Stopping a BJ table after dealer fails to give option...

[1tripz1]

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, its a B+M question but just something i witnessed at a Blackjack table last night.

Me and a few of my poker mates went out drinking. We are all gamblers to some length, some more than others. One does not play many table games in the 'sinos, but tonight we decided to play some BJ.

Anyway, my mate gets dealt 17 and the dealer shows a 6. The dealer goes from player to player giving them there option but as most dealers do in the uk (dont know how it is in US) skips the players who have no brainers. He skips my mate but he looks stunned, and when the dealer pulls and 8 then 7 he starts to hassle the dealer that he was not given an option, calls the floor who does not say much and then a manager is bought out. The game is stopped so the cameras can be checked. This takes about 15 mins and finally the manager comes back, re constructs the hand (he did well, this looked v tricky!) and gave my mate his option again. After all this my mate took a card, bust, and the rest of the table ended up going the same way.

Now, while i agree on the principle of the matter (which is why he made an issue) i feel it was quite petty to have the whole game stopped.

What does everyone else think? Should every dealer give everyone an option, even if its a complete no brainer? (i have noticed some dealers to give the options sometimes, but most/more experienced skip the no brainers to get the game moving which is fine by most ppl)

Again sorry this is not poker related but just wanted the view of the b+m crew.

[Pot Odds RAC]

Your buddy seems like an ass.

...and this is a Poker Forum.

[1tripz1]

yeah i would of put it in other gambling games but its b+m related, not about the game itself!

[kslghost]

ur friend certainly doesn't understand blackjack eh

[Gonso]

I deal BJ occasionally (in the US), and yes, the dealer should have let the guy wave off his 17 before moving on to the next player. Obv those with BJ/21 don't get an option, and I pretty much go through the motions with 20's and typically 19's with 99% of players.

With hands like a hard 17 or 18 against a dealer 6 (which is a no-brainer stand for those who don't play BJ), you most definitely have to get a hand signal. There are way too many people who want to pull angles like your friend probably did. Either than or he has no idea what he's doing.

Now, he could have had a soft 17 with A6 (you didn't specify), and in that case the standard play is to double down against a dealer 6.

In cases where a player does something like this, we don't back the cards up where I work. What will typically happen is that they'll take care of the player somehow, and the dealer will be instructed to get clear hand signals for everything from that player - and I mean everything, no matter how obvious. The guy has AA and wants to split? Make sure he gives the split sign. He has 20? Get a hand signal. Wants to double down on 55? Get the one-card signal so he doesn't come back and say he wanted a split. Then they'll put it in the computer to alert other supervisors on that guest's future visits.

[1tripz1]

It was a hard 17.

Interesting reply, cheers. Everything to do with gaming in the uk is so anal that theres no way they would do that over here, they would always have to check the cameras. I forgot to mention he was betting the minimum which is £5, with people at the table betting close to the max and others betting behind most players (forget what this is called). I was even throwing him a £5 chip to get things going but being the stubborn nitty poker player he is he would not let it go!

[Gonso]

Short answer: the dealer should technically get a hand signal where a player has an option. I make sure hard 17 stands no matter what my card is.

That said, your friend is what we generally call a flea, we don't even spread a BJ game that low even after the conversion rates. $25 BJ is so lol here, hardly anyone tokes and there are so many degens.

Last night a guy bought in for $50 and had the floor make him a card. He lost it right away and asked for a comp to the buffet

[1tripz1]

lol a flea! Can you elaborate what this means??

I do agree he should of been given the option, but i guess the dealer just gets into autopilot mode. But yeah, just to be on the safe side.

[Gonso]

A flea is kind of like a person that's more a pest more than their value as a customer, if that makes sense. I know that probably sounds kind of odd to people who might work in other customer service fields, but...

Here, try to imagine this:

A guy goes in to a pretty nice restaurant during a busy dinner. Gets a seat, orders an appetizer and coffee. Gets 3 refills, takes up a seat for three hours, smokes 11 cigarettes, complains about the coffee constantly. Finally, he leaves a mess and completely stiffs the waitress, while mumbling about how he's never coming back to this BS restaurant again. That's the rough equivalent of a flea.

Oh, and he wants a refund on the appetizer, he ate it all but it wasn't very good.

[nineinchal]

Just go the cahsiers cage with you and your buddies carrying machine guns and grenades. That will gurantee you can cash out a nice haul.

I don't know what to tell you about the surveillance cameras...