By the way, may be this makes things even clearer:
I’ve seen a situation (was at the table myself at that time) where a guy didn’t want to agree with those rules (won a big pot and wanted to leave right away).
Of course you can’t technically force the guy to stay, the way this was dealt with is very simple: the guy was told that he can leave (of course), but that he will never be allowed to play in any of those games again (house rules, you can refuse service to anybody with no explanation necessary)

so he cashes out and never comes back to the game as opposed to cashing out and coming back another time without the "rule".

Losing a player like that (for a high stakes game, who's probably a recreational phish) is pretty horrible. Thankfully these things will never happen in a legitimate U.S. poker room.

Just out of curiosity:
Since we already established (multiple times) that none of this would ever happen in the US … what exactly is the point you wanna make?

I've already made it, that it's a horrible "rule" and your story is an example of exactly why.

If this guy decides to just leave, he won't be allowed to ever come back.

If this guy says "ok" and stays the additional two hours and loses his profit plus more, do you think he's ever coming back? Most likely not.

I can't think of one good reason - from anyone's point of view - for a 2 hour rule in a public cardroom.

In the most professional rooms the rules are used to create an equitable and fair running of the room. Your rules all incorporate some sort of favoritism or penalty to players. Frankly, I would play there once and never come back. I can't imagine how awful the floor rulings must be.

What happens if a player is sitting at the table slightly down or break even for two or three hours and then scoops a massive pot? Does this rule commit them to sitting there for another two hours to be entitled to their profit?.

When you openly admit rules are different for those that tip I know it is not a place any intelligent outsider would wish to visit.

You are starting with an underground game environment that is father from normal reg world than most. This is due to the rules you shared.

You wish to attract players coming from a more regulated type game environment. You have been repeatedly been told these frankly weird rules will turn off the players you said you wish to attract.

You can’t have it both ways…rules that turn away those you want but insist on the status quo. Mgmt needs to choose. Change the rules or keep the clientele they have. Because you can’t change the clientele you want to attract you seem stuck on not changing some of the things keeping you from doing what you want.

well, i was hoping to find some ideas for a potential "middleground" ... but seeing the answers i realize this is literally 2 worlds colliding and probably not possible

You can not achieve all of what you want and without hiding what you are doing unlikely to achieve any of what you want but certain things are easy to hide. Instead of reserving certain seats for whales have that seat filled by a prop player that leaves when the whale arrives. Given the regulatory situation no need to tell the actual players anything. Instead of mandating if up must play create a promotion that rewards staying for 3 straight hours of play. Obviously slightly increase rake to pay for it but make it effectively neutral for players that do stay 3 straight hours.

Now that’s some creative thinking, I like it.
You got anything more?

Rewarding people for sitting in a chair for 3 hours leads to people sitting in a chair for three hours.

All good and true, but I wish you guys would try to see it from their point of view:
The „rule“ originated when a super whale (who just lost a huge pot to a guy basically drawing dead on the turn) complained when the guy left right after.
Whale said, he’ll never play in this place again if they don’t stop this somehow… so they came up with this.

I completely agree, there’s a 1000 ways around it (walking, bathroom breaks, or sitting and just folding all the time), but the whale was happy that they listened to him and kept coming back (and this guy donates serious amounts into the ecosystem on a regular basis).

So because the "whale" got mad when someone won a big pot off of him and racked up and left right the hand, now you're trying to change the world by not letting people leave for 3 hours after winning?

Maybe people should learn how to win in poker against the better players, and not having to hope and pray there's a huge whale in the game or a big fish (or try and come up with these ridiculous rules).

The whale will get over it. Making someone sit there is bad for the game, bad for the room, and bad for the players (including the whale).

I appreciate that you cleared up why the rules are the way they are. That it is to appease the whales and keep them coming back.

In very high stakes games the players are typically all amazing and the games themselves don't really draw many players. But in the highest stakes games when whales play and they don't care about winning then yes saving a place for them can change the game entirely.

If I were a player in the game I would have no problem with the rule that a whale can sit down in the game when he comes. But I think it is important for the room to evenly distribute who would have to leave the game when the whale comes (if the game was full). If I was in charge of the room I would keep a list of who had to leave the game on what date and make sure that the players who were not on the list at the time of the whale arrival would be the ones to choose from (except for another whale!). If everyone at the table was on the list then the person whose date on the list was the longest ago would be the one who would have to step out of the game. It would be nice if the rule for the game was the player who had to leave received a fixed amount from all the players at the Table and/or the Whale coming in who gets the seat.

I do think the room would have to make sure to verify that whales are really whales and are perennial losers.

The two hour rule I don't like but it is clear now why it happened (the whale wouldn't come back if the person who took his chips left). I would probably change that rule to make it an hour for the player to have to stay and only if it had been a whale who had lost to him. I also would approach him privately (like not out loud at the table - I would tap him on the shoulder after the hand and say I need to have a word with you). If a good player beats a good player in a huge pot then it doesn't matter when he leaves to the whales in the game. Most good players don't leave immediately after they win a big pot, in fact they typically stay longer because there are either bad players or players they have reads on at the table.

