Small stakes, live tipping advice?

[Wongboy]

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Also, having the floor/dealers on my side has helped me in various situations. Hope this could help.

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Based on your other post (where your friend was booted from the 4/8 game), I think you need to tip more. Sounds like the floor is not quite on your side.

[Gonso]

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dealers make more than they really should. 1/2 the dealers i encounter are dbags, 1/2 dont say anything/asleep.

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Well they don't make anything from you, since you don't tip. You're whining about service now on top of that?

[Wongboy]

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dealers make more than they really should. 1/2 the dealers i encounter are dbags, 1/2 dont say anything/asleep.

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Well they don't make anything from you, since you don't tip. You're whining about service now on top of that?

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Not to be a nit, but they do make something from him (assuming that they draw a base salary). Any salary is paid out of the rake.

To answer the OP, I tip $1 per pot unless the pot is just the blinds and my PF raise. If the pot is big, I'll tip $2-$3 dollars. Some people tip more, some a bit less.

I have had two occasions where I elected to not tip a dealer (one swore at my friend, and the other chastised me for keeping my hands on my live cards during a hand). In both cases, I set $1 to the side for every pot that I won, and added those dollars to the tip for the coctail waitress.

Personally, I don't care what people choose to tip. I only care when someone tries to tell me what I should tip.

[chucksim]

I tip $1 per pot. If the dealer has made me enjoy his or her time at the table somehow (friendly, funny, or otherwise eye-catching or interesting), they may get an extra buck or two at the end of their down.

Biggest poker tip I've EVER given is $10 for a pot that worked out in my favor when the dealer let a fool move all his chips in on the river in a 3/6 limit game with the second nuts.

[goofball]

OP,

I like to tip around half the pot to the dealer. Just stack it up into two stacks and ship one to the dealer. Sometimes too I'll pull out my wallet and add a 5spot on top.

[Gonso]

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Not to be a nit, but they do make something from him (assuming that they draw a base salary). Any salary is paid out of the rake.

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That's true, but remember that's like $4/hr (senior dealers might get $6/hr or something).

I mean, to be fair, most reasonable dealers will tell you that if you are friendly, competent, and generally quiet, guests will take good care of you and things average out. Joe Average Player is there to have a good time and appreciates good service, and shows it by toking normally. Excessive tips are seriously not necessary.

It's not really the people who stiff or hardly tip that bother me though, because overall the good tippers make up for the bad ones. In some cases, other players will help you out when they see you're getting stiffed by someone at their table (either by giving a little extra or saying something to the person). But either way, it's part of the business - you don't complain about the big tokes, so you shouldn't complain about the small ones either.

No, the players that aggravate me are the ones that don't tip AND make the game difficult. You know the type: you always have to ask three times to get them to post their blinds, need to be constantly reminded when the action is to them, act out of turn here and there, maybe they like the staredown thing for 2 minutes over every $45 call. Then, if they don't see aces or kings for 12 hands in a row (God forbid), they complain about how the dealer is giving them bad cards and not shuffling right, etc. On top of all that they're just miserable, maybe even drunk or something and constantly getting into it with other players.

Anyways there's a decent sticky about tipping somewhere around here that seemed about right. The OP was just looing for some general guidelines as to what's normal...

[Gonso]

This from the B&M Newbie Guide:

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Tip the dealers when you win a pot. An extremely large tip is not required, but don't be a stiff either. $1 per pot is somewhat standard, although plenty tip more, especially in larger pots. Stealing the blinds does not require a tip. Tip your waitress for your drinks, and give the chip runner a buck when they bring you your chips! Live cardrooms require tipping!

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[Fiasco]

im gonna represent for the nits here. I hardly ever toke when a dealer pushes me a pot. After all, the fact that I have won a pot has very little to do with the dealer. I dont expect him to give me money if i lose a pot, so I dont see why he should get money when i win a pot.

I will toke when:
1) The dealer handles a particularly tough situation well
2) I screw up the game in some way or make the dealers life harder
3) I am wrong about something (for ex: if I correct the dealer about something - which I do often - and I turn out to be wrong)
4) the dealer manages to make me laugh
5) the dealer goes out of his way for me or bends the rules for me. For instance if im changing tables and the dealer deals me one last hand when hes not supposed to.
6) When a dealer ends his down, if I feel that he has dealt well, Ill often tip him a couple bucks

Also, I tip much worse when I am losing.

Although many people would call this stingy, I think that its more than fair. I think that theres nothing stupider than a bunch of people sitting around playing small stakes and the only ones winning are the dealers and the house. If Im beating the game for $20/hour while risking my own money, why should the dealer be making $50/hour guaranteed?

[Gonso]

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why should the dealer be making $50/hour guaranteed?

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I'd settle for $30/hour, I don't see anything close to $50/hour, much less guaranteed. I hear they do better in Vegas... anyone want to give a general range? Here it's anywhere from 15-40 + base pay, and that counts Borgata which kills everyone in toke rates.

High limit room dealers aside.

[ClubChamp04]

I normally tip at least a $1 playing $1-2, except when I steal the blinds or win a pot say less than $10. Maybe $2 for $50-$150 and 3+ for upward of that. Rough estimates and I sometime tip more/less depending on the night I'm having and the dealer.

Which leads me to this question: IS it wrong to stiff a dealer who dealt you a bad beat during the session? I recently did this and I feel fine about it, would like to hear what you guys think though. It was a $600 pot and she dealt a crushing river so I decided to not give her another dime.