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

[DonkeyKongSr]

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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.

[Poshua]

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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.

[bav]

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).

[internetdonk]

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

[internetdonk]

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

[TMTTR]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.

[Howard Burroughs]

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

[Lord_Strife]

[ QUOTE ]
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

[punkass]

also lol $20 tip

[Howard Burroughs]

"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