Pet Peeves at the Poker Table (Casino/Homegame) (1 Viewer)

[BGinGA]

The only thing worse than dealing the board in positions 2-3-4, 1, 5 is to deal them all at once face-down. Another peeve is dealing the board on TOP of the mucked cards in the middle.

slight threadjack: How do you deal with players that violate dealing protocol in a self-dealt home game (not yours)? Publicly complain? Suck it up? Attempt to educate? Talk to the host later?

 

[Mental Nomad]

I attempt to educate... usually along the lines of, "you need to be careful with that, because..." and I explain why doing it that way is bad (usually because it makes the action harder to follow, makes something unfair, or allows people to cheat), and then mention how standard or official procedure fixes the problem.

I suppose it's easier for me... I'm often taken as the authority even when it's not my home game, because a lot of people know I used to deal/floor. They usually want to learn. The only time I've every gotten a bad reaction was from someone who was drunk.

I try to suck it up on the minor stuff if it's not my game, though, and I don't coach dealers when I'm in a real casino or poker room, even if I think I could help them improve. (But I sometimes throw a dealer an extra tip, just because they're good, sharp dealers. I always appreciate it, and I tell them so. The ones who are good usually both care about being good... and appreciate when it's noticed.)

 

[Mental Nomad]

Going back to the purpose of the thread, a lot of my pet peeves have already been covered above... although I'd consider some of those more serious than pet peeves!

A list of additional pet peeves of mine that don't really affect the game:

- People paying with dirty stacks (high chip on top of low chip)
- People not using the cover card
- People calling the cover card a cut card... (ARGH! That one's taking over, even in poker stores!)
- People counting off single chips to call a bet of "twelve"
- People using two hands to cut the deck
- Labels coming off of, or misaligned on, chips (I'm don't object to cheap chips, as long as they're not interlocking plastic, but label problems irk me)
- People who repeatedly hide their hole cards (always unintentional, but always problematic)
- People who hide their big-denom chips (no, they're not really shielded from harm by being buried by smaller chips)


Hmm, looking back at the list, maybe my pet peeve is people?

 

[grandgnu]

When someone slows the game down to count out fifteen black hundo chips instead of tossing a 1K and 500 chip into the pot.

 

[manamongkids]

Going back to the purpose of the thread, a lot of my pet peeves have already been covered above... although I'd consider some of those more serious than pet peeves!

A list of additional pet peeves of mine that don't really affect the game:

- People paying with dirty stacks (high chip on top of low chip)
- People not using the cover card
- People calling the cover card a cut card... (ARGH! That one's taking over, even in poker stores!)
- People counting off single chips to call a bet of "twelve"
- People using two hands to cut the deck
- Labels coming off of, or misaligned on, chips (I'm don't object to cheap chips, as long as they're not interlocking plastic, but label problems irk me)
- People who repeatedly hide their hole cards (always unintentional, but always problematic)
- People who hide their big-denom chips (no, they're not really shielded from harm by being buried by smaller chips)


Hmm, looking back at the list, maybe my pet peeve is people?

so calling the cover card a cut card is a pet peeve?

I've solely called it a cut card for over 10 years, i cannot recall the last time someone used the term 'cover card'

 

[Bloody Marvelous]

- My primary one is people saying they'll attend, and then not show. That killed my poker club.
- People keeping their chips in a pile iso in stacks.
- Not paying attention to the game.
- People showing absolutely 0% interest if the game is not NLHE.
- Complaining that the blinds went up again (I mean, they're 30min levels...)
- Players not leaving the table when they bust out of the tournament (that causes quite a few misdeals, even though I trained myself to deal to stacks, not to players).
- Players moving the dealer button, and not announcing it
- Players playing with the dealer button. Just leave the dealer button where it is. Get a card protector to play with.

