People may or may not be aware that I have been a vocal opponent of stalling when approaching the money bubble in MTTs. This behaviour, in my opinion, has been occurring for far too long, and was addressed poorly by both online poker sites and live poker tournaments. Many will argue that given the incentive structure of MTTs, that this is not a surprising behaviour, but it is nonetheless a scourge on the game. Poker players for a long time have dealt with a stereotype of being two-bit hustlers and angle shooters in the eyes of the public. Behaviour such as this only reinforces this viewpoint.

Recently, Jonas Mackoff (@donut604) responded to me on Twitter that this is not something worth being upset about, and that as a pro, he engages in stalling:



This, again, is not an uncommon viewpoint so I am not singling out Jonas here, but rather this point of view.

The Problem With “Structural Changes”: Round-for-round and calling the clock

In one response to my tweet, Justin Bonomo quoted Ike Haxton in saying that the problem with stalling can be remedied only with structural changes, not cultural ones:



I agree that structural changes are necessary at this point, but I disagree strongly with both Justin and Ike that there is no cultural component to this.

The fact is, that a great deal of poker relies on social pressure, and in most cases, social pressure is tremendously effective at making the game better. I can provide many examples.

• Slowrolling. I could make the argument that I would derive ev from putting people on tilt by slowrolling them every so often. By putting them on tilt, I improve my ev. Should I slowroll people to improve my ev? Obviously not; we have considered this socially unacceptable.
• Overly precise raise sizes. I have seen on Twitter a large number of people advocating for betting even amounts instead of overly precise ones, e.g. betting 1000 instead of 975. I have seen people argue that betting the odd number “confuses” people and should be part of a good strategy, but the current climate seems to indicate that there is a movement against this behaviour.
• Excessive tanking. Perhaps 3-4 years ago, we reached the peak of “balanced tanking” preflop, wherein players would immediately look at their cards upon their action, but always wait some specified period of time before acting, even when opening the pot for a standard raise. Similarly, players would almost never auto-check even in very clear situations, such as defending the bb vs an utg raise on a AA2 flop. This has gotten significantly better in the last couple years, I believe, because of social pressure, not rules.
• Tipping dealers. When it comes down to it, most people tip dealers in cash games due almost entirely to social pressure. There are a minority of altruistic players who tip because they want the dealer to be better off, but the fact is, most people simply tip so as not to look like cheapskates in front of other people.
• Berating fish. For some people, berating fish for bad plays “lets off steam” and therefore makes them feel better. Should they be allowed to do this? Clearly, most poker players would say no, this is behaviour that is clearly detrimental to the game at large and should therefore be ostracized. In a similar vein, thoughtful cash game players realize that they should not instantly yell for racks the moment the fish decides to leave the game.

I could literally go on for dozens of examples; these are just a few that quickly came to mind. Returning to the issue of stalling in MTTs, there is the issue of the actual efficacy of structural change. Justin and Ike argue that going hand-for-hand or round-for-round earlier would be an effective solution. But does anyone really want to play in a 2000-player field where we start going round-for-round at 50 players off the money, when there could be 30-50 tables left in the tournament? How terrible of an experience is this? Think about if you were a casual player in this circumstance. Would this be enjoyable? Would you even understand what was going on?

Casual player: What’s going on?
Regular player: We’re going to play X hands, then wait until the slowest table in the room finishes the same number of hands, then we’re going to play X hands, and do it again until we’re in the money.
Casual player: OMG, why on earth are we doing that? That’s going to take hours!
Regular player: Oh, it’s so that people don’t slow down their tables to play fewer hands, therefore reducing their risk of busting.
Casual player: Wow, really?! That never really crossed my mind. Why don’t people simply agree not to do that?
Regular player: …

And yes, people do stall 50 off the money in 2000 player fields. In fact, if we decide to make it socially acceptable to stall 50 off the money, who’s to say that it won’t one day be 100 off the money? Or 200 off the money. For those who argue that stalling is acceptable behaviour, at where do you draw the line and where do you think it’s okay? What makes you think that’s the correct place to draw the line?

The WSOP this year has tried to combat stalling by re-writing rule 80:

Proponents of the “structural change” idea suggest that if a person is clearly stalling near the bubble, one should call the floor and ask them to do something about it. But as anyone who has played the WSOP (or any poker tournament of significant size) knows, it takes time for the floorman to get to the table. Additionally, it puts the floorman in the position of deciding what is a reasonable tank. Maybe “everyone” knows that you shouldn’t shove 15BB with A4o vs an utg open, but the person tank-folding A4o can clearly make the argument that he was legiitmately thinking. Hell, he can have 82o and say he was considering “making a move”. Asking the floormen to make judgment calls like this is not where we want to go.

