rulings and general confusion at GVR LOL

[tyler_cracker]

here are a couple of things that happened at my 4/8 table at GVR this evening. they all involve a very confused old dude at my table (his name is Maurice and he seemed to be sort of a regular).

very confused old dude is very bad at the mechanics of live play, like handling chips and posting blinds. when he puts chips in the pot, he puts them in two at a time. he is often slow to act. he usually announces his action before he does it. he says, "play", especially preflop, to mean call. a couple people observe that it sounds a lot like "raise" when he mumbles "play".

anyway, some vignettes:

1. VCOD doesn't like to put a chip on his cards when he's in the hand. one time, after VCOD limps, the guy a couple seats to his right mucks his cards and accidentally hits VCOD's cards. only one mucked card is touching VCOD's hand, and VCOD's hand is clearly discernible from the mucked hand.

dealer freezes the action and prevents VCOD or anyone else from touching the cards. mucker apologizes and tells the dealer that he knows what both of his cards were. dealer acknowledges this and calls for the floor.

VCOD begins to argue vaguely, because that's what he does every time something happens that involves him. dealer says the floor needs to handle the situation. i support the dealer, saying that waiting for the floor is best, and a couple other players grunt agreement. so far so good.

floor comes over, listens to the story, and without missing a beat tells VCOD that his hand is dead but that he can take his bet back. VCOD is annoyed. "i had a pair," he says.

"wow, that was a terrible decision," i say. floor walks away.


discussion: the floor's ruling is technically correct, but i don't think it's in the best interest of the game.

but let's say you want to be nitty about this to (quixotically) teach VCOD a lesson about protecting his hand. if so, why do you let him take his bet back?



2. this part is excerpted from a semi-strategy post:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...umber=10420815

a couple hands ago, very confused old dude was in the SB. button raised preflop. VCOD brings $2 over the betting line to complete his SB. dealer tells him that the pot has been raised, so it's $8 to call. VCOD brings chips back to his stack and folds. dealer hesitates, then tells VCOD that once chips cross the line they have to stay in the pot, but that he'll let him slide this time.

VCOD gets confused and sort of vaguely argues with the dealer. dealer tries again to explain what it was that happened. VCOD again argues back vaguely.

of course, VCOD has been doing VC things all night, so the woman to VCOD's right -- who has been helping him stack chips and stuff all evening -- and i tell the dealer to save his breath. VCOD doesn't get it, and he never will. dealer is like, "*sigh*, fine".

that was a couple hands ago.

in this hand, after VILLAIN RAISES, VCOD is next to act and pushes 2 chips into the pot. dealer announces the raise, and VCOD takes his chips back and mucks his hand.

dealer yells for the floor. when the floor comes over, the dealer explains the whole story, except he refers to VCOD as "this individual". lol dehumanizing pronounaments.

anyway, floor sort of gives VCOD a warning, lets him keep his bet, and walks away.


discussion: this is the same floor as in story #1. the ruling seems pretty inconsistent with his previous ruling.

question: i had a very strong hand in this pot (J3 on an 833r board). should i lobby harder for VCOD to remain in this pot?



3. a hand develops and VCOD is facing a bet on the turn.

"how much money is in the pot?" he asks.

dealer plays with the pot a little bit, hesitates for a moment, and says, "well, about twenty or thirty dollars."

old guy says, "not enough out there," and mucks.

i ask the dealer, "um, are you allowed to answer that question?"

dealer replies, "he can't see that well so sometimes we help him a little with things like that."


discussion: how reasonable/unreasonable is this? would you comment futher? would you have said anything in the first place?



tl;dr: confused old dude causes procedural chaos. check out some floor rulings and some piping up from me and decide whether OP is super nitty, not nitty enough, or just a dick.

[pig4bill]

2. Do you really need this guy's two dollars that badly?

[psandman]

1. Bad ruling, except that the floor is the guy who is least qualified to make this ruling since he is the only guy at the scene who has no way of knowing which card is which, so once he is called I can understand how makes this ruling.

2) Tell its a ridiculous rule that the money has to stay in the pot, so I have no problem with the floor not enforcing it.

