In isolation this wouldn't work, anyone could just tank and say who cares, the clock is for all intents and purposes stopped

OP makes interesting points, I'm sure there could be a way to make a mincash not be such a huge ICM jump and keep things moving, sure there might be the guy that won a ticket to the main on a packet of corn flakes who might think $3k will be life changing money but it would likely be better than the current situation. Maybe in 2018 the WSOP could trial such a payout structure in one of their 5426975 NLHE events?

+1 shot clock

Penalties for going over clock time seem obvious, no?

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you're right i am mad. mad poker players have done such a great job as sabotaging their own game over the last decade be it tournaments or cash games.

what people like you don't realize is tankers and bubbling stalling lead to less and less regs playing

it's TERRIBLE for the game.

and it's basically the same regs doing it in ever tournament.
like i said we all have a price- but if your price is any tournament you're ever in in the hopes of a min cash that is truly sad. which makes sense bc most tourny "pros" are in fact sad and pathetic buried in makeup hoping to bink their glorified lottery ticket or at least pick up sponsorship deals.playing the entire circuit but 95+ % of them barely have 2 nickels to rub together.

i barely play tournaments and stalling/tanking is a huge reason why. and fwiw i don't know tournament math at all, i'm -ev against any halfway decent tournament player but i'm not gonna fire in them, likely lighting money on fire to be miserable the entire time.it's the same thing online. i played some 500 dollar tournament on bovada 1 year or so ago. got near the bubble everyone takes the entire time bank to act every single hand preplop.and when i just folded and normal speed i had people in the chat berating me. great never played another one again and never will. there are lot of people who don't play them for the same reason and they're even worse at me in tournaments. but if you want more a more bracelet chasing silent tankers who know tournament math cold and less and less regs in these things then you should be happy with this behavior.

like i said you have zero common sense.
if you can't see how this nonsense sucks the fun out of the game then you never will." it should be worth waiting for" lmao. you really don't get it. imagine the casinos slowing down games intentionally when people want to gamble and telling their customers "the fun is worth waiting for"
they'd lose of their customers. keep making fun players "wait for the fun" and they go have fun doing something else while you pray for a min cash.

the bolded is true of all you care about is short term +ev and the expense of the long run. the same players acting in their own short term self interests helping to destroy games in the long run cry when sites do the exact same thing.

Not saying you are wrong with your claim but is there any data that lends support to this belief? Are people really giving up playing in tournaments because of bubble stalling? I don't play any significant tournaments but would imagine bubble stalling would be low on the list of tournament gripes or factors that would lead people to give up playing them.

Can't you read? I've already qualified what a basic decision vs a difficult decision is. Difficult decisions are big bets for your tournament life or a large portion of your stack. Basic decisions are folding junk preflop and totally whiffing the flop. You can implement this using hole card cams for live poker.

An alternative and perhaps easier solution is a shot clock. Quite frankly if you can't make your decision within reasonable time, you shouldn't be playing poker in the first place. If it was up to me, stalling would be a serious offense that would be punished to the maximum extent possible.

Uh, OK. Let's legislate out bluffing. THAT would make the game so much simpler.

+1 to this. the thing is simple decisions are so relative to what you know, i.e tripling off with 97s on A6TJQ as PFR 3bettor may be super simple to a pro, but very complex and difficult to consider to some amateur.

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Can't you read either? I didn't say that at all. You can still bluff. You just have to hurry up and not waste 2 minutes doing so. Otherwise you get kicked out the tournament for time wasting.

I may be going out on a limb here but..... I (and others) do not believe your definition has weight in big time tournament play. Reading comprehension is a two way street at times.

I think it's just his generic response when he says things that are way too vague and people just give examples as to why such loose guidelines are not okay.

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Prior to post 57? To help out here, I'm guessing you had an earlier post in this thread deleted by a moderator.

It's #45.

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I couldn't believe his explanation was that...basic. Simply because there is WAY more to big time tournament play than putting a man to the test for all of his chips.....and that is the only decision where time is "allowed" in his world. But I am glad there are a few around that still believe that is the lone strategy to employ.

Bah, losing my own time now. Toss me out.

Playing in relation to the structure of a particular competitive event (i.e. stalling on the bubble) is literally built in to a successful strategy. As has been mentioned, we see this time in time again in all time-dependent sporting event (e.g., winding down the clock in NFL and subsequently using time-outs to stop it, taking the full 24-second shot clock in NBA, etc.).

What's different is that in those particular sporting events, each team is fairly awarded the same objective amount of opportunities and/or time at the start of the event, and all may use it equally to their advantage (setting aside poor in-game referee decisions). Thus, when one team decides to wind down the clock, it's not such a big deal. But in a live poker setting, without time banks or stop clocks to objectively ensure that everyone can equally play a successful strategy that takes into account tournament structure, some may get more than their fair share in terms of ability to manipulate said structure of the tournament (e.g., when people on the floor are unavailable, when dealers respond differently, etc.).

