Hand Analysis - Before it Airs (4 Viewers)

This brings up a good question, How much do you tip the dealer after a million dollar pot???

Congrats Krish! Great hand and glad you pulled it out on the river.

While I am likely cheap, I am not sure that you owe the dealer much. $5 to $10 should suffice, as they aren’t participating in the risk. I can’t imagine a sliding scale where it gets to $100+ per hand.
 
I was honestly in so much shock I initially forgot to tip the dealer. The taping ended after the next hand, and and I remembered while I was coloring up. Tipped 2 flags.
This is too rarified air for me; what is "2 flags"? Is that more or less than 3 stacks of high society?
 
This is too rarified air for me; what is "2 flags"? Is that more or less than 3 stacks of high society?
It's like a math problem!

Two flags= one stack of high society

Three stacks of high society= one Mike McDermott buy in

How much is one flag worth?
 
This is too rarified air for me; what is "2 flags"? Is that more or less than 3 stacks of high society?
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I was honestly in so much shock I initially forgot to tip the dealer. The taping ended after the next hand, and and I remembered while I was coloring up. Tipped 2 flags.

Edit: in retrospect, that was all adrenaline. I suppose $1k would have been totally fine.
Better to be generous than cheap. Keep the poker gods (and the dealers) happy.
 
While I am likely cheap, I am not sure that you owe the dealer much. $5 to $10 should suffice, as they aren’t participating in the risk. I can’t imagine a sliding scale where it gets to $100+ per hand.
So you're going to pull cash out of your pocket? And give him 1-2% of a small blind? When the smallest chip on the table is a $500? I would think if you play those stakes that it absolutely IS a sliding scale. I was thinking $2-3K when I asked the question.
 
So you're going to pull cash out of your pocket? And give him 1-2% of a small blind? When the smallest chip on the table is a $500? I would think if you play those stakes that it absolutely IS a sliding scale. I was thinking $2-3K when I asked the question.

I think that is spending for image, not spending for value provided by the dealer.

Do you think that a dealer in a high stakes game is worth $500/hand?
 
I think that is spending for image, not spending for value provided by the dealer.

Do you think that a dealer in a high stakes game is worth $500/hand?
I suspect only Krish, and maybe a few others here could comment on tipping practices at a high stakes game. My suspicion is that tipping is done less often and mostly on particularly big hands, or possibly reserved until the end of the night. I would not expect that the winner of every hand tips the dealer at these stakes. But I have no actual personal knowledge of this.
 
I suspect only Krish, and maybe a few others here could comment on tipping practices at a high stakes game. My suspicion is that tipping is done less often and mostly on particularly big hands, or possibly reserved until the end of the night. I would not expect that the winner of every hand tips the dealer at these stakes. But I have no actual personal knowledge of this.
When the smallest denom on the table is a $500 as in this case, or even a hundo as in the case of a $100/$200 game, I tend to reserve tipping for really big hands won, not every hand. Many regular high stakes games (of the home variety) don’t even require tipping of dealers, the dealers get paid out from a collection pool.
 
I think that is spending for image, not spending for value provided by the dealer.

Do you think that a dealer in a high stakes game is worth $500/hand?
If I just won a million dollar pot then I’d tip at least a flag. Ive tipped $5 on a $100 pot before. Same scale. I know you don’t a sliding scale applies. And I’d tend to agree that it doesn’t on every hand but if it was the end of my time at the game and I won a huge pot I’d definitely apply a similar scale.
 
I was honestly in so much shock I initially forgot to tip the dealer. The taping ended after the next hand, and and I remembered while I was coloring up. Tipped 2 flags.

Edit: in retrospect, that was all adrenaline. I suppose $1k would have been totally fine.

If you ever need a dealer at a home game, i can be there in about 18-24 hours depending on flight availability. :tup:

“Do you think that a dealer in a high stakes game is worth $500/hand?
Market wages are seldom based on worth.

And tips are acts of generosity, not value judgments.
 
In all too many cases, tips in general are a customer supported substitute for employer paid wages. Here in Texas, the minimum wage for tipped employees like the wait staff in a diner is $2.13 per hour or $4,260 per year. Your tip is not so much an act of generosity but making up for the shoddy wages paid by ownership.

I appreciate the dealer at a ultra high stakes poker game is nothing like the wait staff serving a $6 blue plate special. At least I hope not. Even so, please keep in mind the economic realities of how a tipped person is often depending on your tips to help to pay for a bare minimum lifestyle.
 
This 100% true for USA but varies greatly by country…curious if Canada is closer to Europe or more like USA
 
In all too many cases, tips in general are a customer supported substitute for employer paid wages. Here in Texas, the minimum wage for tipped employees like the wait staff in a diner is $2.13 per hour or $4,260 per year. Your tip is not so much an act of generosity but making up for the shoddy wages paid by ownership.
This is seriously fucked up! I knew tips were an important part of US service people’s income but not that it could be basically all of it.

There is generally tipping in restaurants in Sweden but unless service was exceptional, I would say just rounding up to the nearest 100 ($10) or adding no more than 5-10% to bigger tabs won’t cause any if-looks-could-kill.

