Anyone heard of the "keeping your big chips out front" rule?

I am not sure if this was true or not, but when I first started playing poker more often, I was at a friends home game and I had my chips all lined up from smallest denomination to the biggest (3 rows across and as many as needed going back towards the rail), and one of my friends "big wig" players says to me "You have to have your big chips out in the front where we can all see them." Naturally to not cause a fight I moved them and said sorry, but after about 3 weeks of him complaining about it I finally said to him "I will keep them where I damn well please, now shut up and play!" I have tried to look it up on the internet but have been unsuccessful thus far. Anyone else hear of this?

i can tell you that every casino i have played at requires you to keep your big chips in plain view so that if someone wants to raise or put you allin, they know how much you have. i can understand that you may have thought your friends friend was just bein a jerk, but there is a legitimate reason for it. also here is a link that may be helpful to you. Home Poker Tourney - Poker House Rules

I guess it is to avoid asking for a chip count from the dealer to speed things up.

Thank you for that link Y, I saw that site a long time ago and have not been able to figure out what the name of it was since then! lol

Those rules are okay, BUT for a home game, the things like smoking and rabbit huntin' are to your discretion.

^ this. In a home game, it'll be down to the house rules.

In a casino though, and definitely in any tournament run to TDA rules, it's absolutely standard that you need to keep your largest denomination chips in plain view so it's a good habit to get into.

Mostly it's to avoid the situation where a player looks at your stack, shoves, then backpedals and says "Wait wait wait, no way I would've done that if I knew you had that much" when you pull out the stack of 5000s that were hidden from view. Yes it's their fault for not asking for an accurate count before they shoved, but it's still frowned on as a pretty low angle shoot.

So unless you're deliberately hiding your large denomination chips in the hope of inducing a mistake like that (in which case the other players have a right to be put off by it), is there really any harm in keeping them out the front?

whats wrong with hiding the big ones i think thats a bs rule period nothing beats the art of deception lol

Are you sure you live in Las Vegas?

This is something new to me! I have never heard of it before at home games or at the casino..

Ya noob!!

Most home games I have played in, it was a rule to keep your big chips out front for all to see. The issue was usually not pressed however, as no one generally has a stack so large you can't tell what they had when playing in the cash games. I do know that in a casino it is generally a rule, though again, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything to anyone about it. Either everyone was following the rule, or no one cared enough to say anything to those who were not. Personally, I do it out of habit. I am not sure if it was something that I was told to do when I was learning and it stuck with me, or if it is just the way my brain works.


~H

Erm... I stated above what's wrong with hiding your large denomination chips.

Think about it this way: what if you made a bet to put someone all in, then they pulled an extra stack of big chips from out of their pocket? Or they suddenly "found" an extra 25K chip under their drink? You'd be pissed, right? And justifiably so. You thought you were making one bet, and it turns out you were actually making another. Maybe it's the difference between you being at risk of elimination or not in a tournament.

Deliberately hiding your large denomination chips really isn't much different. There's the 'art of deception', and there's just being a douche. Doing this is much closer to the latter than it is to the former.

I haven`t heard of this rule before, but I haven`t played live games yet.
I`m thinking of going to a casino in a few weeks, so knowing this comes real handy. It will keep me from looking as a beginner when I didn`t put my chips the way it`s suppose to be.
Thanks for the tip.

If you're making your first trip to the casino, there's another thread you might wanna take a look at too that covers most of the rules and conventions you'll need to know:

http://www.cardschat.com/f57/playing...d-know-114205/

Lol not to mention I was in the casino as less as possile..after I got carded with my fake ID as a 29 year old named Anthony I was scared to hell, cuz I know dam well the dealer knew it wasn't me....I was just winning and tipping nicely

Thnx for the info.Hadn`t seen this one.
Don`t really want to look like a new fish overthere.

Our Casinos here require you to have the large demonimation chips in plain view and have made it known to a few players who had them "hiding".

For all the reasons stated above, its a good habit to get into.

umm unless you look insanely old why did you pick 29? Why not just be normal and pick like 21 or 22? At least you didn't use McLovin as your name lol.

What a load of rubbish, I will keep my chips where I want, I'm not being told what to do with my chips by any other player, as has happened live to me a player asked me how many chips I had, and I told him "it dont matter how many chips I got just make your bet" "if you want to go all in go all in" i said to him, as it turned out he didnt go all in, I think it was just an intimidating ploy by him, because after he didnt go all in I did and he folded. The point I am trying to make is dont be told what to do by another player. who cares if it saves time getting the dealer to count the chips, thats his job.

Well I thank you all for your input and I guess at the next game I can tell him I am sorry that I was unaware of the rule until now! I guess I can see why they would want them in view, it is just my OCD for having to have things in a certain order I suppose. lol

Sorry for what, you did nothing wrong, there is nothing stopping you from mixing your chips in whatever order you want, you can put your $5 chips in the same stack as your $500 chips, They are your chips and as long as they are on the table in front of you, you can do whatever you want with them, you dont even have to stack them up, dont let anyone tell you any different. As I said if a chip count needs to be done the dealer is there for that, it is part of his job.

Yea there are sometimes if I only have a few big denomination chips then they will be somewhere in or on another chip stack.

All chips have to be on the table as far as I know, that is where the term table stakes comes from. From what I know of live poker putting chips in your pocket is a No-No.

To all CC members:
This is the best thread I have read yet. It was honest and infomative with out belittleing the OP or anyone that posted on it, Kudos to all of you

Well, I kinda did. I guess not everyone in their mid-20's who lives in Las Vegas plays live poker everyday. But I certainly would. LOL. I guess I'm just jealous.

BTW, I actually learned this rule while watching the WPT on TV. LOLOL

That's absolutely correct - the point I was illustrating is that deliberately hiding your large denomination chips from sight amounts to about the same thing.

On your other points, it's true that you're allowed to get the dealer to count your stack rather than answering yourself.

If you're going to make the dealer count your stack for you, however, it really oughta be stacked in some vague sort of order. If it's not they'll likely ask you to do some houskeeping because by refusing to keep your chips in order and making the dealer count them for you you're slowing the game down a hell of a lot. Try it at Crown some time and see what the response is, if you dare

As a dealer, one of my pet hates is douchebags who go all-in by toppling their chips into one big messy pile and shoving them forward. If it's a decent sized stack it can take a couple of minutes to get the things in order and counted and that's a couple of minutes you just didn't need to waste.

Deliberately maintaining a messy stack (or no stack at all) and expecting me to count it down for you really isn't any different.

What it all boils down to is this:

There's some things in poker that you're allowed to, and even encouraged to, mislead your opponents about. But the size of your stack is NOT one of those things. If you maintain a dirty stack and hide your large denomination chips, at best you're slowing the game down and at worst you're angle shooting.

You don't need to be a nit and line up the markers on the side of the chips or arrange them in a pretty pattern or anything. Just make it easy for them to be counted.

Yes you must have your bigger denomination chips in front of your stack. All casinos follow that rule at least the ones I play at in So. Cal , Bike, commerce, hollywood park, hustler, pechanga, san manuel, morongo.

Wow I was really looking for just a yes or a no but this topic has really gotten a lot or response and i can see some good points from all different views.