Mercier’s WSOP Bad Deal!

The annual World Series of Poker attracts thousands of players ranging from the best in the world right down to the tournament newbies only there for the experience – but what’s not so well-known perhaps is that the poker dealers in Vegas for the summer shindig follow the same pattern!

Jason Mercier tweeted an awkward and quite embarrassing moment for one dealer, and in response both Mercier himself - and dealers in general - received a heap of abuse…

Well, it’s hard to defend such poor dealing of course, but the system in use seems to be as much at fault as perhaps the man himself.

Players who hadn’t arrived yet didn’t have their stacks on the table, so the enforced antes were mixed in with the dealers tray, so making change and collecting antes and getting confused as to what you’re doing was bound to happen. Of course, not knowing the rules is a dead-giveaway that maybe you shouldn’t be dealing that game in the first place… or perhaps you need a rest.

Mercier was, quite rightly, taken to task for showing the dealer’s face during the ‘incident’, although he was quick to point out that it was:

So, here’s the thing about WSOP dealers – they need over 1500 of them for the duration of the festival and they generally have to know and deal with 10 different variants of the game! That’s a lot of dealers and a lot of games, and as ‘Tom the Tournament Dealer’ explained a few years back on the 2+2 forum:

“I can go to the WSOP and end up with about $500 per week more than I left with, or I can stay at home and make $800 per week for about half as much working time and a lot nicer conditions.”

He ended his excellent post by stating:

“So the WSOP gets local dealers who don't have a job, out-of-towners who don't have a job, a few good dealers who still work the tournament circuit, the ones who do the WSOP circuit events, and a lot of break-ins.”

As I stated in the intro, that’s as wide a range of experience and abilities as you’ll find among the actual players, so there’s bound to be mishaps. Legendary English pro Barney Boatman, one of the original Hendon Mob, gave his own opinion on what might be done to solve the problem in Mercier’s video…

Of course, this is just one bad example – and it’s the way of the world that bad examples get coverage while good examples of dealing don’t, because good dealers are the norm, particularly those who’ve been part of a poker school specifically designed to  improve the poker-rooms standards as I found out here at Leon Tsoukernik’s Kings Casino during last year’s WSOP Circuit event.

If you make mistakes playing, then dealers are going to make errors when dealing, it’s that simple. Poker dealer and model Zuzana Mikulikova told me:

"My biggest error was after 14 hours working, when I raked all the pot and the worst thing about it was that I didn't really remember what I did with the pot! So the floorman had to watch all 30 minutes of my table to find out where the pot disappeared to.”

Players, however, are a hard bunch to please – often blaming anyone other than themselves when things turn sour. So, it may be the world’s biggest showcase of poker, but for those playing the WSOP please remember – unless the dealer is making more errors than you are, try to give them a break!