Where I play, they are no longer using the must move rule because it might spread the virus. Is that true for all legal poker in the US?

I don’t think they ever had this in AC. Don’t even fully comprehend what must move means

Must move is generally only used for games with smaller numbers of tables, like bigger no limit games, mix games, and limit games. It is almost never used for 1/2 or 2/5 games. It definitely is used for some games in AC (at Borgata, at least, in my personal experience).

Must move basically means you have a "main game", which was the first table that started (in the morning say). Then when that table is full and enough extra players arrive and are willing to play, you start a second must move table. If someone quits the main game, then the person highest on the seniority list in the second game is forced to move to the main game, to keep it full. Eventually you might get a third or fourth table in the must move chain. Or you might eventually turn 2-3 tables into "main" tables and keep just a single must move that feeds all of them.

It is used because it "protects" tables from breaking, in the case where there are not multiple other tables around where you can move remaining players into. It also helps make it easier to open up a shorter new table sometimes - players are more willing to do so when it establishes seniority for them later when they are moved into a main game table.

(I have no idea if rooms are or are not using them now. It makes sense that rooms might temporarily eliminate their use in order to minimize the number of table transfers they need to process for safety/cleaning reasons, but I dunno whether that's happening. I would be surprised if there was any single thing that was true for "all legal poker in the US" though.)

I would assume it's a room by room (state by state) situation. One casino in Detroit has you exchange your chips for each stake/table change .. so an obvious slow down of what had been pretty basic in poker previously.

I've seen MM (feeder games) used at all stake levels regularly and would say it's mostly used at 'start of' and 'end of' day to keep tables full in an effort to keep the games going longer. The room is typically catering to (Nit) Regs who go nuts if a table drops to 7-handed. It's also a great way to keep a steady flow of fish going to a main table where the Regs don't want to fight all over each other.

Each room, even Floor, has to make a decision based on time of day and how deep the lists are .. and staffing of course.

I like the way Poto in Milwaukee uses their feeder tables .. They start them up and Players can only leave the table .. no existing Players may move to that table for at least an hour, then it becomes a 'main' game and is open season. GL

Every state/tribe has their own covid rules, some of which limit table changes. Some casinos are using the closing/reopening cycle to make changes they've wanted for a while. Hard to say which your casinos falls into. In any case, let management know how you'd like it done and maybe it will be that way when things relax.

Oh ok, thanks for this description. Yea I almost exclusively play 1/2(1/3 now) and 2/5 and borgata so haven’t heard about it

They used to have a 2/5 must move at the Trop. They called it "the big game" lol.

MDL has a 2/5 mm game that works out well because once more games open there are more main games and one feeder game.

Horseshoe Tunica has this for their 2/5nl game on the weekends. (Or had maybe, IDK I haven't played there since COVID started). 5/10 only runs there during the WSOP.

There was a 2/5 main game that started early with the main regs/nits who started the game, then when enough names were on the waitlist they would open up a "must move" table. The must move game was almost always better than the main game since it included more recreational players who get there in the evening, to point that I would leave usually when I got put into the main game depending on who was playing in it.

At FW and Mohegan Sun in CT 2/5 NL must move games exist (at least pre covid).

I don't think I ever saw one at 1/2 NL because there were so many tables going.

The thing I have found interesting about must move tables is the way they are implemented.

In some casinos there is a single must move table feeding all of the main tables.

In other casinos it is a linked list of must move tables feeding into one main table.

I guess that in some rooms they didn't want there to be advantages at the must move tables becoming Main tables. The Main table would have the best players (survival of the fittest) while a must move game might have a lot of bad players especially if a ton of new players arrived to form another must move table.

Also, if after many hours a table broke it would seem unfair if that table was the first main table. So the linked list algorithm would avoid that issue.

Yeah, I guess must moves can be used for 2/5 games if there are not enough of them. I guess I'm just used to a room where there are always at least a handful running during prime time when it matters.

