Poker is full of legitimate strategy techniques that you can use to gain an edge over opponents. In fact, you can literally spend a lifetime learning how to play better poker.

1. Ratholing Poker
2. Ratholing Poker
3. Pokerstars Ratholing
4. Ratholing In Poker
5. Ratholing In Poker

In Big Bet poker (Pot Limit or No Limit), a return to the same table after an absence of fewer than 120 minutes is considered part of the same playing session. If a player leaves and wishes to return less than 120 minutes later, they must come back with at least the same amount they left the table with, or with up to 10% less if that is all. Most players, when ratholing chips, try to rathole black chips. This chip is the chip the pit tracks closer than any other. Ratholing green chips is more likely to go unnoticed. Ratholing black chips can be successful if you have a strategy in place that will confuse the pit on the black chip count.

However, poker also includes some less savory tactics. Bum hunting, where winning players only take on less skilled opponents heads up, is one of the best known examples.

Ratholing is another cheap tactic that players use to gain an advantage. But it’s not as well-known as bum hunting.

I’m going to discuss more about ratholing, including how it works, what advantages it provides, and why opponents hate this technique.

What Is Ratholing in Poker?

Ratholing is the act of taking chips off the table during a poker cash game. Here’s an example on how it works:

• You buy into a cash game with $20.
• Your stack increases to $50.
• You remove $30 from the table to guarantee that you don’t lose it.
• Your stack is back to $20.

Ratholing (a.k.a. “going south”) can be pulled off in different ways. In the scenario above, you remove money from the table and continue playing.

Another method involves leaving the table and buying back in later with a smaller amount. Here’s how this would play out:

• You buy into a game for the maximum of $200.
• Your stack increases to $400.
• You leave the table.
• You return and buy back in with $200.

You’re basically doing the same thing in this situation as you did in the other scenario. The main difference, though, is that you’re actually getting up from the table for a while.

Ratholing is impossible at many online poker rooms. After leaving a table, you’ll have to buy back in with the same amount you left with (e.g. $150).

You may also be able to sit at the same table again after some time has passed with less than you left with. This situation all depends upon the dealer’s memory and if the same players remain at the table.

Certain poker sites allow ratholing in their fast-fold variants. Fast-fold poker sees you move to a new table as soon as you fold cards, rather than waiting for the hand to finish.

The sites in question will let you stand up from your seat and quickly sit down with a lesser amount. Keep in mind, though, that this scenario only plays out with specific fast-fold versions.

Why Is Poker Ratholing Often Banned?

As mentioned above, the majority of online and live poker rooms ban ratholing. But why is this tactic such a big deal?

It makes sense that you can’t rathole in poker tournaments. Before an all-in call, opponents must know how many chips you have and what it’ll take to knock you out.

The restriction on cash game ratholing is more ambiguous, because you can technically pick up your chips and leave any time. However, poker rooms definitely have good reason for banning ratholing in this setting, too.

The main problem with ratholing is that it takes money off the table. Going further, many players get angry when they’re deprived of the chance to win back losses.

Here’s an example:

• An opponent wins $50 off you.
• They pocket the $50, thus, removing money from the table.
• You and other players have no chance of winning that extra $50.

On one hand, you should seemingly be able to pick up chips at any point in cash games. But the problem is that it’s an unethical move that disparages players and hurts poker rooms.

Every poker site or land-based cardroom that I’ve played at in recent years has an anti-rathole rule. They ban any practice that can harm their business or annoys customers.

Can Ratholing Help You Win in Poker?

Ratholing is looked down upon by both cardrooms and poker players. Nevertheless, some people still use this technique in an attempt to gain an advantage.

The benefits of ratholing are slight and specific to individual players. In other words, this tactic won’t benefit every type of player.

Some ratholing perks are similar to those with short-stacking. The latter refers to purposely playing at a cash table with less than the maximum buy-in (e.g. $40 at a $200 buy-in table).

The first thing that ratholing does is reduce your potential losses in any hand. This method becomes attractive when you hate risking large amounts during all-in decisions.

Another thing that ratholing can do is tilt your opponents. If you’re playing in a setting where you get away with it, then they might get so annoyed that they begin playing worse.

