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

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41

I hadn’t read your actual solution yet. I’ll give it a read in a second.

My ninth grade geography teacher suffered from narcolepsy. As long as he was up and lecturing he was fine, but when he would sit down and grade papers, or even when talking to students, he would fall asleep. We all had papers that had red streaks across them from when he would slump forward and the pen would fly across the paper and then out of his hand and on to the floor. And I remember asking him about an upcoming test, him falling asleep mid-answer, and me having to awaken him to ask again. He was in his 60’s and close to retirement and I don’t know if this was a long-standing problem or a more recent one.

(After reading your solution…) I had originally put as an option refunding the $2,000 from the pot, then making it a forced blind for the next hand (so there would be two big blinds and a small blind) but the change in the pot odds and weighting of the hands bothered me. Throwing an extra $2,000 in the game from outside has a lesser effect in that regard, plus has the added advantage of the players being more likely to accept it. Good call.

Cheers,

Brian

42

eauhomme

Thank you.
Add in the fact that the tournament clock was running, I had never ruled on something like this before, (heck, this exact situation would never have come up before anywhere for anyone), and I needed a decision NOW.
As I said, the hand continued to play out with no misdeal, and everyone at the table was happy, even the guy in the wheelchair who was allowed to continue to play with his whole big blind given back to him out of the dealer’s tray. I just thought, total blame is by the house, so the total penalty should rest on the house. I really hate to add chips to the prize pool, but the house adds chips to the prize pool every time we race off chips during a break. It was the best that I could come up with in 30 seconds or less and I still think that I made the best call under the circumstances.

Stay safe, David

43

OK people.
It is Monday morning and time for a new floor person’s call.

I did not make the call when this problem occurred, but I was playing at a table in the room when voices started to be raised nearby, so I went over to watch. All tournament directors like to be amused when someone else is in the hot seat. LOL

My wife and I were up in Reno playing in live games in a card room about two hours after the tournament of the day was over. So, this call happened to a floor person who was working in the live game section. The room had about 60 tables going and most were in use at about 11 pm on a Saturday night, extra tables had been added because of the fairly high buy-in poker tournament. This was back a few years, and no-limit games were very rare at the time. Just then, all tables in use were limit games with most of them being limit Texas Hold’em.

The problem was that a player from out of town, just in for the weekend to play in the poker tournament that had recently finished, had left his table to go to the bathroom. He had been drinking steadily since he busted out of the tournament and had been playing in a $10 & $20 Hold’em table for the last 3 hours and had been winning. He had been seated in the number 7 seat at his table when he got up to go to the rest room. Unfortunately, when he came back, he sat down once again in the 7 seat, but at the wrong table.
His new table was playing $100 & $200 Texas Hold’em. He was immediately dealt in and was too drunk to notice that he was at the wrong table with a much higher limit being played.
He proceeded to win 3 out of the next 4 hands that were dealt and was now up over $3,000 dollars for winning those 3 hands.
Just as he was stacking up the chips from his last winning hand, the real owner of the seat and the chips already there showed up and asked the dealer what had happened? Why had his seat been given to another player and what had happened to his chips? He was a nice guy who had also gone to the bathroom, he had just taken longer to get back to his table. The dealer, who had only recently sat down at the table, put the deck down, capped it, and called for a floor person. He had been a full-time dealer for a while, and instinctively knew that this was going to take a while and be fun to watch, especially as this was not a regular live action floor person but one who usually just ran tournament games. LET THE FUN BEGIN!
The dealer knew that he was in the clear, he had only dealt two hands at this table since he sat down, and all the seats were full when he got there. As the floor person got enough information to understand the problem, a lot of voices started to get really loud. Not from the two players in the 7 seat, but from every other player at the table who each and all demanded that they be refunded all of the chips that they had lost to this drunk imposter. And they wanted every dime back. They did not care how long it took. They wanted the house to go to the cameras in surveillance and they wanted every cent refunded.
All the while, the noise level slowly but surely began to get louder.
Me, I am just standing nearby with a silly grin on my face.
Something like this had happened to me one time when I was on the floor at the Las Vegas Hilton, but the two player’s games were $5 & $10, and $10 & $20 Texas Hold’em, so I knew what my decision would have been. To me, it was fun watching this poor floor person start to get a panic attack, he was so obviously out of his league. What do they say, “Anything that does not kill you, makes you stronger?” This poor guy was going home tonight feeling like superman.

