Poker: Getting the Balance Right Part 2

If you’ve not read part one you can read it here. Part 1 
Firstly let me apologise for the HUGE gap in time between parts one & two, I won’t waste your time giving excuses as to why that is. Glad to finally get it done though as at least it will stop Daz Stather (G Cov dealer) from asking me every time I go in there when it’s going to be ready.
Daz Stather
My last post (Part 1) stirred some reaction. Normally I get about 100 visitors to the blog a week and that number goes up to 800 - 1,000 in a week when I put up a new post. When I posted part one though I had well over two thousand people read it inside 5 days.
As part 2 is about dealers for the next four or five weeks after I posted part one every time I went into a cardroom three or four dealers at least would ask me when part 2 was coming out!
Regarding Part 1, I was pleased to receive a great many positive comments about it via Facebook, Twitter and some via the blog itself, and also a great many FB messenger, and Twitter DM’s from people who don’t want their views made public. The privately sent messages in the main were from casino staff from a variety of different pay grades who’d rather not voice their comments publicly.
Also for the first time (as far as I know) Rob Yong and Simon Trumper both read the blog and even though I wasn’t 100% glowing in my praise of Dusk Till Dawn (DTD) Simon kindly put a link to the blog from his DTD Facebook page and was more than fair in his comments about my post. I think they (DTD) may like this post a little more.
Getting the Balance Right: Part 2: Dealers
The 2 main things I’m going to talk about on the subject of dealers are “Competence” (Competence = Knowledge & Skills) and “Attitude” (Their Authority, Table Management & Personality). Then I’m going to look at how players behave towards them.

Competence
Competence is simply the mechanics i.e. speed and accuracy of shuffling/dealing, knowledge of the rules, being able to spot the winning hand at showdown, and handling all-in side pots and split pots correctly etc. etc.
So let’s just briefly look at the 4 stages of learning that we all go through when we take on a task we’ve never tried before.

So the Four Stages are 1. Unconsciously incompetent 2 consciously incompetent 3 consciously competent and 4 unconsciously competent.
If we look at the task of walking, a new born baby is “unconsciously incompetent” when it comes to walking as although it can’t walk its blissfully unaware of the fact.
When the baby is a little bit older it starts to realise that all the grown-ups are walking around but it can’t and that fact starts to bother it. At this point it’s “consciously incompetent”. Otherwise known as the “you’re shit and you know you are” stage.
As the baby becomes a toddler and starts to take the first few steps it’s now at the “consciously competent” stage, where it can walk as long as he/she gives it their full attention. 
Finally the “unconsciously competent” stage is where most of us are (except after a few beers) where we walk around without thinking about it. So to put the kettle on we don’t have to think “left foot, right foot” as we walk into the kitchen, it’s just auto pilot and we can concentrate on more important things like wondering if there are any biscuits left?
All new dealers go through these 4 stages of learning, some quicker than others.
Think of someone who has never played cards and not dealt a hand of cards in their entire life. Stage one for them is before they ever get a job in a casino they can’t deal but it doesn’t bother them as they don’t need to. Then they apply for a job in a casino and get offered the position and on day one they see an experienced member of staff shuffle up and deal for the very 1st time and they suddenly think “Shit I can’t do that”.
So now they suddenly realise that when it comes to dealing they are totally incompetent.
Once they have been shown how and practised it over and over again they can deal but maybe quite slowly and they have to be fully concentrating all of the time otherwise they are likely to make a mistake. (Consciously competent)
It’s the same with side pots etc they will need to concentrate hard to do it correctly at first, and it becomes very difficult when 4 players are offering 5 different opinions (3 of which are wrong) on how it should be done!
Finally if they stick with it they become so skilled that they can shuffle up and deal very quickly and efficiently whilst wondering what their plans are for their next day off etc. (Unconsciously competent)
When it comes to just shuffling and dealing there is no excuse for not being competent at this within a reasonable time period because they can practise over and over until they get better at it. If they are determined to get better they will, even if they need to take a pack of cards home and practise on their days off it can be done.

Training for Staff

Sink or Swim?

This is an area where 99% of all casino cardrooms are sadly lacking in my opinion, though let me say that DTD are the 1%.
Away from my hobby as a poker player I’m a qualified training and development consultant so it does annoy me when I see so many casinos have little or no training in place for new poker dealers.
