No one's fault but a lot of accomplices

Today, I found.myself in a kerfuffle.  I was in a situation that I didn't like.  I started blaming others justifying how other people caused my situation and I was just an innocent victim.  Reluctantly, I then admitted that I really had no one to blame but myself.  I expected my partner to disagree with me and help me perpetuate the fantasy that I was not in any way responsible.  Instead, he said that he wasnt going to say anything unless asked, but it was indeed my fault.  Even though I will not remember this in a year, taking responsibility is a hard thing to do in this day and age.

We all remember the woman who sued a fast food chain because her coffee was too hot.  She was successful and now every cup of take-out coffee we buy now has a warning on it that it is hot.  Essentially, we all paid for her mistake.  She could have  waited a minute or blown on it but instead she chose to sue when she was burned.  Another choice she could have made was not to buy the cup of coffee had she been utterly unaware that it may be hot.

In my city, there are two government run poker rooms.  Apparently, we do not have the market to support both poker rooms and it has been decided that one poker room will be closed.  The amalgamated poker room will be larger and there will be changes made to accommodate the players.

Poker players reacted the way they always react to anything.  They do not like it, and they are vocal about it.  Now, in my professional life, I am known for one phrase and that is transitions are difficult.  I probably have said that a million times.  And, its true.  Even though we all know the only constant in life is change, we do not like change.  As we age, our thinking becomes more and more rigid and it becomes harder and harder to deal with change.  If our worlds are narrow and we don't have a wide variety of interests, change is even more difficult.  The same with our choices of employment.  If we have routine jobs where not much varies from day to day and we perform a lot of tasks by rote, then, we have a hard time with change.

A lot of these characteristics apply to "poker regulars".  The regulars don't want things to change, even if they suggested these changes, just because they don't have much to talk about other than how poorly managed the poker rooms are.  In fact, they like to egg each other on and incite negative emotions in one another.

Unfortunately, these rigid thinkers occupy the majority of poker players.  In addition to not liking change, they have no interest in growing the game and expanding the base of poker players in our city.  Growing the game and adding new players is change and they don't take change easily.

For years, I heard them bemoan the fact that we didn't have a bad beat jackpot.  I heard that thousands of times.  Now, we have a bad beat jackpot.  But, don't worry, it has a great deal of opposition now.

It may surprise you but regulars don't welcome newcomers easily.  If a newcomer does well, they are lucky.

When casino management announced the closing, it raised the ire of some poker players.  Several times I heard at poker tables, "the f***ing government are total f***ing idiots.  They don't know what the h*** they are doing."  And those were the nice comments.  They demanded meetings with management to discuss their concerns.  I would chuckle under my breathe.  Really.  Calling them f***ing idiots will certainly be persuasive.

Then, they talked about how they were never going to travel to the other casino so the casino would be losing their business.  I'm sure the casinos were hoping that this would happen and the regulars at the closing casino would decide not to travel the extra 7 kilometers.

What I found was that the same people who were claiming they were never travelling were at the other casino the very next day.  It appears they have no credibility.

Quite frankly, I am surprised that the casinos don't shut down poker all together.  Poker requires a lot of staff to run the games.  Often, scheduled dealers are doing nothing when there is not enough players to open their tables.

Many nights, I have seen a security guard stationed in the poker room.  I am sure that has been requested for security concerns.

I have seen security remove a poker player more than once.  I have seen security attempt to remove a player and have been unsuccessful and police assistance has been necessary.  As a tax payer and with the crime rate in our city, I find it deplorable that police presence would be needed.  I think the person who required police assistance should be billed for the time that the police system used for that call.

Dealers and Inspectors have to deal with a great deal of disrespect from poker players.  I will admit I have had my moments.   I've never sworn at a dealer or anything like that, but, when frustrated, I have reported dealers for very trivial matters.  Obviously, this happens when I am losing, when I am winning, of course, there is no issue.  But, I have done nothing in comparison with how other dealers and inspectors are treated.  I confess that I have laughed at some of this, which is inappropriate, but it has been funny.  All of it has been wrong, but for some reason, dealers and inspectors think they have to put up with this disrespect and that is part of their job.  It is really do bad that this is their work culture, but it will take years and years before this changes.  In that respect, it might be better to close down and start up again with something different.  Hopefully, a respectful workplace will be part of the new poker room.

