Quote:
Originally Posted by Javanewt
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.
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".
Quote:
Originally Posted by dinesh
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).
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.