 

[Mental Nomad]

Oh, and there's one more pet peeve category that I never bring up unless someone is asking about proper terminology and calling of the game:

deuce - the name of the two-pip card (not to be confused with hearing the words "two" or "to")
two - a word for betting (not to be confused with a card reference)
pair - the name of a hand ("jacks" or "pair of jacks" are proper, "two jacks" is not)

likewise:

trey - the name of the three-pip card (not to be confused with "three")
three - a word for betting (not to be confused with a card reference)
trips or set - the name of a hand ("trips" or "trip jacks" are proper, "three of a kind" and "three jacks" are not)

And for what it's worth:

ace - the name of the one-pip card (not to be confused with "one.")
one - a word for betting
high card - name of a hand ("jack high")

Although modern cards all show an A instead of a 1 on the ace, it used to be a 1... But since everyone universally called it an ace except for card newbs, they started printing it as an A.

And because I'm usually asked: no, I'm not aware of a proper name for the four-pip card other than the "four," although a few people will call the ten a "dix" or "deece," calling it a "ten" is proper...

 

[Mental Nomad]

One more:

After an all-in, players insisting on counting the exact value of the stacks to figure out what to pay, when matching stacks will clearly be quicker and easier and less error-prone!

 

[Ben]

Although modern cards all show an A instead of a 1 on the ace, it used to be a 1... But since everyone universally called it an ace except for card newbs, they started printing it as an A.

And because I'm usually asked: no, I'm not aware of a proper name for the four-pip card other than the "four," although a few people will call the ten a "dix" or "deece," calling it a "ten" is proper...

Suddenly I feel the urge to go make a video about pocket knaves.

 

[jbutler]

One more:

After an all-in, players insisting on counting the exact value of the stacks to figure out what to pay, when matching stacks will clearly be quicker and easier and less error-prone!

i will come to the defense on this one. i do this almost every time and for good reason in my opinion.

in $2/5NL games, the vast majority of stacks are 95% $5s. when you have an all-in for $500+ per player and there is a mess of chips in the center of the table already dead from previous betting, having an often incompetent dealer pull my several stacks of red chips into the middle to match up with villain's is a disaster waiting to happen. more than a few times i've seen disagreements between players and dealers over which chips were already in the middle and whether the proper amount of chips were brought in from each player.

i don't want there to be any doubt as to how much i owe or how much i should be paid, so i count stacks down or insist that the dealer count them down rather than slide them into the center with other chips where it can become confusing.

 

[72o]

When someone slows the game down to count out fifteen black hundo chips instead of tossing a 1K and 500 chip into the pot.

This would never bother me as I play with a lot of chips on the table and love it. Instead of a few $1 chips we play with a bunch of quarters and fiddies.

- My primary one is people saying they'll attend, and then not show. That killed my poker club....

Yes!!! I frickin hate this. I almost get the impression that most people look at a poker night as a house party where the number of people doesn't really matter. There is a specific number (range) of seats at a table and I try to fill every seat. Too many people that never really committed show up and now we're crammed around the table. But when people don't show up when they said they would, now half the table is open and I could have tried to call/email people from the "alternate" list. Drives me bananas.

 

[grandgnu]

This would never bother me as I play with a lot of chips on the table and love it. Instead of a few $1 chips we play with a bunch of quarters and fiddies.

I mean in a tournament where time matters because blinds increase, and some idiot is slowing down the game everytime because they want to count out hundreds in $25 value chips or thousands in $100 chips because they want to hold onto their larger denomination chips (which means they wind up needing to make change later)

 

[72o]

I mean in a tournament where time matters because blinds increase, and some idiot is slowing down the game everytime because they want to count out hundreds in $25 value chips or thousands in $100 chips because they want to hold onto their larger denomination chips (which means they wind up needing to make change later)

Gotcha...I should have deduced that from the bet amounts that you mentioned. You mean your blinds don't just increase when someone busts out?

 

[abby99]

so calling the cover card a cut card is a pet peeve?

I've solely called it a cut card for over 10 years, i cannot recall the last time someone used the term 'cover card'

Cut cards are commonly used in blackjack games where one of the players literally uses them to cut the cards. After the cut, the cut card remains at the bottom of the deck for hand-dealt games, where it protects the bottom card from being exposed accidentally.

