Tipping

I generally regard myself as a fairly generous person who when he goes out to dinner or the bar I almost always tip. I know the folks that work in the service industry for the most part depend on their tips. If the wife and I have dinner and the service is pretty good I usually leave somewhere between a 10 and 15% tip. I know some people say you should tip 20% but I feel that the amount I tip is still fairly generous. What I have a problem figuring out is where do you stop tipping. I quite often throw some change in the tip jar at Starbucks, I toke the dealer after a winning hand playing at the casino, heck I even tip the bartender who brings the wife a drink if we are sitting at the bar. Now I am starting to see tip jars at fast food places where you go to order get pick up. I know the wife tips her hairdresser.When you go on holidays you are supposed to tip the room attendants who clean your room every morning. That's a lot of tipping. I know we have gone out with people who don't tip which means when the bill comes having to make up for that persons tip.You read some message boards and the subject of tipping is always a very volatile one. Some people say they never tip because they don't receive tips in their job.

Years ago I worked as a limo driver on weekends to make some extra money when my kids were young. I got some pretty decent tips for basically doing my job and being friendly. Of course it helped that I was born in Vancouver and when I had tourists in the limo I gave them lots of interesting facts about Vancouver. I have to admit I loved the tips.

Someday I am going to start keeping track of how much I have tipped on a monthly basis. I bet its a lot. My question is maybe we should start paying our service people more and then we aren't always struggling to figure out what and who to tip. I know some countries like Australia and New Zealand you don't see tipping like you do here.

I went and played a live game last night. There was about 45 of us. Early on I wasn't getting hands and when I did get something (which wasn't much) I completely whiffed on the flops. Looked like it was going to be an early exit until I hit a flush and 2 people played it to the river with me (not sure why) and I won a decent pot which gave me some breathing room for awhile. Still it was one of those nights where I was folding almost everything. Then I finally got some decent cards. I hit AK and pocket aces and managed to win a couple smaller pots. It was enough to get me to the final table. There I was one of the 2 short stacks when I got dealt pocket jacks. I immediately pushed (although I hate jacks). Got one caller who had A 10. Some how my jacks held up which isn't usually the case. Two hands later I got dealt A10h. I was going to limp in but decided on a min raise. Guy next to me went and reraised. Having played with him before I thought he had a small pocket pair. Then the guy in the BB went all in. This guy is really loose and plays incredibly let us say different cards. Anyways looking down at what I had left I was getting the right odds to call. I did and guy next to me flipped over pocket 4's and the BB had AQ (that was a shock) as he would call with just about anything). Not looking good. Got an Ace on the flop but couldn't hit the 10 and I was out in 8th.
Still pretty happy considering the cards I had early on. One thing about this game is learning patience when you are card dead.

While I was playing last night I was keeping one eye on the hockey game. Helped that I was folding a lot . Anyways pretty decent result. Canucks had a 3-0 lead, went into the tank a bit in the third period and the Hawks tied it up but they showed great character and managed a 2 late goals and won 5-3. Looking forward to game 2 Saturday night.