Of course, ratholing doesn’t provide any massive advantage. It has more internal value than anything, especially if you’re a bad post-flop player who wants to minimize risk.

But some players have convinced themselves that ratholing provides a house edge of epic proportions. Appeasing these players is part of the reason why poker rooms ban the practice.

Why Do Poker Players Hate Ratholers?

I just mentioned how certain players believe that ratholing gives opponents a massive advantage. While not necessarily true, this is one of the reasons why people hate ratholers.

However, there are other reasons behind this hatred as well. Many players consider ratholing to be terrible poker etiquette.

Everybody wants a chance to win their money back, even if they just end up losing more in the process. Ratholing not only robs them of this chance, but also takes table money out of circulation.

Ratholers are looked down upon in terms of skill level, too. The general perception is that good players can defend their stack, rather than resorting to pocketing part of their winnings.

Poker rooms themselves dislike such players. Ratholers take money away from games and generally annoy everybody else at the table.

Finally, this practice would destroy the game if it were continually allowed. Imagine how destructive the following scenario would be to poker:

• Everybody who wins a big pot takes that money off the table.
• Those who’ve banked their winnings eventually leave for the night.
• Soon, the poker room has little money circulating around.
• All remaining players are forced to quit early, because no more chips are available.

This situation would create an environment where players had to win quick or miss out. Poker would also be a much different game and one that was less fun to play.

Pros of Poker Ratholing

So far, most of the evidence goes against ratholing. But those who employ it may gain one or more of the following positive benefits.

Reduce Variance

Poker variance can affect you at any point. When variance isn’t in your favor, you can lose quite a bit of money.

Going further, it lowers the overall amount of variance you’ll experience in poker. You can’t lose as much during an all-in pot when only playing with $25 at a $100 buy-in table.

Limit Your Post-Flop Decisions

You may be a solid pre-flop player, but struggle with post-flop play. Ratholing can help in this regard when you’re playing with a smaller stack.

All you need to do is pull enough chips off the table to have less than the maximum buy-in. The lower your stack, the less you must worry about in post-flop play.

Here’s an example:

• The table’s maximum buy-in is $100.
• You rathole the point where you have $30.
• Nobody can ever force you to call for more than $30 post flop.

The amount of money you stand to lose during all-in calls decreases significantly in this situation. Furthermore, you can use ratholing until you improve as a post-flop player and feel more confident.

Throw Opponents off Their Game

Sometimes, you may get away with short stacking, even when an opponent or two notices. These same opponents may begin grumbling without actually telling on you.

They might become so annoyed that they’re concentrating on you instead of their own game. In extreme cases, they’ll become tilted and start making bad plays as a result.

Fairly Easy to Get Away With in Live Poker

Many real money online poker sites program their software to ensure you can’t rathole. You’ll be forced to buy in for the same amount of chips as you left with or have to choose another table.

Live poker, on the other hand, presents opportunities for you to rathole in certain cases. Most notably, you can slip chips into your pocket when others aren’t looking.

You can also play within the limits of ratholing rules. Here’s an example on how this can work:

• You leave the table with $400 worth of chips and want to pocket $300 of it.
• A live or online poker room forces you to sit out at least an hour before doing this.
• You wait exactly 60 minutes. You buy in for $100.

If all else fails, you can simply point to the fact that you’re within the house’s rules.

Cons of Poker Ratholing

Ratholing isn’t the worst poker sin, but it’s highly unpopular among both players and poker rooms. That said, this strategy has some notable downsides.

Most Poker Rooms Ban Ratholing

The biggest downside to ratholing is that it’s flat-out prohibited in almost every case. Maybe you’ll find a fast-fold variant or poker room where it’s allowed, but don’t hold your breath.

This tactic removes money from tables, meaning poker rooms won’t earn as much rake. It also gets on players’ nerves and can make the game less fun overall.

Many Players Hate Those Who Rathole

You may be perfectly fine trying to float a poker room’s rules and ratholing when possible. But are you willing to play with a bunch of opponents who suddenly hate you?

Poker has certain unspoken etiquette rules. Ratholing definitely violates these rules and will turn the table against you, even when you wait the allotted amount of time before rebuying.

