Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

I'm an occassional live player and I've thought about this question quite a bit. It seems to be that almost everyone pays out of their stack, but I've got to think that's not the best approach for someone seeking to be a winning player because it actually costs you more money in the long run.

For example, if I were to pay $10 for food and tip to the server out of my stack, not only does it cost me $10, but it will cost me an additional $10 on a double up that may come along because I no longer have that $10 to double up. Essentially that food cost me $20 on my first double up, $40 on the next, and so forth. However, I guess the opposite is true that if I bust, the food essentially cost me nothing since I paid for it with money I would have lost anyway. Is my thinking correct on this?

In lower limit games, this can add up to quite a large percentage of winnings over time. If everyone at the table is paying for random stuff out of their stacks, you could be seeing $20-$30+/hour disappearing off the table in addition to rake and tips. Now I'm not going as far as saying you should tip out of your pocket because that would be a huge pain in the ass, but really that would make more sense for someone trying to make a living at poker.

Do you pay for things out of your stack or not? Do you have a reason you choose one or the other?

Currently I usually pay out of my stack, but I'm trying to be more vigilant about paying for anything I'm paying more than $5 for out of my wallet.

EDIT: This is all really assuming you are playing NL, particularly with a capped buyin.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

pay with chips

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

Too much thinking. Use your chips.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

Huh? Too much thinking about something can affect your winrate? WTF?

I have a $10 bill in my wallet and I have chips in front of me. Doesn't it make more sense to take a few seconds and pull the bill out of my wallet?

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

I always pay from my pocket. It makes it easier to keep accurate track of wins and losses.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

I pay out of my stack, but I am a limit player who always have enough on the table to go plenty of bets (usually everyone covered if I am up more than a rack) unless I am on some long tilt driven journey that usually only happens once or twice a year.

But you bring up a point I thought of a few years ago when playing 1/2 NL at IP. They had a max buy-in of $100 at the time, and I had about doubled up when I got into a big pot with a player who had me covered. I had flopped top set w/ aces and led into the pot after raising preflop. As he was contemplating his action, the drink lady came by and being the alcoholic I am, I had to tip her $1 for my Corona she was bringing me. The guy pushed all in, I tipped her a dollar from my stack and called...if I had done it out of my pocket, $1 more for me, but that is pretty nitty now isn't it...

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

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I always pay from my pocket. It makes it easier to keep accurate track of wins and losses.

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Since I play semi professionally, and limit at that, I enjoy paying from my stack and having that roll into my wins or losses, because eating a meal at the table is something I wouldn't have done if I didn't go to the casino, I would have had a far cheaper meal at home. So I count that against my wins/losses just as you do with dealer tips/rake.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

OP is 100% right, well it doenst make a HUGE difference but yeah once in a while it will cost you money to pay with chips on the table.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

The place that I play at gives us free food, but I always tip out of my stack.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

If you are playing in a capped game and you have more than the cap in your stack, and you think having a big stack makes a big positive difference, then sure, pay outta yer pocket. If you're below the cap, and believe all of this, why aren't you topping up your stack after every hand?

Just read here in Cardplayer where Ed Miller spells out for the masses why having a short stack is not a disadvantage. It's been discussed a lot on 2+2, but the myth continues. This is the first good article I recall seeing on the topic in Cardplayer. http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/17063

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

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If you're below the cap, and believe all of this, why aren't you topping up your stack after every hand?

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Yeah, that's another thing I that I've thought about as well, and probably is a more significant loss over time.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

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In lower limit games, this can add up to quite a large percentage of winnings over time. If everyone at the table is paying for random stuff out of their stacks, you could be seeing $20-$30+/hour disappearing off the table in addition to rake and tips.

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Unless you're playing in California (as I discuss in the footnote at the bottom of my post) I think this is probably not important enough to worry about, for the following reasons:

1. While you can control your own spending practices, you can't make your opponents pay out of pocket, so it only makes sense to analyze how drink tips affect your stack size, not your opponents'.

2. Marginal increases in your stack only impact winnings in hands where you are all-in and your opponent covers you; such situations should only account for a small fraction of your net win. Also, if you are +EV, you should be accumulating chips and covering your opponents more often than they cover you, further diminishing the importance of marginal increases in your stack size.

3. As you point out, while having a bigger stack will increase your net if you are +EV, this will increase both your wins and your losses. The net effect will be a small fraction of the gross positive effect.

