New poker player here (2 months in), trying to understand etiquette for home cash games, and I had a pretty bad experience at one that I was hoping someone will weigh in on:

I was invited to a cash game last weekend, good group of guys at this cash game, guys who I respect. Bought in for 40, we started playing at 10:30 PM. Host mentions that everyone needs to play for at least an hour. There are six guys at the game.

I call for my final hour at 11:30 (so I am required to play until 12:30 according to the rule), as did a few of the other guys. Everyone was having a good time, no problems.

Everyone got pretty drunk accept me, I won four big pots. I ended up with a decent stack, and at 1:45AM I wna call it and I ask if the host will cash me out (politely of coarse). I hadnt won a pot in a while and had work in the morning. Two other guys are busted out by this time, everyone else has a pretty small stack. The game is winding down. I felt bad for having won so much more but I bought in for 40 and I had 100 now, so this is not definitely not major money but we are all college students.

The host and another guy told me I cant leave now, its bad etiquette to leave when your up so high. Like I said: im new to poker and I dont know if this is true or not but I had called my my hour a long time ago I wanted to get to bed. I said something like: I know im up, sry to ask to leave now but ive got work and I really want to get to sleep.

These host and the other guy became really angry and said they wont cash me out if I leave now. I said but this cant be a 'hit and run' because I havent won a pot in a while im just up money and its late, I dont want to stay till 3 in the morning. I am being very respectful to everyone and I knew they were upset to have lost.

One guy who had bought in a few times became so angry he was about to come to blows with me when I stood up (I was not provoking the situation at all this guy was really loaded and angry). I am really not a combative person I was trying to calm the situation down but these guys were really wasted and they wanted the chance to win their money back. It sketched me out and I said: I dont care about afew bucks if you guys want to keep most of it or just give me my buy in thats alright.

Eventually the host and other player calmed down and cashed me out the full 100, and told me I wasn't ever invited back.

I was pretty shocked by this, I didnt know this was a rule, and actually I dont know if it is a rule but it didnt make sense. I had played for a few hours, I know people to major sessions but this was more of a casual game and people were out.

So my question to this forum is: did I violate a cardinal rule of home cash games without knowing it? or did I just end up in a weird situation? has anyone experienced this before?

The way these guys described this piece of etiquette was matter of fact like something every poker player knows you dont do at cash games, but I had only heard about the 'hit and run' being a poker sin.

Anyway, thanks for any feedback people

So their rule is that you are not allowed to win money at poker? Or only a little? That's ludicrous.

This was not a hit and run. Not even close. You did everything right. They were wrong. They sound like a bunch of babies. Drunken babies.

Sounds like a terrible group to play poker with. Home games can be awkward when it's a small group like that. I wouldn't go back to that game. If you're in north jersey come to my home game in hackensack

Nothing Hero did seems wrong to me. You gave an hour's notice, lasted even longer than that hour and asked to cash out. Should have been an easy, friendly transaction.

The host and the rest of the table are way out of line. It is bad form and bad for the game to make a normal cash out into a big problem. It is not as though the game is overrun with regular players - starting with six players and down to four handed in two hours is not a great sign of health. Life banning a new player leaves them with what? A five handed game headed to three handed in two hours?

In my opinion players should be able to come and go as they like, no notice needed. Special provisions might be reasonable if there is a wait list for a seat. Players who can only stay for an hour or two getting replaced on the list with people who are in for the expected duration of the game is fine.

Getting drunk is not good for the game either.

It didn't sound like fun for Hero. No loss for getting booted from the game -=- DrStrange

Home games are special creatures. Unless you have a big pool of players who will be coming in to fill vacant seats .... everyone should have an expectation for how long the game will be (otherwise they may not want to commit their evening to it). As such I think the best scenario is everyone is expected to stick around for a predetermined time. If something unexpected happens well deal with it as you would at any other social event. If someone wants to leave early they should be allowed to do so .... But they don't have to be invited back.

Yeah, I wouldn't make a big deal about it. I just would never go back, and if they want to "show me" by never inviting me back, then they sure "showed me".

You didn't do anything wrong...unless you go back.

If the situation went down like you posted then this crew and host are a bunch of "dicks" , and you are better off finding a better group. This is certainly not the way most friendly home games are structured and operated. You have not lost anything by not going back to this group of morons. Good luck finding a real friendly low stakes poker group. There are lots of them.