Prevents You From Maximizing on the Nuts

Perhaps you don’t care about what other players think. However, you no doubt care about your own winnings.

Ratholing can be bad strategy, because it prevents you from maximizing your great hands. Your smaller stack will prevent you from capitalizing on those times where you have a nut flush.

Conclusion

Ratholing can provide some small advantages, especially when it comes in the form of short stacking. You can minimize variance and reduce the difficulty in making post-flop decisions.

The goal, though, is to reach the point where you’re not relying on ratholing and other gimmicks. You instead want to be a solid player who’s confident enough to play without pocketing small profits.

Many poker rooms make this decision easy for you anyway, with anti-ratholing rules. Players further dampen the matter by giving you crap about using this tactic.

Overall, I don’t recommend ratholing, because the downsides outweigh the benefits. But you might still consider it as a short-stacking strategy until you become a stronger player.

Gamblers have tried a number of advantage play techniques to beat the house over the years. Some of these efforts prove fruitful (e.g., blackjack card counting), while others aren’t so helpful (e.g., baccarat card counting).

Ratholing Poker

You want to thoroughly evaluate any type of advantage gambling before employing it in the casino. After all, who wants to waste time and money with a failed technique?

Ratholing is a proposed strategy that can help you beat the casino. But does it actually work, or is it just another version of baccarat card counting?

Find out as I cover the basics of ratholing, how to use it, and if there are any downsides to this technique.

Ratholing is one of the easiest forms of advantage play in existence. Unlike card counting, hole carding, or shuffle tracking, it doesn’t require learning any extensive system.

Simply put, ratholing is the process of discreetly removing chips from the table. The goal is to take chips away from your stack without the dealer or any other casino staff noticing.

This technique can be used in poker or blackjack. But this discussion will revolve around blackjack, given that I’m covering how to beat the house — not other poker players.

At first, you might wonder exactly how this could help you beat the casino. Hiding chips seems more like an immature game rather than something that can give you an edge.

The idea behind ratholing is to deceive the casino into thinking that you don’t have many chips. As you’ll see below, this trick can help you win profits or just earn more comps from the casino.

One more thing worth mentioning is that ratholing isn’t against the casino rules. You have the right to pocket your own chips at any time.

How to Use Ratholing to Win Profits

Ratholing in itself doesn’t give you an edge over casinos. Instead, it’s used to help ensure that you can keep winning profits without being detected.

As you may know, casinos don’t exactly roll out the red carpet for advantage gamblers. The house expects to have an edge in every situation.

Pro players don’t get beaten up by security in back rooms like the movie 21 suggests, but they can get escorted out or even banned from an entire casino chain for consistently winning.

Ratholing helps create the perception that you’re not a big winner. Staff members are less likely to scrutinize your play when you don’t have $60,000 worth of chips sitting out in front.

The goal is to put chips in your pockets without anybody noticing. When done expertly, nobody will be the wiser when you’re winning big profits.

The dealer may have the notion that you’re consistently winning. But one glance at your chip stack can dissuade these thoughts, especially if they don’t catch you ratholing.

Of course, most dealers aren’t obsessed with catching advantage gamblers. They don’t typically care if you’re winning as long as you tip regularly and aren’t blatantly cheating.

It’s the floor supervisors and pit bosses that you really need to fool. They’re the ones who’ll sweat your play when you’re winning big.

However, these same employees don’t have time to watch you 24/7. Pit bosses and supervisors have other table games to monitor as well.

Ratholing can work because they’re not around to track the progress of your wins. They may only stop by your table once every hour, allowing you to covertly reduce your chip stack without them noticing.

Of course, proper ratholing is a science that involves a few intricacies. Below are some additional thoughts you want to keep in mind when using this technique.

Again, ratholing by itself doesn’t give you an edge over the house. All it does is help disguise your skills.

To make profits, you need to actually be using advantage play. Card counting, hole carding, ace sequencing, and shuffle tracking all help you win long-term profits.

I’ll mostly be discussing card counting, considering that it’s the easiest and most famous strategy of the lot. Of course, this isn’t to say that counting cards is easy.

You need to keep an accurate count, know when to spread bets, and look for beatable games (discussed next). Counting only becomes harder when you introduce ratholing into the equation.

