Quote:
Originally Posted by psandman
It just amazes me that everybody is hung up on the rack. I fully understand that some of you never saw a player allowed to keep a rack on the table. I get that. I really do. The part I don't get is why you think the rack is relevant to whether the chips are in play. Why is that the question you would ask .... instead of "Hey, are we allowed to have racks on the table?" or even "Hey does it mean something that he has his chips in a rack?" I deal with people all the time who aren't used to racks on the table. They ask me about it. Sometimes they even complain to me that I would allow such a horrible thing to happen.... But i still haven't had a player indicate to me that he was confused and thought that chips in the rack were out of play.
Could the OPs situation have happened without a rack? Sure the rack makes it easy for him to say these chips here are different somehow from the other chips over there .... but could that have occurred without a rack? could he have put a bunch of chips off to one side. And then later said ... "hey no those chips aren;t in play..... Those were the chips I had that were over the buy-in" The rack is just something that makes it more convenient.
Now if he put those chips off to the side ..... you might reasonably ask ... who do those belong to ... because you aren't certain whether they are his or the next player over's. But you would expect that they were in play.
I've seen a couple of situations that might give an example of why seeing chips in the rack would (or should) generate a question as to whether they are in play or not.
Where I play, you aren't allowed, as a general rule, to play out of the rack. New people sitting down, if they don't take chips out immediately, are told that by the dealer. But when a player is getting ready to leave, many will start racking up a few hands before they leave, and then play out of the rack until the blind comes, and leave. So the house rules allow you to play a few hands out of the rack just prior to leaving.
But I have seen situations, usually very early in the morning, when the 5/10 game breaks, and some of the players come over to the 2/5 game. They may well have 3 or 4 racks of chips, that far exceeds the max buy in of 1k. Often what will happen is that they will take 1k out of the rack and put it on the table. The other racks they are planning on having the brush cash out. But sometimes he's not immediately available, and it is awkward to try and balance 3 racks of chips on your lap, and they don't want to put them out of sight on the floor, so they are allowed to put them on the table, out of play, until the brush can cash them out.
If I were just coming to that 2/5 game, and saw a person with stacks on the table, as well as in racks, I would absolutely ask each time what their status was. Because it's unusual. As I said, some players rack up a few hands early, and play out of the rack. That is not unusual. But it is very usual for someone to have stacks on the table, and then have chips in the rack, and have them in play also. That's against the normal house rules.
So I can see why the rack is the issue, because it indicates chips that are segragated from other chips on the table. The natural question is why? why are some in racks and some not? It's not a question of "can you play out of the rack or not" but rather "why are some chips in racks and some not". It's unusual, so is worth asking a quick question about before making an assumption that could cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars.