Can someone tell me...

the term for when a player leaves a table and comes back with less chips than they left with?

thanks in advance

I know what you are talking about but cant remember. It also applies to people that win more than they started with, and then put their original buy in their pocket.

Freddy Deebs was accussed of this on that high stakes cash game show. He got totally pissed off. Called the game director had the game stopped until it was all cleared up, and everyone was clear that he didnt do it. I guess it is a major insult to accuse a Poker player of doing this. Doing it is considered one of the lowest things besides cheating that a Poker Player can do.

Originally Posted by mavkid11

the term for when a player leaves a table and comes back with less chips than they left with?

thanks in advance

Ratholing

ratholing? are you sure? that doesn't sound familiar, i remember the episode ed was talking about and i don't remeber hearing ratholing

It's called "going south".

that sounds about right, some d-bag at party is doing this right now, isn't there a prgram in action at most sites to stop it?

Yeah it's freeware, http://www.stopdumbassesfromcomingba...tartedwith.com

PremierPapa: lol
PremierPapa: u left
PremierPapa: and came back
PremierPapa: with less money
PremierPapa: what a punk
brbBBQ: mmm double

Originally Posted by mavkid11

ratholing? are you sure? that doesn't sound familiar, i remember the episode ed was talking about and i don't remeber hearing ratholing

From Poker Tips Glossary: http://www.pokertips.org/glossarydefs/463.php

Ratholing

Ratholing means to leave a game and then come back into the game with a smaller stack then with which you left.

For example, suppose you buy into a game for $20. You go on a winning streak and increase your stack to $100.

Now, you feel uncomfortable playing with this much money, so you leave the game, pocket $80, and re-enter the game with only $20. This would be a case of ratholing.

Ratholing is poor poker etiquette, and most poker rooms prohibit it.

seems like a sensible tactic to me. i can't see the problem.

is it bad sportsmanship? are you expected to give your opponents a chance to win their money back lmao?

and what is an ethically appropriate period of time to wait before returning to a table having banked your winnings?

i don't get it, someone explain.

Originally Posted by chipfiddler

seems like a sensible tactic to me. i can't see the problem.

is it bad sportsmanship? are you expected to give your opponents a chance to win their money back lmao?

and what is an ethically appropriate period of time to wait before returning to a table having banked your winnings?

i don't get it, someone explain.

The ettiquite is that money won at the table is to remain at risk as long as you play at that table. If you do not like it, you are of course free to change tables; but not pocket some of that money and keep your seat.

As the quick definition points out, it is considered rude enough that many poker rooms prohibit it.

The typical argument against it is that the chips are not YOUR chips until you cash them out, they belong to the game itself. As a rule of the game, you can choose to cash them out. But as an additional rule of the game, you cannot choose to cash SOME of them out.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Yeah it's freeware, http://www.stopdumbassesfromcomingba...tartedwith.com

broken link alert

Originally Posted by Pyroxene

Originally Posted by chipfiddler

seems like a sensible tactic to me. i can't see the problem.

is it bad sportsmanship? are you expected to give your opponents a chance to win their money back lmao?

and what is an ethically appropriate period of time to wait before returning to a table having banked your winnings?

i don't get it, someone explain.

The ettiquite is that money won at the table is to remain at risk as long as you play at that table. If you do not like it, you are of course free to change tables; but not pocket some of that money and keep your seat.

As the quick definition points out, it is considered rude enough that many poker rooms prohibit it.

The typical argument against it is that the chips are not YOUR chips until you cash them out, they belong to the game itself. As a rule of the game, you can choose to cash them out. But as an additional rule of the game, you cannot choose to cash SOME of them out.

so what is an acceptable time to wait before they can be deemed to be yours?

on titan, it seems to be about 2 hours.

but say i am more, or just as, likely to find the same people who lost the money at the same time the next day, rather than 2 hours later. am i expected to buyin for eg $80 then?

Originally Posted by Pyroxene

The typical argument against it is that the chips are not YOUR chips until you cash them out, they belong to the game itself. As a rule of the game, you can choose to cash them out. But as an additional rule of the game, you cannot choose to cash SOME of them out.

How about if you "cash" it all out, and then "buy" back in? Not trying to challenge you. I appreciate your contribution here. I'm just playing devils advocate, while taking a position against all idiots who think it's rude to rathol. If chips are in front of me, they are "MINE". Bottom line. I won them, and they are mine to do as I please with. They don't belong to the game. They don't belong to the guy who walks his poodle down the street from me. They don't belong to god or jesus. They belong to me. I won them. I can cash out $1, roll it up and smoke it if I please. It's my $1.

