At my casino, the only time you're allowed to take chips off your stack is if you're giving them to the waitress in order to buy drinks.

I saw a hand where a guy had a $180 remaining stack on the river and the other player puts him all-in. The waitress comes and he pays $10 in chips for a pint of Carlton Draught before calling the river bet. Then he calls the river bet, loses, and hands his remaining $170 over to his opponent.

What are your thoughts on this?

I think his opponent gets the beer.

This is ok.

My thoughts on this are that if he won he would have only won $170 so I see no issue.

I do think they charge to much for a beer.

So extreme example, but if this is okay, then would it also be okay to spend $175 on a variety of cocktails, call the remaining $5 river bet and pick off a bluff to win a big sized pot?

While I know many people will say this is out of line ... I am not bothered by it because the player is giving up $175 of his opponents money. While losing $175 of his own money regardless of the win or loss. It's not like he's getting $175 of value for those drinks.




However I am bothered by a waitress who serves a player that much alcohol.

But it changes the odds.

If there is $180 in the pot and you're facing a $180 bet, then you need to be good 33% of the time to justify a call.

If there is $180 in the pot and you're facing a $5 bet, then you only need to be good 3% of the time to justify a call.

So suppose villain thinks he has the best hand 10% of the time: by giving away a certain amount of chips to the waitress, he can artificially price himself in to a call which he otherwise wasn't getting the odds to call.

Ehm yes he is. He is getting a ****load of drinks whether he wins or not.

Or are you saying the opponent gets the drinks if he wins the pot?

What if the roof collapses just as a player has chips in his hand and is moving forward? When the debris is cleared away, the players arm is fully extended but he hasnt released the chips yet because he is in full rigor mortis. Is it a call? If he wins the hand, who gets the chips since the player is dead?

Jesus...people come up with some ridiculous what if scenarios. Are you that bored?

It doesn’t.

You just have to look at a players stack as liquid [pun intended]. When you start a hand, you know the other players stack is $180 minus whatever he spends on various things during the hand.

In most casinos that charge for drinks, customers pay for them when they are served, minutes after ordering them. So other players already know the guy will ‘lose’ $10 from his stack in the not too distant future and can adjust for that by calculating the odds of the waitress getting there within the hand. Maybe the odds of his beer getting there are 20% before the turn, 50% before the river and 50-100% during the time he tanks on the river.

Btw., I just remembered a somewhat funny drink service anecdote along the lines of this thread: guy faces an all-in decision on the river, thinks for maybe 30 seconds, then looks around and sees the waitress serving drinks two tables over. He yells to her that if she wants to have a red chip as tip for his beverage, she has to come over now before he calls all-in. So she walks over, hands him his drink, collects the tip and then walks back to the other table. Took the rest of us a couple more minutes before she got back to us with the remaining drinks for our table. And the guy who got his beverage early, obviously had won the all-in and voiced his excitement for getting served early.

What if I am facing a $100 bet and I ask the waitress for a glass of champagne for $95. I get the glass, pay her and leave $5 in my stack that I call with. I now have $95 of value that I cannot lose in this pot. I call my remaining $5 and say cheers because I know I'm probably not winning that pot.

Nobody would feel cheated? This is basically forcing a check right?

What if the cocktail waitress is my wife and I just give her my stack and then I'm all in!!! *gasp*


This is outrageous we need to get a memo out to all card rooms implementing no during hands tips !

I'm saying his drinks are worthless. They aren't worth $170 now. They won't be worth $170 later. He probably won't even remember them later. It's not like is buying something he can sell back (I would have an issue with him buying silver coins).

If they aren't worth their money then you shouldn't buy even one, right? Yes, I know you're paying a huge margin on them but the point is that it isn't obvious where you draw the line.

If I have the nuts and someone takes $10 off his stack during the hand to pay for drinks, I feel like I got cheated out of $10. That's not that bad but what would a floor do if I request that the money to stay on the table?

Are you honestly saying that it wouldn't bother you if someone took $180 out of his stack to pay for his drinks, literally making you pay for it when you have the nuts? Just because he got bad deal on that price?

If you know you are probably not winning the pot your opponent just got an extra $5.

Depending on pot odds that is highly likely to be a profitable call. Yes you lose value on your drinks but you cheat your opponent out of money.

Again it's not with the extremes, but what is allowable (if at all) and what is not?

How about $15? How about $20? How about $50?

Anything that moves the chips of a player into the hands of the casino rather than those of other players is usually allowed

Why is he doing this? If he thought he had a winner gets wouldn't remove $180 from the stack. So he thinks he lost. So if he doesn't remove the $180 I expect he is folding it. I don't get the $180 either way.

Let's make a clearer example. Let's say villain is facing a pot-sized river bet of $100. He knows he has the best hand 1/3 of the time, so he can make a 1/3*200-2/3*100 = $0 EV call. However, if he can take money off of his stack, he can make a +EV call for a smaller amount. If he takes $80 off his stack. He is risking $20 to win $120 and expecting to win 1/3. His EV is 1/3*120-2/3*20 = $26.67. Since poker is a zero sum game Hero is losing $26.67 when villain is allowed to make this play.

There's also the fact that players have a right to know how much other people are playing in their stack. The game's strategy relies on it. What if I call with a PP to set-mine based on implied odds and then the opponent's stack gets cut in half?

This post did make me consider the case of $500 effective stacks, Player A bets $50, Player B pays $10 to a cocktail server and goes all-in for his remaining $90, Player C calls, and now Player A can't reraise because the betting hasn't been reopened.

That would be a sucky situation.

Consider it from the House side:

If you cannot pay from your stack, people would order less often (food, drink, massage)
Possibly tip less too (chips seem less like "real money")
Do you extend the ban to dealer tips? Do you put a cap on a dealer tip?
Do you ban it all the time, or just during a hand?

Except this math is beyond almost everybody that orders expensive drinks. Also you could consider it part of the hand, like player X has ordered w/e drink (usually takes much longer than one hand to arrive) and there is a Y% chance it will arrive during the hand and be paid for by chips

$15 or $20 would be pushing the boundary, but still would be ok.
$50 definitely not ok.
A " reasonable" tip should be allowed to come off the stack.
Up to floor to decide if the player in the hand objects.

Almost everybody understands that calling a smaller bet is better when they're concerned about their hand strength. They don't need to know the exact math. The point of showing the math was for psandman and others to understand that people gain a concrete advantage by being able to manipulate their stack size during a hand. It is actually very big.

Also, they are taking money from their opponent. Whether or not they understand the effect on strategy it's not okay to change stack sizes during a hand.

I don't think I should have to think about the probability that the opponent will manipulate his stack size during the hand. Why not just throw out the rules about table stakes?