Of course, I think the dealers and inspectors are part of the problem.  They let too many things go unchecked.  Vulgar language is often used and not warned until someone complains.  I don't think the understand the "gateway" concept or "the slippery slope" concept.  They let things go because they think it is more work to deal with these relatively minor offences.  What they don't realize that addressing these things in the front end makes their work easier in the back end.  The same way that marijuana is a gateway to other drugs, vulgar language is often a gateway to other more serious offences.  Also, once you let something pass, it is pretty much a slippery slope for other offences.

I think all of these leads to a climate of bad behavior.  In the last month, I have personally observed all of these things.  I was talking to a gentleman in the break of a tournament.  As we were talking, he was getting ready to go have a cigarette and opened his package, and out fell a baggy of weed.  I don't know if slots players would be so bold.  I didn't report it because it is going to be legal in a few months anyway.  I was playing cash and there was a man who I would estimate was closer to his 60th birthday than his 50th birthday.  He kept bugging the Inspector to send up a waitress.  The Inspector kept calling down and was told someone was on their way.  If the Inspector had come closer to the table, he may have realized that this gentlemen was already likely past the point where he should be served.  As he was sitting next to me, he was breathing on me.  He went to the washroom and was gone for a long period of time, but, that happens with men sometime.  When he came back, he reeked of alcohol, so he must have had a bottle on him somewhere.  What kind of a person, other than someone living in a dorm in University, would do such a thing?  I'm sure this man has grandchildren.  How would his grandchildren feel if he was caught?  What is it about poker that inspires this risky behavior?

When you buy into a 1-2 cash table, you are allowed a maximum buy-in of $400.00.  If you lose chips and you want to top up your stack, you are only allowed to top it up to $400.00.   A guy topped of his stack to about $450.  He went to the washroom.  One of the players pointed out to the dealer that this was against the rules.  The guy came back and lost another $200 and gave another $200 to top up his stack, again bringing it to about $450.  The dealer said he could only top up to $400.  The guy said, "who is going to object to more money on the table?".  The dealer asked the other players whether they minded.  No one spoke up, but, why should we?  It is not our table to manage.  Once the dealer doesn't enforce the rules, then it is harder for him when he tries to enforce something down the road.   Dealers and inspectors must take some responsibility for the "difficulty" managing the room.  They try to be "friends" with the players and this leads to perceived favortism and bad feelings.  It is important for dealers to be friendly but professional.

Another problem is that there doesn't seem to be any consequence for a lot of bad behavior.  Now, I do know that the casino does suspend a number of players for a short period of time.  The player attends a meeting to determine the length of the suspension.  Ridiculous.  Almost every player knows the length of suspensions and the offence related to it.  They see some players getting away with things while others seem to get stricter penalties.  What a waste of time for the casino.  Holding "tribunals" and keeping track of dates, etc.

I was at a tournament last week.  A popular player got knocked out and was letting off steam.  He started yelling at someone who wasn't in the hand for cheering against him.  It may have been in poor taste, but the knocked out player called the observer a racial epitaph.  The Inspector was right there and strongly told the player that his language was unacceptable.  However, that was it.  I know this player has had several verbal sparrings with Inspectors, and survived.  Since the player was out of the tournament, there was no consequence.  Basically, all players see when someone does something nefarious without a punishment.

During the same night, two players got into a squabble about nothing.  It kept going on and off for about an hour.  I'm sure both of them forgot what was the original squabble.  Finally, one of the players said he had enough and that he had a heart condition.  The other player said, "good, I hope you drop here on the spot and no one knows CPR."  Oy Veh.  There may not technically be anything wrong with that statement but sure shows the players moral character.  Is this the type of person wanted in a poker room?

Some of the players frustrated with the closure think the casino should be accountable to them as patrons of the poker room.  They are wrong about this.  The casinos are accountable to the government to get the most revenue possible to ensure that we have world class health care and education and taxes remain low.

Poker players get a complimentary non-alcoholic beverage every four hours, roughly.  Instead of being grateful, they are upset that it is only every four hours, they are upset that it is not an alcoholic beverage, they complain that they can only order one at a time, that they are not able to get virgin caesars with pickles, olives, and celery.  There is always comparisons to Vegas.  Again, if you want free alcoholic drinks, you can have them, just go to Vegas.

They complain that they don't get enough player points for playing poker.  Again, they are not "owed" anything.

In the end, poker players are probably no different from the rest of the members of society.  We all have a tendency not to take responsibility for our actions.

In the case of one of our poker rooms closing, it is probably no one's fault.  It was probably purely an economic decision.  However, even though it was no one's fault, I think there has been a lot of accomplices.  That is only common sense.