A drunken fish plopped down in the uncapped $1-$2 NL game at Golden Nugget on a recent Saturday night, and before long, playing maybe 98 percent of his starting hands, he scooped an $800 pot thanks to an extremely fortunate flop. He threw the dealer a $100 bill for a tip.
The other players’ eyes widened, and the dealer even seemed reluctant to accept the 12.5 percent gratuity. But considering that I got to be the one who eventually stacked him (KK > TT) I couldn’t help but think that the dealer’s good fortune ultimately cut into my own profits!
Call me a life-nit or just a guy who chooses self-park over valet, but here in Las Vegas too many people want a piece of your bankroll. You can see it almost everywhere at the WSOP, and after awhile all that extra “optional” money can really add up.
We spoke to dozens of seasonal WSOP workers to find out what they really expect from decent players, along with the likelihood that you are going to stiff them.
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I recently set off a minor controversy when I mentioned to @Pokerati that a Red Rock Casino poker dealer complained that new Heartland Poker champion Rob Perelman (@veerob) didn’t leave a dealer tip at the conclusion of the tournament.
First, I do not know Rob at all and was not making an accusation against him. I merely passed along the information because I knew @Pokerati had been covering the tournament. Second, as with any tournament cash of any size, Rob is free to spend or not spend his money any way he pleases. (He later tweeted that he tipped $2,000 on his $158,755 cash. The confusion being that he left the tip the next day after most of the dealers were gone and not directly after the tournament.)
Still, I believe the practice of tipping is an aspect of poker that merits discussion. Certainly, there is no standard for tipping in cash games or tournaments, and a lot is left to chance when the casino and other players alike rely on winners to pick up the check.
You may not agree with me to tip 10% of winnings of more than $10,000 in a poker tournament, but you can certainly agree that .00025% is extremely low!
Mike Caro makes a number of salient points when it comes to tipping in both cash games and tournaments in his article from 2006 here. How one player tips in poker is probably no different than how the same player tips at a restaurant or when getting a haircut.
Some players think that the part of a poker tournament buy-in withheld from the prize pool should cover everything. I have heard that of the house cut for the HPT main event (a $1000+100 tournament), $50 went to Red Rock Casino and $50 to the Heartland Poker Tour. I find it a little incredulous that a Las Vegas casino would split the house cut 50/50, but it’s possible.
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Don’t know who this character was, nor his intentions … maybe he just wanted to give the dealer his phone number?
From EPT-Snowfest, @Benjodimeo reports:
One of the #Snowfest finalists left a $1 bill as a tip to the dealers.An actual bill. He signed it. Insulting.It’s worse than giving nothing
Linda Tran delivered the harsh bad beats to Phil Ivey, Steve Begleiter, and in the hand pictured here, Jeff Shulman.
This is her second time dealing the WSOP November Nine … it was her birthday … and I caught up with her (on a ledge actually) to find out what it’s been like to (repeatedly) deliver the bad news, perhaps to the detriment of dealer tips.
Bustout Queen
[audio:Linda-Tran.mp3]
UPDATE: Buchman out at her hand now, too.
WHAT ARE the odds: She’s busted out via bad beat three Jews and a black guy. All the white/Euro hands held up. Just-sayin’ …
Just talked to one of my dealer sources — a reliable one, with decades worth of experience, not the sort who just likes to bitch after blowing a night’s worth of tips playing video poker … and she tells me, “In the six years I have been dealing here [at the WSOP] this is by far the worst.” She says she knows the economy is bad, “but this year they stiff you all the time. More of them.”
The worst game for dealers is supposedly 7-card stud (no relation to previous post), where she is regularly making $2-$3 a down (a half-hour shift).
Her best down so far has been $57. “But that only happened once.”
The tables that provide the best, or at least most reliable tips: $2/$5 no-limit, and $5/$10 PLO. “But never the highest stakes [$25/$50] PLO. Those guys never tip.”
The two chip leaders on Day 2 in the World Poker Tour’s Doyle Brunson 5-Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio (the WPT DB5DWPC?) are Clonie and Kido Pham. I’d say congrats, but I have argued vehemently with many an ESPNer that being chip-leader early in a big tournament is more often a kiss of death than a path to victory. Hopefully I’m wrong — I’d love to see Clonie and/or Kido go extra-deep. Also looking forward to seeing a big-table pic of her without the Full Tilt uniform.
Donkey Bomber, btw, went into Day 2 with 8,000 chips (they started with 45k) … and is still hanging on, now with 20k.
200 players left. Average stack is about 110k. BTW, field size this year was 497, compared to 664 last year. But by no means does there seem to be a shortage of any periphery play at Bellagio.
Click here to follow the tournament action.
UPDATE: Tom is out.
Also, a WPT video update, where we learn it snowed in Las Vegas today (or at least in Summerlin), Daniel Negreanu doesn’t like to tip valet parkers, and apparently now he drinks again (didn’t he go straight-edge at some point?):
The data’s just starting to come in … as final WSOP dealer paychecks went out last week:
I picked up my toke check from the final table on Thursday. I got a grand total of $9.37 for my 8 main event downs so an extra $1.17 a down.
WSOP dealer tipping is always a prickly issue, you know, give or take a few million.
Hmm, OK, so if I’m doing my math right … that comes to an extra $2.34/hr (pre-tax) for WSOP main event dealers. Not sure if that’s good/bad or fair/not — but theoretically an additional $800 from the November Nine for a week’s worth of main event dealing doesn’t sound too shabby. Obviously dealers weren’t thrilled that nearly half of the remaining $32 million in main event prize pool money still to be toked out — 1st and 2nd place — went to two Euros, who come from quite the different tipping cultures. (Seriously, when Danes have to give 60 percent to their gov, can you really blame them for stiffing the pizza guy?)
But hey, the penguins dealt the turns and rivers. So clearly, it’s all in their hands: WSOP dealers reap what they sew. No?
A recent player bashing discussion has evolved on the 2+2 forums regarding tipping dealers and tournament staff upon winning a major event. Specifically, this is in reference to Brandon Cantu’s recent World Poker Tour $1 million win at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament.
Evidently, unlike many tournaments on the circuit, Bay 101 didn’t take anything from the buy-ins to tip the staff, but Brandon was unaware of this. CardPlayer has done an interesting two-part article, which includes some words from Brandon and TD Matt Savage.
Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.
So many interesting questions arise from this discussion, as they did when Jerry Yang won the 2007 WSOP main event.
Should the players be told up-front about the tipping policy at that particular venue?
Is it the players’ responsibility to find out or that of the tournament director to inform everyone?
If a tip is taken from the buy-ins, should players still tip on top of that?
Do only the winners tip? Or should everyone at the final table tip?
What is the correct percentage to tip?
This is a subject that should be discussed in length. I’d love for some tournament pros to weigh in on this.
