pointing toward my opponent and bouncing it up and down. If he had been looking, I have little doubt he could have seen the top few cards on the deck. This practice is so widespread that I really doubt this is part of a new dealer’s training.
Another procedure is releasing the deck before cutting. When dealing a game with antes, the dealer should shuffle, square up the deck, then let go of the deck and collect the antes, then cut and deal. In a hold ’em-type game, the dealer should take his hands away from the deck before cutting. The reason for this is that it would make it harder for a dealer who had stacked the deck to make a false cut or cut to a location. Once again, failing to follow this procedure is widespread.
I highly doubt that any dealers at the modern WSOP are cheating in these ways, but I’m from the old school when these things were being done, and it irritates me that dealers aren’t trained properly.
Criticisms aside, most of the dealers try their best in a very grueling and pressure-filled job. Some are great technical dealers. A few have such great personalities that they’re a welcome interlude from the grind. Here’s my favorite dealer story from the WSOP:
A couple of years ago, we were in the money in the Main Event, and things were getting serious. A tiny, older Chinese lady got in the box, sitting on about three cushions so she was high enough to deal. She was very bubbly and friendly and I liked her immediately. Two young players got involved in a big pot. The flop was Ah-Td-Ks. There was a bet and a call. The turn was the Qc. There was a lot of stalling and staring after one player made a huge bet. His opponent finally called. I remember thinking that this was an intense pot. The river was the Jd, making it a split pot unless one of them somehow folded. As the dealer put out the river, she stared at it and burst out laughing! It was so unexpected and funny that I followed suit. Soon the whole table was laughing, except the two players involved. To their credit, they joined in soon after.
My favorite dealer story of all happened one year in Aruba. There were few real poker dealers, so they had to recruit dealers from the casino pit, most of whom were young blond girls, since Aruba is a former Dutch colony. They knew almost nothing about dealing poker, but they tried hard and kept a great fun attitude. I was in a PLO game with a lineup that included the late “Devilfish” Ulliot. He got involved in a big pot and had to fold when he didn’t get the river he was looking for. The always-grumpy-at-the-table Devilfish started grumbling about having a set of aces with the nut-flush draw. One of the other players said that he couldn’t have had that hand because he had folded the ace in question. Devilfish gave him a dirty look. The dealer just shrugged and said. “well, the cards are right here, let’s see” and turned over Devilfish’s hand, which, of course, had nothing that he had claimed. I almost fell off my chair laughing as Devilfish lost his mind!
Quick Devilfish stories:
I always liked “The Fish” and was endlessly entertained by him. In Dublin in 2004, at the Irish Open, which was held in a flat on Marion Square, my wife and I found him on a back stairway sitting alone playing his guitar. He treated us to a full hour concert, and he was actually very good!
Devilfish grew up hard in the streets of Hull, England, hustling to stay alive. In 2005, the WSOP had a high-rollers club that featured food, drinks, and a pool table and putting green. I was messing around on the pool table and Devilfish asked if I wanted to play 8-ball for 20 bucks. I was good in my youth, but had rarely played since. I broke and ran the rack, something I can’t remember doing for years. He just smiled and asked if I wanted to play 2-out-of-3 for $500. Hard to turn it down after what I just did. Needless to say, I got slaughtered!
I’ve written before about how old timers often blamed the dealers for their bad luck, and treated them horribly. Personally, I don’t notice dealers unless they are especially good, bad, or have a unique personality. I never remember who dealt me a bad beat, or a big hand. A few years ago a dealer came up to me in the hall at the Rio. He asked if I remembered him. After I said no, he told me he dealt the final hand of my bracelet win. Oops! But, the good thing is that I’ve been dealt countless gruesome beats over the years, and I don’t remember those dealers either.
The Main Event is getting closer and the excitement is building!
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Moore going back-to-back was impressive in the Super Seniors Event. That would be incredibly difficult to do.
I recently watched a Phil rant with Tony G. Tony G. lied to Phil Helmuth about not looking at his hole cards and I thought it was a great move in order to capture all of Phil’s chips. In my opinion it was wonderful poker etiquette by Tony G. to keep Phil off balance. The thing that upset me about the video is that after they get their money in the pot, the dealer just sits there like a lemming not running out the board to ship the chips to the winner. Too much Hollywood and jaw-jacking. The dealer trying to be appropriate and let them get their rants out, burn it out! It was funny when Tony G told Phil to get on his bike and get outta here. Phil should know that a lot of players lie about their hand strength.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJA6XhBDLLY
I’ve also noticed that some dealers have a high pitch when they deal the cards in a poker game. Depending on the angle and height of the pitch sometimes a player can catch a glimpse. There are a lot of lazy dealers out there. Some of the worst dealing I’ve ever witnessed was in a WSOP circuit PLO game. The dealer was a house dealer working under the name. The way he was dealing it seemed like the dealer didn’t want to be there. After a hand was over sometimes he would do a half-ass wash on the cards by barely spreading out the deck which was practically in top to bottom order, then he would flinch the tips of his ten fingers on top of the cards 2-3 times to simulate the wash, he would look left and right to see if any players would complain about such a half-assed wash. I watched this same dealer tuck two black Aces into the same location of the deck after a showdown without doing a wash in that PLO game, he did 3 weak passes with his riffle shuffle, he did not box the deck and he put the cards back into play. I’m sure those 2 black Aces were probably close to each other on the next deal. It was piss poor dealing. The only reason I didn’t complain to the floor was because I was in violation of their rules so it would have been like telling on myself had I called the floor over to complain about their dealer.
The dealers on TV games have a earpiece and can’t deal until the producer tells them. Everybody loves to torture Phil, and Tony G is one of the best at it.
Blair, the link for the Terrence interview is broken.
Thx. Should be fixed.