Dealers at our state owned casinos aren’t allowed to accept tips. Casinos are happy to rake the shit out of the players though.
 
In all too many cases, tips in general are a customer supported substitute for employer paid wages. Here in Texas, the minimum wage for tipped employees like the wait staff in a diner is $2.13 per hour or $4,260 per year. Your tip is not so much an act of generosity but making up for the shoddy wages paid by ownership.

I appreciate the dealer at a ultra high stakes poker game is nothing like the wait staff serving a $6 blue plate special. At least I hope not. Even so, please keep in mind the economic realities of how a tipped person is often depending on your tips to help to pay for a bare minimum lifestyle.

To be fair it’s not like all wait staff are struggling to get by - I wouldn’t compare high stakes dealers to low end waiters. High end waiters are very well paid (at least in regions where they keep their tips).

It’s shitty how low the wages are for Denny’s night shift workers, but the wage floor being what it is, is much more impactful in sending these high end wages to the moon. In an efficient market waiters would be bidding on the opportunity to take shifts at expensive restaurants, not getting a base pay. Whereas the Denny’s worker absent of a min wage would barely be impacted. They’re already pretty close to rock bottom. It’s like a reverse welfare system, and it affects every aspect of the labor economy.

If there’s any criticism of these baller tips at luxury venues it’s that the charity could be a lot more “efficiently allocated”. but thats how the world works. people are always far more generous to the people they interact with. nobody tips the factory worker in china who made their jacket.
 
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This is seriously fucked up! I knew tips were an important part of US service people’s income but not that it could be basically all of it.

There is generally tipping in restaurants in Sweden but unless service was exceptional, I would say just rounding up to the nearest 100 ($10) or adding no more than 5-10% to bigger tabs won’t cause any if-looks-could-kill.

Dealers at our state owned casinos aren’t allowed to accept tips. Casinos are happy to rake the shit out of the players though.
100%. It's a bit of a truncated version of that saying "your income is derived by how people you serve and how well you serve them."

I made shitloads of money on tips when I was a bartender in my younger years. I'd have turned down a $20/hr increase in wages in lieu of tips. But not all things are equal.
 
To be fair it’s not like all wait staff are struggling to get by - I wouldn’t compare high stakes dealers to low end waiters. High end waiters are very well paid (at least in regions where they keep their tips).

It’s shitty how low the wages are for Denny’s night shift workers, but the wage floor being what it is, is much more impactful in sending these high end wages to the moon. In an efficient market waiters would be bidding on the opportunity to take shifts at expensive restaurants, not getting a base pay. Whereas the Denny’s worker absent of a min wage would barely be impacted. They’re already pretty close to rock bottom. It’s like a reverse welfare system, and it affects every aspect of the labor economy.

If there’s any criticism of these baller tips at luxury venues it’s that the charity could be a lot more “efficiently allocated”. but thats how the world works. people are always far more generous to the people they interact with. nobody tips the factory worker in china who made their jacket.
This points out exactly how I approach tipping when I go out to dinner. If I buy a $10 breakfast at Dennys, I will likely tip well in excess of 20%. Probably 50-100% or more if it's a good experience. These folks bust their asses for little to no pay. On the flip side, if I'm spending $200+ taking the family out to a nice restaurant, the service had better be top notch if you expect to get more than 15-20%.

The biggest problem with the tipping system is that probably 50% of the patrons are doing 90% of the tipping. While the other half tip 0-10% no matter how great the service is that they receive. I know this to be true because almost all of my kids and some of their spouses have worked or still work in the hospitality industry. I understand, it's an old, archaic system, and the employers use it as a substitute for paying a fair wage. I'd love to see it changed, but it's unlikely that will happen. So to those who say it's a bad system, and therefore I'm not going to tip, you're just a cheap a-hole. If the system were changed, then your food bill would be 15-20% higher anyway, so just realize that and pay your fair share.
 
Nice catch.

Interesting to read. Then re-read after I knew results.

Kenney played it well, just got pokered is all. I think he probably put Krish on JJ or TT or A5, either way I can't see him thinking he was behind, even after the river.
 
“I understand, it's an old, archaic system, and the employers use it as a substitute for paying a fair wage. So to those who say it's a bad system, and therefore I'm not going to tip, you're just a cheap a-hole. If the system were changed, then your food bill would be 15-20% higher anyway, so just realize that and pay your fair share. ”

I tip min 15% when I go out but the idea that people who tip less than 15% are cheap assholes is unfair.

What is a “fair” wage for servers? $30/h? If it was congruent with other countries with similar gdp per capita where tipping isn’t common it would be peanuts. it’s not uncommon for the diners to make less than the wait staff, but they should feel obliged to give them charity?

If, like you said, half the patrons account for 90% of the tips, then if the half who are cheap skates suddenly tipped as others did, the waiters would be making nearly double. Is $50/h high enough? Are manual labourers earning $10/h still being cheap skates if they choose to only donate 10% of their bill?
 

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