After 18 hours i get back my rights to play. No big chance to win but there is still hope

timebank scum itt

My only question is this:

What's the rule on using the timebank to stall? If someone can point to a clear rule that the OP broke, then hey, great, lower the banhammer.

If no one can, I think more people should be siding with the OP. Is stalling annoying? Yes. What's even more annoying? Getting banned for something that isn't against the rules.

Pokerstars makes the game client. They set the timebanks, and make the game rules.

Either set the rules more firmly and apply the punishment across the board for those that violate said rules, or leave guys like this alone. Singling out one guy and lowering the banhammer on him for something tons of people do AND isn't technically against the rules.... what a horrible precedent.

Yes, but there are prohibitions about chipdumping in the T&C and sites also warn about chat abuse. There's nothing in the T&C that says you can't timebank as often as software allows.

I believe this is included in some points of T&C. There are some points about gameflow etc.

You make a valid point. I know that many people probably do it and there is no rule in their terms of service. I think OP should be compensated for being banned.

Pokerstars needs to either update their terms of service or allow people to stall.

+1

If OP would post the actual email exchange, as has been repeatedly suggested, it would be possible to have a sensible discussion about this rather than speculation.

Why wouldn't they just take away his timebank?

You can't stop fish losing, or people using HUDs though (assuming you want to give them instant access to their hand histories)

I feel both of the above situations were handled poorly, but there is a difference between stars not acting in those cases and acting here, in this instance they issued a warning first, and then acted when they felt the warning went ignored.

GL and stop using the time bank or we'll see a new thread.
"PS account locked for second time!"

Bad job pokerstars, especially in this case, timing is part of the MTT tactics. I can understand stalling in cash is bad for the game, but in MTTs its purely tactics.

Okay imma assume the Logic of PStars based on the information we have. Apparently this guy timebank so much that it got him notice by other players and PStars. He got warned and he assumes 10 but i wonder how long it took to get hit to 10. So PStars felt it violated the spirit and the integrity of the game. So he got his account suspended and assume he does it again enough times i guess it'll be sort of a 3 strikes!

MicroMillions - is stalling cheating?

NO

Before you attack the OP , there's no rules against it , is there ?

I use the timebank when I'm close to ITM , I think this is normal for a mtt player to do. Its part of the tactics.

Now if you do it 50 times and get a warning , and then you do it only 10 times , Pokerstars should not ban you .

Maybe its annoying for the players at the table , but its up to the player if he wants to use the timebank or not.

this

Might not be cheating but if other players a complaining then he is ruining the game for them. Obvs enough of them complained for him to get an email. He should have learned his lesson but he kept doing it.
Think about this from Stars view. You got 1 jackass ruining the game for 10 other people. Would you rather have 10 angry customers or 1?
Easy decision for PS and I agree with them.

Its irrelevant whether you complain or one million people complain. If you want to address the problem you change the rules. Its never been clearly stated that stalling is against the rules afaik. Despite that fact, if OP received an email that clearly stated he and anyone else using this tactic needs to quit this practice or else the consequences we saw would occur, he should have quit. If not, then he did nothing wrong despite your personal opinion, which as I stated, is irrelevant when determining the rules of a game.

Can't please everyone in this world. **especially online poker players**

Each and every player that plays a MTT/SNG/Ring Game/Play Money on Poker Stars is given a time bank to which they can use in any way is deemed necessary. The OP payed their tournament buy in + fee and that is all Poker Stars should be concerned about the "FEE" as a "customer"..

Would a couple of half frozen fish b!tch!ng about a time banker and flooding the chat with zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz really quit online poker because a player is trying to ladder climb utilizing their time bank to get ITM or run deeper while the zzzzzzzz brigade bust each other out? No! Would it make them angry? Yes! Is the zzzzzzz brigade going to register for another tournament after they tank call bust aipf UTG with A4o for 75bbs mid/late while the time banker is keeping a 14bb stack alive? Yes!

I wrote about this years ago when multiple people were max stalling every hand which killed the table as we were only able to play maybe 1/3 the number of hands as other tables which meant the chips on our table would lag far behind.

Granted this reply was from 2008 so I have no idea how they have updated it since (or if they did). They should have some items in their terms and conditions if they are going to warn and ban people, and I do think warning and eventual temp banning is appropriate for frequent abusers (but it needs to be in the terms)

Their somewhat eye-rolling email from 2008 on this exact issue:


Thank you for writing about this matter. We value customer feedback
and are always listening and responding to your concerns.

Technically it is not against the rules to take up to the full 25
seconds offered (35 seconds in selected No Limit and Pot Limit ring
games) in which to act. However, if someone is regularly using the
full amount of time to act for basic folding decisions, we will send
them a non-binding request asking them to be more considerate,
perhaps playing in fewer games or paying better attention to the game.

In the meantime, you may want to look for our games listed with the
word "(fast)" in the name. In these games a player has far less time
to act and the games are generally much speedier. Multi-tablers tend
to avoid them, and thus you may find these more to your liking.
These "Fast" games are available at most limits and in most games.

Thank you for choosing PokerStars. Please do not hesitate to let us
know any time you need anything.

Regards,

Chris B
PokerStars Support Team

Even if it's not clearly stated in the rules he was warned. He could have followed PS wishes but he chose not too. His fault!
We are customers of PS. They don't have to let us play on their site. They can kick a person off if they want to. Just like it says right here:

2.3. PokerStars reserves the right to suspend, discontinue, modify, remove or add to the Service in its absolute discretion with immediate effect and without an obligation to provide you with notice where we consider it necessary to do so, including (for example) where we receive information that you have entered into any self-exclusion agreement with any gambling provider or where we deem it necessary for the management, maintenance or update of the Software and we shall not be liable in any way whatsoever for any loss suffered as a consequence of any decision made by PokerStars in this regard.

I made it bold since you have a hard time reading things.

Wait, you actually believe no recreational players are put off playing online by stalling?

Maybe you don't realise how annoying it is for 1 tablers.

I've always thought the best way to combat stalling from a theoretical point of view is to have a dynamic time bank system. If you've drained the normal pre-time bank period more than say twice recently, then your non time banked time to act gets reduced, eventually to near nothing forcing you to use your time bank. The non time banked time will eventually replenish itself over time. It could be a slightly more complicated algorithm than what I just said (i.e. decreasing leniency near bigger bubble periods).

The only problem I can see is mass multitablers that start to time out then really start to time out - so this could be implemented into the algorithm to give mass multi-tablers more leniency.

Fairly complicated, but optimal imo.

I feel your pain. I completely understand the strategy and have employed it myself (as well as many other users) in the PSO League for months. Thats why I'm so surprised that they went as far as to ban you. I feel we should be free to use every fair weapon in our arsenal to our advantage. If other players have access to this, it should constitute as fair.

I think Stars are using something similar.
You start off with say 90 secs and if you use it up you're left with 14 or 12 secs. Depending on tournament format, players sometimes get time added in which case your timebank resets plus additional time added.