Not accurate. Even in cash games you are supposed to keep your chips is a reasonable manner to allow stack estimates.

Do what ever you want would include just a single "massive" pile with large denom clearly visible. I have not played in a "good" room that would allow this. They may cut you more slack in a cash game but the line is somewhere before do whatever.

If my chip stacks just were that big this would be a problem. I keep them neat though, good even meself knows how much I have. And OP, often you can provide change with a big stack. I like the color of the few bigger denomination chips...

I think most "good" rooms give slack based off of what the other players at the table want.

I have played in games in some of the best rooms in the world (Wynn, Bellagio, Aria) where players could not keep their chips stacked. They were drinking, but not necessarily drunk. The issue was that they were constantly distracted. The cocktail waitress was always talking to them because they tipped well. A pretty girl would distract them. They were more interested in conversations with their neighbors than they were stacking chips. Whatever.

As a result, whenever they won a pot, they would drag it in close, it would knock over the rest of their chips into a big pile. They would start to stack them and with in 2 seconds would be distracted by something thier neighbor said. As a result, 4 hands later thier chips are still unstacked.

If the player is a fish losing lots of money, most of the other players don't care. They know if the floor is called to force him to stack his chips, it makes it that much more likely he will leave. A good floor won't care if none of the other players care.

However a good floor also needs to be aware of the players who care but are afraid to speak up. It is a fine line.

One of my favorite stories about stacking chips occurred 12 or 15 years ago at Harrah's in Joliet. They had a $2/$5 game that was filled with regs but was still juicy. The regs were decent, but not good. There were lots of regs who were net losers, but had great jobs and looked at the game as entertainment. I was a semi-regular in the game. I tried to play as often as possible because the game was great.

At the time, poker room management was anal about properly stacking chips to the point of giving out ridiculous warnings if chips went unstacked for more than a hand or two. I saw players who would win an all in pot, pull the pot in close to them, start stacking, have their phone ring and walk away from the table to take the call (no using phones at the table at the time....).

The floor would come by, note their chips are not stacked (despite it not affecting the game in the slightest due to them not actively playing) then come by 5 minutes later and note the chips are still not stacked and tell the dealer that the player was due a 1 round penalty when he returned due to his chips not being stacked.

Stupid stuff. Really stupid.

A couple of the floorpeople were sympathetic to the ridiculousness and tried to do better. Rather than give a 1 round penalty to a missing player, they would just stack the chips themselves instead.

Anyway, so one night a player who wasn't a reg shows up. He is absolutely terrible. He claimed he was a bigwig in the pits so he was just looking to gamble. His actions showed it. He would overplay everything. He would gamble with gunshots, he would gamble needing runner runner crap. He was literally a dream to any half way decent player. He burned through $10,000 in a couple of hours, but he had a good time doing it and he showed no indication he was ready to leave.

Like any such player, his stack size varied greatly. He would always buy in for the max ($1000 unfortunately), but when he got lucky he could easily run it up much higher.

He could not keep his chips stacked. He was too busy talking 100 mph. He wasn't drinking at all. In fact he made it quite clear at least a half dozen times in just a couple of hours that he does not drink at all. He just never stopped talking. He didn't stack his chips because he was too busy flapping his gums. He was talking to whomever would listen.

No one else at the table cared if his chips were not stacked. He was losing too much money. They didn't want him to leave the table. Everyone else is making money.

To his credit, the floorperson was super accommodative. Every 15 minutes or so, he would come by the table, mildly (really mildly) rebuke the player for not having his chips stacked, and then stack the chips for him. The floor person knew that absolutely no one else at the table wanted the player to leave. The mild rebuke got to be a joke between the floor and the player. They would both laugh about it as the floor stacked his chips.

Anyway, this beautiful whale and one of the regs get involved in a hand. Eventually they get it all on on the turn, the beautiful whale turns over his cards and has a gunshot. Of course he hits on the river. Boom.

A huge pot is pushed to the whale.

The reg is absolutely steaming. It is easy to tell that he really wants to berate the whale for his bad play, but he also knows he shouldn't tap on the glass. It was one of those situations where you can almost see the cartoon bubble with his thoughts clearly written over his head. He is slamming chips, he is muttering under his breath, he is steaming.

But he doesn't say anything. For a while.

15 minutes later, the whale raises to $20 preflop. There are a couple of callers. It gets to the steaming reg. He looks at his cards and looks at the whales stack. Of course the whales stack is just a pile of chips. It is clear he has somewhere between $1500 and $2000 in front of him, but no way to tell the exact amount.

