Cash Game How do I explain going south or ratholing to my home-game players? (2 Viewers)

[springbox]

I read it as implied that you can only go up between hands, since it does not even contemplate taking away chips.

The author assumes players want more, not less, in play.

I checked the versions of Hoyle from 1880 and 1953, and they are edited differently but make the same point.

From the passage you shared

"no player is allowed either to increase or diminish that amount while he has any cards in front of him"

 

[JustinInMN]

See my citation above. The standard poker rule book from 1916 specifically describes how you can’t go south (though Foster did not use that term, which must be more modern).

If necessary, I can look at earlier and later editions to see what they say, but it’s pretty clear that Malmuth was talking out his ass with his 1960s-70s claim.

P.S. It’s pretty funny how much poker terms have changed. In reading Foster’s entries, I noticed for example that UTG used to be called “the Age,” and calling an all-in bet light was “calling a sight.”

FWIW I must have glossed over the name when I was looking back at @Machine 's older posts, but Mason Malmuth is hardly a nobody. He's a collaborator on most of David Sklansky's work at 2+2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_Malmuth

I do agree though, whether or not the origin is true, I would still agree, there is no real upside for poker rooms or home games to bring ratholing back.

 

[Frogzilla]

Ratholing pros
-keeps stakes reasonable as game progresses
-allows players to manage their own risk better
-mitigates hit-and-run risk which could break game
-for losers, shorter stacks (less skill advantage)

Ratholing cons
-less chips on table (biggest con of all cons)
-for winners, shorter stacks (less skill advantage)
-loser fish who think they should win back their money are annoyed, don’t wanna annoy loser fish
-not the accepted rule set at like every card room everywhere

 

[Taghkanic]

FWIW I must have glossed over the name when I was looking back at @Machine 's older posts, but Mason Malmuth is hardly a nobody. He's a collaborator on most of David Sklansky's work at 2+2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_Malmuth

I do agree though, whether or not the origin is true, I would still agree, there is no real upside for poker rooms or home games to bring ratholing back.

Yes, Malmuth is known for writing many strategy books. But he is not known AFAIK as an historian.

I took a look at a 1914 version of Foster’s Hoyle, which only seems to allow reducing your stack *if selling chips to another player* (thus keeping the chips on the table) and only *if everyone else agrees*:

“Before the cards are dealt for any pool he may announce that he wishes to buy counters, or that he has some to sell to any other player wishing to purchase; but for either transaction the consent of all the other players must be obtained.”​

​

To me, this strongly implies that you could not in the 1910s just take part of your stack off the table—since you couldn’t even “sell” chips to another player without the entire tables’s unanimous consent.

​

​

 

[Colquhoun]

But is the 1914 version referring to a limit or a no-limit game…or does it not make the distinction?
A limit scenario is very different than no-limit when discussing pulling off of chips or selling chips to another player.

 

[Taghkanic]

But is the 1914 version referring to a limit or a no-limit game…or does it not make the distinction?
A limit scenario is very different than no-limit when discussing pulling off of chips or selling chips to another player.

It describes lots of different games. This section appears to apply to all variants, same as the editions I peeked at from the 1880s and 1950s.

At minimum I would want more than just some random claim from Malmuth that he remembers one card room changing its rules sometime in maybe the 60s or 70s (and everyone else then followed suit? Really?).

Don’t we have any 80-90something members here who recall poker from the 1940s and 50s?

 

[Frogzilla]

Yes, Malmuth is known for writing many strategy books. But he is not known AFAIK as an historian.

I took a look at a 1914 version of Foster’s Hoyle, which only seems to allow reducing your stack *if selling chips to another player* (thus keeping the chips on the table) and only *if everyone else agrees*:

“Before the cards are dealt for any pool he may announce that he wishes to buy counters, or that he has some to sell to any other player wishing to purchase; but for either transaction the consent of all the other players must be obtained.”​

​

To me, this strongly implies that you could not in the 1910s just take part of your stack off the table—since you couldn’t even “sell” chips to another player without the entire tables’s unanimous consent.

​

​

Yes this passage implies going south not kosher and goes against mason’s account. Agreed

 

[Highli99]

if Player 1 bet $100 and you only have $5 in chips left you have no choice but fold or pull the other $95 out of your wallet to cover. No side pot $5 crap. Either call the whole amount or fold and go home when your money is gone.

This is the opposite of table stakes. All I have to do to win is bring the most money. These kind of rules are not conducive to a fair or good game.

 

[Sparkynutz]

Just because you have the most money doesn't mean you bet that much. Especially in a friendly game no less.
It's like buying in for $100 and playing penny stakes. The betting still usually stayed a reasonable amount to what was in the pot. If you were constantly betting $50 to win a $2 pot you wouldn't be invited back.

