No such right exists.

That's the point of the going south rule. Why else would every room I've ever played in have it?

If a player won a pot from you and took all your chips, is he not allowed to leave the game? What happens to your right then? How about if they leave and wait the required time before sitting down again with a minimum buy in? You can't remove money from the game and stay sitting, but not because of some "right" for the other player to win it back.

If he wants to stay in the game he needs to keep all his chips on the table just like everyone else is doing. If he didn't know, now he knows. tthric

So what is the point?

The point of the going south rule has nothing to do with that money (maybe, arguably) coming from other players and them having a right to win it back.

The point of it is because of "table stakes". Back in the day, in the dawn of backroom poker, there was no all-in. If someone bet more than you had, you had to beg borrow or steal to find enough to call, or else you lost. It was called "open stakes".

Then table stakes was invented. Whatever you put on the table is all you are risking, no more and no less. Being all-in was now possible. A magical evolution for poker. Now people with different bankrolls can play together.

But there is a theoretical advantage to playing short stacked. And position also plays a role, you generally want to be deeper stacked when you're in position compared to being OOP. For these and other reasons, they also created a rule against taking money off the table once it is put in play (i.e. going south). The only way you can do it is to quit the game. (And, in the modern world, casinos let you do it to pay them for services too, selfishly.)

This still doesn't explain the "why" of the rule if it's not for the players. Why would they stop me from buying in for max allowed, winning $200, and then pocketing the $200 if it weren't for the other players at the table having the "right" (that might be the wrong word, but I'll use it for this example) to win that money? Once they decided on table stakes, winning over table stakes affects only the players. The casino gains/loses nothing by it. So, it must be for the sake of the other players on some level.

Give me Liberty or give me death. It is my god given right as a degen to have the ability to win back my moneyz that I donked off!!

No going south!

unless you are paying for drinks

or tipping

or buying dinner

or paying for massages...

but otherwise absolutely no going south!

or paying the rake

Those are all minor things. My great great grandfathers didn’t swim in on a boat from Italy to illegally migrate to this county to not be granted their god given right to have the opportunity to run it back up to even after we Donk off earlier in the night. Our founding forefathers gave their blood sweat and tears for our rights to chase losses and I won’t allow you south goers to take that away from me!

The point of the Going South rule is that table stakes being somewhat 'fixed' are a foundational element of modern big bet poker. It's not about a right to get chips back. It's about the fact that adding or removing chips at will would make big bet games impractical. You need to be able to be playing for a stake, and that stake is what you can see in front of you.

You guys really can't make your point w/o contradicting yourselves on this topic.

I feel like I answered this explicitly already.

It is "for the players". It is not "because players have the right to win back money they have previously lost".

To sum up:
1- The community (and thus the casino which sponsors the game) had a very large incentive to allow players of different bankrolls to be able to play together to make a poker market, if you will, so they moved from open stakes to table stakes rules
2- While this change was important to creating a bigger market pool for poker, there is at least a theoretical advantage to playing short stacked relative to other players, and
3- There is a distinct advantage to being able to manipulate your stack size as your position changes, so
4- They made a rule that, while table stakes is now the way the game is played, which allows a player to start as a shorter stack relative to other players, to prevent this from being abused players can not go south without leaving the game

As should be obvious, if the game were still open stakes, there would be no need to have a going south rule, because the player would have to come up with any amount you bet in order to not lose the hand anyway, whether he put some of that money back in his pocket earlier or never put it on the table to begin with.

As an aside, the rules about max buyins and going north are completely different and for a very different reason.

You've been thoroughly schooled on this. It is not the spot to triple down on your wrongness.

I admitted "right" was the incorrect word choice, but the rule is for the players because they've put the money on the table. It has nothing to do with anything else mentioned in this thread. It is strictly because the money is in play for the other players -- the casino sure as heck isn't affected and doesn't care for its own sake.

Different people have different points, Einstein.

This is a great description of the history of poker.

For me, playing modern poker, mu thought process is this:

1. I will never ever get mad at someone who insists on the rules being followed concerning going north or south. If people want to comment or fight about it, that is their right and I agree with them. Rules are rules.

2. That said, I think the proper answer depends upon how much of a fish they are. Poker by definition is a predatory game. I am more than willing to let my oppenents cheat if it somehow keeps them around long enough to let me win more money from them. If them cheating doesn't negate my advantage over them but somehow keeps them around longer allowing them to lose money to me, then let them cheat and go north or south. I don't care.