And maybe he had chips in his pocket at the other table? He may have innocently thought that was a good strategy. Maybe he just watched "The Cincinnati Kid" and thought you could pull money out of your pocket as needed.

Long ago, we played some wacky high-low games bet, declare, bet. We explained to this one new player that you showed one chip for high, two chips for low, and three for pig. We all put out our fists, and I noticed the new guy had both his fists out there. When we told him he had to choose one option, he opened his fists, and had one in one hand, and two in the other. It shows how much people can misunderstand why you have certain procedures and rules.

No intent to derail but, eneely, the Cinn Kid was set in the 30s I think. Did they not have table stakes then? Could you bet the farm? Or was that just a Hollywood concept?
PS I do not mean to imply that you were a poker reg in the 30s LOL, but maybe....

I honestly don't know, but how would it work otherwise? The dude with the most money at the table would win every hand. Every hand.

Maybe if all players involved agreed to put more money on the table mid-hand. But that wasn't the case in this movie, as I recall. Stevie had to run out and get more money or he lost.

Big Hand for a Little Lady

Imagine playing against Bill Gates without table stakes.

"I raise $48 Billion dollars."

I'm not sitting in front of them right now, but I'm almost 100% certain that my 1890's rulebooks all cover table stakes. If it matters to anyone, I'll gladly post a snippet.

I want a scan of the entire rulebook!

Seriously, that is interesting.

Hollywood has mangled poker for drama's sake many times. But it has mangled a whole lot more than poker, so I don't get agitated.

To be clear, I've just got a handful of turn-of-the-century Hoyle books.

For those new to the conversation about those, back in 1900 or so, people didn't have TVs or radio, and few houses had more than a couple of books -- a bible, and a copy of Hoyle. Hoyle was a generic name for gaming books, since Edmund Hoyle died in 1769. [Hoyle is to parlor game rules as "Webster" is to dictionaries.]

In the books of the late 1800's and early 1900's, there's a fascinating bit of history around poker, since that's when the rules started getting fairly universal. 1850 or so marks poker as *we* know it, and it was 1920 or so before flop games existed anywhere but regionally.

I've got three assorted Hoyle books between 1890 and 1920. They've all got pretty interesting information about poker. They're generally pretty cheap on Amazon - since at the time only the bible was more common.

It is not possible to play no limit without table stakes or some other stake cap. But It is possible to play limit poker without table stakes rules.

Yep. But as far as the old movies go, I've only seen uber-super-duper no limit played.

Yeah, I'm not sure when the "I'll go home and get the deed to the ranch, so I can call" trope made its way into western movies, but it certainly persisted for a while.

My family's traditional game is played mostly $0.10/$0.20 fixed limit, not table stakes. There is no such thing as a side pot or "going all-in." Dealer's choice, and games are mostly seven-card stud variants, so it's never really mattered. Covering a few dimes out of pocket is no big deal.

However, acey-deucey is also called with some frequency, usually with a $0.25 or $0.50 ante. It doesn't take too many pot-sized upsets to turn a $3 pot into way more money than anyone brought to play $0.10/$0.20 stud. Many years ago, this led to an incident that people still allude to by shouting "Paycheck!" to bet the pot.

Nickel-dime NLHE has recently become part of the lineup of games, also sans table stakes. We have yet to have a "Paycheck!" incident with NLHE, but I could see it happening.

I kinda want this to be a part of my game now. Great story.

The game I learned to play poker in had a similar incident. 25 cent ante per player (Dealer pays it), bets in quarter increments up to a dollar, $2.00 on an open pair, three raise limit. $5.00 limit on the last betting round. Basically bring $100.00, put $50.00 on the table and be ready to reload.

One of the players like to play "Guts", with a dummy. For those who do not know Guts is 2 card poker, where if you go in and lose, you match the pot. This time it was played with no maximum on the "burn". It was also DOUBLE LEG. Long story short the pot is up over $700.00 when two guys go in against each other. the loser does not have the cash to match the pot, but wants to keep playing so as to try and win back what he just lost, and he is willing to leave his bank card as collateral. Just too crazy and we called it a night at that point, and the guy was still whining about wanting to keep going.

How do you play NLHE without table stakes? IME Even the lowest information poker players want to go all in like on the teevee.

I played a round of drunken acey-deucey with a friend and we kept upping the limits until it was $20 per head in the kitty to start with. Keep in mind that this had been a quarter/dollar kinda game.

Anyway, I've got 2-K and he just hit the post on 3-K and had to pay double the pot. We're way beyond what we brought at this point to what had been (hours ago) a 25/25c NLHE game with a $50 max buyin. This round has been frankly ridiculous and the pot has gone from 40 to up over 700 before the 3-K hand.

I'm contemplating going pot and just saying to hell with it when we both come to the realization at the same moment that this is going to be multiple mortgage payments in the pot if I hit the post.

We had $250 between us in cash and agreed to chop everything right there rather than deal with inevitable aftermath.

Moral of the story is that ***** can get out of control when you degen, always play table stakes games :-)

The best answer I can give you is, "Not often." I generally won't call NLHE at that game specifically for this reason, unless I have enough people willing to get a separate NLHE game going—with chips, table stakes, and me running the show.

Plus, the crazy stud variants are way more fun.

Chips on the table play for this hand.
Chips in the pocket play from then on.
Busting this hand does not bust him from the tourney.


I'm not as surprised at the newbie stuff. Have seen cash players attempt to 'go south' by announcing that "this stack' is no longer in play...


At the casino tourneys, they do announce an awful lot..