It’s down mostly to total apathy from casino management at the top levels. When I’m blaming management I’m not talking about cardroom managers (CRM’s) level but higher up the food chain that that. Most CRM’s at the casinos I go to are dedicated advocates of their cardrooms and do their best, but the higher management’s lack of interest in poker is the root cause of many of the poker room problems.
Their failure to invest time/money in staff training does them no favours in the long term and it’s therefore left at a local level to organise dealer training which means a HUGE variance in what’s on offer to a new dealer.
As far as I’m aware only DTD has a consistent structured approach to the training of new dealers and that fact shows if you ever go and play there. Considering how many dealers they have there the level of consistency is outstanding.
How Much Training Do Dealers Get?
The phrase “How long is a piece of string?” comes to mind. Different chains of casino vary as you’d expect but even casinos within the same group will vary wildly depending on the venue and who is CRM.
In the last twelve months I’ve asked literally dozens of dealers, supervisors and CRM’s “how much training do dealers get” and one thing I can tell you is that the answer to that question varies HUGELY depending on who you ask. If I ask a supervisor or CRM about training then ask dealers in the same venue the answers are MASSIVELY different.
I’ve chatted to one CRM who would have me believe he was practically running a poker dealers academy with in depth boot camp training methods lasting months. Strangely though when I’ve asked dealers who actually work there they paint an entirely different picture.
Now nearly all the CRM’s I’ve ever asked know I’m writing a blog about dealers so I guess they want to show their casino in a good light so I tend to give a little more weight to the answers the dealers themselves have given me.
The best training I’ve been told about was from DTD as you’d probably expect and also the person I asked doesn’t even work there any more so I guess they had no reason to oversell the training offered.
I was told the new dealers there get about 40 hours training prior to being “let loose” on the public which is probably about 36 hours more than your average casino gives its new poker room staff. As DTD is so busy they often take on groups of dealers together so I guess it makes training them more cost effective.
Also having a group start together means they can shuffle and deal to each other as practise and the supervisors can also have chips at the practise table to deliberately do things wrong that the dealers should be picking up. The good thing about them all being trained together is they get a consistent message from the supervisors and they can discuss scenarios as a group and learn from each other.
So DTD offers the best training but what of some of the others? When I asked one dealer at a G casino “when new dealers start here, how much training do they get?” I was given a very illuminating one word answer, and the word was “minimal”.
I shouldn’t have laughed at that answer as it’s quite serious but I did. It turned out that dealers with no previous experience whatsoever were starting work on day one about 4 hours prior to the evening’s tournament starting and when the tournament started they’d be dealing it.
Basically most West Midlands casinos I play in if they take on a new dealer who has actually played the game before they get hardly any training at all before being let loose on a normal tournament. Once they can do that OK they then get a bit of training on the rake and off they go to the cash game!

A non-player new dealer will get a bit more help but still not nearly enough. This sink or swim attitude is very short-sighted as well trained well motivated staff reduces the high turnover which all card rooms suffer from.
Don’t Blame the Wrong Person.
Some players annoy me when they get on the backs of novice dealers; this is totally out of order in my opinion. When casinos allow untrained or incompetent dealers to be thrown in at the deep end it’s important to remember that it’s not really the dealers fault, you should be aiming your complaints at management not the individual staff member. It’s the cardroom management who have deemed that person competent to deal, so speak to them about it
I never take it out personally on a novice dealer, as I know the training has probably been either non-existent or inadequate. Also it’s important to remember that they are in the “consciously competent” stage at best but they will become pretty skilled pretty quickly. Most dealers after dealing 20 – 40 hours per week for a few weeks have improved beyond recognition and if they haven’t then maybe the job isn’t for them.
I also firmly believe that a novice dealer is always preferable to me or any other customer having to deal that’s for sure. In fact if a casino has any self-deal tournaments throughout the week, like an afternoon comp for instance, then that’s the best place to start them in a live environment as a slow dealer beats no dealer every time.

Please Cardroom Managers! 

One thing card rooms should do when they have a ratio of 4 experienced and 1 novice dealer working a five table comp is rotate the dealers much more often than normal. It’s isn’t fair on one particular table to have a very slow dealer for two hours or more whilst the others have very quick dealers. By rotating them frequently it makes it fairer for all and reduces player frustration levels.
