To work at the World Series of Poker, a huge number of inexperienced dealers are recruited every year, which sometimes leads to very disastrous consequences.
Last year, during a chip race in one of the most massive tournaments, the dealer collected the chips of all the players and put them in equal columns. The tournament had to be postponed by almost 1.5 hours.
This year, Rob Khun was leading the $600 event, but during the big break, his chips just disappeared.
– Came back after dinner, and my seat is empty. They themselves do not understand what happened, the cameras will watch. I apologize to all players for the delay, this is entirely my fault. Although there are two of us, another poor guy also lost all his chips.
Update: Grandpa with 550k stack accidentally took my stack. Fortunately, he did not have time to play a single hand, so this did not cause much problems. The second guy had 240k chips and no news on him.
After a couple of hours, Rob gave the details:
1. I came back 3 minutes before the end of the break.
2. I had a stack photo that I showed floor.
3. When I returned from dinner, our table had already been broken, so the dealer was not around. There were trays with chips and boarding cards on the players' boxes. But my box was empty. Some guy from the next table thought it was his chips (he also had a 10th box and a close stack) and left with them to my new place.
In the archives of Reddit and 2+2, we have collected other examples of egregious dealer errors.
I work as a dealer. Sunday, four in the morning, the last round of my session. On the last box sits a typical tight grandpa who folded all night.
Suddenly, he woke up and made a huge 4-bet. And I took his cards on pure autopilot and sent them to the muck. I just got used to the fact that he never saw the flop all night. He was furious, haha. A floor was called, who advised him to better defend his cards.
This is not even a mistake, rather, the dealer simply did not care what was happening. We play £1/£2, but there are very few £1 chips at the table. The player threw in two £5 chips and raised £8. The other called and also threw two £5 chips into the center. The dealer looked around the table, took a deep breath, and said, "Let's pretend the raise was £10." And just opened the flop. Naturally, we were furious and called the floor.
I am also a dealer. Once my session lasted for 14 hours (with breaks). By 11 am, there was only one table left in the casino, at which five players and myself were sitting. Everyone was insanely tired, the game was in complete silence.
Standard hand – flop cbet/call, turn, and river played check-check. After that, I cut another card and put sixth street on the board. The players, as if nothing had happened, played a bet/call, the first showed an overpair at the showdown, the second – two pair. I gave the pot to the winner and calmly shuffled the deck. It was only at that moment that I realized what had happened.
The guy to my right obviously understood everything and could hardly restrain himself from bursting out laughing. I looked at him and with my eyes tried to hint that he should be silent. The rest did not understand anything.
A funny and harmless enough mistake, although I certainly had a lot of blunders in my early years as a dealer, lol.
One guy bet $200 on the river, and the other guy called with a $194 stack and lost. When he rebought, the dealer bent over his chips, took $6, and passed it to the winner of the previous hand. The poor fellow did not even immediately understand why everyone was laughing. He had no doubt at all that this was how it should be – since you called a $200 bet, that means you lost that much.
I played Taj in Atlantic City about 15 years ago. We got to showdown, the opponent showed two pair, and I had a straight. The dealer put my cards in the muck and gave the pot to the guy with two pair. I started yelling for him to stop and called for the floor. When he approached, we explained everything to him, my opponent also admitted that I had a straight. But they said they could only split the bank equally if we both agreed. There were over 200bb in the pot! I demanded to see the footage from the cameras, but they refused. Since then, I have not played a single hand there.
– Why didn't the second player just give up the chips if he admitted that he had lost?
– In some casinos, this is prohibited by the rules, as it opens up many opportunities for fraud.
Heard a story about a dealer taking a cut or doing something equally ridiculous in a hand with a bad beat jackpot of around $1 million. Because of him, the players didn't get paid anything.
The dealer in our £1/£1 game was notorious for making terrible and stupid mistakes. The funniest one happened in a pot with more than £100 at stake. He took the rake and gave it to the winner, and threw the main pot into the tip and commission box. The winner of the hand almost burst with rage, haha. The whole table had to remember the action in order to figure out how much money he needs to return.
Bubble in MTT, hand for hand is underway. But at my table, the dealer did not wait for the floor command, dealt cards out of turn, and one of the players busted. Floor said we'd just wait for the rest of the tables to play another hand too, in case someone busted, then they'd split the min-cash prize. But there, of course, they already understood what happened, and not a single hand even reached the flop.
Not the biggest giveaway, but the dealer's behavior pissed me off. I threw a $5 chip in the big blind ($2) since there was no less. The action started with a $5 straddle on the button, then the SB made its move, and the dealer simply ignored me. One of the players raised to $15, when the move came back to me, I said fold and asked for my $3 back. But the dealer said that I had called the straddle and I was not allowed to give up. I explained to him that he didn't give me change for the big blind. He paid no attention to it and to all my objections he only repeated: "You called the straddle."
Pretty deep stage of the WSOP tournament. The player on the first box put 3/4 of his stack into the pot, he checked on the turn, and the dealer simply took his cards to the muck. Floor told the player that it was his job to protect his hand. The guy tilted and stormed out almost immediately.
Ed. – In 2009, a similar situation happened in the main tournament with the French journalist Estelle Denis, who had aces.
On the flop, the dealer stopped me from making a move. I said, "I don't care that much, but in general you should ignore the people in the hand." He replied: “It’s my own fault, I should have insisted. It's not my problem". Naturally, he did not receive any tips.
I once dealt cards counterclockwise at a $300/$600 table. Fortunately, I acted quickly, and none of the players noticed this.
When I dealt antes for the first time in my life, I collected them, knocked on the table, opened the flop, and invited the players to bet ... Only none of them had cards ... Ed
There is the last hand of the level before the break. The 6th seat had folded and went to rest, the players on the 4th and 7th seats played a huge pot and got exposed. One of them took off.
When the 6th seat came back, he didn't have any chips. It turned out that the dealer also gave his stack to the winner of the hand. Naturally, there was a change of dealers during the break, which further complicated the process of restoring justice.
This is already a legendary story, but my friend was present in the hall then. Many years ago, the Mohegan Sun opened a poker room, and it was so full that some of the tables had to be handled by casino dealers. At the 1/2 table, two players played a big pot with many bets. At the showdown, one showed 66, the second – 77. The dealer, without the slightest hesitation, stated that not a single hand was good, and took the pot for himself.
Ed. – In games against the casino, there is the concept of “qualifier”, that is, the minimum hand strength at which it can claim to win the pot.
$40 tournament at a local casino, usually $1k-1.5k for the first. Playing a big pot with bets on every street. The river paired, and my set turned into a full house. The player in the BB with the straight checked. While I was thinking about how much to bet, the dealer quickly collected all the cards from the board and shuffled them. All this time, he continued to chat with someone and did not follow the hand at all. Floor came and made a decision to chop the pot.
Stayed on the river in a heads-up pot. I have the nuts and the stack is bigger, I'm first to act. I bet 2/3 of my stack, he shoved, I called and showed my hand. For some reason, the dealer counted out the chips only for my first bet, returned the rest back, and gave me the pot. I asked what's going on? He replied that I didn't call the last raise. I recalled that I said "call" and immediately opened the nuts. He objected that I did not throw the chips into the center, and he did not hear my words.
I quickly realized that I had better shut up and silently take what was given.
After a couple of hands, I asked the dealer, "If I didn't call the raise, why did you give the pot to me?" His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.