The cut card has a similar function in poker. The dealer usually cuts the cards by picking up the top half of the deck (approximately) and placing it on the cut card. Therefore, even though its main purpose in poker might be to protect the bottom card of the deck from being exposed accidentally, it gets there as part of the cut procedure.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

People not paying attention, slow play (not slow-playing big hands, but acting slow in general), dirty stacks, people hiding big chips, chips not in countable stack sizes (so it takes them forever to count their chips when I have them all-in). I love having conversations at the table, and poker is a social game (to me, I know there are some people who take it seriously and are only there for the money), but when your constant story-telling interferes with your ability to play in a timely fashion, maybe you should dial it back a little.

 

[Mental Nomad]

After an all-in, players insisting on counting the exact value of the stacks to figure out what to pay, when matching stacks will clearly be quicker and easier and less error-prone!

i will come to the defense on this one. i do this almost every time and for good reason in my opinion.

I get you, and I agree that's it's not always appropriate, especially with someone who isn't as comfortable dealing & managing the game - but I mean those who insist on counting even in those particular situations where it's obviously clearly easy to match the stacks.

Personally, I see more errors in trying to count the total than in matching the stacks, but I have a lot of control in my games, and using a solid procedure for stacking them off makes it mostly foolproof. Also, the way I line up the chips to count the total pre-disposes them to matching the stacks. I suppose I'm somewhat spoiled by having been trained to do it.

It's not appropriate to pull the stacks into the pot while matching stacks after an all-in... but you're absolutely right, someone who doesn't know better may do that, and it's an error waiting to happen. The stacks should be matched off to the side, and the remaining chips returned to the covering player, and then the players and dealer confirm that everything "looks right"... it's only after the covering player is clear that no chip on the table belongs to them that they get pushed out to the winner. There's no need to pull the matched stacks into the pot at all, most people want to pick up the stacks so they have less to muck!

 

[Mental Nomad]

I mean in a tournament where time matters because blinds increase, and some idiot is slowing down the game everytime because they want to count out hundreds in $25 value chips or thousands in $100 chips because they want to hold onto their larger denomination chips (which means they wind up needing to make change later)

I very much agree. I don't mind if they put up fifteen black quickly - it's not so hard to cut three stacks of five quickly, but if they're counting "six, seven, eight..." Argh. One main reason casinos use decent chips is so that two stacks of the same height have the same number of chips.

 

[Mental Nomad]

Cut cards are commonly used in blackjack games where one of the players literally uses them to cut the cards. After the cut, the cut card remains at the bottom of the deck for hand-dealt games, where it protects the bottom card from being exposed accidentally.

The cut card has a similar function in poker. The dealer usually cuts the cards by picking up the top half of the deck (approximately) and placing it on the cut card. Therefore, even though its main purpose in poker might be to protect the bottom card of the deck from being exposed accidentally, it gets there as part of the cut procedure.

Yeah, abby99 has it right - the cover card should end up in place as part of the cut, but its purpose is to cover the bottom. In home games, where the dealer typically offers to let someone else cut, I find they very often cut onto the table, and the dealer has to then move the deck onto the cover, so it's actually not involved in the cut at all!

In blackjack, they use two plastic cards. They give one to a player as a cut card, and then shuffle. During the last round of shuffles, the cards are stacked onto the other card as a the cover card, the stack is knocked over and offered to a player - they choose the cut by inserting the cut card. Then the dealer performs the cut by sliding the cut card down to cover the new bottom card (turning it into a cover card) while separating the two groups of cards, moves the bottom half to the top, and removes the original cover card. Lastly, that card is inserted as an indicator card, showing when the cards will by shuffled again.

So there are two plastic cards serving four roles: indicating cut, covering, covering, and indicating shuffle. But the only one the players ever touch is the "cut card," and the name has stuck.

 

[Mental Nomad]

Which reminds me of another peeve... games where they think it's unnecessary to have a cover card! If you don't have one, you can use an inverted joker, or the other non-playing cards that come with the deck. If there are two decks, you can use the jokers from opposite decks so that the color makes it easier to find if they get mixed in.

 

[Ben]

I played somewhere (actually, I'm about 86% sure it was The Hitching Post) where the players customarily used the cut card to actually cut the deck, i.e. the "cut" consisted only of the cutting player inserting the cut card into the deck at a random point; the dealer then took it from there. I found it odd, but hey when in Rome...