4. The main situation where the positive effects would manifest, as you describe, are situations where you repeatedly double through other players (with you being covered) rendering the effect exponential. For this to happen, it would have to be a game where lots of other players at the table have also built stacks of several times the max buy-in, enabling them to cover you after you have doubled up once or twice. At most games, this would be an unusual circumstance.*

*One key exception would be a game with a very low buy-in cap, where players frequently bust out and re-buy, and other players routinely build monster stacks many times the buy-in. I have seen games like this, particularly in the Bay Area, and I understand this is common in LA. In this case your strategy might indeed have a measurable (though, I would still contend, not particularly large) effect.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

Posh has good points. It's a rare 4-hour NL session I play that I ever end up all-in. The folks with big stacks tend to be more careful and it takes a couple of pretty big hands to spark a big pot. On the other hand, the folks with $100 in a $300 cap game are shoving the flop with second pair. So the times it actually impacts your bottom line to not have kept an extra $10 on the table are pretty limited, and in part balanced by the times you woulda lost that extra $10 (dunno 'bout you, but I do not ALWAYS win my all-ins).

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

I usually use foodstamps or bring a block of government cheese.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

of corse if im in a tourny I always use my tourny chips to pay for food, otherwise see previous post..

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

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If you're below the cap, and believe all of this, why aren't you topping up your stack after every hand?

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Yeah, that's another thing I that I've thought about as well, and probably is a more significant loss over time.

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LOL. This is far more important than the random dollars (or even $20) from your stack. My expenses at the poker table are all part of my wins and losses. You can over think it, but if you are getting all in at the table often enough for it to make the difference (and you are over the cap and there are other stacks big enough to cover you), you may be doing something else wrong. Paying tips/food/drinks out of your stack is de minimis.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

I tip cocktail girls out of pocket.


I tip dealers out of stack unless it's a tip of $5 or more, then I tip out of pocket.


The other night I flopped the joint in a deep $1-2 NL game and check-over-called the flop, check-raised the turn and bet $325 on the river (& got called). It was a big pot. I gave the dealer $20 from my wallet. YMMV.


Best of Luck

Howard

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

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I tip cocktail girls out of pocket.


I tip dealers out of stack unless it's a tip of $5 or more, then I tip out of pocket.


The other night I flopped the joint in a deep $1-2 NL game and check-over-called the flop, check-raised the turn and bet $325 on the river (& got called). It was a big pot. I gave the dealer $20 from my wallet. YMMV.


Best of Luck

Howard

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So your 1k stack didnt have the table covered by miles? talk about a deep 1/2 game jesus

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

also lol $20 tip

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

"also lol $20 tip"

lol over what? Too much or not enough?

One of my favorite dealers AND a very big pot for a small timer like me. He was happy to get the $20. I was happy to give the $20.


Best Wishes

Howard

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

"So your 1k stack didnt have the table covered by miles? talk about a deep 1/2 game jesus"


This happens every great once in a while. I've also seen some very big baby NL games at GVR, Golden Nugget, Wynn, etc).


One time at Wynn $2-5, I had over $1600 and was the short stack at the table. YMMV.


Best Wishes

Howard

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

You're right, it matters. Apparently a lot less than you think, but it does matter. Maybe it's worth 25 cents or so per session?

Keep in mind that if you're going to be that nitty (and I'm kinda nitty like that too), then first of all you should be topping off to your max buy in all the time anyway. So if you buy in for $200, then anytime you go below $200, whether it's because you lost a pot or to pay for food, then you should be reloading to $200. Going below $200 due to playing poker happens a lot more than buying food.

Now even if you're below $200, you still might have everyone covered. If you're above $200, you might have everyone covered. So the odds of getting all in, AND being outchipped, AND winning, are pretty low in any given time period.

Anyway, yeah, obviously you should be paying for food from you pocket. In limit it doesn't matter. Having said that, some people drop below the minimum stack size in limit too. Technically, you never know when you might make it to the river with the nuts in a casino where they allow uncapped river raising, against some maniac who just doesn't know when to quit. Not really clear what your stack size should be in limit. It would seem kinda weird to buy in for $1,000 for a $3/6 game just because a maniac has that many chips.

Re: Paying for food/drinks/etc: Out of stack or wallet?
 

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"also lol $20 tip"

lol over what? Too much or not enough?

One of my favorite dealers AND a very big pot for a small timer like me. He was happy to get the $20.

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No [censored].