How common is this rule? Cash? Tourny? Limit? NL?

Facing a 30 bet you grab a stack and carry it over the line then bring it back without touching the felt..
If you had at least 45 in your hand you have raised to 60.
If you have more than 60 you have raise it all.

Plays like that in most rooms I am in, cash and tournaments. Some rooms let you cut them out over the line and pull some back, as long as you do it in one motion. Room dependent.

It should be ruled a call of $30. You have come forward, across the line, with chips, which indicates you were planning to at least call. We don't know if you had intended to raise or just cut out chips for the call, nor do we know exactly how many chips you had in your hand. Therefore it should be exactly a call.

If players were allowed to bring out a stack of chips without being held to an action, they would have a huge advantage by watching the players fold/call behind.

I'm talking about a rule where every chip in you hand has to be put into the pot, if you carried it over the line.

How common is this?

In my experience, it is not at all common in cash games. I have never played where that's a rule.

I can't speak for tournaments, but one time I was playing cash at Seabrook and a dealer told me that I had to leave all the chips from the handful I had cut from in the pot. A floorperson corrected him and he said, "Sorry! I usually only deal tournaments." (Not that Seabrook is a typical room, but you could tell me it is against the rules to bet prime numbers in tourneys and I wouldn't know if you were kidding.)

i do not think this is a huge advantage. certainly not much more than if they gather up chips like they are prepared to raise while watching their opponents,

For a couple of years the Tampa Hard Rock had that rule. It was a hard betting line and anything that crossed the plane of the line (like a football crossing the goal line) played, unless you verbalized call or a specific bet/raise amount before the chips crossed the line. Then they removed the lines when they refelted the tables and went with forward motion, where you could cut out an amount and pull back the excess.

Not if the players were experienced enough to let the bettor finish his action first. Years ago, pump-faking and watching for a reaction used to be part of the game. Chips had to be released -- or at least touch the felt-- before counting as a bet. Players generally learned to relax and wait for the bettor to finish before reacting. (The game was a bit slower then.)
But today, this rule varies a lot from room to room, and with inexperienced rooms and floors trying to protect newbies (who probably learned from TV and online) from any semblance of an angle, you may be held to anything if you move chips forward, even if just in the air. It's safer to cut your chips out behind your cards (or at least behind the line, if there is one), and not have to worry about it.

Tournaments will be much stricter with this rule. Some will even make you leave your limp call out there if you didn't see a raise or acted out of turn.

This is the most varied rule that I deal with in cash games ... Make sure you check with each room when you sit down or pay close attention to the others at the table.

Typically at a 1/2 table your cards (or a line on the felt) are a point of no return. Whatever is in your hand stays out .. unless it doesn't meet the min raise rules in the room and then those are returned to your stack with a warning.

At higher stake games this is generally relaxed since it's assumed that the players are more experienced. I call it a 'cut and paste' bet. Very rarely will you find a player trying to angle with this type of move. Typically you will see a player bring out 80 in chips to make or call a 50-65 bet. This is no big deal to the players.

A HUGE difference would be if a player slides the stack of chips forward, then I would be more inclined to force the player to leave all of them out there.

Solution.

Don't do stupid **** with your chips.

That is surprising. Not once have I knowingly played in a room where this is the rule. I would have found out fast, as I cut and release with the 10 red chips that I constantly shuffle in my right hand.

It sounds like one of those things that would be normalized across a tight poker community of players that wouldn't have it any other way and don't know why anyone would, so maybe I've just avoided those places.

This is a horrible rule that is becoming more common. When a player brings some chips over a line and returns them to their stack how does anyone determine how many were in their hand? In limit poker this can be a reasonable rule as the betting and raising amounts are known in advance, in NL these things are not known in advance.

Then what is the purpose of the betting line? Also, doesn't the ability to bring chips over and back open a huge opportunity to angle as you could bring what looked like a big raise over while you looked at the reaction of other players only to cut out a calling amount?

The purpose of a line is to show players where to put the chips. When lines began appearing on tables, NL was not offered in casinos. Also at that time players would often place chips at a distance to see how far they could get the dealer to stretch. Cal OSHA at some point mandated that lines be placed on poker tales over the objections of some card clubs adn the rest of the world follows what California does.