I think having multiple main games after the chain becomes long enough (3-4 tables) is the right policy, but only after it becomes long enough to ensure there will still be a must move table. This lets everyone in the main games table select if they wish. And usually enough time has passed after the first game started that no one except the nittiest nit gets mad that their "main game" was the first one to break even though it was the original main game. Usually, the floor staff in a room will know when the game is stable enough and routinely gets enough tables to allow switching from a chained must move to a pool of main games.

They have must move games at MGM and Greektown in Detroit, but not at Motor City in Detroit.

In my old room we had 2/5 must moves. There was an informal vote amongst the regs and they wanted it. 2/5 was the biggest game we had most days.

If there were 3+ games we would daisy chain until a game was being fed for an hour, then it became an additional main game.

Fwiw we have continued to use must moved through the pandemic, even tho the games went from 9 to 6 handed

You are speaking currently, yes? MCC had a must move for the 2/5 in the past didn't they? They did for the 5/10/20 NL when it was strong as well

I know taking care of table change requests was something they did very well IMO .. it's been so long .. brain fog maybe! GL

Speaking currently; yes, MCC had must move 2/5 in the past. MCC won't even do table changes now.

Otoh, overnight main games are god-tier.

Vent - So the room I play at, the biggest games are 2/5 PLO and 2/5 NL.

The PLO has a must move, and on weekdays they get 1-2 games max. Same goes for NL Sunday-Thursday 1 game and maybe 2. On the weekends they get 2 or 3 PLO and 5 or 6 NLs
But no must move for NL

So, weekends not an issue but on the weekdays this scenario comes up once or twice a week.

2/5 is 6 handed (7 max at the moment), and there's an 8 man list for the game. They start to open a new game... You tell the floor "We have 1" and they say "I know"

So 10 minutes go by, they start the new game up 7 handed/full, and someone in the other game busts. So original game is now 5 handed, and EVERY single time in about 30 mins someone says "I don't wanna play 5 handed" and leaves... Domino effect game breaks.

4-5 players leave and go home or wait around on the list or draw for an open seat, etc.

I ask floor, why not make a must move, seems to solve this exact problem... You'd have 2 games going 6 handed.
"We don't do must move for NL"

LOLLIVEPOKERROOMS

Hi Everyone:

The following is the first paragraph from "The Must-Move Rule" chapter from my new book Cardrooms: Everything Bad ;and How to Make Them Better; An Analysis of Those Areas
Where Poker Rooms Need Improvement:

Of all the stupid rules that poker rooms have I consider this to be the worst one. Imagine a cardroom with a rule that was designed to break games and create lists. In addition, how about having a rule that would help assure that some of the weaker playing regular players won’t have enough money to play on the slow days or won’t always be available to help start games and keep games going. Well, if you can imagine all of this, you have just visualized the Must-Move Rule.

Best wishes,
Mason

Must move is still used in LA at 5/10.

I tend to think that there's a difference between dumb and stupid. With dumb being an incapacity to learn and stupid leaning towards 'knowing better' but doing something anyway.

Any 'rule' should be in place for the (perceived) betterment of the room as a whole in the management's opinion. I tend to believe that some rules are good for certain size rooms and not so good for other size rooms as well as the REQUIREMENT of considering the mentality/make-up of the clients .. no matter the business.

This new book is obviously an opinion piece .. and IMO there's nothing worse than coming right out and telling 'a lot' of your potential customers that they're stupid. I don't have any idea how much behind the scenes number crunching /evaluating MM has done and I'm not suggesting that I know any better, but .. (Where I come from)

1) A MM table 'can' be a table that otherwise wouldn't even be open, thus both generating rake and shortening or eliminating the list.

2) How is seating a Player 'temporarily' at a table with shorter stacks akin to sending a sheep to shear? While the MM 'order' is a list unto it's self, there will be the return of a 'list' of table change requests once we clear CV status.

Obviously this comes from a 'chapter' so there's bound to be a more in depth breakdown of the opening comment. But in all my experience in poker I've yet to see the points made above tied to the must move philosophy.