As a general rule the average cardroom doesn’t rotate dealers nearly enough and this is something that there is no excuse for in my opinion. So please CRM’s rotate the dealers more often. It’s pretty standard practise (DTD aside) for dealers to start a comp and remain on the same table until the first break which is usually 2 hours. How much trouble is it to push the dealers around at the end of each level?
Breaking them in Gently
Most new dealers are blooded in tournaments and this makes sense and the lower the buy in the better. It really does annoy cash game regulars, with some justification I feel, when they get stuck with a newbie. It really isn’t fair on the players if they are paying a session fee to get about half the number of hands in per hour that a really good dealer could handle.
I always question the logic of casinos putting slow dealers on “raked” games as it’s costing them money in the short term and possibly future business as well if players just get fed up and go and play elsewhere.
I always feel a bit sorry for new poker dealers as they really are at the mercy of how good, bad or indifferent the cardroom manager is. As players I think we owe it to them (the dealers not managers) to be as understanding as we can. Personally I do try and offer some help and encouragement to new dealers wherever possible.
Recently at the G Cov one of the valets became a dealer and she’s a very bubbly character and I remember her saying something like “I’m not very good yet” to which I replied “well you’re dealing with a smile on your face so in my opinion that puts you way ahead of most dealers already”.
That leads me nicely on to “attitude”.
Dealers: “Attitude” ie: Authority, Table Management & Personality
Once a dealer has been doing the job full time for 6 months their competence should be a given, but what about their attitude?
This is the area of being a poker dealer where the biggest variance is in my view. As I said earlier competence is based on knowledge and skills, which can all be learnt and practised. Attitude though is a whole different ball game. Getting the balance right with this aspect of being a dealer is often where it goes wrong. 
The dealer’s (and floor managers) attitude/personality has a HUGE influence on the game in so many ways and I’m going to try and cover some of the key areas as I see them.
Referee/Umpire
Without doubt the most important aspect of table management is keeping the game straight. The dealers and floor staff are the referee’s/umpires and they should be making absolutely certain that players are getting a fair roll of the dice.
The reason why players play in a casino and not in some dingy illegal gambling den is because they want to feel safe and not worry they will get cheated. You have to remember that whenever there is money involved some people will always be looking to pull a stroke if they think they can get away with it.
It’s very much up to the dealer to be the eyes and ears for the whole table and indeed all the other players in a tournament and make sure no player(s) are bending the rules, colluding, marking cards, or just generally trying to angle shoot in anyway.
So let’s look at an example of a dealer ignoring their responsibilities.  I played at a casino that I rarely play at about a year ago and the dealer basically dealt the cards and then went into dreamland until it was time to deal them again.
Two players who were sat in seats 3 & 4 and the guy in seat 9 were constantly talking about the hand in progress. That’s bad enough when they are just talking strategy or asking a player something like “are you flushing?” but their conversations were including things like what they’d folded and worse still they were getting dangerously close to saying things like “Shall I call him or are you going to?” 
It wasn’t quite that blatant but I knew exactly what they were doing inside two minutes. The dealer never even noticed, or if she did she couldn’t care less.
The first time I was in a hand with two of the three I had to say “is this a team game?” and they took the hint and cut it out. (well against me anyway) Now it didn’t on this occasion but a situation like that could easily have escalated into a row but it would never have even got to the point of me having to say anything if the dealer had been on the ball.
If the dealer or floor staff is the person who steps in and says something rather than a player to another player it diffuses any potential arguments. I could imagine in the later stages of that comp (I wasn’t there then obviously) that if those 3 had still been in at bubble time etc other weaker characters at the table would not be getting a fair game.
I haven’t named the casino as I was only in the comp up to about 5 mins before the 1st break and this was the only dealer I encountered that night so maybe the others are better? But this sort of thing needs to be stamped out or players who don’t play very often will simply not return there as they will feel there is a “clique” in the casino and they are not getting a fair game.
I would guess that cardrooms the world over have regulars/locals/friends that to a greater or lesser degree have a “clique” within the room. Sometimes it’s just because it is a friendly place and the regulars all know each other and engage in friendly banter. However if the cardroom management and staff don’t keep a grip on its room then it can become something more sinister.
I’ve visited some cardrooms round the country over the years though where the management has gone AWOL and the lunatics are running the asylum. All that happens in these situations is that normal decent punters stop going and the cardroom ends up with just these vermin in the card room and no one else.
