Ethics of stalling vs. EV

[RR]

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What makes you think they're really going to take heavy handed action at a live tournament for being slow? At the least, I'd guess you'd get a warning first.


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There was a player in one of my tournaments that didn't believe anything would happen to him for stalling. He blinded out of the tournament on the bubble while away from the table on penalty.

[THAY3R]

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Situation:
You're in the final table of a big tourney. WSOP, sunday Million, something that's big bucks to you. You've got a competitive chip stack. You're a decent poker player, but clearly outclassed by the other people at the final table.

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lol

[Vetgirig]

Get the book Kill Phil and read it - deploy the tactics from that book will be more EV+ than stalling.

[rubixxcube]

Actually there was a thread last week about a guy doing this in a satellite on pokerstars to i think some big buy in event in london. The guy actually wound up getting the seat. Don't remember what forum it was in, but it really upset some players. Also i have heard that stars has been known to email people to politely ask them to please be courteous to others and not purposefully stall.

[DonkeyChip]

Here is that thread. Here is a snippet from one of the posts in that thread:
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I was also beside a table at the WSOP ME this year with an unbelievable staller - he was doing exactly this and making no apologies for it. The floor came over several times and asked him to speed up and he utterly ignored them (as I suspect the player in your case would have done). Finally, the floor threatened to put him on a 10 second clock every hand, to which he responded "Let me know when you do that." I don't think they ever actually did it. Lee Watkinson was on this table and was utterly livid with the guy.

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And a link to an article DN wrote that had some staller content.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Shoving every hand would be more +$EV than what you're suggesting.

[SumZero]

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Still, somewhere in your frothing at the mouth, you've managed to indicate stalling would be penalized at some point. I'm interested, in a sort of academic way, what that point would be and how it'd be enforced. They could clock me each time from the point it was my turn to act. That'd be fine and reasonable.
Note: Has anyone, ever, been warned about stalling online? I doubt it. What makes you think they're really going to take heavy handed action at a live tournament for being slow? At the least, I'd guess you'd get a warning first.

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Last month at Bay 101 when near the bubble with 2 tables short handed there was a staller on the other table. Once this was figured out the tournament floor camped out at the other table calling the clock on the player right away. The player got 60 seconds to act. Then next hand 50 seconds. Then next hand 40 seconds. Etc. until he was down to 10 seconds per hand per decision. I don't believe there was any penalty in terms of missing hands but he basically has no clock (past 10 seconds) for any decisions from that point on. He was busted either just before the final table or just after though.

It ended up being very profitable for me as players on the final table bubble were too tight and were folding a lot, so given I was on the other table I stole a lot and went from a slightly below average stack to chip leader while the staller was stalling.

[satelliter]

Note to Directors: I will play any big tourney with slow structure that puts a 30 second clock on every player in every hand. Slow play is killing poker for me. I've never seen the floor warn anyone, although most players rarely call the clock, since it interferes if you're not in the hand and conceivably gives away info if you are.

[SteelWheel]

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In a live tournament, you would have to stall several times before you even got a warning. But if the purpose of stalling was just to increase the blinds, you're talking about stalling for hours. You'd be penalized much earlier than that. You could get away with stalling a little at the end of a level so that the blind increases hit you in good position, but you'd never be able to stall through an entire level or more.

[/ QUOTE ] James Woods used exactly this tactic in last year's NBC Heads-Up event in his match against Johnny Chan. He took as much time as possible for his own decisions, but called for a clock every time the action was on Johnny. He even was quoted somewhere or other (Card Player, I think), that this was exactly his intent--he didn't think he could beat Johnny on skill, so his strategy was to survive when the blinds were low, and then gamble it up and hope to get lucky when the blinds were high.

May not be ethical or in keeping with the spirit of the game, but it is an availabe strategy for those who want to use it. I'm not above stalling on occasion myself in the big online MTTs, but (as with most such "strategies"), I find that most people who try to do so, employ this strategy poorly, and in such ways as to act to their own detriment.

[FireStorm]

As far as his original question, which seemed to pertain to online play, it's a grimy move, but not illegal. Seems like you're not gaining much in terms of EV that you couldn't gain by simply moving all in with any decent holding. If the jumps in prize money are this important to you, it could be considered a valid tactic.