Ok people, there is your problem. The clock is not ticking this time, but the house is losing rake money.
What questions would you ask, if any?
And what would be your God like decision.

Have fun and good luck.

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44

So all you people at the table wanting your money back: You did not notice that this was a different guy sitting in front of someone else’s chips?? The original guy was on a pee break. he did not cash out. When someone new takes a seat they bring their own stacks. There was a guy on his right and a guy on his left and no one noticed this??

Go to hell, table. Eat poop. Of course I would say it politely.

At least drunk guy won. Imagine the stink between him and the chip owner if he had lost.

45

napkin-holder
Nice observation but no floor decision.
We do not know what was in the minds of the players.
Maybe they were focused on a hand in play and everyone just assumed that a new player had sat down with new chips.
And what makes you think drunk guy won anything?
Does he get to keep the chips?

46

That’s what I said. No decision. The house did nothing wrong (especially with the dealer change). It’s up to the players to watch who is at the table and in the hand. It’s their responsibility.

Am I missing something?

47

I am beginning here by reasoning backwards.
If drunk guy had lost the money, would the ruling be “well, oopsie. have a great night!” No, it would be “ignorance is no excuse. you implicitly agreed to the terms of the table/game when you sat down and began taking action. you know owe the gentleman in seat 7 however much of his stack you lost.”

so I think drunk guy, in the converse situation, is entitled to keep his winnings and walk.

the amount that was already on the table when he sat down should be returned to seat 7.

none of the other players have any legitimate beef.

BTW, I did this once in my early cardroom days. I was playing 1/3 and had run up my little $150 short stack to about $300, which for me was significant money at the time (heck, it still is). Got a table change and went to the wrong table; sat down at $2/3/5. Didn’t notice right away because most players are still stacking $1 and $5 chips.

Everyone was chill and let me just take back my blind and go to the proper table. I mostly played at Bay101 in San Jose from that day on; people there were mostly nice and the floor rulings were usually reasonable, if not always internally consistent.

48

Younguru,
Thank you for your input.
You might want to try looking at it from a larger perspective.
I think you are mostly looking out from the eyes of the player.
Keep in mind that a ruling at a table kind of becomes the law of the land, like when the US Supreme court makes a ruling, it must be adhered to by all until it is successfully challenged.
A person who creates a problem is almost never rewarded for his mistakes. We do not want others to emulate his pattern of play. Fairness to the majority is always a guiding light and the person who created a problem is almost never rewarded for his transgressions.
Try looking at it not from the players side who made the mistake, but from the house side who must look at every problem from every aspect before making a ruling.
Here is a hint. Unfortunately, not many players seated at the table are going to be happy with you after you make your ruling.
Good luck, David

49

I was looking at it exactly the same way as @Younguru - and came to almost the same conclusion. I figured that the real seat 7 would keep all the winnings in this case though. I don’t think you can allow the drunk player to take money out of the stack, so the stack has to stay whole, and then it’s just a matter of who it belongs to.
I guess you could make a case that it currently belongs to the drunk, but then you’d have to treat them sitting at the wrong table as a theft. I can see why the house might want to do that - it would likely discourage anyone trying to do something like this to angle other players - but it seems a bit drastic in this exact situation.
I don’t see how you ever give any of the other players at the table back any chips though. That seems like you’d be asking someone to try and figure out how to exploit that for profit.

50

The question is: non-drunk dude going to the bathroom, who has responsibility for looking after his chips?

51

napkin_holder

Ouch. You are not going to like this.
Believe it or not, I got to say, in reality, no one.

To give you an example. the opening day of the Las Vegas Hilton 26 table Poker Room. The players rushed into the room and started taking seats where the floor people asked them to sit. At a table in the middle of the room, 9 players sat down to start a $5 and $10 Texas Hold’em game. A young man in black pants and a long sleeve white shirt walked around the table and collected cash from every player. The players all assumed he was a chip runner working for the house. Nope, casino cameras later showed him walking toward the cage with the money and he just kept on walking toward the exit and was never seen again. Tom Bowling was the Poker Room Manager at the time and after talking to the casino manager it was decided to give each player at the table a stack of red chips which equals $100. The house did not have to do this. They did it as a public relations gesture.
I was just glad that I was working the floor on swing shift that day.
Just picture someone playing at a slot machine going to have lunch and coming back and finding his balance in his slot machine gone. Not the brightest move on the slot machine player’s part. The house will try to find out what happened on surveillance cameras and if they can locate the thief, that person will be turned over to the local police and charged with a crime, but the house has no responsibility to make up the loss of the player. Welcome to the real world.
You might like to hear this. Let’s say you are walking through the slot machine area and see a dollar coin laying on the floor and no person is nearby. If you pick it up and put it in your pocket, you can be charged with theft because all lost money laying on the carpet belongs to the casino who are supposed to find the real owner, and if they can’t, the house gets to keep it.
Like I said, welcome to the real world.

