Rat-holing at Home Games

[MTUCache]

Question for you guys... my homegame is relatively serious, but not very experienced, so I'm sure there's some things that we normally do without even blinking that many people would consider a breach of ettiquete.

For cash game purposes, we all buy-in with $20. So, when people leave throughout the night, they either leave broke, or they cashout from the buy-in money to the nearest $20, and sell the remaining chips to anybody who wants to buy them with a few singles or whatever.

So, we just keep $20 in there, and towards the end of the night all the singles in the house are gone, and we're left with a bunch of stacks that don't just "round off" to the nearest $20.

So, the typical method of cashing out, at least in my case, is to cashout the bulk of my stack (to the nearest $20), and then play with the remaining stack either until I lose it, or build it up to another $20.

In our game, nobody questions it... it's standard, but I know this would definitely not fly at the casino, and I'm guessing that most of the homegames wouldn't allow this either. You either cashout and stop playing, or you play with your entire stack until you're done.

Opinions? Totally rude?

I mean, it's not like I'm taking money off the table throughout the night, I'm just doing it once at the end of the night, and then donking off the last $4-5 of chips into the next couple pots.

[smoore]

Pretty lame. Just have enough change to cash people out correctly.

[psandman]

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Question for you guys... my homegame is relatively serious, but not very experienced, so I'm sure there's some things that we normally do without even blinking that many people would consider a breach of ettiquete.

For cash game purposes, we all buy-in with $20. So, when people leave throughout the night, they either leave broke, or they cashout from the buy-in money to the nearest $20, and sell the remaining chips to anybody who wants to buy them with a few singles or whatever.

So, we just keep $20 in there, and towards the end of the night all the singles in the house are gone, and we're left with a bunch of stacks that don't just "round off" to the nearest $20.

So, the typical method of cashing out, at least in my case, is to cashout the bulk of my stack (to the nearest $20), and then play with the remaining stack either until I lose it, or build it up to another $20.

In our game, nobody questions it... it's standard, but I know this would definitely not fly at the casino, and I'm guessing that most of the homegames wouldn't allow this either. You either cashout and stop playing, or you play with your entire stack until you're done.

Opinions? Totally rude?

I mean, it's not like I'm taking money off the table throughout the night, I'm just doing it once at the end of the night, and then donking off the last $4-5 of chips into the next couple pots.

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Look if thats the sort of thing you guys want to do there is nothing wrong with it as long as you all agree that is how its going to happen. If you have a newcomer to the game you should probably explain that up front to them.

[MTUCache]

Well, I was thinking I'd just take a bunch of singles next time...

From my experience though, staying until the very end only a couple of times, there's some other pretty serious problems going on with someone's math skills, as the final count has been off more than $20 each time. One time there was a bunch of extra money, and this past Saturday it was short about $30.

I suppose I'd be better off just being one of the first ones to buy out and get the heck outta there before the problems start in the first place.

[psandman]

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Well, I was thinking I'd just take a bunch of singles next time...

From my experience though, staying until the very end only a couple of times, there's some other pretty serious problems going on with someone's math skills, as the final count has been off more than $20 each time. One time there was a bunch of extra money, and this past Saturday it was short about $30.

I suppose I'd be better off just being one of the first ones to buy out and get the heck outta there before the problems start in the first place.

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This problem can be easily solved. Designate one person, perhaps the host, as the banker. This person is teh only person who sells chips orcashs people out. If he is short its his responsibility to cover the loss.

It sound s like you just let anyone handle the bank and when you do this you have no accountability.

[flatline]

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This problem can be easily solved. Designate one person, perhaps the host, as the banker. This person is teh only person who sells chips orcashs people out. If he is short its his responsibility to cover the loss.

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This is the correct solution. Letting people cash out by themselves just leads to problems. If you let people cash themselves out, have them first count their chips for the table and then show everyone what they took from the bank. Designating a banker is much better, though.

The thing with 20s is just silly, bring some change.

[Banks2334]

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Pretty lame. Just have enough change to cash people out correctly.

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Exactly. What is with the 20$ increments?

[MTUCache]

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Pretty lame. Just have enough change to cash people out correctly.

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Exactly. What is with the 20$ increments?

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That's just what everybody brings, so the bank is just a big stack of $20 bills, which you can't exactly make change out of when you've got a random stack of $0.50 chips... As said earlier, having the proper amount of smaller bills there would easily solve the problem, so that's my plan for next time.

We've typically asigned one guy to be the "bank", but with all the problems lately I figure I might as well just handle it.

So, the typical thinking is that if you cashout, you cash all the way out... if you decide to buy back in later, that's fine, but there's no taking money off the table. Correct?

What about the concept of "buying chips" off of other players? Does that money need to be kept on the table as well, along with the sellers remaining stack?

[DavidNB]

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What about the concept of "buying chips" off of other players? Does that money need to be kept on the table as well, along with the sellers remaining stack?



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Selling chips to another player is almost the same as taking money off the table. I'm up say $40 and you lose your buyin and buy $20 off of me. Well thats $20 off the table. You would do better to make sure anyone who buys chips does so from the bank. The more chips in play, the better the game.

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So, the typical thinking is that if you cashout, you cash all the way out... if you decide to buy back in later, that's fine, but there's no taking money off the table. Correct?


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You would do well to ban that aswell. No cash outs untill you leave for good at the end of the night. Whoever is banker, they should make sure their buy in is in change. Bring a roll of quaters and so on. When I hosted a dealers choice game I used to bring $40 in change. A roll of looneys and some bills. That way everyone can cash in for what they had.

[psandman]

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Pretty lame. Just have enough change to cash people out correctly.

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Exactly. What is with the 20$ increments?

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That's just what everybody brings, so the bank is just a big stack of $20 bills, which you can't exactly make change out of when you've got a random stack of $0.50 chips... As said earlier, having the proper amount of smaller bills there would easily solve the problem, so that's my plan for next time.

We've typically asigned one guy to be the "bank", but with all the problems lately I figure I might as well just handle it.

So, the typical thinking is that if you cashout, you cash all the way out... if you decide to buy back in later, that's fine, but there's no taking money off the table. Correct?

What about the concept of "buying chips" off of other players? Does that money need to be kept on the table as well, along with the sellers remaining stack?

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Buying chips off another player is fine as long as the money stays on the table and money plays. Its not removing money from the table as another player said unless money doesn't play.

However as a general rule its best to convert all cash to chips as it tends to losen the game up. Players tend to be more willingf to lose chips then they are to lose cash.