Acceptable tipping idea?

[Nate.]

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Instead of tipping on every pot won which is customary, what if I did a count of chips right when the dealer started and when his shift is over, and give him 10% of any profits. Since there is already enough taken from rake, etc. from the table I like this idea because it avoids losing too much due to tipping. Anyone have thoughts on this?

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if you're tipping 10% you're definitely going to lose too much tipping. you couldn't possibly beat the game if you did that.

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To be fair, there are live games that would be beatable even tipping 10% of any profits during a down. But probably not by someone who would actually do it.

--Nate

EDIT: Eh, I just did some arithmetic that indicates that no, there are probably not any live games you could beat like this. (Maaaaaaybe if you made some drastic adjustments in a very soft game.) FWIW this question isn't as boring as it might seem, from a theory perspective.

[AKQJ10]

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(1) First half hour -- Everyone effectively breaks even during a down. The dealer gets nothing.

(2) Second half hour -- You go on a rush and win $3,000 while the rest of the table loses its collective shirt. The dealer gets $300.

Sound fair to the two dealers?

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(1) First hand: You pick up AA on the button in a $1-2 NLHE game. 5 limp. You raise to $20. 3 call. 77 flops a set and stacks you for $300.

(2) Second hand: You pick up KK under the gun and raise to $10. Three cold-call. Cut-off reraises to $40. You four-bet all in. Cut-off calls, shows AA, and wins the pot.

Sound fair to the two players?

Executive summary: It's funny that poker players who make their fortunes betting on their long-run edge mysteriously forget that the long run holds for dealers too.

Now, since it will all even out, I think tipping on the profit makes more sense than tipping on each pot because you're sharing your good fortune with the dealer. But social custom would consider me cheap to do this, so I won't, exactly.

I kind of like the compromise of only tipping the big pots and then tossing an extra couple of dollars if I'm winner on the dealer's down, though. I've already decided a priori that I'm not going to give in to the conspicuous consumption of tip inflation and start tossing $5 chips each time I win a pot. So "cheating" a couple of dollars in the direction I think things oughtta be is only a small incremental addition to my perceived cheapness. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Besides, I used to play at a room with pooled tips.

[bav]

Lots of people do a form of this. You still pretty much have to give the $1 per hand toke to keep the dealers and players from thinking you're a jerk, but feel free to, at the end of a down, give dealers a bonus. If you hand over, say, 3% of your profits for that down, on top of the $1/hand along the way (or even adjusted to remove the $1/hand from the 3%), you'll have a pretty happy crop of dealers looking forward to having you at their table. And that should be cheaper than the proposed 10% per down.

[Photoc]

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Lots of people do a form of this. You still pretty much have to give the $1 per hand toke to keep the dealers and players from thinking you're a jerk, but feel free to, at the end of a down, give dealers a bonus.

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I'm prefer tipping a very good/excellent dealer an extra redbird or 2 at the end of a down to show my appreciation. But they do have to be very good dealers.

[tom10167]

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(1) First half hour -- Everyone effectively breaks even during a down. The dealer gets nothing.

(2) Second half hour -- You go on a rush and win $3,000 while the rest of the table loses its collective shirt. The dealer gets $300.

Sound fair to the two dealers?

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(1) First hand: You pick up AA on the button in a $1-2 NLHE game. 5 limp. You raise to $20. 3 call. 77 flops a set and stacks you for $300.

(2) Second hand: You pick up KK under the gun and raise to $10. Three cold-call. Cut-off reraises to $40. You four-bet all in. Cut-off calls, shows AA, and wins the pot.

Sound fair to the two players?

Executive summary: It's funny that poker players who make their fortunes betting on their long-run edge mysteriously forget that the long run holds for dealers too.

Now, since it will all even out, I think tipping on the profit makes more sense than tipping on each pot because you're sharing your good fortune with the dealer. But social custom would consider me cheap to do this, so I won't, exactly.

I kind of like the compromise of only tipping the big pots and then tossing an extra couple of dollars if I'm winner on the dealer's down, though. I've already decided a priori that I'm not going to give in to the conspicuous consumption of tip inflation and start tossing $5 chips each time I win a pot. So "cheating" a couple of dollars in the direction I think things oughtta be is only a small incremental addition to my perceived cheapness. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Besides, I used to play at a room with pooled tips.

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I understand your theory, but dealers are dealers and players are players, not that poker is easily beatable, but there's a reason why so few people choose to do it for a living. That kind of variance could seriously ruin someone who "ran bad" with a family etc.

[AKQJ10]

Well, fair point about the variance. But for now I'd be the only one doing it. And if pretty much everyone did it, then there'd usually be a table winner to tip. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[FCBLComish]

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Well, fair point about the variance. But for now I'd be the only one doing it. And if pretty much everyone did it, then there'd usually be a table winner to tip. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Not necessarily. Remember, this is not a zero sum game. The rake will necessitate that the total player pool for that down will be negative, every time. If the dealer was hoping for 10% of the total win, he would never get a tip. His only hope is variance.

[stinkypete]

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if you're tipping 10% you're definitely going to lose too much tipping. you couldn't possibly beat the game if you did that.

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and give him 10% of any profits

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my reply still stands.

[AKQJ10]

Hence the "usually".

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His only hope is variance.

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That's a pretty good hope. Most tables are going to have one or more winners for a given 15-hand period.

That said I don't really care one way or another as long as my tipping policy isn't reducing my winrate by 20% or more.

[tomek322]

Tipping on profit might make sense in theory, but them again so does communism. If this became the norm. 1st off how woudl this work in practice, do dealers take notes as to whose stack is where prior and after his down? Or is this good faith, honor system? If the latter is true, human greed usually prevails and I would assume many players would be "losing" always. If it's the former, who would want to play a game where you lose 10 minutes to dealers counting everyone's stack.