No, this is not an opportunity to angle. Because the size of bets and raises vary at NL poker, experienced players have learned to not act on their hand until the players in front of them have completed their action.

Thank you for the history on the line. I didn't realize it was created for that purpose. I disagree with you on the opportunity to angle. Aren't the targets of angles commonly the less experienced players? Also I didn't mean they would act out of turn just display some sort of reaction to the potential raise.

Prior managers in my room have tried just about all the different ways out there. The rule the OP talks about may have been the worst and gave us the most problems. I have since settled on what we currently use and it is:

"There is a betting line on the table that will be enforced as follows. When facing no action, if a player goes across the line with chips, they will be held to at least a minimum bet. When facing a bet, if a player goes across the line with enough chips to call the bet, they will be held to at least a call. If a player goes across the line with less than enough chips to call and did not realize the action had been raised they may pull back those chips and reconsider their action provided no one has acted after them."

If a player goes over the line with less than a call and there is action after, we rule it that you will have the choice of calling the full bet or forfeiting those chips. It is left vague in our written rule, because there could be many different circumstances surrounding why a player may not have known there was a bet/raise. Those times will require the floor to make a judgment call and we will, if deemed reasonable, let a player withdraw their money.

It's hyper common--even for the pros at the Borg-- to have a handful of chips, and cut out a bet, call, or raise. (and pull back the remainder that hasn't left their hand)

I've only played in about 10 individual establishments and I only play cash, but I have never seen this disallowed or frowned upon by another player, a dealer, a floor, etc.

This is the biggest (certainly not the only) reason that makes it a terrible rule.

This rule is uncommon in vegas, but judging from comments by tourists it clearly is the rule in some places.

I think its a horrible rule because it serves no valuable purpose, but can force a playyer to bet more than they intended.

The general purpose people put forth as the basis of this rule is that players can somehow get an advantage by moving forward a number of chips watching their opponents and gauge their reaction and then changing their the amount of the bet accordingly.

I find this unconvincing. If this were a problem how is it any different than a player cutting out behind the line a raise while watching their opponent for a a reaction and then changing the amount of the bet accordingly. (I have met a tourist who told me that in his regular room if you break chips of your stack its a bet).

There is absolutely no reason the opponents can't simply wait for the action to be complete.

There are problems with the rule. Suppose player A bets $40. Player B grabs a bunch of chips in his hand comes out drops out $40 and then returns the rest onto his stack.

Did he raise? Well under this rule if he had $60 in his hand he raised .... but the chips were in his hand. the dealer may not be able to tell whether he had $55 or $60 or even $85 in his hand.

In my room we have two different rules. In a cash game chips released onto the felt must stay but you can bring back unreleased chips. In tournament if you move chips over the line you must at least call if facing a bet or make a minimimum bet if not facing a bet, but not all the chips in your hand must stay.

Yes, it's common, and yes, I see it all the time.

Doesn't make it smart.

It's very simple: you can't determine how many chips are in someone's hand. Any rule that is based on this, is a bad rule.

You CAN determine how many chips have been released from the player's hand. So why not use that as your guide?

Our tournaments use a "all chips moved forward in front of your cards must be bet" rule.

Our cash games allow for reaching out with a stack, cutting some, and pulling back.

Yay.

Sure, but this doesn't mean that the game should always be dumbed down to protect the lowest common denominator of new/inexperienced players.
Getting reactions from other players has always been part of the game, not (necessarily) an angle.

Old men in a limit game look like they are stirring up a cake going around and round with their hand full of chips

I don't like betting lines, and as previously mentioned they seem to be more for dealer convenience now than anything else.

(Cash game) As soon as rooms stopped calling or considering them betting lines I learned to relax and just go with the flow. Watching someone slide a stack of chips forward (yes, slide, not reach out with them) and then let the bottom two chips stay as they pull back the other 18 chips out of a 20 chip stack seems like an angle IMHO. But if this is allowed in the room, as I said, I've learned to relax and go with the flow. I watch the action but not react - as I believe has also been referenced earlier.