Dealing poker is a very good job. I used to deal craps, blackjack, etc. and had to pool the tips with all of the other dealers. Now I keep my own every night. It's working out very good.

I am learning a lot by dealing. I already knew the technical aspects of the game, but I knew relatively little about good live play. B&M players are mostly terrible. I have seen a few really good ones, but they have stuck out like sore thumbs, at least to me.

From dealing games and watching players, I have picked up on a few mistakes I was making.
- Position - in B&M, the players are much more likely to check around to the raiser. Just about every time. A raiser on the button can almost always get a free card peeled off if he/she so desires. I've learned a lot about positional play from watching games.

- Waiting until the turn to bet a strong hand is a bad idea. If the flop gets checked around, nobody wants to call a big bet into a dry pot if they don't have a substantial part of the flop. I see people with flopped trips and sets wait until the turn to play tricky poker with the big bets. There's not enough in the pot to call at that point. Bet the strong hands early and they won't believe your turn bet either.

- The 'bad beat' ranting people do in the chat box is nothing compared to that which goes on at a live table. Players that have read all of the books, then make all of the right plays with "good cards", then get snapped off by 74 offsuit love to extoll the virtues of their good play and attempt to embarass the winner of the pot. It is disgusting and serves no purpose. If it gets really bad, I'll tell them "So you want them to play good, is that it?" followed by "If everyone played good, all of the money would end up here" while pointing at the rake. If they are good tippers I just shut up and deal.

I have seen a few excellent players. While everyone else is looking at the flop to see what is there, the good player is looking around at their faces to see their expression. They then formulate opinions of what their opps are holding based just on their reaction to the flop. Then and only then will they look at the flop for themselves. The same goes for the initial deal of the hole cards. While everyone else can't wait to get their grubby paws on their cards and look at them, the good player is watching them look instead of looking at his own cards. I've only seen about 5 people that do this on a consistent basis, it is a joy to watch these guys in action. This is a facet of the game that online-only players have no clue about.

I'll be giving more observations from the dealer's seat as time goes on...