This rule started when some guy had a game in his home or establishment, and kept losing his $$$ to one individual who kept cashing out. It's a crybaby rule, thought up by a crybaby, to pacify losers.

Originally Posted by chipfiddler

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Yeah it's freeware, http://www.stopdumbassesfromcomingba...tartedwith.com

broken link alert

If you're not joking, the world just got a whole lot more awesome.

Originally Posted by Rondavu

Originally Posted by Pyroxene

The typical argument against it is that the chips are not YOUR chips until you cash them out, they belong to the game itself. As a rule of the game, you can choose to cash them out. But as an additional rule of the game, you cannot choose to cash SOME of them out.

How about if you "cash" it all out, and then "buy" back in? Not trying to challenge you. I appreciate your contribution here. I'm just playing devils advocate, while taking a position against all idiots who think it's rude to rathol. If chips are in front of me, they are "MINE". Bottom line. I won them, and they are mine to do as I please with. They don't belong to the game. They don't belong to the guy who walks his poodle down the street from me. They don't belong to god or jesus. They belong to me. I won them. I can cash out $1, roll it up and smoke it if I please. It's my $1.

This rule started when some guy had a game in his home or establishment, and kept losing his $$$ to one individual who kept cashing out. It's a crybaby rule, thought up by a crybaby, to pacify losers.

Well Said.

Originally Posted by Rondavu

Originally Posted by Pyroxene

The typical argument against it is that the chips are not YOUR chips until you cash them out, they belong to the game itself. As a rule of the game, you can choose to cash them out. But as an additional rule of the game, you cannot choose to cash SOME of them out.

How about if you "cash" it all out, and then "buy" back in? Not trying to challenge you. I appreciate your contribution here. I'm just playing devils advocate, while taking a position against all idiots who think it's rude to rathol. If chips are in front of me, they are "MINE". Bottom line. I won them, and they are mine to do as I please with. They don't belong to the game. They don't belong to the guy who walks his poodle down the street from me. They don't belong to god or jesus. They belong to me. I won them. I can cash out $1, roll it up and smoke it if I please. It's my $1.

This rule started when some guy had a game in his home or establishment, and kept losing his $$$ to one individual who kept cashing out. It's a crybaby rule, thought up by a crybaby, to pacify losers.

The rule works better at brick and mortar facilities were giving up your seat can result in you not playing for quite some time as you wait for another table. With online poker, there is always another table.

The individual poker houses pick the rules as they are private establishments. As houses typically pick this rule then I would surmise that the rule is to the houses' advantage. This leads me to one of two conclusions: 1) People ratholing irk other people enough that the irked are willing to play some place that has rules against it, thus decreasing the house's business if they allow ratholing or 2) preventing ratholing keeps more money at risk at a table, thus increasing the house's rake.

Lastly, anti-ratholing rules coupled with minimum buy-in rules prevent a certain style of play that I believe most players dislike. Pushing All-In when you have the slightest edge PF can be lucrative if you buy-in short and rathol any winnings. It is not nearly as lucrative if you cannot rathol because you constantly face the gambler's ruin delimma.

Originally Posted by chipfiddler

so what is an acceptable time to wait before they can be deemed to be yours?

on titan, it seems to be about 2 hours.

That would be entirely up to the establishment that sets the rule.

Assume the table you are playing at is dead and you see a better table to play at. Would you need to sign up for the table and bring your whole stack or cash out and max buy in for the new table? Or is this Casino dependent?

Originally Posted by Rondavu

How about if you "cash" it all out, and then "buy" back in? Not trying to challenge you. I appreciate your contribution here. I'm just playing devils advocate, while taking a position against all idiots who think it's rude to rathol. If chips are in front of me, they are "MINE". Bottom line. I won them, and they are mine to do as I please with. They don't belong to the game. They don't belong to the guy who walks his poodle down the street from me. They don't belong to god or jesus. They belong to me. I won them. I can cash out $1, roll it up and smoke it if I please. It's my $1.

I did some thinking about this and tried to read through the web and books to give a reasonable response. Putting together parts from several articles it comes to this. The chips in front of you are not yours to do with as you please any more than the cards that are dealt to you on any hand are yours to do with as you please or the dealer button is yours when it moves to you. Each is a component in a game; a game you purchased the right to play when you traded money for chips. By the rules of this game, you may acquire more chips under prescribed conditions in the game. Likewise, you may convert all of your chips back to money whenever you desire at which point you have stopped playing the game. However, the rules of the game preclude you from cashing out a portion of your chips while remaining in the game.

The chips are just a prop, and the rules for your use of those are prescribed.

