The title says it all. Given the increase in how long live hands are taking, should major tournaments start using a 'shot clock?'

To be specific, my idea of how the system could work would fall along these lines.
1) Each action at the table is given a set amount of time, on a highly visible count down clock. Say 60 seconds.

2) If an action is not taken in the time limit, the players hand is folded/checked depending on the situation.

3) Each player is given one 'oops' per hour. Ex: If a player was not paying attention, missed that it was their action and their hand is about to be folded. They may say 'oops' and have the clock reset.

4) Each player is given a set amount of time 'chips' (Not normal chips, perhaps over sized chips or placards). A player may use these 'chips' as they see fit throughout the tournament.

5) Players would get additional time chips at each color up. This is to allow more time late in the tournament when decisions are more often 'be right or go home.'

Thoughts?

what is to stop someone from colluding and getting more time chips when they change tables?

How will this work in wsop when there are a crap load of tables?

will these shot clocks still be running at the FT with big money on the line?

I had not thought about the colluding aspect. I guess that the time chips will need to be tracked and handled like normal tournament chips. With the same amount of security.

I think the WSOP is where this could help the most. It would require them to buy a ton of shot clocks though.

I think that the clocks should still run (at the FT), but have more time put on the clock.

No need for it. Just call the clock if it bugs you. Live and online are different. No need for a clock live, no need for a video conference online.

30 seconds to act or your hand is mucked, everyone gets three 60 second time extensions, and at each break the players get an additional 60 second extension. Prevents the stalling and hollywooding but gives plenty of time for legitimate decisions.

That said it's a logistical nightmare to organise

DN would complain and whine about anything that meets his eye. And too many people give too much weight to his opinion.

Etiquette needs to be changed so that you're not an ******* if you call the clock.

Is it possible (if there were considerstion for experimentation) to have a clock set for say 2 mins ish? Simply as an indicator that others can call clock at that point? Presenting it in this manner would deter stalling/hollywood shinanigans a good bit imo . Maybe eliminating peoples reluctance to call clock in first place as well?..."its the rules dude". All other stuff related works itself out as usual imo.

My two cents

The problem is that it will encourage people to slow down even more than they do now. You'll have slow people that through peer pressure moved within 20 seconds (which is a life time for 99.9% of decisions anyway) will now decide that they can hollywood for 60 seconds because nobody can say anything to them until the clock goes off.

what is so hard about calling for the clock. If a player takes a long time on just 1 or 2 hands over 4 hours no big deal. If they do it too much start calling clock on them. It isn't that difficult.

I agree with this. The current system has worked for many years, but now because of the view of the the person calling the clock, and the rise in tanking, live poker is slowing down too much.

awful idea, just adds more nonsense to tournaments which already are horribly run by most places.

Chose Maybe, Something Needs to change because the insta clock on you seems like an added "stress" when you really do need to think, but can't think of a better way to fix the problem.

It might help a bit but as pointed out, the kind of ******* who takes 30 seconds to fold 72o after UTG raise, UTG+1 all in will now figure it's fine to take 60 seconds or whatever shot clock he has.

Short of lighting up the grease fire for these people, there's not a lot you can do really.

i call the clock all the time on these idiots. you all need to do the same.

@TexDolly Twitter
The most enjoyable tournament I ever played was at Lake Tahoe and had a 20 second clock. Act or you were OUT

1) Calling the clock usually causes more problems than it solves. Have a look at the B+M or Home forums sometime and see what happens when the clock gets called - it's a disaster, not to mention all it does is extend the amount of time anyway due to the floor taking time to arrive, arguing how it was called too quick, etc.

2) As far as "no need" for it, if it's a big buy-in live tourmnament that you're not playing in, sure, there's "no need", you're at home watching it on TV and it's going to be edited out, so what do you care? As far as in standard low-stakes or medium stakes cash games or tourneys at your local casino? Yes, absolutely something needs to be done. The amount of time people take to make routine, trivial decisions constantly is becoming insane. I am no logner all that interested in going to one certain casino after three trips to it because of the almost comical level of tanking people engaged in at the table over and over again (despite it being much more convenient for me)

Why does the floor need to be called to clock a player? The dealer should just have a timer on them and start it when a player calls clock. The action is only on one player. The dealer doesn't need to multitask while waiting for the timer to go down to zero.

So if it's so easy to just have a time limit imposed with no issues, and have a timer start and have the results if the timer run down be final, why not just have the shot clock then?

10k tournaments 20 sec decision time less people would buy-in for the bigger events. Plus if you really wanna nit-pick just call the clock every time.

bingo, the working answer here.

Can u bet the time chips? "I bet 350 & 2 minutes worth of time chips"

(highfive)


why is it that big of a problem to call clock and you need shot clock?

the right system imo is:

15second shot clock for the 1st person to put chips in pot preflop
45second shot clock in all other situations.
extra minute whenever someone goes allin
dealer counts down the last 10seconds verbally- and starts a timer after 15sec (for the 1st person to put chips in pot their hand is dead at end of count, no timer)

3-5 1minute extension chips (these should get held over one day to the next if u dont use all).

At some point the time's should increase some (probably final table, possibly a bit earlier)

Haha, idk maybe when u KO somebody u get to keep their time chips like a bounty tourney. In general this whole idea would be a logistical nightmare especially at poorly run casinos, but hey i think its worth trying. Just give a dealer a timer, 30sec to act with 2min timebank and 1extra min per hour/2 blind levels.