He's a dealer & he should have known better, right?

[MisterKing]

I was playing at a mid-strip casino in Las Vegas last Thursday when the following hand came up in a 1-2 NL game. I raise it here in the forums because I think it illustrates just the kind of thing that one should more or less never have to tolerate in a poker game, a point that is made all the worse by the fact that the guy who committed the violation was an off-duty dealer in the very same card room.

The first orbit of a new game, I'm dealt red 8's in MP3 and see several limpers to me for $2 each. I limp as well, and see it raised to $12 by the button, who is an employee of the cardroom in question and is in the game as a player (wearing street clothes, FWIW). To my surprise, three players call the $12 (a combo of the BB & two of the limpers I think), so I call as well closing the action.

We take a flop 5 handed with $60 or so in the pot after rake, and the board comes down 862, I think with two diamonds... but maybe rainbow. The action, in typical 1-2 NL style, is checked to me, and I check to the button (the off duty dealer) who I see loading up with chips before its on me to act. Sure enough, he bets half the pot, and is called by an EP player. Following the call, its folded to me and I have a simple choice between betting huge or betting all-in with my top set, as calling seems horrible and anything less than a pot sized raise would allow diamond and straight draws to continue. I move my stack of $188 in (thinking I'll get at least one caller), and button starts to look IRRITATED. Probably aces by the look of things, but maybe not. He swears quietly to himself a few times, and then commits a real fucktard act: he turns the ace of clubs face up, deliberately, and folds for the EP player to see, who still has a decision to make. He does this slowly and certainly knew what he was doing.

Now, EP folded after some long thought and I won the pot, but in my book button's action is a pretty egregious violation regardless of the result. It would just be a d*ck move if it were a player who wanted to be disrespectful, but this was a dealer. He KNEW it was wrong, and yet deliberately did so anyhow. Then add in the fact that he was playing in his own card room. Could have been that EP was a regular and button was protecting him by providing info he was not entitled to, hard to say. The person dealing the game put out a weak admonition, but generally did a poor job protecting me and the other players.

So anyhow, I called the floor, who issued a warning, and then I racked up my chips and left. The next hand a different player, again perhaps a regular, did the same fold face up after an all-in with players left to act, and was a real jerk about it. Am I wrong in thinking this is just way beyond the pale? Leave the dollar amounts aside and just think of process...