The steaming reg tells the dealer that he cannot tell how many chips the whale has. At least 4 other players at the table immediately offer up their estimates of somewhere between $1500 and $2000.

This does not satisfy the steaming reg. He insists on calling over the floor. Murphys Law has the floor busy doing something else accross the room. So the game comes to a complete stop waiting for him. The other players try to get the game moving by suggesting the steaming reg just go with an estimate. The whale is clearly getting irritated with the delay. One of the whales friendly neighbors tries to help out by stacking the whales chips for him. Unfortunately he is slow and it isn't doing anything. The steaming reg insists he needs to be able to see how much the other player has.

Finally the floor comes over and when the steaming reg voices his complaint, the floor cleans up the whales chips. After a delay of a minute or two, the floor gets the chips stacked. However this is not good enough for the steaming reg. He complains to the floor that the whales chips are never stacked. This obviously irritates the whale. He is asking what the big deal is and starts raising his voice.

The floor tells everyone involved to play out the hand first and then we will all discuss it afterwards.

After the chips are stacked and the floor makes his declaration, the steaming reg thinks for a second and just calls the $20 raise. The hand plays out, I don't even remember who won. It was unremarkable.

After the hand, the floor tells the whale he needs to keep his chips neatly stacked. He does it in a way that is more than a mild rebuke. He threatens him with a penalty.

The whale is already irritated so he racks up and leaves. He heads for the pits.

Of course everyone at the table is absolutely pissed at the steaming reg. Here are a bunch of lifetime losers who have a whale literally giving them money at the poker table. In a game 99% filled with regs, here is an outsider donating.

Here is the funniest part of the story though. The steaming reg is horrible at cutting chips. He can't cut chips to save his life. As a result, he couldn't keep his stacks at 20 if he wanted to. He would keep his chips neatly stacked, however they wouldn't be in stacks of 20. Some would be 19 chips, some 22. He could have 900 in red in front of him neatly in 9 stacks of red, but only 2 or 3 of the stacks would be the same size as the rest. All were one or two (or three or four) chips off in either direction. When playing he would just grab a few chips off of the taller stacks and never count anything.

So from that day on, all of the regs harassed him about his stacks mercilessly. Even regs who weren't there that night. It just became common behavior that everyone made fun of and harrased the steaming reg over his mismatched stacks. They would call the floor relentlessly and make him stack his chips in stacks of 20.

It went on for many months. Like I said, there were regs who were not even there that night and they harassed him simply because everyone else at the table did. They vaguely heard the story 3rd or 4th hand and punished him

It was brutal.

"Do whatever you want" would also include flushing the chips down the toilet or throwing them at other players. It should be pretty obvious that I was referring to the stacks of 20 chips.

agree with stacking chips in piles of 10

i get poked fun at for doing it sometimes but it's optimal - easier to cut out exact amounts and if you're a clumsy putz like me it's a lot harder to knock over stacks of 10 by accident than stacks of 20

also, put your big chips up front clear and visible to everyone, it's an angle otherwise

It's not an angle, it's against the rules.

rarely enforced

I've had to tell people numerous times in the same session not to do it, dealer is always silent

last session in MGM Springfield after the guy hid his black chips for the 3rd time and I called him out on it, he acted all indignant and racked up and left, i told the floor about that angle shooter and to watch out for him in the future and I got a "what exactly do you expect us to do, why should we care?" response

it's one of the least enforced rules, hence why it's more of an angle these days

I agree that it is rarely enforced now a days, but I don't think it an angle all that much.

I think most of it has to do with the fact that dealers are no longer trained to pay attention to players stacks. Most dealers could not tell you how much a player has with a %33 margin of error. They just don't care because they are not trained to care. They only care about the money that goes in the middle.

Also, there are so many new players that they do not know proper etiquette. They keep their big chips on the bottom of a stack or behind other stacks not because they are trying to hide them so much as they are trying to protect them. Players are used to grabbing chips off of the top of their stack so they keep the big chips away from there. They don't want to grab them accidentally.

That is a problem though.

The reason angles work is because it looks like imnocent/ignorant play.

That said, I think this is one of the easiest angles to enforce among regs. Regular players know the rules. If I am a floor and there is a player whose name I know by sight is caught with chips hidden, it is obvious they are doing it on purpose.

2 mentions of "gun shots" in that incredibly long and non-funny post.