Just looking for a quick clarification as this may be a room dependent ruling.

Last night at Vegas strip property, a player was continually being asked by dealers to keep his large denomination chips at the front of his stack.

30 minutes go by and I'm now in a decently large hand against this player, but suddenly his large denomination chips are gone. Floor is called and player immediately admits to pocketing them before the hand began.

He was playing dumb and pretended to not know that he wasnt allowed to pull chips off of the table but my question is actually about whether or not those chips should be placed back in play mid-hand? Is the ruling different if he pulls the chips off before the hand begins or during the hand?

If he is heads up I'm inclined to let his opponent decide if they are in play or not that hand. Multiway it's much more difficult.

If he removed the chips mid-hand, he definitely has to put them back in play. If he refuses, that’s one of the rare situations where I think his hand should be killed before he gets kicked out.

If he removed them before the hand started and is known as a chips-angler, I like for the floor to ask the opponent what he thought the chip stack was.

This is tough. Certainly they cannot be added back on mid hand if he's removed the chips before the hand began. If I was the floor I would probably let the players complete the hand. Then afterwards the gentleman will have a choice to either add the chips back, or leave for the night. Weird spot.

He's been warned multiple times about keeping his big chips in view. I'm not buying that he "didn't know" he couldn't take the chips off the table after deliberately hiding his chips after warnings. Chips go back on the table or he can fold his hand, then take the rest of the evening off.

Not backing this up by any rules. But, imo his hand should be ruled dead. Period.

There’s no way to objectively decided the issue mid-hand.

I suppose they can delay the hand and go to the cameras. If chips where in play at start of hand that’s one thing.

Seems unfair to the other players to have to delay things. Kill his hand. Suffer the consequences.

I like this then handing the player a rack after the hand regardless.

This is a crappy situation.

But what if the op had the nuts and would have won the rest of his stack? Ruling the hand dead actually saves the opponent his stack.

This is crappy too because a hand would play hugely different. Imagine you played pre-flop thinking the opponent had a $100 stack and after the flop he had $400.

Good point.

This is why too you can't let the hero decide what to do. You can't have a biased judge make an unbiased decision. Doing that also let's villain possibly know the strength of hero's hand. Hero says he wants chips in play assumes a strong hand. He says they don't play might indicate weakness. Yeah, he might use reverse "tells" so to speak. If you want to get into meta.

And since when does a player get to decide anything? New to me if this happens. (Not saying you said they should - directing this at others who said so.)

If we want an unbiased decision 2 options:

Go to the cameras. If chips are not on table start of hand, they stay off during and vice versa.

Or literally flip a coin.

Declaring the hand dead, especially if we are not on the river yet (thus hero is guaranteed a win) seems fair and effective punishment.

I'm glad that there are different opinions on what to do in this situation as the table and floor seemed generally confused by it as well.

Ultimately, it was decided that the chips must be returned on the table after the hand or the player must leave the table.

As karma, he put the chips on the table and later lost them

The reason to let the opponent decide if they will play or not is to make the injured player as whole as possible.

If he had been playing the hand as though the chips were in play (because he had been following the game and knew generally how much his opponent had but did not notice the villian removing them) he gets screwed when in the middle of a hand suddenly he finds out that the stack he was playing against is not the stack he reasonably believed it to be. His earlier decisions could have been different.

On the other hand if he hadn't been keeping track but instead looked at the stack and counted it and made is playing decisions based on that he gets screwed when suddenly out of nowhere more chips get added. His earlier decisions could have been different.

Yes his having to make the decision gives away information but getting to make that decision is far more valuable.

He doesn't get to decide that a player can remove chips from play. He simply gets to decide how the hand in progress is going to be played when the irregularity is discovered mid hand.

That’s like telling a shoplifter to return the items he stole or not being allowed back to the store for the rest of the day.

Everyone go back to last week when a thread popped about a player sitting down with too much and it wasn't caught until the Flop/Turn!! Basically the same thing in reverse ...

IMO ... with the player's admission adding to this a lot ... I'm going to try and put his stack back into play that 'should' be in play. Certainly there could be angling going on by the opponent as well ... 'now' that he has a strong hand, he is trying to put the stack back into play. I don't want to give the opponent the full decision here, but I'm willing to be influenced by it. GL

Chips go back in play. I also agree with whoever said if it's heads up I let the opponent decide.

The easiest part of this decision is that this hand is the chip hider's last hand of the night.

How long he's banned for probably depends on his douchiness while everyone tries to untangle the rest.

This scenario is somewhat close to the "too many chips discovered mid-hand" thread, but with an exception - villain in this case has been repeatedly warned. It's more reasonable for dealer and OP to assume that Villain simply hid his chips again. That is, Villain is way more at fault here than in the other thread.

I would phrase it as such: if Hero and Villain can agree on how many chips are in play, I will pretend I didn't get called to the table. (Villain still gets the night off though.)

This has been enlightening. I thought chips had to stay on the table and the only way to rathole was to change tables and buy back in with the minimum. I have only been playing live for about a year, and where I play I've never seen anyone remove chips from play.

Newsflash: People find various ways to cheat in the poker room.

I bet its happened at your table. It might be a player deliberately sneaking some chips off.... but more common is the novice player not familiar with the rules who takes some chips to hand to his wife or girlfriend to go play in the casino.


(oh and in many places - if not most- table changes don't let you remove chips from play).

Unfortunately there are two in my 'poker radius'. Table changes REQUIRE a player to drop below the table max buy-in, even when coming from the same stake. It doesn't matter if the table change was requested or if the room broke a table by choice.

They say that they are protecting the 'new' table from bullying ... I say why are you authorizing a 'cash n dash' scenario for a player who doesn't even have to miss a hand! GL