Besides, the problem is not someone who tanks a minute with 82o. It is the person who tanks for even 10 seconds with 82o, and the fact that there are four of him at every table. It is not realistic to ask the floor to police this out of the game.

The structural solution that would actually work, and that pros will hate

So now I have made the argument that no matter how one changes the rules for an MTT, nothing will change unless there is actual cultural change within the professional poker community. Indeed, the culture of poker pros is very powerful, as I’ve outlined above. But this culture shift will not come easily. It will require poker pros to ostracize people who continue to stall. There will be holdouts (just as there are people who tank, slowroll, berate fish, and don't tip), but eventually, the game will be better off.

If the professional poker community is insistent that only structural changes can solve this problem, then I only see one solution that will actually work: eliminating the bubble.

Right now in the vast majority of MTTs around the world, the bubble is worth anywhere from 0.75-2 buyins. This is obviously significant money. If the culture of acceptable stalling does not change, then the only real way to combat the problem fairly is to pay a huge percentage of the field, and make the mincash very small, like 0.1 buyins. Note that in every large-field MTT, there is a flurry of bustouts immediately after the bubble, because the subsequent payjumps are just fractions of a buy-in. Here are the lower payouts for the Millionaire Maker, as an example:



Note that $2249 for a $1000 buyin is something that many people would consider worth stalling for, but even the jump from 478th to 477th is not even 20% of the stone bubble. And I think most people would consider it unlikely that many people were stalling at 500 players.

Yet I think the majority of poker pros, if pressed, would be opposed to making bubbles as small as even 0.3 buyins. There is a great outcry when even 20% of the field is paid, but to make “soft bubbles”, probably well over 40% of the field would have to be paid. Payouts would have to be very flat until the final table, at which there is *finally* no incentive to stall.

I ask those poker pros who argue that a structural change -- not a cultural change -- is the only way to combat the stalling issue: Is this something you are willing to accept?

Maybe go hand for hand when the number of spots from the bubble is equal to or less than the number of tables left? Or some sort of other ratio for larger tournaments?

Maybe hand for hand when 15 from bubble with 30 tables left? Or add a shot clock into hand for hand play?

I'm not a reg by no means but a lot of this stuff is chasing away your customers. I don't mind a little wait but if I can only play for X amount of time (say in a daily) it makes me rather stay at home or play cash.

The only way to deal with this is to flatten the payout structures. No reasonable person with one chip is going to play faster, when that one chip is worth $2000 dollars if he stays in the tournament and $1 dollar in cash equity if he plays normally.

+1

But good luck getting the nits of this generation to do anything for the good of the game that might conceivably be -ev.

Also, the fact that Bonomo's opinion is considered says a lot.

LOL if I was playing a live tourney and someone was stalling for any reason I'd be flipping the **** out. It's already show enough. If it was the entire table during the bubble I'd proabaly just get upon the table and pee on everyone to make a point.

Bubble over - Play On!

I go in with the intention to stall near the bubble but end up getting too stoned to remember. Solution - compulsory bongs with 200 people left.

Anyone who takes more than 10 seconds to fold pre should have to pay the 'slow blind' next hand, which is double the Big Blind.

The payout change you are suggesting is by far the best idea, and one that I have advocated for in several of these sort of discussions in the past (many on this forum). Yet it somehow always gets ignored.

The fact that the exact money bubble is often the highest payout jump in large field tournaments until the final table is an absurdity. I can't fathom why more people aren't bothered by this.

Because they'd have to pay about 3% to make that work?

WSOP's solution works actually pretty well. In a recent 1500 we were talking about stalling then night before when we were unbagging. Most of the table seemed like rec players and said how bad that is. Then first hand utg1 has the audacity to tank for 60 seconds before getting the clock called on him. Floor comes gives him 30 seconds, he folds. Next hand same thing. Different floor comes over, but either saw the clock called the hand before or was told about it and gives him 10 seconds. We tell the floor this is the second time and he says if we call the clock again he has no time bank and if the floor comes over his hand is dead. This worked very well. The first hand we had to call the floor but he folded right away when we did and after that he just started playing normally.

