Time Pots

[BigStack650]

A recent thread in the B&M section discusses someone at the Borgata refusing to pay his time. Then it goes on to discuss time pots. I don't really understand what when on there or what a time pot is. Can someone help me out?

[SheridanCat]

There are two ways a casino will make money from poker. They can rake money from each pot or they can charge players time.

When the game uses the time method, each player will pay some amount every half-hour (during the dealer change). Each player simply puts out their money and the dealer collects it; after which, the game starts up and there is no further money taken off the table by the house.

Rather than all players putting out their time, players will use the time pot. This can be either an agreement among players (as you saw mentioned in that Borgata thread), in which one player will pay the time for all and be repaid from the next qualifying pot, or it can be an agreement that the house will just take the time money from a pot of the minimum size.

The advantage for the tight player is that often he's not going to be paying his own time since he's playing fewer pots and will usually not be the winner of the time pot.

[BigStack650]

so sometime during the half-hour, someone declares that this next pot will be the "time pot"? I'm sorry if this is a simple thing, but I am still confused.

[DWarrior]

Time pot is also called a collection pot.

For those that don’t know, a collection pot is a form of rake. Generally it’s used exclusively in live games at high limits. It works this way. Every half hour when a new dealer enters the box, they would typically call for “time.” That’s the signal for every player in the game to pay the time collection, say $9. (In lieu of a rake every pot, the cardroom simply charges a flat $9 per half hour per person fee to play.)

Sometimes, though, the game uses a collection pot. In that system, nobody pays time immediately when the new dealer enters the game. Instead, they just start playing. The first time the pot reaches a specified size, the entire collection is taken from that pot, as a rake.

For instance, the limit is $100-$200. The time charge is $9, and the game is 10-handed. Instead of collecting $9 from each player every half hour, they pool those fees into a $90 collection. The first time a pot exceeds a certain value, say $1,000 (or 10 small bets), the dealer removes $90 from the pot.

It functions much like a standard rake with two differences:

1. It’s taken only out of a single pot, not out of every pot played. After the collection pot, the remaining pots for the half-hour are unraked.
2. It’s an either/or thing. Either the pot doesn’t get big enough, and there’s no rake. Or the pot is big enough, and the entire thing is taken. There’s no time half the collection gets taken if the pot is half big enough.

From www.notedpokerauthority.com

[DWarrior]

It's used at higher limits because imagine raking $5 out of every pot at a 100-200 game, they only use the black chips so it'd be a real pain breaking up the chips.

[AngusThermopyle]

1. Voluntary agreement among the players to handle the time collection. House does not get involved. They are just interested in getting their time every half hour. Those players who do not want to participate, pay their time directly to the dealer themselves. If there is an argument over the time pot, don't call the floor. They can't/won't do anything.


2. Depending on the limit and the number of players involved, there can be one or two pots. Two pots, half the money is taken out of each of the first two qualifying pots after the time collection. One pot, it is taken out all from the first qualifying pot. If the time charge is $9, you need $90. Playing $100-$200, you can easily get pots where $90 won't be a big bite. Playing $20-$40, it makes more sense to take $45 out of two pots.

3. A qualifying pot is a pot of at least $XXX. $XXX depends on the game and is agreed upon ahead of time.

[AKQJ10]

I've never played anywhere near $100/200, but wouldn't they use $25 chips to make for a 4-chip/8-chip structure?

Regardless, someone's written up a brief article here: http://poker.wikia.com/wiki/Time_pot