Stars response on a chronic staller, with no reason to stall.

[ryanghall]

So I'm playing in the $1050 Barcelona satellite, and on my table is a chronic staller. He has been doing this since he showed up to the table. We're obviously nowhere near the bubble at this point. Every hand that he's not involved in.. yes, EVERY hand, he runs out his time.

So I email Pokerstars and make a simple request for a poker manager of some sort to come to the table and ask him to hurry up with his decisions. I thought this would be done and that it would probably scare him enough to hurry up his decisions a bit making the whole table happier.

I get emailed back and told that Stars won't do this and that this player isn't breaking any rules.

Well so what? I believe there's a certain amount of etiquette that should be followed and that it would immensely help for them to tell this player to hurry up. So we shoot a few emails back and he continues to say the same things. Finally, I get this email which I consider to be pretty smarmy and condescending to me after I tell them I'm rather pissed off and ask who has taken over for Lee and what their email is so I can contact them about it:

Hello Ryan,

The position formerly held by Lee has not been filled at this time but there are a few people who have taken those responsibilities. However they are not going to tell you anything different. Your simply not understanding there is no violation here so we cannot take any further action. EVERY player is given the full time to act on their hand and is their decision if they wish to use that full time.

Again I am sorry your frustrated but you are going to have to accept that this time is given and they can use it even if you would like them to act faster.


Regards,

Trent
PokerStars Support Team


Oh, I'm not understanding? Is that it? No, I just think the rule is horse [censored] and needs to be changed. If someone did this in a live tournament God knows what would happen to them. After someone times out a certain number of times they should be given less time to act, and it should continue to decrease. Nobody should time out more than, say, 5 or 10 times in a tournament so I don't see the issue with a rule like that.

Also, this response seems to just encourage horrendous etiquette.

Perhaps Stars will be pleased if when I 9 table my Sit and Gos (where they make a killing off me in rake, but that's a whole other story), I just decided to time out every time I was going to make a decision where I'm not involved in the hand. It would certainly be to my benefit as people would be tilting and calling me with bad hands trying to bust me.

It wouldn't make their site very nice to play on.

Anyway, I don't know why I posted this, I guess to come up with a viable solution for situations like this cause Stars sure doesn't seem interested in doing so.

[Soulman]

Totally agree with Ryan, a 'x disconnects --> less time to act' rule seems fair to me. Set x high if need to be.

[ANY2CARDZ]

I think its just part of the territory that you have to deal with. I dont find stars comments offensive really. Its not like the support guys going to change the rules. The guy really wasnt doing anything "technically wrong". Yes I would want to strangle him as well, and I think your idea of decreasing the your time after you timeout is a good idea for situtation like this.

[HeroInBlack]

The staller should die in a grease fire, but you are in no position to complain about the tone of Stars' email after you have emailed them multiple times about the same thing and been told repeatedly that they aren't going to do anything about it.

[Ontario_Tory]

I can't find the post - searched for it, but can't find it - but there was a post a while back by somebody who got an email warning from Stars because of complaints received against him for taking too much time because he was playing too many tables (sng's, iirc)... Basically he was playing 20+ tables, so when it was his turn, he often used his entire time bank.

The email basically said "while you are within the rules, you are breaking the spirit of the rules and ruining others enjoyment. Don't make us change the rules (ie limit the number of tables / reduce the time bank) because of your 'incosiderate' behaviour."

Point of my post is that this is - yet again recently - another example of Stars support being inconsistent / of lesser quality than it used to be.

OT

[ryanghall]

Yeah, I believe that post was about poker_in_pb and he has NOTHING on this guy, believe me. At least poker_in_pb tries to act in time. This guy is going out of his way not to.

Oh, and to the other poster, with the amount of money that I pay Stars in rake, which is extremely high by the way, you're God damned right I should have the right to disagree with their decisions and let them know about it.

Ryan

[ianisakson]

Agree, stallers should die and poor etiquette should lead to loss of timebank priveledges. Just because there isn't a rule in place now there should be no reason for support to be a-holes to you.

[0evg0]

90% chance the guy wins a seat.

That's the way these things always seem to work out too.

[Caldarooni]

LOL at the argument "because its not a rule violation nothing should be done."

[Chesskid1]

I remember a few weeks ago I was tilting and shoving every hand during the rebuy period of a $5r, some guy got mad I was "not playing poker", so he timed out every hand to get revenge on me (he sure showed me!), I emailed support, blah blah he's doing nothing wrong, just pissing off the entire table. I think the lower time to act if he times out every hand is a solution but sucks if your a multitabler so there isn't really a clear way to fix this without being unfair to somebody who needs it for whatever reason. Note: Talking about time to act, not timebank.