Many years ago at Foxwoods they had the best 20/40 LHE game in the country. We had about 200 regulars who played in the game. It was hyper aggro including the whales and there were many whales in the game. They would win occasionally but mostly lost staggering amounts. Some were pizza shop owners so they didn't care because they were likely laundering money anyway. There were doctors, lawyers, etc. as well. And every player was treated well. Nobody left early because the point was it was a great game. The game died because after black Friday, on-line pros descended and the whales couldn't win. I couldn't win. So first the whales stopped coming (because they couldn't win). And then most of the regulars stopped coming because there was no point anymore. It went from up to 7 tables on Saturday night to one table within a year. I rarely saw a whale when I walked by the table after that.

Prior to Black Friday, what kept the game going so amazingly was primarily that it had a must move table to join. Sometimes two (one leading to the other). The main tables always had mostly excellent players and the must move tables typically had a broader range of talent. I would sometimes quit a main table to go eat and come back to be in the must move game. There were some players at the must move table who never made it to a main table because they lost thousands of dollars in a relatively short period of time.

There also was a 40/80 LHE game which started up 3 times a week. One was on Saturday night (I think if I remember correctly - could have been Friday). That game had an incredibly tough field and one multi millionaire whale. He wasn't a bad player really but was not going to win in that game. He typically could always play in that game because it was 10 handed (when we had ten players) and was probably the reason the game was going to start up. There were basically less than 20 players who ever played in that game and only 1 table going. The game died because of the black Friday thing but also because there were 4 different marked card accusations in one session (within 3 hours). Each time the card that was marked was an A. And each time we had no idea who was doing it (except I can say it wasn't me and it wasn't the same guy who detected it each time). I stopped playing in the game as a result. I wasn't winning in the game and maybe was considered a whale myself, but more to the point I realized that there was a cheater in the game and the casino did nothing to fix it. If I had been the casino I would have reviewed the video to see who was scratching the cards with a thumbnail and banned that player and let the rest of us know. Because the casino didn't do that the game basically died.

So I get why you want to make the game as appealing as possible to the whales who threaten to leave if you don't. And I'm guessing you have only one table going at a time for this game. You could try a must move table but I'm guessing it would bring Whale problems (a Whale coming in would likely want to be at the table with another Whale rather than at the Must Move Table). Still if a Whale came to a Must Move Table I'm guessing that table might fill up quickly...

See above. No to all.

Much better would simply be to exclude the hit and runner from the game going forward.

Anyone who would make the whale mad doesn't get it.

1) Honestly, mostly fine and pretty normal (for a specific individual on the way, not for a blanket group of individuals). Something like 30-40 minutes max. Players are happy and whales often take good care of the floor. Room manager has some discretion in terms of hard limits for how long a seat can be locked up, but this is normally a case where most parties involved (ie 90% of players, dealers and floor personnel) all agree its ok.

2) Terrible idea.

3) Like 1, this is another area where table and floor discretion is going to lead to better results than overly strict rules. I do find the idea of a clock interesting, since players often have a poor idea of how long someone has been away for - and its normally tracked in terms of missed blinds vs. time, even though Floor can check Bravo or similar. Etiquette also varies in bigger cash games, with longer breaks and time rake. But mostly agree floor can pick up within 30 minutes (or 2 missed orbits) if player doesn't notify they are on longer break.

4) Forcing players to pick-up is never a great idea and can be too harmful to the game overall. Random drawing for someone to pick up would be better. Players will also sometimes informally figure out a way for someone to stand up to accommodate a super-whale, or floor can even start a new table at the extreme. This is just how the poker economy works, its not supposed to be perfectly fair.

But do not expect the people you are not treating fairly and they can see they are not being treated fairly to accept it and play in your game.

I'm a regular in a similar game in a similar area, so I guess my perspective would be more in line than that of US regs (lol @US-centrism itt btw). Below some comments about each of the rules:
1. Everyone can block one seat for exactly 20mins - regs are not really interested in blocking for others regs, so it works as intended
2. Having a strict rule around this seems like a really bad idea. The way it's handled in my game is simple, at lower stakes you can do whatever you want, higher stakes games are monitored by the staff and if you hit n'run, you will not get a seat at that game again (unless you are extremely bad)
3. There's been experiments about this, but there was only one thing that works - you pay your blinds, always. Want a ciggy/bathroom? Go on the button. Dinner you can eat the table. No other way of protecting against walkers, which are really annoying for the recs who prefer full tables
4. No formal rule around that, but if a big vip shows up, the staff will typically ask to make the game longer, we played 10 handed and once even 11 handed. Personally, I find the game almost unplayable with this many people, but hard to think about a better way to do this, especially with limited tables/dealers

So, basically similar to what we are doing with some slight modifications… thx for your comments.

Ps: good to see that what we are doing is actually happening somewhere else (that is not the US) too 😉

it's really not similar to what you were suggesting. Everything he said (except for #4) is almost exactly how it works in most all U.S Casinos. If someone's a habitual hit and runner, he won't be invited back anyway, especially if the other players start complaining about not wanting to play with him.