Our crew allows you to show up when it is convienent to your real life , and leave when you feel like it. Most folks come early and only leave if they bust out and tilt a bit , or they often give an orbit or two warning. We have been operating like this for many years and it works just fine for us.

Definitely don't go back to that game.

You stated these guys are people you respect. Time to up your respect scale.

Drunken bunch of douche whistles sounds like.

You shouldn’t be going back to this home game. There’s much better ones out there. No way was this hit and run.

GL

Yeah, I played at a game with a "calling it a night warning" rule like this for a long time, though it was a half-hour warning, not an hour. Generally if you played past your warning it was fine. After a while, a couple of guys started sitting down and almost immediately going "on the clock" so that any time after their half-hour they could leave. That annoyed folks, so a new rule was instituted that if you went more than 15 minutes past your advertised cash out time, you had to either cash out or commit to another 30 minutes.

Still, no one was ever given crap for choosing to cash out, up or down, once their shot clock expired, especially if they had played for more than a couple of hours. These guys sound like Soreloserman and his sidekick Whiny****. F them ad the horse they rode in on.

Definitely look for a different group to play with. These guys are punks who don’t know any better. You’ll find other games.


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These guys are probably people you don't want to play with again anyway, but I can't say they were totally in the wrong. If you gave your required one hour notice and then still hadn't left after more than 2 hours later, I'd say you're warning had expired, and I could understand them requiring another one hour notice.

So a bunch of Drunk loser punks try to force/intimidate a Newbie to remain against his will so they can take back his legit winnings??? And somebody is even somewhat OK with that? Well I am not OK with that kind of dynamic at all.

This is exactly right. These babies weren't thinking about expired notices. They were using social pressure to try to win their money back. I have zero sympathy for them.

I would never have a game that required an hour notice. But if that was the rule, and OP agreed to it, he didn't really follow the agreement.

As the story is told that doesn't seem to be their position. Their position seems based more on the issue that he was winning.

I would guess it was the combination. Even a game that requires notice would not make you stay if you were busted.

I imagine if OP had tried to leave an hour from when he gave notice, he would have had no problem, even if he had been up a lot.

BTW in the OP (if it is accurate to what happened) the host and another player objected because it was "bad etiquette" to leave when he was AHEAD for the session and NOT because of giving any kind of notice ! This is no way to treat a Newbie. Shifting even some blame towards the OP in this particular case is really hard for me to understand!

People who are losing at a poker game while drunk are not always going to be easy to deal with, so it shouldn't be a surprise. I'm not saying that OP was totally, or even mainly, in the wrong here, but just making the point that sometimes you have to go along with silly things if you want to be welcome in someone's home game.

OP should have been allowed to cash out when he wanted to, and (after a little stall), he was cashed out. That's better than a lot of people get treated in new sketchy home games. The hosts should also have the right to un-invite people who don't conform to their ideas of a considerate guests, and I'm not at all surprised that happened.

Well I certainly must agree that you often must put up with some goofy stuff in some home games , if you want to play in them. Often you must go along to get along! I host weekly, and I try to not let things get outrageous. However, I would guess that some folks would find our structure and some of our rulings too loose.

It almost sounds as if these players expected you to be the rookie and dump a couple rebuys to them. Ive had this happen before and people get really sour about it. If you cant handle a loss then you shouldnt play. When a new person gets invited to a game, I feel like some hosts expect that player to lose

The games Ive had which was usually always the same people, we would give a notice whenever we wanted. Usually we would give at least one full rotation of the blinds at a 7 handed table, just to be considerate. Sometimes a person would call for 10pm when it was only 7pm.. Sometimes a person would bust early and if the table felt nice we would all chip the buster a blind to see if they could come back..

That is part of the joy of a home game, freedom.

Dont ever play in that game again. Instead, invite them to your game lol.

You weren't up that much considering the number of guys that busted, and somebody who rebought a few times. Were they raking?

Scumbags...
The only problem I've ever seen at the home game I play at is people taking too long for their actions because their so busy telling funny stories.

these

You didn't do anything wrong. They are scumbags, maybe mitigated by the drinking.

Good guys? Not with those actions.

Guys you respect? Better rethink things.


As mentioned by someone else, not cashing out about when you told them (in an hour if you gave an hours notice) could be a sore spot. However, there was no need for attitude/drama when others have busted, you are playing short and it's late. If there is a future, I'm probably cashing out when I say I'm going to, not much later.