From a broader perspective, ratholing can be viewed as a form of angling. If we take the general believe that 'if it is not out and out cheating and it makes me money it is a good thing' then most angling would be fine. But people general feel that angling techniques ruin the game so poker houses explicitly disallow them. If you do them anyway, the house follows prescribed rules which normally result in you losing money (that was not going to be yours anyway). That, in and of itself, is not much of a penalty. So, they add on that if you keep doing it, you will be asked to leave.

For people that care but do not know, some common angling techniques are:

Declaring at showdown that you have a hand which you do not have. The hope being that your opponent mucks his better hand (thus causing his hand to be dead) before someone corrects your 'mistake'.

Actting out of turn in a deceptive manner. For instance, tossing your (AA) cards generally toward the muck as if to fold but not really tossing them very far. Players to your right, perhaps influenced by this act, choose to bet. When it comes your time to act, you pick up your cards and raise strong. If anyone objects, you point out that you did not muck, just tossed your cards forward a little.

String betting (so disliked that most do not call it angling, but straight out cheating). String betting is the act of betting in separate chunks, basically hoping that you can glean information from your opponent's response to the initial chunk before you commit yourself to subsequent chunks.

All of these things seem like 'great thinking' because they give you an edge that does not seem to be directly against the rules.

Originally Posted by strawman

Assume the table you are playing at is dead and you see a better table to play at. Would you need to sign up for the table and bring your whole stack or cash out and max buy in for the new table? Or is this Casino dependent?

People with more brick and mortar experience than I can chime in with their experience. But from what I have seen, if you leave a table, you cannot buy in at another table for more than the max buy-in. So, pocketing your winnings in such a case would not only NOT be ratholing, it would be required.

Originally Posted by Pyroxene

2) preventing ratholing keeps more money at risk at a table, thus increasing the house's rake.

Isn't b&m rake a fixed amount.. meaning that your stack size or the size of the pots don't matter?

Originally Posted by Rondavu

How about if you "cash" it all out, and then "buy" back in? Not trying to challenge you. I appreciate your contribution here. I'm just playing devils advocate, while taking a position against all idiots who think it's rude to rathol. If chips are in front of me, they are "MINE". Bottom line. I won them, and they are mine to do as I please with. They don't belong to the game. They don't belong to the guy who walks his poodle down the street from me. They don't belong to god or jesus. They belong to me. I won them. I can cash out $1, roll it up and smoke it if I please. It's my $1.

This rule started when some guy had a game in his home or establishment, and kept losing his $$$ to one individual who kept cashing out. It's a crybaby rule, thought up by a crybaby, to pacify losers.

To call the people complaining about ratholing crybabies is absolutely ridiculous, the ratholers are the ones who are too scared to play with more than 20BBs on the table. If a website allows you to rathole then yes, you CAN do it, the majority of websites do not and absolutely no B&M casino does because it is completely unethical. It has nothing to do with pacifying the losers, check out this thread here:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ge=2&fpart=all
and tell me that the people complaining there are losers in the games they play.

If you are a skilled player you should be against ratholing simply because iit takes away from the skill of the game and completely changes the texture of the table. No limit hold'em isnt meant to be played with 20BBs. Personally it isnt a big deal because I dont play at stakes where it happens enough to matter, but I do plan on getting to those stakes in the futre and Im sure the high limit players [that dont shortstack the games] would agree with me that ratholing can ruin games.

4_2_it makes a good comparison at 2+2:
"Yep. Ratholing is as indefensible as angle shooting.

Buying in short is a preference and while some may not like it, it isn't unethical. Taking money out of play is unethical.

Let me give an example. Let's say I play with the min buy for my blinds through MP2 and then all of a sudden I have a full buy for every hand I play in the CO or on the button."

And another poster makes it pretty clear why it is unethical:
"The "unethical" aspect of it comes from live play when you would be physically taking money off the table. The rules of the game do not allow this. The rules *could* allow it, but they don't.

The rule is sort of the flip side of table stakes. You don't have to risk more money than your put on the table (e.g., if a bigger stack raises, you don't have to put up your watch or the deed to your house to stay in the hand). However, you don't get to take money off the table either without leaving the game.

What is unethical (in game terms, not in capitalist morality) about ratholing is that you are violating the agreement players who are playing "table stakes" make: you don't have to risk more than you sit down with, but money on the table stays on the table as long as you are playing."

its definitely called rat holing

Originally Posted by lambchopdc

PremierPapa: lol
PremierPapa: u left
PremierPapa: and came back
PremierPapa: with less money
PremierPapa: what a punk
brbBBQ: mmm double

brbBBQ: mmm double

Originally Posted by lambchopdc

Originally Posted by lambchopdc

PremierPapa: lol
PremierPapa: u left
PremierPapa: and came back
PremierPapa: with less money
PremierPapa: what a punk
brbBBQ: mmm double

brbBBQ: mmm double

this owns

Originally Posted by bair

its definitely called rat holing

man thx for that I pronounced it all wrong when people typed "ratholing" lol.. like "what a strange word, ra-tho-ling"..

Originally Posted by Rockymv

Originally Posted by chipfiddler

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Yeah it's freeware, http://www.stopdumbassesfromcomingba...tartedwith.com

broken link alert

If you're not joking, the world just got a whole lot more awesome.

LOL

Rat holing is for pansies.

Originally Posted by Lukie

Rat holing is for pansies.

brbBBQ: mmm double

I wanna be a high stakes baller, but I suck too much to break even with the regulars. Is shortstacking for me?

Originally Posted by Renton

I wanna be a high stakes baller, but I suck too much to break even with the regulars. Is shortstacking for me?

You wont get baller status by shortstacking

Originally Posted by andy-akb

Originally Posted by Renton

I wanna be a high stakes baller, but I suck too much to break even with the regulars. Is shortstacking for me?

You wont get baller status by shortstacking

sigh...

I can see that people are upset with ratholing when people are just pocketing winnings (especially shorties).

But what about the effect on table-image? Do you see it as positive or negative?
For instance I remember numerous ocassions where I've gone off for lunch, come back and joined a table only to find that on I'm having to buy in with three-times the table limit because of this rule.

None of the players were there when I left and suddenly I sit down with deep stack.

Maybe it's just me, but I often don't like playing this way, especially when there's no other big stack to win. Basically it's giving away free info: "You don't know what I did earlier, but it was obviously working."

At the lower limits I couldn't get a raise called for the next half and hour... which has it's advantages of course... but still.

Originally Posted by Anosmic

At the lower limits I couldn't get a raise called for the next half and hour... which has it's advantages of course... but still.

So the value of your garbage hands went up.

Originally Posted by andy-akb

If a website allows you to rathole then yes, you CAN do it, the majority of websites do not and absolutely no B&M casino does because it is completely unethical.

...

What is unethical (in game terms, not in capitalist morality) about ratholing is that you are violating the agreement players who are playing "table stakes" make: you don't have to risk more than you sit down with, but money on the table stays on the table as long as you are playing."

I know I've never seen such an agreement, and if there were rake would be "unethical" as well. This is not a question of ethics. Simply a question of rules of the game. We can class rules as those that are enforced by the software, and those that are stated in the terms and conditions of the poker room but aren't (or can't be) enforced by the software (such as chip dumping).

The site I use, PokerRoom, disallows rat holing and enforces it in the software. Party apparently not only allows it in the software, but explicitly states in emails that it is legal. Hence there is nothing wrong with a player on Party rat holing and taking your money. Sure it sucks, and it makes the table crap, or whatever, but this is where you should be using your capitalist powers and leaving to a site that doesn't allow it.

If Party is the best site to play at even with the rat holers then deal with it.

On PokerRoom rat holing is not a legitimate strategy. On Party it is. If you don't like it, then send emails to Party asking them to change their rules.

On PokerRoom rat holing is not a legitimate strategy. On Party it is. If you don't like it, then send emails to Party asking them to change their rules.

someone's way ahead of you

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ge=2&fpart=all

Poker Syndicate also bans it and their software also prevents it (as I found out when I got disconnected and then tried to get my seat back with less than my last stack).

If it takes one level of fairness and equality out of the game, then it's making it unfair to some people. I have no problems playing anyone, even if they are way better than me, as long as it's on a fair footing. Let their skill and experience beat me, not cheating.

J

First of all let me say I agree with all the responses to my rant. I agree that it creates an unfair angle, and modifies the table texture to give advantage to weaker players if done a certain way. By a certain way I mean buying in short. Perhaps if someone has a stack equal to or higher than the max buy in, they are then required to buy in max if they decide to cash out and rebuy. I think that would be fair. It wouldn't change the table texture, therefore nullifying the only reasonable argument against it.

Just being devils advocate again. Trying to hit all the angles.

I think Cryptologic prevents this. I've recently had my PC crash (f-ing iPod), requiring me to fight with it get back up and running.

Sometimes, if I cannot get back in time it kicks me off the table. Then when I come back to the same table within 15 minutes or so, it makes me buy in for the same amount as I had when I crashed. Never understood why..now I do.

Recently, I played with a weasely guy in a home game who did this. Not that I expected more because he was weasely for many reasons, but I still hazed him about it...got no support from the table too...I was f-ing pissed.

Ratholing = total bush league whether live or online.