It is time for you to make a floor person decision for a real problem that happened during a poker tournament

Replay Poker Poker Discussion
21

Expect to be impressed.

Please keep in mind that this was not the World Series of Poker.
This was for all intents and purposes a home game.
In a local tribal casino poker room with 40 live poker tables where most of the players know each other and play against each other several nights a week, I have more latitude then if I were running a big buy in tournament in Las Vegas. I know this because I ran big buy-in tournaments in Las Vegas.
(I have another topic here in the forum under Poker Discussion that you may also enjoy reading. Look for the one that has over 7,300 people that have signed in to read it. It starts with “I worked in Poker and Blackjack for 35 years starting in Las Vegas in 1973”.)
But, to return to the problem at this table,
If I come over to a table that does not have a firm written rule to fall back on, part of my job is to see if I can make the whole table happy while using as many written rules as I can to make my final decision.

As a side note: Back a few years ago, I was the table games manager in charge of poker and blackjack at the Spotlight 29 Casino near Palm Springs, California.
On the wall of the poker room, we had a list of special house rules, just as you will see in almost every poker room that you ever walk into.

Rule # 1 said -
The Floor Person’s decision is always right.

Rule # 13 said -
If the floor person’s decision is wrong, please reread rule # 1

At this table, at this time, there were almost no wrong decisions to be made. Anything close is ok, and if I can also keep everyone happy, so much the better. Some poker tournament purists might not like my decision. So be it. I can live with my decision at this time, in this case.

22

Oh, what the heck. I have been up all night and you people are trying really hard. I might as well tell you what I decided so that you may all disagree with me at once. Here goes.

When a floor person has to make a gray area decision, many factors come into play. Number one is fairness to all players involved. In this case, because it is a tournament, it means fairness to every player still left playing from the original 120 buy-ins. You try to penalize players who caused a mistake to be made and try to not penalize players who are innocent of any guilt. In this case no player made a mistake. Two players and the blinds had money at risk in this hand. Killing the action would be a form of penalty toward those players.
The house is the only entity at fault in this situation. By letting this player play, the house assumed the responsibility of protecting the players cards, just as every player at the table does for their own cards.
Ok, here is an unwritten rule for all tournament directors all over the world. You will not find it written down anywhere.
A tournament director will never, never, never, never, almost never, add free house chips to a tournament in progress.
After some quick thinking, I took two $1000 chips from the dealer’s tray and gave them to the big blind to make up for the mistake by the house and let the hand continue. The winner of that hand received the total amount of chips that he would have won if no mistake had been made. The player who had his hand mistakenly killed by the house did not lose any chips and got to continue to play. (He lost all his chips in the next hand when he played his small blind and lost.) The board cards remained the same
As for me, after I announced my decision, I actually got the whole table clapping their hands, glad that the nice guy in the wheelchair, that most of them knew, got a $2,000 chip refund from the house, not from the pot, and got to continue to play.
Part of my job, a big part, is keeping the players happy whenever possible.
This time I was able to do that. A lot of times it is not a grey area, and some players go away unhappy.
You could ask 100 players what their decision would have been, and you might not get even one to do the same as I did.

Like I said, there is no wrong decision for a situation such as this.
You just do the best you can and make something up that is as close to what you consider to be the perfect solution at the time.

1 Like
23

As a real money tournament player at casino’s, I have seen some of these type of situations, and rulings, etc. So I am going to break down both the video hand and the other hand.

The disabled person’s hand: In this situation, if the disabled person wasn’t disabled, the normal ruling would be that even tho this is a dealer mistake, that if you don’t protect your hand, then despite dealer mistake, your hand is dead, and lose the 1 bb in the bb.

But since the person is disabled, and unable to protect hand, then that goes out the window, and it becomes dealer mistake, and a potential misdeal. But it’s not a misdeal because of action that took place according to rule. So it’s dealer mistake.

When there is a dealer mistake situation like this, where there doesn’t seem to be a fair solution that fair to all the players in tournament, that has no effect on tournament, then what’s supposed to happen, is that time, action, hand, gets rewinded, fixed, etc.

Since that’s not possible without greatly affecting the tournament, players, etc. Then here is what is done:

Even tho the hand is not a misdeal per se technically by the rules, the hand is treated as a misdeal. All the cards are gathered in, shuffled. Re Dealt out. The disabled person’s 1 bb stack is put back on the BB. Everything is put back to the original pre hand condition, and the hand is replayed over again.

While that’s still not a perfect solution(nothing is in this situation), even tho it still impacts things a little, it still 1 of the least impactful options, is fair to the disabled person, is fair to the other players, and while players won’t be happy about it in a way, almost all to all players will be happy with the solution in a way, and that it’s fair to almost everybody to everybody, and will accept the decision, etc.