Even still, it’s worth combining ratholing with skilled play. It allows you to mask when you’re up big against the house by concealing your winnings.

You can technically use this strategy at any blackjack table. However, ratholing won’t do you much good if a table doesn’t offer beatable conditions.

Card counters must be able to spread bets widely during favorable counts. Ideally, you’ll use a 1-15 spread, or at least 1-10, in a six- or eight-deck game.

You can still beat a double-deck game with a 1-8 spread. In any case, you must be able to spread your wagers to a fair degree without drawing scrutiny.

The exact casino where you’re counting plays a big role in this. Looking at Las Vegas, El Cortez is well known for heavily sweating winning players.

You’ll especially draw attention when playing with green chips ($25). You’ll have more difficulty counting cards for an extended period in a low-end Vegas casino like El Cortez.

Of course, you can still count at low-end establishments thanks to ratholing. You just have to be more careful with bet spreads, especially when using larger chip denominations.

Meanwhile, a lavish casino like the Bellagio won’t pay much attention to you as a green-chip player. They’re more concerned with potential counters who are using black chips ($100).

The difficulty is in finding a game with favorable rules (e.g., 3:2 blackjack payouts) at the Bellagio. But if you can find a good table, then you’ll be able to count with less scrutiny.

I discussed ratholing green chips above. This is the optimal denomination to rathole because it draws less scrutiny than blackjack chips.

You can still take $100 chips off the table too. However, you need the perfect conditions (covered next) to do so every time.

Ratholing Poker

Casinos watch players who use black chips more than anybody else. It’s always better to rathole with fewer eyes on you.

You don’t want to just start pulling chips off the table at any point. Instead, you need to use this technique at the perfect moments.

The best time to rathole is when the dealer is busy and the pit boss and floor supervisors aren’t around.

Regarding the dealer, you can wait until they’re making payouts to players on the other side of the table. Shift changes present another opportune time to pocket some chips.

Ratholing can be as basic or complicated as you’d like. In its simplest form, you simply swipe chips and discreetly pocket them when (hopefully) nobody is looking.

But you might want to develop more advanced techniques to do a better job of masking your ratholing.

Palming chips and eventually letting them drop into your sleeve is one example. You can shimmy the chips further down your shirt/jacket arm and pocket them later during a restroom break.

You may develop even more covert ways to rathole than this. While you’re at the table, try thinking of different methods for future reference.

Ratholing to Earn More Comps

The most profitable way to rathole is in combination with advantage play. However, you can also use this technique to simply earn more rewards.

Casinos often comp players more when they’ve suffered major losses. If you start with a huge chip stack and have little at the end of the night, the pit boss may reward you better than your play rate suggests.

The same tips covered above still apply. You don’t want the casino to catch you ratholing — otherwise, they may not trust you and offer even less comps as a result.

Ratholing for rewards isn’t the most lucrative venture. You have to put in a lot of work just for a few extra dollars in comps.

However, you may have some fun in the process. Moreover, ratholing for comps can be good practice if you ever intend to use it in conjunction with advantage gambling.

Pokerstars Ratholing

I’ve discussed the benefits of ratholing. It’s a great way to hide your advantage play, and it can even be used to net you more comps.

Of course, advantage gamblers benefit the most from ratholing. You’re less likely to draw heat because the casino staff won’t think that you’re winning.

The problem, though, is that you need to rathole in the proper manner. One slipup can expose your skills, or at least draw heavy attention to your play.

Another dilemma is that you won’t always know when the casino has noticed your ratholing. You may continue doing it and further expose your advantage play.

Ratholing In Poker

Nevertheless, ratholing can be pulled off under the right circumstances. You want to find opportune times, such as a shift change or any point when the dealer is generally distracted.

You should also work on your palming technique and think of inventive ways to pocket chips. I suggest ratholing for comps to practice because the stakes are lower in this situation.

Above all, you need to become skilled enough at an advantage gambling technique to make money. You’re not going to earn any profits with ratholing alone.

Ratholing In Poker

But the latter is good to work into your advantage play. Ratholing can buy you more time to play with an edge because the casino will be less likely to suspect somebody with few chips.