 

[Mr Tree]

I played somewhere (actually, I'm about 86% sure it was The Hitching Post) where the players customarily used the cut card to actually cut the deck, i.e. the "cut" consisted only of the cutting player inserting the cut card into the deck at a random point; the dealer then took it from there. I found it odd, but hey when in Rome...

That's weird, usually everyone in my game just cuts and then the dealer puts the deck on the cover/cut card but someone may have started doing something else and then everyone followed suit.

 

[72o]

Yeah that's how I do it. It's the easiest way IMHO. Dealer holds the shuffled deck in front of person to their left or right and that person just simply inserts the cut card somewhere in the deck. The dealer then just lifts the half that has been cut by the cut card (with the cut card on the bottom of this half) and places this half of the deck on the bottom.

 

[Ben]

That's weird, usually everyone in my game just cuts and then the dealer puts the deck on the cover/cut card but someone may have started doing something else and then everyone followed suit.

It's also very possible that I'm thinking of somewhere else entirely. I've played in a lot of different games the past few years.

 

[Mr Tree]

It's also very possible that I'm thinking of somewhere else entirely. I've played in a lot of different games the past few years.

Degenerate [emoji106]

 

[Mr. Cheese]

The way we play is the dealer sets the shuffled deck next to the cut card on the table, then proceeds to take "half" the deck and place it on top of the "cut card" thus making the cut card a bottom protector.

 

[CdnBeerLover]

The way we play is the dealer sets the shuffled deck next to the cut card on the table, then proceeds to take "half" the deck and place it on top of the "cut card" thus making the cut card a bottom protector.

We do something similar. Shuffled deck is set on the table next to the cut/cover card. Player to the right of the dealer cuts the deck and places the top portion on the cut/cover card. Dealer places the remainder of the deck on top and deals.

 

[Mental Nomad]

The way we play is the dealer sets the shuffled deck next to the cut card on the table, then proceeds to take "half" the deck and place it on top of the "cut card" thus making the cut card a bottom protector.

That's a proper casino dealer cut, if the cut is done with one hand. After putting down the cover card and deck, with one hand, cut about half the deck to the cover, and with the same hand, pick up the rest and put it on top.

If you have two hands on the deck while doing this, you introduce the potential to do a variety of false cuts.

 

[kiva]

Going back to the purpose of the thread, a lot of my pet peeves have already been covered above... although I'd consider some of those more serious than pet peeves!

A list of additional pet peeves of mine that don't really affect the game:

- People paying with dirty stacks (high chip on top of low chip)
- People not using the cover card
- People calling the cover card a cut card... (ARGH! That one's taking over, even in poker stores!)
- People counting off single chips to call a bet of "twelve"
- People using two hands to cut the deck
- Labels coming off of, or misaligned on, chips (I'm don't object to cheap chips, as long as they're not interlocking plastic, but label problems irk me)
- People who repeatedly hide their hole cards (always unintentional, but always problematic)
- People who hide their big-denom chips (no, they're not really shielded from harm by being buried by smaller chips)


Hmm, looking back at the list, maybe my pet peeve is people?

interesting...when I learned to deal blackjack many years ago, they called it a cut card...maybe different nowadays or in poker?

using the cut card to cut and then lift that half of the deck, simultaneously covering the bottom the cut half makes zero chance anybody will see a card during the cut. If somebody does it without the card and lifts the deck oh so slightly, you can see the bottom card in the cut half.

YMMV.

 

[Mental Nomad]

interesting...when I learned to deal blackjack many years ago, they called it a cut card...maybe different nowadays or in poker?

It was always a cover card in poker. It became popularly known as a cut card in blackjack, especially with multi - deck shoes.

 

[T_Chan]

I run a lot of fundraisers so I act as TD. The worst is when there are players there who think they're playing in a Pro event and take everything waaay too seriously. Most of these are charity events for cancer research or underprivileged kids... Yes it sucks when a casual player makes a bad play but you don't need to berate them and/or the dealer.

2nd place goes to the player who thinks he's the referee and tries to fix everything after I've been called over to solve a problem. Most of the time they weren't even involved in the hand and continually talk over the players who are in the hand trying to explain what happened. And then proceed to tell me I'm wrong after the entire table agrees that it's proper procedure and makes sense.