I probably sound surprised as I ask "Only $xx left?", and let it go at that. If he took chips off, the message will be loud and clear. If it was your mistake, no harm no foul.

Ofc you watch moving forward, and if he's a fish, mention it 1:1 to him.

I can't believe we are even talking about a major provider going south for $21 and the moral issues with it.

If this guy is dumping $500 to $1000 on the regular....he isn't just a donator....he is THE ENTIRE GAME...without him you regs are slugging it out over 3% edges in Omahahaha...with made hands vs monster draws. Is that what you want?

Buy this man some shots....kick in for a massage...do whatever you have to do to keep him in that game.

I mean...obviously if he starts going south for large sums of money....you take him aside and let him know that you know....and he has to knock it off....but $21?...compared to what you stand to gain by him coming back?

fyp

Perfect post. Tough to be 100% sure he went south, it's possible to make a mistake counting his stack, or possible the donk and the dealer made some mistake putting money in the pot. Doesn't seem worth it to create an issue when you could be wrong and likely couldn't prove anything anyway. I'd keep letting him donate.

pretty much what Dr. Strange said...prob wanted to pay for a massage, or buy food...

Though in my understanding going south is taking chips of the table before a hand in order to lock in profits/ not have to play deep. This imo is just plain cheating (if true), but you have no idea why the extra 20 is gone and as previously said, if he is a big donator why tap the glass?

I am a bit confused. What happened to all the righteous upholders of the rules that I see in ever other B&M thread. Now all of a sudden it's no longer our responsibility to stop players from stealing from other players (as it is unlikely that he is only doing it to hero if he does it at all) as long as they are losing there money to us?

Note: I personally doubt that OP is correct in thinking that he really was going south during the hand as someone that routinely drops 500-1000 a day has no reason to try and short a pot by $20, but that is irrelevant to whether or not it is the correct thing to call him out on it, whether publicly or privately.

Second Note: I doubt that calling him out on it would make him snap leave and never come back.

I actually played against a guy where I let him take 4 red birds off since he said if he got stacked he couldn't pay for a cab home....evidently, I stacked him in that hand

Taking ~$19 off in this case, isn't a big deal.

I wouldn't say anything in this spot, ever. The villain is very good for the game, so there's absolutely no reason to do anything to make him feel un-welcome or run him off the table.

It's far too easy to miscount his stack here, it's not like you saw him take 3 black $100 chips off the table or anything. The risk that you're wrong and he leaves or gets pissed off is NOT worth it for $20. Besides, most rooms explicitly ALLOW you to take a small amount off the table every hour, usually under the guise of buying drinks or food, tipping waitresses, etc. So even if you SAW him pull 4 red-birds off the table, he may not even be breaking any rule in the room.

This is what I was thinking.

If he routinely dumps 500-1000$ a night then this is an easy transgression to over look.

There seem to be a couple of opinions like that:
and I could not disagree more. Here's why:

At my home casino, there's a guy who routinely looses 5-figure numbers playing roulett and general consensu is that he can afford it, as he runs some wholesale trade business.
Once in a while he comes to play some poker, mostly 2-5 NLH, buying in for 500-1000€. Needless to say, he's a big fat tuna and regularly burns multiple buy-ins a night. On the other hand, he knows that his casino losses earn him some privileges.
If you are heads-up against him and the hand ends without a showdown, he will oftentimes try to grab your wholecards to have a look at them, knowing very well that (if he is called) the floor will do nothing about it but say: "This is not allowed...blabla."
While this is something I don't mind given his losses and prevent by tossing my cards directly into the muck, I saw him once taking a 100€ ship off his stack before making a bad all-in call. The player involed saw it as well (but no other player/dealer saw it), called him out, got the floor over, had a short chat and made him add the 100€ chip again.

Long story to back a small but important fact to keep in mind:
Just because someone has a lot of money, that does not mean he does not care about it. Also, some people just enjoy being sneaky.

So pay attention and make sure you don't get cheated or unintentioally payed short, when playing live poker.

In your chase I would probably just say something if I really saw him taking the money and even then do it in a friendly way like: "So you wanna get a massage before you try to win your money back?" After all, you want him to stay.
If the amount is like 100 bucks and more, but I did not really see him taking the money off the table, but know his stack was way bigger in the beginning, I just leave the table, go talk to the floor I know best in private and ask him to check the tapes. This avoids ugly situations.

Let him slide man... who cares. I sneak chips on and off the table all the time. Usually to go play BJ.

Consistent Ethical Stances are -EV to this crowd.

This X10.

That responsibility is still there. But accusing someone of cheating is pretty serious, and if you're going to do it, you had better be completely sure of yourself, and you had better be able to back it up (ie, catch him while he's doing it, with the chips still in his hand, or have more than one of you at the table actually have seen him do it). Just saying that you visually counted his stack earlier and that he's now short by some small and fuzzy amount isn't going to accomplish much. except to make him an enemy for life, and possibly drive him away.
Being outed as a cheater (accurately or not) is definitely enough to make someone leave, but at the least, it's certainly going to change the table dynamic for the worse.
Especially if this guy is basically the big donor, and makes the game, there is a point at which you'd have to call him out on this sort of thing, but a single instance of a possible $20 isn't it.