The reason I go to G Coventry more than any other card room in the Midlands is because in my opinion it is the fairest, friendliest card room around. A sure sign of this is the fact that G Cov has a pretty high percentage of female players in their card room, certainly higher than any other Midlands casino.
It does happen occasionally and I’ve even had it happen to me a couple of times recently, but it’s still very rare to see anyone angle shooting in the Ricoh and first time visitors are generally treated well and get involved in the table banter quite quickly.
Dealers Controlling the Pace of the Game
Let’s deal with the simplest element of table control, keeping the game moving at a reasonable pace.
It’s up to the dealer to clearly indicate who the action is on, and if a player is reading a magazine, chatting to someone, asleep, ordering food, or just drunk out of his mind, to give them a gentle “Action’s on your Sir” type of prod.
Actions on your Sir. (pic from Rob Yongs blog)
The type of game it is should decide just how much emphasis they should place on this. If it’s a “session” cash game then they owe it to the players to be really on the ball. If it’s a “raked” cash game they owe it to their employer to keep it moving and of course for all cash games the more hands dealt generally means more tips.
If it’s a tournament there is a scale of urgency based on a variety of factors and this is where some common sense needs to be applied. How serious is the tournament in terms of buy-in, how long or short is the clock and at what stage is the tournament? Is it a table where everyone is there just to have a good night out, have some table banter and play a bit of poker or is it serious stuff?
No one size fits all in terms of how strictly the game needs managing but really good intelligent dealers have a feel for this aspect of the game. A great dealer has to be able to adapt to the situation and act accordingly.
During the Goliath the tables at the start of day one are for the most part some of the most sociable tables you’ll find anywhere for a £120 comp. Some of the agency dealers dealing them also deal things like EPT’s etc but the really good dealers amongst them know when it’s OK for the table to have a good laugh about something even if it means the action pauses for a moment or two.
When it’s really sociable the dealers should be prepared to ease off just a little and let the game flow at its own pace.  Players playing socially don’t want to be admonished like naughty school children. Nothing sucks the fun out of the game quicker than a dealer who only became a dealer because they couldn’t get a job as a traffic warden.
On the reverse side of the coin, one thing that shouldn’t happen is the players shouldn’t have to be telling the dealer when it’s time to deal the turn or river no matter what the game is. Its bad form when they are half asleep or looking away to see what’s happening on a nearby table or chatting to another member of staff so they don’t know the action has finished.
Poker is a Social Game
Poker, certainly at the level I play at, is a social game and the only reason I play the game nowadays. My days of making any money, serious or otherwise, at the game are long gone.
I could go to the pub on Friday night to socialise and spend a hell of a lot of money on drinks a meal afterwards and a taxi home which can be quite an expensive night out. Or I could play a variety of £20 - £50 comps in the Midlands and have something to eat/drink and drive home. (I personally don’t drink alcohol while playing)
A poker night out like this is often a lot cheaper than going to the pub, but it shouldn’t be any less “social”.
When it comes to the average £20 - £40 comp dealers and floor staff would sometimes do well to remember they are in the entertainment industry as well as the gambling industry.
Now this is only my opinion but I think before they start giving players a telling off they should ask themselves “is this guy trying to deliberately cheat” if the answer is yes then by all means knock yourself out, but if it’s clearly a novice player who’s transgressed then the next question they should be asking themselves is “has anyone been disadvantaged?”
If the answer is again no then just a friendly explanation of the rule and why it exists is all that’s needed. Dealers often tell them the rule but hardly ever “why it’s the rule”. So the player is none the wiser as he/she doesn’t understand the logic.
For example we often hear dealers say to new players “big chips at the front please”. The player is being told off but doesn’t know why so just moves them to the front but has a puzzled look on his face. If the dealer just explained that it makes it fairer if the other players can see roughly how many chips they have rather than having some big chips out of sight he could understand that and see the logic to it.
Don’t get me wrong rules have to be enforced to keep the game straight, and even the most sociable game gets a little serious as the money bubble approaches. However I believe that the rules are there to protect players and should never be used just to beat players over the head with.
5 Hand Penalty
Dealers need to be careful not to get more power crazy than Kim Jong-un and give off this “my word is law attitude”.
Without the social aspect, poker would quickly lose its allure with recreational players as let’s be honest no one plays £20 - £50 live tournaments to make a living do they? It has to be enjoyable.