One thing about the MM list that I would've implemented in 'my' room .. and I don't really care if Mason mentions it in his opinion piece .. is that I would make it an 'ask' list, not a 'must' list. I would ask in the order Players were seated if they want to move to the 'main' game and then the first 'yes' would move. Only if I get all 'negative' responses would I force the Player at the top of the list to move. When I've discussed this with some other Players they felt that it should be the last Player sat to 'must' move and while I don't necessarily disagree I feel that this type of action would/could be sending a sheep to shear since they wouldn't have had time to build up a stack before jumping into a 'perceived' deeper stack main game.

Back to my opinion here .. I put a lot of effort into trying to explain to my girls (or anyone really) that, especially in todays FB/text world, that you need to be very careful in your use of words. At this point in their life it mainly pertains to the word 'gross' and food. Like 'Fish is gross', well you could be talking to (or within earshot) of someone who loves fish .. and now you've just potentially created a negative opinion of yourself with really no harm intended. Simply saying 'I don't have the taste for fish' implies while fish is not at the top of your list, it doesn't potentially degrade someone who does have it high on theirs.

Again, for me, stupid is a word that needs to have 'back up' .. facts or a law/rule .. in place to be applied, not just disagreement or difference of opinion. It'll be interesting to see if this chapter has any meat to it, or is just one more (of the same already heard many a time before) opinions .. at least it will be in print! GL


PS .. I've stated before that a casino in my region (Poto in Milwaukee) doesn't use a MM table, but it 'protects' a new table by not allowing Players from any other table moving to it for at least an hour upon opening. Players at a new table can move out, but only Players from the list can sit down until that first hour is over.

Must move is much better for limit where having a bigger stack doesn't incur any advantage. I personally don't think it's stupid, so long as there isn't a five table chain of must moves like they do at the Bike.

Maybe that's a very good idea for players, maybe it's a bad idea. Maybe somewhere in the middle, I honestly don't even have an educated opinion.

But I know it's an idea that creates overhead and potentially ambiguity and drama. Casinos aren't interested in any of that. They are interested in simplicity and keeping things moving. When a floor approaches the must move table, he has to know which player is supposed to move.

I tend to agree. The ask list sounds nice and is good customer service, but it leads to problems.

"Player 1, do you want to move?"
[player 1 wants to keep playing with fish player 2] "Nope!"
"Player 2, do you want to move?"
"Yes"
Player 1: "On second thought, I will move."

Or how to do you handle players who are away from the table when the floor comes to move someone and would have had an option. "Hey, I would have moved!" or "Hey, I didn't want to move!" is sure to follow no matter how you handled it.

I'd like to use a system like that, but it's just too complicated.

Hi answer:

Every cardroom is unique. So, what might be right for most cardrooms can be wrong for a specific one. However, the chapter on the must-move rule is 1,400 words meaning that there is a lot these with specific explanations.

A lot of the book is actually based on statistical theory even though statistical explanations are not part of the book. This means that while there is much opinion in the book, a lot of it has very strong mathematical support and will be difficult for anyone to debate.

I can't imagine when this statement would be true in an otherwise well-run poker room.

There's nothing like this in the book.

Years ago I used to see this done. But not anymore. However, nothing like this is mentioned in the book.

Okay.

Best wishes,
Mason

PS .. I've stated before that a casino in my region (Poto in Milwaukee) doesn't use a MM table, but it 'protects' a new table by not allowing Players from any other table moving to it for at least an hour upon opening. Players at a new table can move out, but only Players from the list can sit down until that first hour is over.[/QUOTE]

This is possibly one of the worst takes I’ve heard on MM games. They are critical for the health and survival of larger (20/40+) LHE games. They’ve been used successfully and without major issue for as long as I can remember. Your notion of having “statistical support” for them being bad is highly dubious and you should probably support your claims before you make such baseless assertions. Otherwise that just like, your opinion man.