I led off this thread about a unique situation under which no serious player in their right mind should cap a particular machine. But, yeah, the general topic of capping is very much a "nuanced" subject ...
Perhaps the most insidious thing about capping is that it only takes one player, using what should be an infrequent convenience/privilege more aggressively, to inspire other players to defensively engage in the same tactics. I'm thinking of players, for example, who cap and take multiple long breaks, restricting a machine to only 6 or so hours of active use over 14 hours.
And, yeah agon, this subject always brings up the memory of the otherwise very decent couple who would come into NOLA the night before a good promotion and take advantage of NOLA's 8-hour 7* cap privilege.
One of the advantages of getting to know other active players is that you can identify those whom you can trust to "share" a machine. Such an arrangement was always much more satisfying than incurring someone else's frustration/wrath by capping a machine on a good promotion day.
The silver lining in the present dark cloud of promotion/paytable cuts is that there are very few players now motivated to play long hours, and the "non-recreational" players have largely vacated the scene. It's seldom happens, these days, that I arrive at a property and have to bide my time waiting for a desired machine to free up.
---In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, <agonpd@...> wrote :
it's a 7* perk. to me it is only obnoxious if the casino allows many hours. if i ask them to cap a machine for two hours (my usual max for dinner). yes, you are allowing *one* person to play the machine; to me, that's still tying up the machine for any other players. and i wouldn't take the risk of that person leaving before i got back, if i really wanted to continue to play that machine. and often heavy-play machines can't be capped. in new orleans they used to allow (don't know if they still do) regular players to cap overnight! now that was obnoxious. just my two cents. but i do agree that in special cases, such as the one you cite, where there aren't alternatives, capping should be short, or not at all.