Personality
Normally I say it as I see it and name names but on this occasion I won’t be naming the good or bad. I enjoy playing live and generally have a very good relationship with all the dealers I interact with so I’d rather not cause ill feeling.
However things need to be said about getting the balance right between “cold” dealers who sit like stone and do/say nothing other than what their job requires and have an absolutely rigid interpretation of the rules, zero personality and a downright bloody mindedness when they can clearly see what a players intentions were.
I know one of these dealers.
Then at the other end of the scale there are the dealers who think they are the ones on a night out with their mates (not the players) and are there to have fun, very often at the expense of a player they don’t like. G Hill Street has had some of these over the years.
Equally annoying is when I’m clearly talking “semi” privately to just one player sat right by me and the dealer thinks they are entitled to voice an opinion on the topic being discussed.
I remember once at the Broadway I was drawn side by side with an online phenomenon, (the guy had won over $1million playing cash on Pokerstars inside 3 years and was at the time a “supernova elite”.
He’s from Exeter and no one else at the table knew who he was as he was in town visiting and had never played there before. He is a very modest and shy person and I was talking quietly to him and I was obviously totally enthralled by what this guy had to say.
We were just talking to each other in little more than a whisper and to my total annoyance the dealer butted into the conversation. The poor guy just got embarrassed and just clammed up as he didn’t want to be talking loudly about his play/winnings etc. I was so annoyed with the dealer I can’t tell you.
Hill St Blues
Let me say right away that I’m a big fan of the G Hill St and Jon Baker/Mike Swann in particular but the dealers at Hill St have on occasions needed to be reined in a bit.
Things change of course and dealers come and go and I’d have to say things are better there now than they have been in the past.
At Cov a lot of players ask me where is good to play in Birmingham as they know I play there occasionally and I always recommend Hill St as their comps are good seven days a week with around 100 runners each day.
They have 2 tournaments a week that are 8 Max and one that is 6 Max and I think that’s terrific. I personally hate being crammed in 10 to a table. When players from Cov go there they always say to me afterwards how good it was, that its well run and the dealers are great etc.
So what problem do I have at Hill St? Well one of its great strengths is also its weakness in my opinion.
Hill St has a very loyal customer base and they have lots and lots of regulars. I only go once a month at most but when I go I see loads of the same players there every single time I go. They have lots of players who go there 3, 4, 5 or even more nights a week.
There is an old saying that “familiarity breeds contempt” and this I believe is true at Hill St.
Now on average the dealers at Hill St are top class and when they have their mind on the job they are as good as any around but occasionally some of them are just taking the piss and F’ing around.
I think this comes about because the same dealers deal to the same players night after night and the “familiarity” causes a loss of respect.
I have a degree of sympathy with dealers the world over as some poker players are complete arseholes and they fully deserve to be treated with total and utter contempt, but as a member of staff they shouldn’t be the ones doing it.
Some of the players at Hill St behave like nursery kids in the sandpit when they can’t have their way but even so the dealers should never be taking the piss out of players or goading them in anyway. I saw a dealer give a player the rub down there once when he busted a comp and that is just bang out of order even if the player is a knob.
It’s a difficult thing to judge exactly where the line is sometimes and in my opinion it’s very good that a dealer can have a sense of humour and be pleasant when spoken to and join in with the banter. That definitely makes the game more sociable, but there is a big difference between a dealer joining in with the banter or being the one instigating it.
G Walsall
Now it’s been a year since I wrote my last blog update and if I’d done this review at that time then G Walsall would have got a total savaging from me. When I played the £100 Bank Holiday comp there about 18 months ago I was just appalled at how bad it was. When you have a player at the table swearing, being racist, sexiest etc it’s the dealers job to step on it but what happens when it’s the dealer who is doing it? It was without doubt the worst behaviour I’d ever witnessed from a dealer.
Mainly for that reason I didn’t go again for well over  a year but I’ve been to Walsall twice in the last month or so and thought things had improved dramatically, though in truth they couldn’t possibly have gotten any worse. 
They had a lot of new dealers and although they were in the consciously competent stage they all seemed keen and pleasant so I was really quite impressed.
There were plenty of valets, the comp was busy and they had 3 full cash games and the dealers were being rotated every 20 minutes or so which is great.
G Coventry
G Cov’s dealers over the years have for the most part got the balance between approachability and authority just about right. One or two of them are right up there with the best dealers I’ve seen and as I’ve said it’s my favourite place to play.