 

[KHarp1]

Sounds about as much fun as Russian roulette.

 

[Frogzilla]

Would those opposed to ratholing be ok with it in this very specific instance:

-a player is initially very stuck and reloads multiple times
-that player is making a comeback
-that player can cash out his rebuys only, not his original buy-in, not his winnings, and only between hands.
-after going south, the players stack still exceeds original buyin

 

[KHarp1]

If money is that big of a concern that a player feels the need to take money off the table then maybe they shouldn't be playing poker.

 

[ekricket]

Would those opposed to ratholing be ok with it in this very specific instance:

-a player is initially very stuck and reloads multiple times
-that player is making a comeback
-that player can cash out his rebuys only, not his original buy-in, not his winnings, and only between hands.
-after going south, the players stack still exceeds original buyin

If money is that big of a concern that a player feels the need to take money off the table then maybe they shouldn't be playing poker.

If a player gets that stuck, they should just quit for the session. This just smells of enabling problem gamblers.
So if it’s not table stakes, then can you just play with a box over your chips so nobody ever knows what you have?
I’d play with just one chip on the table, and never tell you how many I have in my pocket. Might even just buy one chip at a time since I can always pull out whatever amount I want at any time. No need to advertise how much I have.

 

[Machine]

but no player is allowed either to increase or diminish that amount while he has any cards in front of him.

There would be no reason to include or diminish if that was not an option, or I feel that they would explicitly make a call out for it as a difference.

See my citation above. The standard poker rule book from 1916 specifically describes how you can’t go south (though Foster did not use that term, which must be more modern).

Was your rule book used in casinos during the early 1900's? This is a rhetorical question, I'm just point out that there is no cannon for poker over history, we still see it today with things like Congress vs BigO.

Yes, Malmuth is known for writing many strategy books. But he is not known AFAIK as an historian.

I'm not a historian, but I can tell you about the technology in my field prior to the start of my career.

I offer these observations as counter points, It's a hard way to argue either side, and maybe there is merit or not in Malmuth's assertion. I think there is room for going south in poker, perhaps not at every venue, either way I think the discourse is good.

Like merriam-webster, Hoyle is a 'brand-name' that is used and updated by multiple sources, there isn't one source updating the same content year over year. How many changes were there from 1914 to 1916, was this really needed? I'm not a huge fan of the TDA but at least the same organization is maintaining the rule set.

I would ask a favor of you! Would you take a photo of the Hoyle books you have, the faces so we can see the collection? To be explicit, I don't doubt you, I would love to see your collection of Hoyle poker books; I seen one some time ago from the early 1900s (I think the 40s) and it was really cool to thumb through, it was thinner that I would have expected, where as the one I use to have from the 80s was considerably thicker.

 

[KHarp1]

Flat tires...

 

[Bluegrass Poker]

Is it ok to rathole in a Casino if you are only taking them off the table to harvest?

 

[KHarp1]

Is it ok to rathole in a Casino if you are only taking them off the table to harvest?

Absolutely

 

[Mandos]

I took a look at a 1914 version of Foster’s Hoyle, which only seems to allow reducing your stack *if selling chips to another player* (thus keeping the chips on the table) and only *if everyone else agrees*:

“Before the cards are dealt for any pool he may announce that he wishes to buy counters, or that he has some to sell to any other player wishing to purchase; but for either transaction the consent of all the other players must be obtained.”​

​

To me, this strongly implies that you could not in the 1910s just take part of your stack off the table—since you couldn’t even “sell” chips to another player without the entire tables’s unanimous consent.

​

​

Yeah, but on the same measure you couldn't add to your stack without the whole table's consent either, since getting consent applied to EITHER transaction. So arguing from that to going south being frowned on seems like a jump to me, especially since (as previously argued by others) there is really no reason to say that you can't add or diminish while you have cards if you actually can't diminish at all.

On the other hand though, they seem not to have allowed someone to leave the game with chips until it ended:
"It is the usual custom, and an excellent one, to fix upon a definite hour for closing a game of table stakes, and to allow no player to retire from the game before that hour unless he is decavé, (has lost all his capital). Should he insist on retiring, whatever counters he has must be divided among the other players, and if there are any odd ones after the division, they must be put into the current pool." (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53881/53881-h/53881-h.htm#Page_227)

So even if you did rathole here (going off the previous add or diminish theory), it would be more like managing how many chips you had on the table for each hand, but you still couldn't cash any of them out before the end of the game either way, since the only way to leave the game was to bust, surrender all of your chips, or wait for it to end. Given all that I'm leaning towards thinking it wasn't a commonly allowed practice.