But whether or not that’s the case or not. Even if it were totally unfair, etc, That’s what the rules say what to do. The rules say that when you have a situation like this, that your supposed to just do a redo of the whole hand, rewind the clock, as if the situation never happened, etc. While that’s not a official poker, casino federation, etc, kind of rule that is enforced at every casino, or else blacklisted, etc, that is the rule that is followed as a rule at some to most casino’s, and is the rule at all the casino’s I have played at like Black Pearl Casino, Player’s and Spectator’s Casino, Ace’s Casino, Ringo’s Casino, Lilac Lanes Casino, Northern Quest Casino, Big Daddy’s Casino, etc, in the Spokane WA, area.

KK hand: Cards Speak, once tabled. Since dealer made mistake, and mucked the KK hand, and since EVERYONE at the table said without pressure, no disagreement, etc, that it was 2 black KK, then it’s impossible that it’s not a flush. Floor person, Supervisor rightfully looked at video. But no way in hell, would digital video not at least show that it was 2 black K’s, KK. The individual exact suit may have been unclear. It may even have been unclear that KK, but doubt it. But since it was 2 red AA, then video at least show that at worst it was 2 black cards of a pocket pair. And since it is impossible to have a pocket pair be 2 spades, then 1 of black cards a spade, and 1 a club, which means the hand a club flush.

But even if doubt that, or if video was unclear. Then rules say that goto players, and if players all agree, then the pot gets pushed to the winning player according to what all the players say, if they all agree. There is no Chopped pot option like that according to the rules, unless as a last resort.

The Floor, Supervisor, Casino Screwed the KK player. Its was a BS ruling. They need to make a public apology, and fix, make the situation right. And if they don’t do that, then they should be blacklisted, boycotted, shut down, etc, and are dishonest liars scum, etc.

24

This reeks of house shill, I would demand to see the video myself, having played for the house myself using grey money back in the 80s, I would not put it past the house to protect a shill this way. I have never seen a camera setup in a casino that could not identify all the cards on the table. And yes I have built multiple count rooms, and security rooms for mini casinos, so I am not just speaking from a player point of view.

1 Like
25

UH -_Rain - Do you know what a house shill is and for what purpose it is used? If so, please explain. When I first started working in Las Vegas in the 70s my job was that of a house shill.
Thank you.

Also, I have worked in almost a dozen casinos and have friends that work in dozens more and in none of these does a player ever have “a right” to see the video. The casino does not even have to grant the request for their own employees to go look at the tapes.

It used to be a joke in Vegas that the only time that the house would 100% go look at the video was if a dead body was laying on it.

I would like to once again thank everyone for their input.

26

I get it, they don’t have to show you anything, you can file a complaint with the state gambling commission, all recordings must be kept for a period of time, here where I live, for this purpose. And my purpose as a shill was to make the game more enjoyable for the players and fill a vacant seat to promote the casino. but in the smaller casinos, things are not always Vegas

27

you may use the term (House Player) for that purpose but we called them house shills

28

Sorry Asuronetonus. There is a great difference between playing in a lot of tournaments and running a lot of tournaments.

A lot of what you said was 100% on the money.

One item that I would like to point out is that there is something called the TDA.
That stands for the “Tournament Directors Association”.
If a card room joins this association, they sign a pledge that they will abide by 100% of the rules as put forth by the TDA.
If anyone reading this would like to read what those rules are, just google TDA and download their rules. I believe that there are over 70 distinct rules with a lot of sub-headings. These are the rules that are used at the World Series of Poker
Anyway, a lot of poker rooms around the world have not joined the TDA because they do not agree with 100% of the rules that they would have to follow. When I was a card room manager I did not join their little club because there were several of their rules that I disagreed with. The association meets each year in Las Vegas and decides if they wish to add new rules or change existing rules. Strangely enough, in the years since I was a card room manager, they have changed almost all of the rules that I did not agree with to the way that I liked and used as a house rule in my own card room. As an example, way back when, their rule for balancing tables was to take the player at one table who was due for the big blind and move that person to the best open position at the new table he was moved to. I personally thought that rule sucked and the next time that I spoke with Linda Johnson who ran the TDA at the time and who was a personal friend of mine, I asked her about it. She explained to me the reasoning behind that TDA rule and I still thought it sucked and told her so. Strangely enough, in the years since, the TDA has changed that rule so that they still move the person who would be the big blind at a full table and now give him the worst position at the table he is moved to. That is how I was doing it as a house rule in my poker room.

Anyway, I understand the reasoning behind what you would like to do in the case of the disabled player. I must say that there is no universal rule for this gray area. It is a house rule situation and since there is no house rule anywhere that covers this, it is up to the floor person at the table to do the best he can in an almost no-win situation.

