what exactly is this "deck roll" i'm hearing so much about?

[Photoc]

It's gotten to a few of the newer small rooms AFAIK, since that is where this type of stuff is needed. As bigfishhead says, most of the rooms dont have adequate management whatsoever. All the good ones are taken. We got rooms in town letting 2 and 3 month dealers put a suit on and floor because they can't staff the more qualified help.

[ QUOTE ]
FOr those who don't understand it. Try this.

Take a deck of cards, hold it in your left or right hand with the deck parallel to the table. Now "roll" your hand like you are turning a door knob.

[/ QUOTE ]

For those who don't understand how this exposes cards try this.

Hold the deck as Photoc told you and push the top card forward (or backward or to the left) so that it overhangs the deck. now with that card overhanging the deck rotate the the whole deck the way Photoc described.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

"While I agree with you Randy, I think you are misunderstanding what many are refering to as a "home game".

You have to keep in mind that many people are playing in games not played in a casino and many are not games that your buddy at work decided to hold Friday night for kicks, but are regularly running games with dedicated dealers, etc, basically a one table card room."

It is because of this type of concern that I simply DON'T play in any game larger than the smallest games in casinos at anyone's house. My personal home games aren't worth cheating at, because we buy in for $20 or so and spend a lot more time drinking beer (and capping it blind [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) than we do trying to take each other's money. That's the way it SHOULD be. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

al

[Al_Capone_Junior]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have heard (from more than 1 reliable source) that post has gotten around some management types at various rooms here in town.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like who? Ballys? where the poker management has never even worked in poker before? I do know some management people who have never even worked in poker before frequent but never post here.

LOL...heres a funny one...there will be a shift supervisor in a room in town who has never worked poker also...but will be taking care of things as soon as they are finished with dealing school!!

GAWD LV Casino managements suck. NO CLUE.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are several problems with management, both in the poker rooms, and more importantly, in the casinos.

The primary problem these days is that the casinos don't PAY their floorpeople and shift managers enough money. More money attracts better people, more competition means better overall managers. The typical dealer makes MUCH more than their manager / floorperson does, thus even those management minded individuals who love what they do will inevitably revert back to dealing after they deal with enough BS and get enough flak for long enough (and for far less money than everyone else).

The problem in the poker rooms has to do with two things, ignorant casino upper management and the newly created massive demand.

Casino upper management doesn't usually know a darn thing about poker, so they try to treat it like pit games, or they just fumble about with poker like it's some ammenity they are forced to give, but don't have any real clue about how to do. Poker is NOT the pit. Get rid of that mentality right now, at least if you want your casino's poker room to be successful. Poker is a different animal altogether, and should be treated as such. Poker IS an ammenity, more so than a pure profit maker (at least on a purely profit per square foot analysis), however, poker is still PROFITABLE nonetheless. In addition to the fact of its profitability, poker is also essentially RISK FREE, it's not going to suffer fluctuations like pit games, sports book etc. With all the space in las vegas, the square footage analysis should be a moot point. Poker players do eat in restaraunts, play slots and table games, bet sports, see shows, and everything else. They may not be the TOP OF THE LINE casino patrons, but there is still money to be made, and let it not be said that anyone here in vegas DOESN'T want to make money!

Now the newfound insane demand for poker is really at the heart of the perceptions of incompetence by the knowledgeable poker crowd, such as many 2+2ers. They are partially right, but sometimes they are also partially ignorant as to what the real situation is behind why things are the way they are. It's sure easy to be critical, but not always easy to put yourself in the shoes of poker room staff.

For instance, what would you do if you all of a sudden had to staff about 60 people, and there wasn't ANYONE except for total newbies applying for your positions? Sure, if you could hire nothing but highly experienced, dedicated professional dealers, your room would KICK FRIGGIN' ASS. But gimme a break already, have you been to vegas lately? The VAST majority of dealers in this town are TOTAL NEWBIES. That's because the vast majority of seats at poker tables in this town DIDN'T EXIST THREE YEARS AGO, AND MOST DIDN'T EXIST EVEN 1 OR 1.5 YEARS AGO. Thus virtually EVERYONE is a newbie. The experienced dealers are mostly at the top of the line joints like bellagio and mirage, those with long established rooms. Almost everyone else is brand new with a year or less, mostly less, experience.

Now add in the considerably lower PAY that the people in charge of all these newbies will make! It's a recipe for generating lots of criticism from people like us on 2+2.

But on the other end of the spectrum, you've gotta consider that most of the newbies are dealing the smallest games, which are full of NEWBIE PLAYERS too! So maybe we should all just lighten up a little already and just go with the flow.

Sure, there will be problems, mistakes, disputes, incompetent floors and dealers, bullpucky and everything. Get used to it. The work ethic, the desire to do top notch work, to have pride in what you do, skill and craftsmanship, is a dying entity here in the USA (I am sorry to say). But poker will go on, and it will get better over time. Some rooms will darwinize themselves out of existence, and some will thrive. Same as it has always been, will always be.

al

[Howard Burroughs]

Hi Capone,

I think Big Fish is referring to the fact that Bally's opened on August 18th, 2004 with their sportsbook Johnny (who knew NOTHING about poker at the time) in charge of poker. I think Big Fish has a good point there.


