Does anyone draw a distinction between rules that are in place for the integrity of the game and rules regarding things that are tangentially related to the game?

When I was a beginning player on PokerStars playing $1 SNGs and DONs, I figured out that if a DON was a couple players from cashing, I could stall (not bet or fold) until the blind levels went up, knowing that one of the short stacks would be forced on all in on the next hand, ending the SNG and putting me in the money.

I felt guilty about it after I did it a couple times, so I posted about it to see what everyone thought.

There was a term for it-timing the blinds. Not only was it considered good DON strategy, in the Official Double or Nothing Thread it was considered an art form. Players would brag in the thread about killing an entire blind level with a combination of timing the blinds and implicit collusion.

As proven in this thread, if stalling is OK in one poker variant or situation, it only makes sense that it could be used in other situations.

An MTT final table is one obvious example. Here's a scenario

I'm in my local charity room, 60-player MTT, 10-player final table, 9 players cash. I'm in middle position with the #8 stack, short stack is on the button, no antes yet. My M is 5, short stack M is 4. Blinds go up in two minutes.

Of course it's not bad to shove here. But if i can burn a good chunk of that two minutes by myself before I fold my 73o, the short stack will be forced all in by the higher blinds, which probably puts me in the money.

Would I do that? Probably not. I am on friendly terms with the regulars there, and "holding up the game" would make me a lot of enemies. But against unknown players, in a different room, with more money on the line, they are a lot of situations where I might be tempted to time the blinds.

I think the heart of the problem is that you're combining a promotion with a poker game. It's not really poker, it's sorta poker.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=sorta+mr+craig

I think browser basically has it covered, i.e. if the management doesn't care, and the players don't care, there isn't really anything to fix, even if it rubs outsiders the wrong way.

But it does remind me of something. At Winstar casino in Oklahoma, the staff used to claim* that any talking about the bad beat jackpot during a hand would kill the bad beat jackpot, I guess because it would be considered collusion.

If the casino in the OP wanted to stop the practice the OP described, I think that is a perfect place for the dealer to call the floor, or the floor to review the tapes, or whatever, and not put OPs hand on the high hand list because he openly discussed his plan to game the system with the table. (Not getting on a high horse, just speaking plainly -- we know this is what happened).

*I don't know if it was really as strict as they claimed it was, and I don't know if they still do it this way; it has been years.

I have no idea why you think that is proven in this thread. As a general rule. Don't do the stuff you do online in a live poker game.

An MTT final table is one obvious example. Here's a scenario

[/quote]I'm in my local charity room, 60-player MTT, 10-player final table, 9 players cash. I'm in middle position with the #8 stack, short stack is on the button, no antes yet. My M is 5, short stack M is 4. Blinds go up in two minutes.

Of course it's not bad to shove here. But if i can burn a good chunk of that two minutes by myself before I fold my 73o, the short stack will be forced all in by the higher blinds, which probably puts me in the money.

Would I do that? Probably not. I am on friendly terms with the regulars there, and "holding up the game" would make me a lot of enemies. But against unknown players, in a different room, with more money on the line, they are a lot of situations where I might be tempted to time the blinds.[/QUOTE]

Would the existence of a written rule change your mind that its perfectly acceptable?

TDA rule 62:

Now the reality is that if you do this on the rare occasion it makes a difference you very well may get away with it. But then again if a player complains and the TD looks at your cards and sees you are tanking with trash you might just get yourself a ruling you don't like.

Is poker with a reduced rake "sorta poker"?

Well, that's my point. Jackpots, high hand promotions, etc, are essentially room-sanctioned prop bets. They're at best a way to draw bad players to the game, generally tangential to the game, at at worst a distraction that detracts from the game.

I'm not saying that delaying to get a high hand isn't potentially a dick move--although arguing the ethics of the conceptual impact on a hypothetical high hand winner gets pretty gray to me--but it's a prop bet. It involves money that comes out of a prize pool, not directly from another player. It feels worse than OMCs soft-playing AA to purposefully get them cracked during an aces cracked promo (how many times have I pointed out to someone that soft-playing AA might have won them $75 but they had to stick $70 in the pot to do it, when if they'd actually played they would have made more profit) or somebody playing strong hands really slow because they're really, really, really hoping to hit a bad beat jackpot.

But to me, it falls in the same category: turning a poker game into a table game by making EV- decisions in a hope to get some sort of long-shot reward. Therefore, my feels about the ethics of such a situation have nothing to do with my belief in "the integrity of the game," as it's not the game.

In the infinite number of dick moves someone can pull at a poker table--millions of different angles that some people think are part of the game, slow rolling, short-stack hit and runs, etc.--somebody shoving their thumb up their butt for two minutes to try to win a bonus prize has much less likelihood of negatively affecting me.

Short-stacking and/or hit and run is not even close to an angle. Or a dick move, IMO.

I suppose I should clarify: when it's legitimate strategy it's different. When it's a degen throwing money down it's more than welcome at my table, although I know when they do implausibly double up they're going to take the money and blow it at their table game of choice. And I'm not saying that it's an angle, that was a separate part of my sentence.

I know kids who short stack grind for a living and do it well. Very different.

CR, I'm not even disagreeing with you that much. The point I'm making is that all of this stuff is extraneous to the actual game. And while I don't disagree with the potential dickishness of what OP was talking about, I evaluate such things separately. It seems like some people in this thread don't. Just different ways of thinking.

For context, this was my original question. My answer is yes. This might be a douchenozzle move on the part of OP but if it's common in the room in question, that's a cultural/systemic issue of the room regarding something tangential to the game. Whereas if I played in a room where regs were allowed to collude or peek at my cards without any repercussion from staff, that would be an absolute problem with the integrity of the game. See what I mean?

Would it be the same if OP asked everyone to hurry action because he knew his high hand was good for the current time period but worried it would not hold up in the next one?

Is part of the issue that it theoretically takes money out of the pocket of another high hand qualifier to be determined later? What if it doesn't? I mean, hypothetically, if I was in a room where (implausibly) a $100 Aces Cracked promotion included hands that ended during the promo even if they started before it officially began, and I had AA and $100 left facing a V's very tough river shove on a wet board and I knew if I waited a minute I could basically call off on a freeroll, would that be something people would call cheating/angling?

I am not defending or condemning OP here but I think these ethical issues are worth messing with or looking at from different angles, if we are going to be quick to judge.

And frankly, as I and other people have said before, I think the best solution to this issue (and how the game is affected by it) is to say that if the hand started before the end of one HH period, it doesn't roll over to the next. Any room with Bravo can track that on table clocks.

Funny story, related to delaying for a high hand promotion.

I'm playing $1/3 NLHE yesterday. High hand promotion is on, every 15 minutes, and currently it's at quad jacks.

I limp into pot with suited Ace, four of us to the flop. Checks around to river, with board: JJ777 . BB tosses $20 in pot. I laugh out loud and say to him Why are you betting? - thinking that he's just trying to buy the pot. I then get serious and raise to $75. Other two fold. BB then says, "Well then I'll just wait for nine minutes" (till next high hand). I'm thinking that he must have the seven. I call the clock and say, "You can't delay for nine minutes." He folds and shows his hand - with a Jack! He thought I had the seven!

Love it.

I was ahead in a high hand jackpot with an hour to go and I thought of this thread about delaying (playing slow). I didn't.

I won the high hand jackpot, anyway.