Gimme a Break!

Okay, maybe I do need a break from all things poker. I thought playing live in Laughlin was a comfy no-brainer, but instead I spent the evening as angry as a viper and snapping at everything.

Granted, this is stupid stuff that should never occur in a well run poker room, but why is it my job to tell someone else how they should run their crap?

The first problem we encountered was one of the blinds getting an exposed card. I tried to get the new dealer to declare a misdeal, but he was having none of it. He even sat there and argued with me about it, although he is new to dealing, having about two weeks of experience under his belt, lol. After I spoke to Dan about the situation, he still argued with me, telling me, "See, I told you so! I knew I was right!" He also argued with other players.

While the TDA does not address Hold'em specifically when it comes to blinds being exposed, I thought this rule was pretty general in TDA tourneys:

27) Misdeal: In stud-type games, if any of the players' two down cards are exposed due to dealer error, it is a misdeal.

Guess I was wrong.

The next thing that happened was that some bright boy decided that all players should keep their huge seat cards right in front of them, on the table, instead of having the dealer collect them and keep track of open seats, like a real tournament. Yeah, the seat cards are bigger than our playing cards. Do I even have to go into why this is the stupidest idea in tournament poker?

I personally had to fish a card out from under my seat card three times. I also had to tell several other players that their hole card was under their seat card, so that they could fish it out. Now I'm the watch dog again, lovely.

I wonder how many tables were playing with a 51 card deck last night.

I told Dan that this was a horrid idea. I said that some other moron had decided to do the same thing, over a year ago, at the Belle. That idea lasted about a month until they finally got smart. And the seat cards at the Belle were about 50% the size of the monsterous cards at the Palms.

Why is this so evident to me? It seems like it is just common sense!

Dan decided within about 10 minutes that it was a bad, BAD idea. Duh. So he said they were going to use those little hooks that old ladies use to hold their purses to the table, in order to "hang" the seat cards. Oy, you start with something perfect, like all other good cardrooms...you make it horrible, then you make it slightly LESS horrible instead of admitting the truth that it wasn't broke in the first place!

I could just go on and on with this whine-fest, but the truth is, even little things are annoying the crap out of me. Maybe I truly should go on a break of all things poker...