Player's Stories

The Importance of Proper Management
By Nicolas Fradet

As I am polishing this article, the future of the World Series of Poker is a topic of many conversations amongst the different Internet newsgroups. Some say that management is inadequate -- that this and that should be done to preserve the tournament -- others say that the tip fund withheld from the players will kill the World Series. I am not the one to say. But all of these issues relate to good management.

The casino or cardroom personnel that surround us while we are playing at the tables are very important. When money is involved, I think we all feel safer when the rules of engagement are clear, when the dealers are efficient and when the cardroom is up to our expectations. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. I understand that not every floorman or dealer is perfect and that human errors are going to happen. That's fine, as long as we all learn from the mistakes and we move on. But when the higher authorities fail, poker fails me, and I don't like it. Let me give you an example.

I recently visited a small poker room that really was not up to what we should expect from a room. When I walk into a cardroom, I need to feel that the place is well run, that it is worthy of my investment and, should there be a conflict of some sort, that the right ruling will be made. Well folks, this was not the case there.

First, let me say that this is unfortunately the closest cardroom to my home. It is my understanding that more than half of the players there must drive an hour and a half to get to the casino. Most of us are praying for the closest casinos to open a poker room but until then, this place is the "best" we've got. A large majority of the players are willing to sacrifice a 3 hour drive to play the game, so it should be made worth their while. It is worth while, on the surface, because the games are very soft and filled with bad players; that makes it very profitable for any good player. But should that be the only factor? The answer is that it primarily depends on you. To me, it's not.

Let's begin by listing numerous reasons why I don't play there as often as I could:

• The poker room does not have a written set of rules, and the floormen don't know the proper rulings. Also, they don't rule the same way at all. This bugs me.

• The dealers are slow and sloppy; not all of them but some. It irritates me to see a dealer chatting with the players instead of shuffling. Hey! This is not bingo -- shuffle up and deal. It costs me money and it costs the casino money. But what irritates me most is that management does not do anything about it.

• When I get there on Friday or Saturday at about 4pm, there is usually 15-20 players on the list yet no games are running because they don't have any dealers available. What? I drove an hour and a half to wait another hour for a game to start when there are plenty of players available? This really does not make sense to me, it gets players angry and upset and the casino loses money.

• Management doesn't have a clue on how to run a tournament. The structure makes for a total crapshoot. They change the structure and rules during the tournaments. Did I mention you can still rebuy at the final table? That's a sin.

• Management insists on doubling the blinds every 2 rounds instead of every half an hour (or any time period). Fine, every table will play the same amount of hands, right? But what happens when there are seven players at a table while another one has 8? Even worse, what happens when they fail to break a table which is now 4 handed while another is 7 handed? They play 8 hands while the other one get to play 14? Are you kidding me? (I've actually witnessed this).

  Plus that means that while one table is done (because it happened to play faster) other tables are still finishing their rounds. Result: the players are always on breaks. Play half an hour and get a 15-minute break, that makes it hard to concentrate on your opponents and get into the zone. Again, the tournament takes way longer to play than it should, and so the casino loses money by not running cash games sooner.

• At the end of their tournaments, Management allows deals that do not include every player still alive. So, if a player refuses to make a deal, the other players can still make a deal amongst themselves. That's worse than a sin.

• We all drew seats 4 times in the last tournament I played in (I'm not kidding). I spent more time moving my chips to another table than moving chips into the pot. Instead of breaking one table randomly selected, they broke every table and redrew seats. I can't wait for there to be 20 tables.

• Worst of all is that one floorman in particular is very arrogant. When I asked him why they did not seat 8 players at their stud tables (they seat seven), he told me: "What do you think eight times seven makes?" (implying that they would not have enough cards to play). Right, I guess all the other cardrooms in America don't have a clue.

So why in the world would I go play there you ask? Well, like I said, it is the closest cardroom to where I live and the games are good. But the fact is, I rarely go anymore. It's not up to my standards as a player. That's sad, really, because this cardroom should be attracting about 50-75 players on the weekends. Instead, there are rarely more than 25 players.

The result is that underground clubs and home games are growing in my area. Home tournaments are spread every week. You can find a live game every day if you want. And of course, there is always the Internet. The fact is that a lot of good players prefer to stay in town, even if the games are illegal. And many stay home to play on the Net, since at least there the tournament will be well run and joyful.

I tried to sit down with the casino management at the place I've mentioned and present them with a couple of suggestions. Unfortunately, they did not bother to return my calls. The fact is that when management does not know more about the game than the average player does, it creates situations where the managers are influenced by novice players. Instead of polishing their act, they just go along with suggestions made by players who simply don't have a clue.

That being said, the manager has now left the casino and I must say that the new managers are more open to suggestions. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. But it just goes to show that even winning players can be irritated by cardroom management to the point of not wanting to play in their poker room anymore, despite proximity. That's a loss for us, and it's a loss for them.

The bottom line is, poker is a business: treat your clients right.