If you have incentive to play as little as possible, do it from home.

I have seen floor people take away a players privilege to leave the table for abusing it. They simply are told "you won't be welcome to play here if you continue this". But this is for cases of severe and repeat offenders.

That is the nut strategy. Bravo.

The still do at the Oaks.

Or we cockblock walkers while they're trying to hit on pai gow dealers and then they storm back in a rage.

But why would you want that? Is their replacement going to be better for you than they are? (Not rhetorical - do you find that the best players walk more often, or the worst?)

They're about average probably. But I don't think it would make them stop playing, just make them stop walking less.

Personally I don't mind playing short, but others do, and the games I play are often in danger of breaking off people walk long.

I think you guys (predominantly winning, serious regs) are projecting what you would feel - "oh **** i am about to not be able to play" - onto a losing, flippant recreational player.

Pai gow has a seat open. Bar has a seat open. The threat of losing their poker seat may not even be a threat. Whenever I've seen people picked up, they never apologize or get mad. It's just, oh, I got picked up, where my chips at.

If there are players waiting to play, pick anybody up and let the new player join. The method by which that person is selected is kind of irrelevant. First walker, most consistent walker, person with the least chips, last person to answer a page, I don't think it matters. The people whose behaviors you want to change the most are the least likely to change*, and the people whose behaviors aren't that bad are the most likely to overadjust.

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* We used to locate a habitual walker (HW) in the building and pass his location to the floor. "Lobbiers back to Table 15. HW, return to your seat on Table 15. HW, return your seat on Table 15, we're picking you up. HW, seat 3 on pai gow table number 2, return to your seat on Table 15, we're picking you up." At which point he'd just not even face the floor and motion with his hand to the floor to pick him up.

In general I find that people went to the poker room because they wanted to spend part of the day playing poker. For some reason they've decided that they want to not play poker at that moment. If they'd wanted to go to a bar they'd have gone to a bar. So it's reasonable to think that getting picked up might be a disincentive.

That said I don't really get the motives of the chronic walkers (aside from getting comps, but that just means getting picked up is a disincentive or at least ending the freeroll).

IME it's the bad regs that walk a lot. They are never the best players at the table but often not the worst either. One of the chronic walkers in my room tends to buy in short and spew off stacks with TP meh kicker and weak draws but I'm still just as happy for him to be away from the table because he's consistently the most miserable prick I've ever met.

Two reasons I guess at and they are both pretty sad.

One is that poker room is literally their social life but they know they are losing players so they limit their losses by walking and talking.

The other is that they kind of know they're a losing player but their identity is so strongly tied to being good at poker that they can't admit it to themselves. They spend time walking when they are 'running badly', waiting for their luck to turn.

Good, tight player gets up to take a dump. Two players who hate playing with him because he is good and doesn't spew get up so that they pick up the first walker.

It's kind of like how some players are quick to point out if some unfun nit is third man walking, but will try to get the dealer to not enforce the rule if it is a fun player who is gone.

That idea would make more sense in online poker as a replacement for rakeback.

Well, I was envisioning them giving the walker some grace period, but still having him be the first one to get picked up. I don't think it would be that difficult to figure out when someone was trying to game the system to screw another player.

As it is, what if you really have to take a dump when there are already two players who have been gone a long time?

If someone leaves the table, most rooms will say that player has x minutes to return before being picked up. I don't think it is fair to say you have x minutes, unless two other people get up, in which case you have less minutes. How would your grace period affect a player who lives ten minutes from the casino and runs home real quick to let the dogs out or perform some other errand that would normally have him back within that normal x minutes?

A system like Bravo can be used to track the breaks a player has been taken. I have played in a room where players complained about someone being gone, the floor checking the system, and telling the player that he has only been at the table for an exact number of minutes and threatening to pick up his chips if he keeps leaving the room.

I'm all for floors treating players like children and making sure they know they can't do whatever they want.

And, you really shouldn't have had the chili.