Meh, pay out changes change the whole concept and game but I wouldn't be opposed to it.
Cultural change is just not happening (beyond negligible amounts).. Seriously. Yeah it sucks


@fly44 ok but sometimes you can have super tough spots on the bubble esp for inexperienced players (this can include cash game pros for example). As OP said having the floor make judgements is a disaster for various reasons. And it's unfair when it's inconsistently enforced, which it will be. Also its just as much about 5-10 seconds a hand as it is randomly 1 min with 82o

Another thing you have to be very careful about when changing a payout structure is the importance of the post bubble bustout bonanza.
This period of bustouts is actually vital for the late stages of the tournament as it rapidly increases the average stack relative to the blinds and normally means that there is still a decent amount of play at the FT.
No bonanza means people bust slower which, in turn, means shallower stacks at the FT.

I agree that a payout change with the bubble at 0.1 buy-in is the best idea, but I don't think it's necessary to pay a larger percentage of the field. Just make it steeper (especially from 0.1 to 1.0 buy-in) and pay every player a different amount all the way down to the bubble. Every bust is a pay jump.

Update: If it means shallower stacks at the FT due to missing post bubble bustout bonanza then just freeze the blinds at some point.

One problem is that there is a certain amount of truth to this stereotype.

Having a payjump every spot would be ridiculous.
Determining who finished where would be impossible in a large field. It'd encourage people to stall when they know they're likely to bust in a hand and also look for ways to stop the floor seeing that they've busted.

About 150 people all made the mincash in the Main Event last year.
I guarantee you 100% the finishing order listed on the payout page on WSOP.com doesn't accurately reflect the order those 150 people busted, but the order they were given their payout card.

Stalling is often massively +EV. Slowrolling is rarely +EV, especially in tournaments. Raise sizing is not a problem, especially with good dealers, and certainly not online. Tanking has not been solved live, but has largely been solved structurally online. Tipping dealers has been structurally solved by including it in the buy-in. Berating fish is -EV.

The pro poker culture is not a monolith, and if there were a unifying characteristic it would be selfishness. Game theory is real.

You can't solve this issue culturally, and you can't solve it structurally live. Your suggestion to pay so many people spreads the money out, killing value for pros and creating overhead for the casino.

Stalling will continue and berating others for stalling over large sums of money will continue to be snobbish. Consider what some people have to do just to put a roof over their head and food in their bellies. This is an example of don't hate the player, hate the capitalist system that encourages selfish actions.

No good for the dolts who wait until its their turn to act take the card protecter off then take 15 seconds to squeeze their cards. Tilts the hell out of me main problem with live poker.

Slightly off topic question for the people who don't look at their hand until its their turn to act.

Why do you do it? Personally i would rather look at my hand straight away while there are zero eyes on me than only look when its my action and have 8 pairs of eyes zeroed in on me so they can read any micro reaction. Also speeds up the game so you can snap fold your garbage hands.

But stalling 10-20 from the bubble yes i will do that if im anywhere near short. Its massively +ev and you know other players on other tables who understand icm are doing it so it puts you at a bigger disadvantage if you are snap folding.

Yeah, that's kind of the point....

I think this is the obvious solution for online tournament pre-bubble tanking:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1182

But Stars fails to recognize the problem:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1210

Then again Stars hasn't been in touch with the reality of online poker ever since Amaya took over. As for live, shot clock is a viable solution.

What happens, in the fairly common case, if a player loses their table window and their clock winds down without them even realising it's their action? When they then have 0 seconds to act, do they just auto fold as if they are sitting out? Pretty major flaw right there.

The online tanking problem is miniscule in comparison to live.

I don't think you've adequately made your case yet that stalling as players approach the money bubble is "a scourge on the game". General slowness of play, I agree is a problem and a growing one. But specifically near the bubble, I don't agree. This is the where the exciting part of the tournament is really starting to begin, and I don't think any recreational player doesn't understand what a player is doing when he's stalling or gets all that upset about it considering they are happy to be approaching the money. To be honest, in my experience they are often just as happy to have their table slow down to increase their own chances of making the money.

Also, in many sports, modifying your pace of play is an important strategy to use in search of victory. To use an somewhat strained analogy - in an MMA fight, imagine after 2 rounds, you are clearly ahead on points and you know it, so you're going to fight relatively defensively in the last round and not take unnecessary risks. I've seen enough fights with crowds booing in this scenario to know it certainly happens. Should the UFC put you on a mandatory punch shot clock and forcibly require you to take risks of losing?

I was thinking along those lines. How about a rule, applicable throughout the tournament, that an additional ante is taken after every 10 seconds spent on a preflop decision when it's unopened or single-raised. Doesn't seem too hard to get the dealers habituated to clicking a timer as the action moves round.

the poker world is always going to filled with self serving short sighted scum.unless those running the tournaments institute rules to stop this tanking stalling nonsense people are going to continue to stall and players you want in these tournaments are going to stop playing them for the most part.

we need more floor like this