I agree with much in your post Capone. However.....


"The experienced dealers are mostly at the top of the line joints like bellagio and mirage, those with long established rooms. Almost everyone else is brand new with a year or less, mostly less, experience."

While they have some excellent dealers, I don't believe Bellagio & Mirage have any monopoly on the top dealers. Gates at Wynn, Jimmy, James, Vivian & Leon at Orleans, Rich at Aladdin, Duk at Excalibur, Drew at Luxor, Dave at Bally's, & almost the entire Monte Carlo & Flamingo staff come immediately to mind (lots more out there too).



"For instance, what would you do if you all of a sudden had to staff about 60 people, and there wasn't ANYONE except for total newbies applying for your positions?"


When Wynn opened they hired perhaps the Excalibur's worst dealer (she sucked bad but does have a real nice smile) while turning down one of the Monte Carlo's best! Go figure.

I do agree that there are only so many top dealer's out there. I just don't believe they are all at Bellagio and Mirage though.


btw, Ceaser's Palace poker is opening on December 21 with like a gazilion tables. One of the guys I know (who got hired recently) barely speaks English (but is a nice enough fellow). At least he knows how to deal (having dealt the WSOP). I would think they (CP) would have some problems staffing their room the way they would like. Let's hope it's a better opening then Green Valley's or Golden Nugget's ("GN" over a year ago but the memory lingers).




Best Wishes

Howard

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Casino upper management doesn't usually know a darn thing about poker, so they try to treat it like pit games,

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, almost. There is one important aspect where they should treat it more like pit games, and that is game supervision. Most of the smaller rooms around town have a floorperson who acts primarily as a brush/cashier. Imagine if they treated the pit this way, take all the pit critters and station them by cashier's cage so that they can't actually see whats going on until a dealer calls for a floorman.

[Howard Burroughs]

"But on the other end of the spectrum, you've gotta consider that most of the newbies are dealing the smallest games, which are full of NEWBIE PLAYERS too!"

This is Bull Sh!T in my opinion. Most every Vegas room has no-limit today. Just yesterday some knucklehead dealer, just coming out of the 2-4, couldn't count my $900 flop bet even though I had it evenly stacked. The entire table just looked on in shock at his mental breakdown. We (the players) were all trying to be sympathetic & helpful . But, he was like a deer in the headlights. It took way too long to get him on the right page.


If these rooms are going to spread no-limit (even with the restricted buy-ins, pots can get much bigger then in a $30-60 game), they should try to implement some sort of quality standard for their dealers.


Heck, I like what Cathleen McCall (now floor at Wynn) used to do when she ran Palace Station (before she went to GN & Wynn but after her stint at the Mirage). She would work with the more green dealers and give them dealing classes to help them improve. It helped the dealer's (and players) a lot. I like the way that girl works!


Best Wishes

Howard

[bigfishead]

Very well written Al Capone!! I have stated each item you mentioned at more than one occasion. Harrah's corp is a perfect example of paragraphs 1 and 2.

Shortly after tha takeover of Jack Binions properties, they made it be known that poker floor people could no longer accept tokes. They even made it be known that tokes from dealers to floor was a no-no.

Come Jan 2005, and the WPO at Horseshoe Tunica. The floor has to work 7days a week, zero overtime, no envelope from the tournament, and no tokes with 3x times the biz and heartaches. Well they recorded 2 floorpeople taking tokes and fored them. These were the 2 best floor people in Tunica county!

I get the call at home, we want you to take over graveyard says Dennis the asst poker room manager. Kenny Lamberts request (poker room manager). "no thanks Dennis".

After the torunament was over Kenny Lambert asked me to take over the shift. Point blank I said "Kenny, why would I want to take a $500 per week cut in pay?" "Have less job security, with no obvious upward possibilities from a company like Harrahs."?

I always covered the shift when someone wanted a day off, or the holidays. Everyone knew I could do the job well with both customer service and professsionalism within the room. But why would I want to do it under these circumstances?

The pit mentality is a huge huge problem. Most people just dont "get-it" when it comes to what we mean by "pit mentality".

Al, I understand your points well. I take SMALL issue with your thoughts about Bellagio and Mirage having the best...Thats probably true as a general statement. But let me just say, I work at Bellagio, and I play on the clock often. There are tons of long time dealers there with incredibly bad habits. And they get away with everything since they have been there so long, or they "look pretty".

The problem is that even at Bellagio where they actually have a man in suit in charge of hiring and TRAINING...they dont do it! Train I mean...at least not from a "be a professional dealer" standpoint. And I promise you there isnt a school in LV that has a clue either.

Hence as you stated, when it comes to promoting people within the poker business to work in suits in some capacity, they also have not been trained well. And the cycle goes on. Even creating a bigger overall problem.

Best wishes.

Got a question for you guys who work in the casino.

I am just about to graduate and I had the thought that it might be an interesting interenship is I could work in some casino management with poker. I am not thinking along the lines of dealer but a floorperson.

I don't really know much about how a poker room managament so don't know if this would even be possible.

Does this just sound weird or like there could be something possible with it?