Consistency with rulings isn’t Cov’s strongest point but generally speaking they are a good bunch. If I’m honest there is only one dealer who makes me a sigh a little inside when I see them approaching my table to take over dealing.
NEC Resorts World
I made the effort to go and see the new Genting casino on opening night and I played in a decent 50p/£1 cash game. The standard of dealing was good and the big difference there for the dealers themselves is that the dealers (who are on minimum wage) actually keep the tips they personally get given rather than pooling them.
Resorts World
Not sure how this will work out long term but I suspect that the best dealers will get the most tips and the bad ones with zero personality won’t get any and they’ll leave.
Dusk Till Dawn
I’ve not been there for ages (about 2 years) but I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone moan about dealers or rulings there so I guess it’s still up to its usual standard.
So Dealers in Summary
On the whole I’d say the standard of dealers throughout the Midlands is about 8/10 and although poker players moan like F about dealers truthfully we shouldn’t.
Regarding supervisors I would say that inconsistency is the number one thing that annoys players. What really pisses players off is if they get called on a ruling then a few weeks later someone else does the exact same thing and gets away with it. 
Other than that I’d say they do a very difficult job extremely well as lets remember poker players are never happy unless they’re moaning.
I would say that generally standards have improved in recent years and probably DTD has had a lot to do with that as they have forced other operators to raise their game.
What do Dealers think about Players?
In the interests of balance let’s try and look at this from their point of view. When we hate a player at the table with a passion we can just get up and walk away but dealers can’t. They have to sit and suffer it.
Some players are downright obnoxious; one legendary player who I won’t name is such an arsehole that I think he should just be banned from every cardroom in the country. If I ever see him come in to late reg I do a fist pump if I’m sat at a full table.
Once he famously threw his hole cards in the dealers face and shouted “YOU’VE BEEN DEALING ME SHIT ALL NIGHT LONG”. (At the time he was heads up in a 100 runner comp having won about a dozen consecutive flips.)
For those players that don’t know let me tell you that the dealer doesn’t care if he’s dealt you 9-4 off suit 3 hands running and when you start telling him bad beat stories his head is just screaming inside.
Players please don’t moan or berate them because you think a particular dealer is unlucky for you, as I have to say that pisses them off mainly because it’s utter nonsense. Most of the players at the buy in level I play at are pretty bad players and the fact that they are complete fish is a much bigger factor as to why they are losing than who is randomly generating the cards.
Ranj Ferlance, one of my favourite dealers who has sadly left G Hill St, had a guy on our table once who was continually moaning that he always lost when she was dealing. He then lost a HUGE pot she dealt when he defended his BB with 6,2 off-suit and caught a piece of the flop
So again he starts berating her, going on and on and eventually she said “it’s not my fault if you call raises pre-flop with 62 off suit, I’m a dealer not a magician”.
Time-wasters are a particular irritant to dealers (and me) so just stop Hollywooding, it’s a £30 comp you’re not on the telly and EVERYONE at the table knows you’re not going to call.
Antes difficult to remember for some as once they come into play you only have to post them every hand!
Also it annoys dealers if the big blind is 400 and some twat puts in 16 x 25 chips in and then 2 hands later asks for change for the ante. How do dealers not throw something at that guy?
Don’t go on about a hand that happened 3 hours ago, the dealer probably can’t remember a flop he dealt 3 hands ago. Because he/she isn’t invested in the hand like you are they just deal the cards!
Dealers hate players who CONSTANTLY ask who raised? As a player you really should be able to work it out for yourself.  Just look at the player to your right, and if they have no cards it wasn’t them. Keep going around the table till you see someone with cards that has pushed more chips over the line than the big blind. (That’s the person who raised)
Finally they REALLY DON’T CARE that you “would have won that hand”. Doh if only you’d called that 3 bet out of position with 8,3.
Thanks for Reading
OK so that was Part 2 of Getting the Balance right. I make no promises about when the next post will be done as I originally said part 2 would be done in “a couple of weeks” and it has been over a year.
Hopefully I won’t have upset any cardroom staff too much.
Since I started playing cards in the Rainbow casino in 1977 I’ve met and interacted with literally thousands of dealers over the years and I think 99.9% of them do a pretty difficult, poorly paid job, with little or no thanks very well indeed. So I’d like to thank them.