Thank you for your input. I agree with most of what you said.
As for the rest, we will have to agree to disagree. LOL

Stay safe everyone,
David, (AKA aceto5 when I am playing online)

29

_Rain, Thank you. Out of curiosity, whose money did you use to play with and under what circumstances were you allowed to play?

As a shill in Las Vegas, I was given a $40 harness ($40 of house money) and was seated at the lowest limit game just to help get the game going until enough real players sat down at the table and then I would get up. I was only allowed to bet when I was dealt a forced bring in bet and always had to fold when facing a bet by another player. This was a training experience for new hire dealers to watch and learn what their job would entail when they actually got to deal. The only rare time that I got to win a pot was when I was forced to make a bring in bet and it was checked to the river, and I had the best hand. Needless to say, I did not win very many hands.

Stay safe, David

30

Very similar situation, I would be given a rack, $100 in chips (house chips), this was due to having friends in high places, (on a local level) I did this as a side job (but mostly for fun) and worked at a normal job during the day. I would be seated at any low level game that needed a bit of startup help, rule was not as tight as yours, but object was same, don’t play unless hand met certain criteria, do not beat up any players, when game filled and player waiting, get up move to other game needing help, if I lost money house would eat it, if I won I would give back seed and keep profit, dealer evaluation was not in my SOW, that was left to pit boss. These were mini casinos and restaurant card rooms, most are gone now, bought up by competitors turned into house game mini’s, or closed for lack of participation due to surge of very large tribal casino’s withing easy distance.

31

This is actually the one that I was originally trying to remember. This is awful. The dealer @#$% up HUGE, the floor bungles it and Villain does everything that he can to hang on to a pot that he knows is not his.

Not only that, but the house staff took a half an hour to decide, and then when Hero appealed they took a couple of hours to decide!

32

_Rain, your right, similar, but not quite the same.

Ok, quick funny story. There are bar poker leagues all over the country where there are no professional dealers, the players deal to each other. Every now and then a bar player would come into my casino to play a poker tournament and then complain frequently because we were not doing it right.
My stock answer would be an apology, and then I would say that our tournaments were very similar to his except that we had rules. My players always thought that was very funny.
Stay safe, David

33

I have one for you as well @aceto5
They didn’t allow center dealers here until the 90s, prior to that it was all ring games player delt or one of the players delt, I remodeled a restaurant that was one of the first center dealer cardrooms in our area, even built the center dealer tables. This was my first exposure to this side of gambling you speak of a lot, only mine was on a smaller scale. The guy that was financing the venture came to me one day and said, this guy is going to show up later today, just do whatever he says. Later that day this guy with not much of a neck shows up asking to see me. I said how can I help you…he says I want 8 of those dealer tables and 6 of those ring tables and don’t worry about the money, and I quote “Don’t worry about the money my peoples money is good” then just left. Three weeks later he just shows back up with a wad of cash and a truck. And as I am walking across the parking lot I see the building inspector loading the disco speakers into the back of his van, right after he passed/signed off the final inspection without talking to me. It was then I realized what a small fish I was.

34

If any of you reading this ever had a ruling at a tournament table that really upset you, here is your chance to air your grievances.

Tell us the details of your fiasco at the table and we will tell you what we think.

Come Monday, I will tell you another poker floor person story that has kept a poker tournament director somewhere waking up in cold sweats in the middle of the night.

35

I just watched the film about the guy with the two black kings.
Poker rooms like this give the industry a bad name.

For the rest of you, here is something that you might try.
When you do not like the call given to you by a floor person, ask them to show you the rule they are quoting from in their rule book.

You may also ask for a second or third opinion.
Keep going up the ladder, and if that does not work out for you, tell them you wish to make an official complaint to the Casino and hopefully to the State Gaming Control Board.