3) The Dealer doesn't get it. It doesn't matter of the old guy can't see the pot. The Dealer has been announcing how many players are in the pot.ld guy should be able to figure out at least an approximate pot size from that. I don't care if he's old, the dealer doesn't get to tell him the pot size.

[n.s.]

1) I think this is a bad ruling, but it's not terrible as long as they are consistent - it's not like this happens very often.

2) Where I play, it's allowed to take back your call if you didn't realize that it was raised and there's no action behind you. I think it's a good rule - there's no real way to use it to angle shoot, and it keeps the game moving faster (especially if the 1 seat gets burned and starts having to ask every time if there's a raise because he can't see).

3) Yeah, I suppose the dealer shouldn't be counting the pot, but I think this is one of those spots where sometimes it's okay to bend the rules to accomodate a "special needs" player like this guy. There's no way that very confused old man is going to be able to keep track of how many bets are in the pot. I think that if it doesn't slow down the game, it's okay for the dealer to eyeball it and come up with the sort of very rough estimate that anyone else could get just by looking at the pile of chips.

[Don Olney]

I know rules should be the same at all limits BUT this is a 4/8 game at GVR. This maybe the guys only form of getting out of the rest home.
I like the fact that GVR does help this guy out when he needs it. Heck I would just sit back, enjoy the table and try and get the old dude to tell stories of BACK WHEN. I bet his stories would be worth more than any $4.00 he could put in the pot.

[Cactus Jack]

Can you say Stations Casino? Or any locals casino. If you can't handle this, you aren't gonna like off-Strip too much. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

At least it's the old guy. Two nights ago at the Orleans, the dealers were so bad I wanted to strangle 'em. Even Binions dealers aren't this bad. Consecutive misdeals. Pulling in the pot at the wrong time. Bad decisions and no explanations. Ish.

A lot of these old people are major contributors to the game. Beating 'em up is really -EV.

[*TT*]

1) Floor ruled by the book because he did not have enough evidence. Its a fair ruling, but he should try his best to ascertain if he can keep the players hand alive. (side note - I once mucked my hand repeatedly to foul seat one's hand while the daytime manager of a very popular card room was sitting over my back, laughing. Seat 1 wasn't a very popular person. What I did was wrong and I know it, but honestly she was that nasty - and the results of my hand fouling was good for the game. good times!)

2) I assume the game is played with $1 chips, and calling a raise would be 8 chips. Less than 1/2 the bet was placed over the line, the bet is not binding.

3) Players with special needs can be accommodated provided the information is shared with the table. This is allowed, and is considered to be good for the game.

[albedoa]

[ QUOTE ]
3) Players with special needs can be accommodated provided the information is shared with the table. This is allowed, and is considered to be good for the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

I usually agree with what you say, and I agree with your points about special needs. However, I fail to see how this is a special needs case. This is a basic math problem, and the dealer shouldn't be helping anyone with their poker math. VCOD's poor vision has nothing to do with his poor addition skills.

[Cactus Jack]

The other night at the Orleans, the old man leaned out over the table and said "is that a club?" The dealer assured him it was, the third. He bet and I folded. Nice tell, sir.

[*TT*]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
3) Players with special needs can be accommodated provided the information is shared with the table. This is allowed, and is considered to be good for the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

I usually agree with what you say, and I agree with your points about special needs. However, I fail to see how this is a special needs case. This is a basic math problem, and the dealer shouldn't be helping anyone with their poker math. VCOD's poor vision has nothing to do with his poor addition skills.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would assume its a management decision that they help this player, not the decision of the dealer. Mason and I recently met Frank (I think he was the GM), he seems to run a tight ship that caters to the customer's needs correctly - and considering the customer base I would expect him to provide special needs cases like this with an extra set of eyes. As a player its not what i would want in my game either, but its a reasonable adjustment they provide as a service. The key here is that they are not providing him with any information that is private, at least they share this with the table. Mind you I doubt they would allow this extra help at a 2/5NL game there (I could be wrong) because it might ruin the integrity of the game as its the high limit game at GVR.