If every player had a fair and equal opportunity for stalling, I wouldn't see what the problem is (aside from detracting recreational players to play events, which is another issue). But since the practical concerns of running live, large field tournaments can likely not guarantee this, I think there is good reason to consider a cultural shift toward limiting bubble stalling. Either that, or advocating it for all players, which seems also unfavorable.

The solution, as has been recommended, isn't necessarily the modified payout structures, but standardizing the opportunities each player has with digital time banks or stop clocks. That way, every player, every "team", like in professional sports, has its opportunity to play to the structure of the game.

Thank you for this. It's frustrating as hell that poker pros fail to realize that their actions are driving away casual players, or if they do realize it, that their response is simply, "well tournament directors need to fix it, not us."

Responding to everyone else wrt shot clocks: I am very much pro shot clock. Have been since 2011. But shot clocks don't solve this specific problem. The smallest reasonable shot clock for live poker is probably about 20 seconds. A typical hand of NL near the bubble, if all participants use their max shot clock, would be 6 minutes! (*see math below) The problem is that if the shot clock becomes the mechanism for anti-stalling, then it will become commonly accepted practice in poker to use all of your shot clock near the bubble (as say, in the NBA/NFL when the team with possession has the lead). Right now, 6-minute hands are still fairly rare (except in big pots) because there are still people who don't stall. But once you basically say "okay it's no longer poor etiquette to stall and in fact you have tacit permission to do so", you're going to get these 6-minute hands and you're going to be getting them with like 1500 people left in the main event. Sound fun?

[*] raise in field, 7 people fold, BB defends = 9 actions. If action goes check-bet-call every street heads-up, that's 9 more actions. 18*20=360 seconds, 6 minutes. And god help us if there's a multiway pot or a raise goes in on any street....

Yeah, this is my favorite part of Terrence's proposal. Make the first payouts be so small relative to the buy-in, and make each subsequent step so incremental, that it reduces the incentive to stall.

Consider the $1K PLO event that ended yesterday. Everyone from 127th place to 158th got $1,501. But instead what if 158th paid, say, $300? Then 157th is worth $310, 158th pays $323, 159th gets $339, etc.

Terrence also says pros would hate it, but would they? You don't have to flatten out the structure. In fact, there might be more money at the top because you're reducing the min-cash prizes. So wouldn't professional players PREFER this?

I would imagine it would take an experiment of sorts, but I'd love to see Terrence's idea implemented as a test pilot, just to see how people respond.

Hand-for-hand is so annoying. Instead, wait until you are close to the bubble (maybe 10 away for the main event, 2 away for smaller fields) and GO ROUND FOR ROUND instead. Every table plays 9 hands. If the bubble hasn't busted, wait for every table to complete 9 hands and play another whole round. If the bubble busts, anyone who goes out at ANY TIME DURING THE ROUND receives an equal payout. Not too hard to keep track of, nobody has any incentive to stall, and you don't have to proceed at the pace of the slowest table every hand.


(It could be fine-tuned so that they keep track of which hand number of the round each player busts but it seems like more trouble. Also, minor considerations about balancing and breaking table exist but are solvable.)

What do you think?

There is evidence from other fields that this would be the case. A day care had a problem with parents arriving late, so they put a price on tardiness. Results were that tardiness increased, as parents now figured, well I'm paying for it ("tacit permission") so it's OK.

Casino here in Vegas has a pretty ingenious way to combat stalling h4h...each hand kills 2 min off the clock, no matter how long the longest hand takes.

I finished bubble at EPT main satellite in Prague.

With 22 seats, we went from 120 to 30 in 6 hours, and 30 to 22 in 6 hours. The stalling was crazy, an orbit took over half an hour.

Me and the guy on my left were complaining hard about it for 2 hours. TDs had been called and we're stood full time on our table and had verbally warned 5 of the players. The response back was frustrating

"have you never played satellite poker?"
"Do you have no idea how to play the bubble"
"Go show me the rule that says I have to look at my cards in a certain period of time"

I am a casual player, a fish, I rarely play live and was very vocal in how little fun the last 2 hours were.

When I busted on the bubble and a big laugh went up from 3 of the stalling pros I vouched never to play a live satellite again.

No, you can't read again. A big decision is one for your tournament life or a significant portion of your chips.

Whichever way we look at it, something must be done about stalling. Shot clocks are the best option. I was providing one solution. Clearly you have nothing to offer other than to moan at the people giving real solutions to this problem. Stallers are a huge cancer in poker and must be tackled head on.

No a big decision can be quite different from that. It can also be different for different players. Stallers are not a cancer, they are part of the game. Tackling them head on is a good idea, moaning about them isn't.

Being a casual player doesn't make you a fish. My guess is those pros would be more than happy if you never played a live satellite again (but I suspect you will).

Nice hands, btw.