Is stalling good poker strategy?

[PokerPaul]

I am in middle of HU 4 person tourney, and i am waiting for my oppoenent.

In the other match, the one oppoenet takes all of his waiting time every turn to act. not sure if its deliberate or not, but the other guy is going nuts, and is so fed up finally he is just going allin every hand to get it over with, even with just 7 hi.

I am wondering if thats his strategy going in, just to frustrate the other guy till he pushes anything....

[KKsuited]

It's pretty pu*ssy IMO, but there are a lot of people here that will tell you it's ok. Angle shooters get little respect. The funny thing is, people in a stars tourney will stall as much as possible to make the money. Yet, if it was a live tourney and the possibility of getting their ass kicked was there, they wouldn't do it.

[doc_1982]

Somebody did this to me not so long ago in a HU match on Star, i wanted to punch him in the face. He kept taking the whole time up, and just when his clock started, he'd make a decision. Every single hand! Not even big stuff, just like checking in the BB. I asked him what was taking so long, and he said something like "i'll take as long as i want, if you don't like it, leave". It was definitely tilting me a little bit, but he wasn't very good anyway. It really is a bitch move.

[PokerPaul]

thats exactly what this guy was doing..every move..even if he ntended to just fold he would wait it out then fold as timer kicked in..all the time.

The 4person HU thing took about 2 hrs...AND HE WON IT

[KOTLP]

I'd just stall right back. Open up another table or two to pass the time.

[mayday4379]

so why don't you take as long as possible then?

[MicroBob]

Right, I would take as long as possible right back at him.

Paul - You already mentioned in the other thread on this that his first opponent was pretty much giving-up and going all-in out of total frustration with this guy.

This alone shows that it is a viable strategy.
I suspect that the tilt-factor it induces can be enough to turn a losing player into a winner.

Plus, he obviously gets his jollies off of it too.


Please note - I'm not condoning it. This guy is a total tool and Stars should put a stop to him.
but you just asked if it was 'good strategy'. If this refers to whether it can be +EV then I believe the answer is yet.
If it refers to whether it is in the least bit appropriate my answer is no.


In the 'old' Empire there were many satellites and MTT's that would have 20 players sign-up and were only paying-out to just 1 or 2 places.
But with 20 players remaining it would automatically go into hand-for-hand (which was REALLY stupid).

Lots of players would wonder what the hell was going on. We had to wait every single time the other table had some longer hand taking place.

There would frequently be 1 or 2 players in the tourney who would say in the chat-box "Fck this place. This is stupid." and they would just go all-in and try to lose.

The impatience with the whole hand-for-hand thing was a huge tilt-inducer in some players (making all the tourneys there significantly more +EV imo).


Stars really needs to put a stop to this guy though.
And it wouldn't be such a stupid idea if they actually put in measures to prevent anyone from doing this in the first place.

[cbloom]

They could easily just make it like chess and give each player some total amount of time for the tourney. Set it so if you play reasonably you'll never hit the timer, but if you stall all the time you use up your total clock and lose.

[MicroBob]

They already do this but they need to adjust it.


I think how it's done on many Stars tourneys (maybe not same for Heads-up, not sure):
They give you a 60-second time-clock for the tourney.

If you don't act within 30-seconds then it goes to the clock.
After 15-seconds they give you a warning that you need to act or else they will start the clock.

[doc_1982]

What was the name of the player that did it to you? I'm curious as to whether it was the same guy as i played.