52

Lihiue

Nice, you have come closest so far. Well done.

I will give a little more in details in a few days.

53

Hi.

Anyone have a difficult floor decision that happened at their table while they were playing?

I would really like to see if anyone comes up with a situation that I did not encounter in my 35 years working in Poker and Blackjack.

I would also encourage everyone to log into my other topic that I have posted in Poker Discussion. It has over 7000 people who have logged in to read about the real-life stories of my working in Mob run Casinos during the 70s and 80s.
Look for the Title,
[I worked in Poker and Blackjack for 35 years starting in Las Vegas in 1973. If you have questions that you would like to ask a professional in the business, here is your chance]

It would help if you have watched the movie “Casino” with Robert De Niro. In real life, I knew everyone in that movie, and they knew me by name. Everyone but the wife, played by Sharon Stone. I knew her by sight but was never in a situation to be introduced.

54

Thanks. I forget to congratulate you on the original call you posted about. Of course adding chips to the table gives the two callers an advantage - they’re playing for the same sized pot without any risk of losing to the big blind, but it’s hard to see anyone caring about that. It is clearly the best solution even with the benefit of hindsight, so well done for finding it in real time.

55

Awwww, i got one—Many years ago when playing 7 card stud in A.C. Tropicana had problems finding dealers and had some BAD ones–ok, they hired this very cute blonde who awwww was dealing the cards backwards one night ( no blonde jokes, my wife is blonde lol ) and i noticed right away but being she was nice n also cute just lol and told the flood manger but very low so ppl. did not hear ( cannot believe ppl. at our table did not notice, back then ppl. be playing for 2-3 days and i guess 2 tired 2 notice)…Floor manager whispered in her ear n she started dealing correct::)…2 days later with the same dealer, i had a flush n some guy had a straight n she gave him n chips and i screamed for the floor manager lol, the nice guy gave me the winnings and floor manager fired cute blonde on the spot as this was not her first time giving winnings to wrong person:).

56

bill8888

As a casino manager, I must say that really cute, good looking blondes that want to deal poker are in very short supply, although while I worked in Vegas, I managed to date three of them along with some redheads and brunettes. Looking back, in my 16 years in Vegas I only dated poker and blackjack dealers along with one cocktail waitress and three tourists.
Anyway, good looking female dealers are a big draw to any cardroom. I have personally set up special training classes for dealers while on breaks to try to make them better dealers while dealing to each other under my supervision. It almost always worked. When we have auditions and hire people, we must have seen something that gave us hope for them.
We were usually right. They just needed a little extra help, and I considered that part of my job.

Just so you all know, in all my years in Vegas, I only every dated one female poker dealer where I worked. She dealt on day shift and I ran swing shift, that means that I was never her immediate supervisor. Including after we got married, I might add. We eventually married, and we had a son together.

Stay safe, David

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57

My niece was a poker dealer here in the Pittsburgh poker room-she started dating the poker room manager and they both awwwww had to get new jobs as they married and now have a cute 4 year old boy—got to love poker rooms:)…

58

Here is something most people never knew.
Some casinos in Vegas used to let a married couple share one job. Say a married couple are both poker dealers. Between then, they had one 40-hour shift. They would decide which of them would come in each workday. If the house needed another dealer for whatever reason, they could ask both of them to come in to work. One of them was listed fulltime with full family benifits, the other listed parttime.

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59

lmao----I learned the hard way, NO one does:)…I was playing for hours on a Saturday, long list for tables, so i took a short break (left my chips of course so i could play right away ) and ran up to my room-took a nice shower and changed cloths-came back n noticed 6 black chips missing from my stack:(—Told the floor guy n he told someone n 20 minutes later i was told a lady dropped her purse next to my seat n bent down to get purse n took my 6 chips-then she cashed them out n out the door n me out $600.00 and lesson learned the hard way-stay sweaty or take my chips n get back on the list:).

60

But did you smell nice when you got back?

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