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Date: 2006-08-01
Author: John Mehaffey
Online poker players often get spoiled by the speed and lack of dealer mistakes when playing poker online. When online poker players play live this becomes more obvious. The quality of poker dealers vary widely. Some dealers, especially in smaller casino towns, are downright terrible. This is mostly due to the explosion of poker and the lack of quality dealers to meet this demand. There are many reasons why this can affect the overall game.
A poor poker dealer will often deal very slowly. This is bad for both the house and winning players. Fewer hands means less rake for the house and for the winning player it means fewer hands per hour to increase winnings. A slow dealer often does not run the game efficiently either. This causes many breaks in the action, especially when many players are not paying attention meaning even fewer hands per hour. There are even some dealers that can not quickly identify the winning hand at a showdown. It sometimes takes players to point out the winning hand,
A slow poker dealer will also take too much time counting down pots. A dealer that cannot count the pot fast enough will slow the game down figuring out simple things like the rake and jackpot drop. An inexperienced dealer may also take extra time figuring out who is involved in side pots as well as how much they should be. This type of dealer will often lack in confidence and it will show. This can create problems with players at the table that tend to be disruptive. Misdeals and exposed cards are also common in games like that. All of these errors lower the enjoyment of playing live poker. There are instances where the dealer could either make an error or not know procedure and have to call the floor supervisor over to help with a decision. All of these things can slow a game down to the point where it is not enjoyable.
These issues seem especially prevalent in non holdem games. Split pot games seem to be trouble for even experience dealers. Omaha high/low and Seven Card Stud high/low are slower even when there is a great dealer due to the time it takes to split pots. If the dealer is not fast at identifying the winners quickly and splitting pots the game could drag on painfully slow. Any live non holdem games can be full of dealer mistakes simply due to the fact that most dealers nowadays are used to dealing strictly holdem. In fact many poker rooms will not even deal non holdem games because their dealers do not have the experience to deal them.
When I played in the 2005 Seven Card Stud high/low the dealers made a variety of errors. The most common would be to deal a flop instead of dealing fourth street. Then the dealer would have to back the hands up. There were also cases where a player’s first card would be exposed and the dealer’s would have to call the tournament director over because they did not know that made it a misdeal. Several had to ask if you could double bet an open pair which you cannot do in high/low stud. A majority of the dealers in this tournament were awful and it slowed everything down. There were still obvious mistakes being made when the tournament was down to four tables from its original 75 tables.
A great dealer can on the other hand run the game smoothly, take control of difficult situations, count the pot for the purpose of rake and jackpot drops, and read hands quickly. The difference can be double the hands dealt in an hour. This certainly helps a winning player increase their hourly rate, and of course the house as well as they take in more rake in a fast paced organized game. The dealer also benefits from making more in tips both from dealing more games but from the players who are happy to take care of a good dealer by tipping generously. Playing in a live game with a fast, experienced dealer can mean the difference between a frustrating grind and an enjoyable night at the poker table.
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