Here is a story that you might like.
A very long time ago when I was still a poker dealer at the Las Vegas Hilton Poker Room, there was a difficulty involving the bad beat jackpot. I was dealing a low level 7 card stud game where the bad beat jackpot was, I am just going to pick a number because I forget the exact amount, so let’s say $10,000. I had just finished dealing a hand and was shuffling when a female regular right across from me in the # 4 seat reached down and put her purse in her lap. After the last hand she only had four dollars in chips in front of her. I cut the deck and began dealing the next hand. She did not open her purse and just looked at her cards and called the $1 bring-in. One other player called and that put $3 in the pot.
On the wall were posted the rules for our bad beat jackpot which clearly said that a pot must have a minimum of $10 in the pot to qualify for the bad beat jackpot. I dealt out the next up card which gave her a pair of queens showing. She bet her remaining $3 and one player called, and the other player folded. The pot now had a total of $9 with only two players and one of them was all in. I proceeded to deal out the rest of the cards and both players turned up all of their cards. The lady hit the fourth queen on the river and the other player was showing a nine high straight flush. We now had the two qualifying hands needed for a bad beat, but the pot size did not qualify.
I was looking at the lady when she realized that there would be no bad beat awarded for this hand. I actually saw the blood drain out of her face and go a pale white when reality sank in. I, of course, called the floor person who looked at everything, double checked everything with me, and quietly apologized to the two players that this hand did not qualify for a bad beat.
By the way, this took place so long ago that the bad beat awarded 75% to the loser and 25% to the winner, not like today when the bad beat is split 3 ways. The lady said that she understood and that she knew the rules.
For the next two weeks the lady had bragging rights at the table whenever she played.
Then one day she was telling her story, and I happened to be dealing at her table. The tourist sitting next to her listened to the whole story and asked her if she had complained. She looked at him with pity and again explained the things necessary to win the bad beat. He looked back at her and said that he was a lawyer and asked her, by not complaining, how much money did she win? She said zero. How much money might you win if you complained to the state control board and won. She thought a bit and said, $7,500. He asked her how much would it cost her to complain. She said nothing, and smiled and then said, “Ok, why not”? She went to the poker room manager and asked him what she needed to do to make a formal complaint to the Nevada State Gaming Control Board? He gave her a pamphlet and she left happy.
About one month later the Las Vegas Hilton received a notification from the state board that the Hilton owed the lady $7,500. which was a little embarrassing because just 3 days before, someone else had hit the jackpot and the $10,000 plus more was given to another two players.
Now she had an even happier story to tell at the table.

36

Great post and question with a lot of great answers.

I can only assume all players and dealer were aware of the special circumstance with player 1 before play. I would return all chips, provide the table with an apology, remove/replace the dealer & replay the hand. Then take appropriate disciplinary action for the dealer, as errors of this magnitude can have severe affects on the buisness.

1 Like
37

_Rain
Yes, this has a familiar ring to it.

Please remember to read my stories about when I moved to Vegas in the early 70s and worked in mob owned casinos.
Its heading is “I worked in Poker and Blackjack in Vegas starting in 1973.” You will read stories such as how I met Tony Spilotro because most of his mob lieutenants played poker where I worked. Or how about when one of Tony’s people threatened to have two of his men waiting by my car when I got off work so that they could break both my arms and both my legs.
I wrote down real stories from when the mob ruled Las Vegas and what it was like to work there during that piece of Vegas history.

38

Like you said-" local game with ppl. who mostly knew each other" That is why i would say miss-deal n new hand and i am sure being the man had a disability there would be no arguments against it…Now WOSP final table or big tournament with a lot of cash riding on it-awwwww, I would not want to have to make the call on it:).

39

Deal him two cards from where they stand now. Since nobody has seen his two mucked cards and action hasn’t continued, there is no change in the odds.

Yes, people can argue over how the hand “would have played”, much in the way that a blackjack player gets mad when another player makes a dumb hit and gets the card that they needed, while they get the next card that makes them bust. But reality is the two cards could have just as easily been in the opposite order and the dumb hit could have helped the player.

40

eauhomme,
I totally agree with your blackjack wisdom. When I was working in the Blackjack pit, I always thought it funny when one player got mad at another player who took a hit when the dealer was showing a 5.

As for your decision on my poker floor person question, did you read earlier when I posted what I actually decided when that situation happened when I was on the floor?
That happened to me over 20 years ago and I still think that I made the best call. No one got hurt and everyone at the table was happy. In a no-win situation that is about as good a result as you can get. The number one seat even got a chance to look at two more hands if the dealer did not fall asleep again.

Which brings up a just remembered story. The card room where I was working had just hired about six dealers about two weeks ago, when I was called over to a table by the players, not the dealer. When I got there, I found the dealer sound asleep in the box, halfway through a hand still holding the deck in his left hand, thankfully not snoring. I asked the players to all pick up their chips and move to another table on the other side of the card room while I got another dealer for their table. I then walked back over to sleeping beauty and gently shook his arm to wake him. I found out that he suffered from narcolepsy but was taking medicine to combat the problem. He had gotten through the first ten days ok, had gotten excited that night with a full room and so much action all around him. His childhood dream of becoming a poker dealer had come true and he guessed he just got overwhelmed. I liked the kid and felt bad for him, so I talked to the card room manager, and we worked out a deal. He would take a week off, get himself organized, and if ever in the future he felt he was getting excited he could ask for a break, and we would let him clock out and clock back in when he felt up to it. We almost always had extra board dealers waiting to get in the lineup. We did tell him that it was all up to him, another doze at the table and we would have to let him go. We would also always keep him on probationary status as part of the agreement. New hires are always started on probationary status and can be let go for no reason.

Stay safe, David

1 Like