I wish you could, too.

It would certainly liven up the game when it starts to bog down.


--klez

I actually had a dealer do that at a table I was playing at in Miami. This was shortly after the casino and poker room first opened a couple of years ago. After the players all bitched to her in a WTF do you think you're doing kind of way, the Floor politely explained to her that calling the clock was not her function or responsibility.

I played in a room recently (I travel a lot and I'm not 100% sure where it was) the dealer has an hourglass timer in the tray. After 30 seconds or so of thinking, the dealer flips the timer. When the sand runs out, the dealer calls the floor and the countdown starts. No player has to call the clock on you.

Just as an aside, i think one thing that would ease some of the drama associated with the clock would be if dealers could do the countdown themselves. There would have to be a timer at the table, of course. But that way, when a player calls clock, the dealer just goes "sir you have one minute". Etc. it seems to me that it would make the whole thing more routine and much quicker and therefore maybe less contentious since there isnt the whole production of having to call the floor, as if the tanker has done something illegal.

I don't think most dealers would want to take on this responsibility (and abuse).

I dont doubt that at all. But hey, that's what happens when you make the huge bucks.

Thumbs down to giving that job/power to the dealers.

Although we would welcome that with open arms a lot of the time, I'm sure, the majority of the time you're either going to be running into a dealer who has a big power trip, or you're going to make these dealers feel extremely uncomfortable. Even if it's a rule and out of their hands, since it would be a new rule, many players will feel that it was the dealer that stuck it to them.

Just let it flow naturally.

I was on the other end of this scenario this week:

Playing 1/2 at the Flamingo on a Wednesday afternoon. There was an older (50+) gentleman sitting to my direct left, hadn't said a word I don't think. Across the table is a 40-ish guy who I had played with before at the same room (I am from out of town and don't make it to Vegas much so I assume he is a Flamingo reg).

Action summarized as follows:

A raise by Flamingo reg, a call from old guy in LP.

Flop 1034r, it goes b/c. Turn is another 4, it again goes b/c. River is an 8o, no draws completed, etc.

Here is where it gets iffy, Flamingo reg bets $75, and old guy proceeds to start talking. Not ho hum talking, but hilariously obvious Hollywood talking.

"You seem like you're full of it to me...I don't think you have anything"

Flamingo reg immediately realizes what is going on and calls it out to the entire table:
"Oh god, he's hollywooding...nice hand sir" blah blah blah.

Old guy then min-raises to $150 total, while simultaneously saying TO Flamingo Reg "thanks, yeah" in acknowledgment of his hilarious nutted acting.


So now we have a situation where a 'reg' sees what is happening, says it OUT LOUD to the table, and is CONFIRMED by the old quiet man who just raised the river, then goes into the tank.

I am shocked that he's even considering calling this bet, and have what must be a bemused look on my face.

After a good whole minute, I'm still confused what he's tanking about. I say "fair warning, I'm going to call the clock on you"
After two minutes I'm starting to get annoyed. It's a min-raise for about 1/4 of the pot, and everyone at the table has already agreed that it's only the nuts basically. I give him a second warning by catching his eye and tapping my watch.

After another 30 seconds, I call clock. Floor comes over, guy is pretty close to losing it apparently, and tells the floor "Let me know when I have 5 seconds left" to take spite-time.

I say "you have every right to take all 60 seconds if you want, just like I have the right to call the clock".

He eventually CALLS the 75, of course loses to 10s full, and then spends the next 5 minutes freaking out about how out of line I was and telling me "yeah nice, keep playing that short stack". Coincidentally he ended up with a very similar stack after the call.

I turn to the old man next to me and say "I think you owe me some money"

For every estimate of elapsed time given by a tanker, I would multiply it by at least 2. For every estimate of elapsed time given by a non-tanker, I would divide by at least 2.

When my wife and I took a childbirth class, they asked us to hold a piece of ice tightly in our hands to simulate pain. We took turns holding or watching our partners hold, and then were asked to estimate the time elapsed.

The results were pretty enlightening. People holding the ice routinely and grossly overestimated the time elapsed; people watching routinely and grossly underestimated it.

Stakes matter. I'd never call the clock on anyone at the final table of a major tourney or in a cash game with more than, say, $1,000 at stake. But a 100 bb decision at 1/2 NL isn't getting much sympathy, and 2 minutes - a full hand missed - is more than enough.

I would probably speak to the player directly before calling the clock. But that's because I generally talk to the people at the table so I will have established that I don't only open my mouth when complaining.

"Come on, man, I know it's a big pot but we're all getting a little restless here."

When someone prematurely calls clock, usually it's an old guy, and he's usually a bad player who thinks poker is as simple as tic-tac-toe and all luck. Sometimes they even say their level-1 thoughts out loud: "You either have it or you don't, quit posing for the camera." When you're playing with bad players like that, that's just something you'll have to put up with once in a while, having to make a rushed decision in a big spot. Fortunately it's rare unless that guy is a reg in your game.

If the person snap-calling clock isn't level-1, then imo it's outright disrespect. That's him assuming your decision is trivial (either that or he's just being selfish and wants to tank during his tough spots but not wait during other people's).

