Ján Bendík: King of delicate words!

The main goal of this article is not to insult anyone or to create an unpleasant, negative feeling. Quite the opposite, the main goal is to introduce these situations to the reader from the point of view of a professional poker dealer. Poker portals regularly publish their articles on various tidbits and gossip from the poker world. But they are not in the center of the happening and they will never be able to truthfully describe these situations from the position of the dealer. This leads to shortage and distortion of information. So let’s take a look together on things “behind the curtain“ at the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam. We will try to objectively look at the point of view of the dealer and his feelings in these unpleasant and personal situations.

Slovakia had a world-renowned representative at the MCOP poker tables in Amsterdam. Ján Bendík won as the first Slovak at the main tournament of the PokerStars festival in Monte Carlo Grand Final and took home €961.800. His amazing progressive results will not be taken from him by anyone! However the behavior of the EPT player of the years behind the tables is not very representative! Mr. Bendík is not restraint with his foul language at international poker festivals. The king of selected words is not stopped even by the most prestigious EPT final table, which have microphones with live broadcast. Despite certain guaranteed amount in thousands of Euros, this gentlemen can unduly get upset over the randomness of dealt cards, which is blamed on the dealer!

From the point of view of a professional poker dealer

In the past three years, in cooperation with the Holland casino, the Master Classic of Poker – Silver edition in Amsterdam has been hiring freelance dealers. The poker team is very diverse and consists of experienced and professional dealers from various countries. Some of them are EPT dealers and standards of dealing and professionalism are an unconditional inevitability. The Holland casino uses at the poker festivals also its employees. This group includes also “refugee from somewhere in the Caribbean“ (as Bendík stated on one slovak poker forum). Local and always smiling dealer with an exotic appearance,

Let’s overlook this slightly racist undertone addressed to the dealer and move on. The work at the poker tables at this festival is eased for the dealers by a mounted shuffle machine. The dealer doesn’t shuffle the cards at all. He just pulls them shuffled from the machine and places them (cuts) on the cutting card. The statement of Mr. Bendík addressed to the dealers becomes all the more funny. There is still the chance of an unfavorable cutting of the cards!

To blame and vulgarly assault the dealer for dealt cards, which he didn’t even shuffle is the cherry on the top of a poker cake in this case. And if anyone is still unclear, an experienced dealer with years of experience is only physically at the table with the player. In reality he is in his own matrix world. In this world, anything goes except for playing poker:

“What will I buy my grandmother for Christmas? What will I cook tomorrow? Well… I’m in Amsterdam, maybe I’ll go to a coffee-shop for a cake!?” etc.

The game at the table always takes place in an elegant and synchronized way, so the players think the dealer is experiencing the game with them, he’s counting outs and %. A professional poker dealer is always in autopilot mode. However you will immediately get his attention, if you start aggressively throwing cards at him and harass him with selected words. He will concentrate and believe it or not, with pure force of will he will find that 3-outer on river. Afterwards, with an unnoticed grin on his face, he will shout from his chair: SEAT OPEN! This is the only and I believe justified as well “bad wish“ of the dealers. Simply, magically, using some higher force of the universe to get rid of this arrogant player at the table, who’s harassing every hand with his gigantic ego!

Martin “Yegon” Dragúň: “Poker is a game of tough guys – in translation: Poker is a game of vulgar rednecks, incapable of emotionally handle the randomness of dealt cards and throwing anger tantrums all around!”

Nobody is perfect and poker is of course also a game of emotions. Unfortunately many times it´s game of idiots and primitives as well. These type of people are not interested that each dealer sitting long hours on the chair has his own story. In addition to doing his job, he can go in given moment through a certain very hard and difficult time of his life: terminally ill life partner, family issues, various other health problems, mortgage for thousand years and many other things. 

Bendík has some great results from Master Classics of Poker:

2006:  € 1000+20 NL Holdem event, 2nd place = €97.000

2008: € 1,000 + 50 NL Holdem Event, 3rd place = € 52.736

2016: € 4000 + 250 NL Hold´em – Main Event. 20th place = €13.675

It is really pity that our only world-renowned player, even after his amazing win at the EPT in Monte Carlo, continues to build negative reputation in the poker community! Maybe a little humility and gratitude would suffice! To acknowledge the fact that the poker dealer is in no way responsible for the final result! Stop acting like a peasant at the tables and not lose fans needlessly! It’s more admirable to be a king of cards than a king of selected words!