So I basically never call clock on others (in the very few times I would have, someone else beat me to it). Sometimes I call it on myself though, like if I think I'll be as productive in one pressurized minute as 3 free minutes (which is typically when I'm tired and thinking slower, because the pressure temporarily wakes me up and speeds up my thought process). It's also to show others that I'm making an effort not to waste their time.

Edit: I disagree. There are professional 1/2nl players. The money is important to them even though it's chump change for a 5/10nl player. This decision could be for half their rent.

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”

― Albert Einstein

There is one aspect of calling the clock that I've been thinking may need to be relooked. This is all theoretical, as I rarely play tournaments, and even more rarely call the clock on anyone. But I remember watching several tournaments on TV, especially WSOP broadcasts, where the player tanking is just giving the hard stare down at the other player, presumeably looking for tells, to see if he will crack under prolonged pressure of having to sit still. I remember some where it went as long as 10 minutes, but IMO 5 minutes or more is an incredibly long time to basically just stare at someone.

I don't think when someone is staring someone down like that, that they are simultaneously replaying the hand, or calculating odds, or whatever we generally give someone credit for doing while tanking. I think they are using tanking as an offensive weapon to attack your ability to hide tells.

Therefore, I think that calling the clock becomes a legitimate countermeasure against his offensive attack. No rule says you have to sit there and remain under the pressure of a staredown for as long as the opponent decides. So my theory is that once someone starts giving you the stare down, he is no longer thinking, but trying to put you under mental/physical duress, so **** that, it's time to call the clock as a countermeasure, no matter how long or short the guy has been staring you down. So calling the clock becomes a legitimate tactic used to counter the extended staredown.

As the Frenchman in the Matrix says, "action, reaction".

I generally like watching big pots happen so I don't usually call clock. What's more annoying is a slow dealer. Can we call clock on dealer?

I'm certainly not the fastest dealer around.... but

If I'm dealing to you and you think I am tanking .....I'm not

What happened is I fell asleep while waiting for you to act.......

I've played about 2500 hours live. The only time I ever called the clock on someone, I hadn't even been dealt in yet.

Just sat down, it was a $7 pot at 1/2 on the turn, dude A checked, dude B bet $5 and dude A tanked for 20 seconds (was obviously aware action was on him.) I called time. Dealer obliged (to my surprise, actually) and called the floor over. Dude A then raised to $10.

Ended up having a full house and getting twenty dollars of fat value.

I think rapini said it best. It's not about the amount of time. It's what a player is doing with it. Some decisions are hard and that's fine. Some decisions are hard for certain players, even though they're easy for you, and that's not only fine that's good -- don't make those players mad. But if that player is obviously only wasting everyone's time, it doesn't matter how much of it he's wasting.

nb: I think patience is an important quality for a successful player to have, so I find that if a player truly merits having the clock called, someone else always does it first

Try counting the number of hands you get in a down, I think you'll be surprised. Place I spent most of my time had excellent staff with the exception of one dealer who was unbearably slow. One day I tracked. 19 hands in 45 minutes. All others were 21-23. So... 10-15% less. Sure as hell seemed a lot worse than that. Nothing worth getting bent out of shape over one or two downs a day.

I've literally never seen a clock called in a pot-raked cash game, would be pretty appalled if I did see it tbh.

Then you need to get out more...(and perhaps value your time more...)

Would def call the clock at least in part to see someone be "appalled" by it lol.

UK English vs US English I guess.

I guess I can see it if someone is taking forever over a very minor decision, but bizarrely despite having played a whole lot of hours I'm yet to see someone do that to a point it's annoyed me. Luck perhaps.

Blinds aren't going up, if someone has a big decision to make I'm not going to stop them taking 5+ minutes on it.

I don't go to card rooms to watch other people stare are the pot.

and neither do I, but if there's a big decision in a big pot then people have every right to think it through.

2 sessions ago I was involved in a very large pot (for 1-2) where I bet $325 on the river, guy thought about it for at least 5-6 minutes before calling, do you think someone should have called the clock?

Maybe. 5 or 6 minutes is a long time. I would be inclined to call for a clock. But less likely to do so if the player was not someone who frequently took excessive time, and genuinely seemed to be thinking about the decision and not just playing games. Also sometimes players get frozen and need something to push them to make a decision.

it depends on the size of the pot. If the pot was 1K and the 325 was only a third of his stack, then yes 6 minutes is way way too long.

I want to get as many hands in per hour as I possibly can (it's bad enough that sometimes I'm lucky to get 25 hands in per hour) so if someone is facing a bet, they should be able to decide what to do in a couple of minutes at most. If it's a 2/5 game and someone jams it for 3K, then yes I will give them more time obviously.

This stuff could never happen online, and if no one calls clock, some of these people will never make a decision anyway. They will sit there forever. Even after they decide to fold, they still hold onto their cards for as long as they can (you can tell by their body language that they're folding, but it's like a struggle between the mind and the body).

It depends on all the other factors people have mentioned ( total pot, # of players, apparent complexity, prior behavior, etc)..... but 5-6 actual minutes is a very long time to make any poker decision.

Yes. I can't imagine what I would think about for that long that I couldn't do in less than two minutes.