I agree with this. Similar to chess where blitz = speed chess is the most fun to play and the most entertaining to watch.

Sure, we all appreciate those moments when players have all the time in the world to tank and come up with great plays but it would be cool to see which players could excel in this more intuitive and raw form of poker.

How to do it? In cash games it could be for example that the ones who are tanking longer, pay bigger share of the rake.

I think many of the amateurs have very good raw instincts for the game and they could do better in these and enjoy them more.

I couldn't agree more. I might play NL again and play more tournaments if there was something like a ten second shot clock.

Let's be honest most people tanking are either pros or mis reg break even types. The game doesn't revolve around them so why let them ruin it.


Some tournaments are using time banks and shot clocks now but even then people are still given way too much time. Actual poker play is what should determine results not who tanks the best in the right spots.

I saw a recent Brad Owen video where he showed a tournament hand in which he used 2 or 3 times banks knowing fully well he was basically shoving prelfop but left maybe 1 percent of his stack behind then when the opponent put him in his used one last time bank before calling hoping someone busted first on another table.

Im sure it's correct strategically but it's awful for the game and frankly as a vlogger who makes a lot of money off meetup games etc not something he should be doing. If people are doing stuff like this clearly shot clocks are still too long and people have too many time banks.

It sounds like brad was rewarded for playing fast the entire tournament by haveing timebanks left and being able to tank on the bubble.

Start to reward quick decision making in poker? Yes that literally what happened to brad he was rewarded by playing fast lol

Yeah, if a player generally plays quickly, I have no problem if they want to take a few minutes on a couple of hands late in a tournament where their entire stack is likely to be at risk.

A player taking an extra 10 seconds on every decision is a much bigger issue than a player taking an extra 3 minutes twice in the entire tournament.

imagine defending crap like this. it's so bad for poker and it just becomes a race to the bottom.

Make the shot clocks and time banks way shorter and hed be rewarded for his fast play way more than what he did here.

I'm not even trying to pick on him- just giving an example of what goes on in these tournaments.

I saw this too and thought It was ridiculous by Brad. He was tanking and looking like a nit just in the off chance he could make a pay jump for like 3k. Dude needs to read the room better.

Excessive tanking has made watching tournaments a thing of the past four me.

I think making the shot clocks much shorter but giving more time banks make sense. Giving only like max 1 minute for a really tough river spot is against the strategic spirit of poker, but at the same time giving 30 seconds for a nit to tank fold preflop is ruining the environment

That was so sad for me too in 2008 when i stopped watching poker on tv

Old head thread. Where else can you stall a minute or two and pick up an extra 3k? Perfectly reasonable for Brad to do so at that moment.

Multitabling rewards quick decision making. The faster you can make good decisions, the more tables you can play profitably.

Generally I know what I'm going to do in the first 5-10 seconds of a hand when it's my turn. So, instead of sitting there staring at the board like you're a deep thinker, staring down your opponent, Hollywooding, and shuffling chips back and forth for 1-2 minutes just force these people to make their decision (announce) within 10 seconds. Sometimes people can't get their chips out correctly within 10 sec. so let them announce it and then the action is set. As others have said, I can't watch poker anymore. Especially the high stakes ones as these guys are terrible (i.e. Bonomo) for TV (plus they'd be annoying to play against). They also get too many time banks, I rarely know exactly how many they have but I've seen players toss in 4-5 in a hand. So, just make it where you can only use 1 30 second time bank per hand, and you only get like 2 per level or something that works.

I haven't put a lot of thought into the time banks per level idea, but I know some could just save them and once the televised part of the tourney comes up they have nearly all and it's irrelevant. That's why I say per level, but I guess for like the main event that's a good idea because it has 2 hour levels. Anyway, someone might come up with some adjustments but I think this is a good place to start. I don't know if "rewarding" quick play is the right idea, but punishing slow play is indeed a good idea.

Quite a Thread here .. I'm not exactly sure where I stand on some of these exact points since I've not really experienced them. I try to look at both sides of any issue without bias to my own position. Rule #1 in a debate is know more about the other side than they know about themselves.

Perhaps to add fuel to the fire there was recently a 21 minute tank on The Lodge Stream where some folks are speculating that Doug Polk was both 'on screen' and in the booth DURING the same hand. While it's nothing new for a Player to be in the booth and commentating on a hand they played, it's almost impossible to have it happen while the hand is still going on!

1) Do you really want the Players to know how much rake they're paying? I don't think so. In time rake games the stakes are usually higher and a much less significant portion of the total action .. ie, the Players could care less about the rake. There's one casino that charges $22/hour time rake in a $5/5 game .. That's $198/hour, which is at least 25% more rake than a standard 1/2 table would produce. (Rake .. not Rake plus Promo).

Yes, it may be interesting to see some form of speed poker .. but I don't really think we want to widen the gap between the 'studied' and the 'fun' Player .. as well as eliminate Live Tells and Table Talk. (People like that too you know)

2) I agree that 10 seconds is A LOT longer than people think it is, but is there some sort of a 'on the fly' adjustment that could be made when there's been substantial action in front of a Player. Perhaps 'first to act' gets 10 seconds, but the more Players that remain in the hand in front of a Player the longer they get to make a decision?

Poker is an individual game .. these evolving rules have been put in place because of 'excess'. Are we to be disappointed in any Player who knows how to use the rules in place for 'this' event to their personal advantage? Sure we don't want to teach at the table and a vlogger is certainly handing out 'free' lessons, but they are also just playing the game as well and we shouldn't expect them to disadvantage themselves because of their standing in the poker world.

Basketball has limited teams to just one timeout per stoppage of play .. do you limit the number of time banks that can be used during each street/hand?

3) How do we determine what qualifies as a 'tough' River spot is during the hand? Allow the Floor to look at the holding and go "Yup, you got yourself a decision there .. add 90 seconds to the clock please."

4) IMO most of us here agree that online poker is much tougher 'per stake' than live. So IMO by proposing these changes we are pushing Live Poker to be more like online .. which will ultimately destroy the Player Pool of which 'the game is built around'. Players hate re-entries .. until they see the boost in the prize pool. Well I'm leaning towards that Players will love 'condensing' poker .. until they start to see a drastic decrease in prize pools. Whose being rewarded and whose being punished?

It's a double edged concept to stream/broadcast poker. Yes, they can create additional income as well as both interest AND disinterest in the event/game. But the profit for poker is from rake collected from the participating Players .. not from the viewing audience. We need to be sure that any changes made are more for the Players than a small portion of viewers.

You certainly can modify any of these issues based on the price point, venue time constraints, sponsor/host desires and presumed Player expectations. The middling Player who binks a 'normal' Satty is going to stop playing Sattys (or just sell their seat) if they walk into Turbo type of restrictions put in place because of a tournament is trying to eliminate an issue that only occurs during less than 5% of hands played.

Poker tournaments set all-time records in 2023 .. while I think cash has fallen well behind the 2023 pace in our area it will be interesting to see what the numbers are for some of the tournaments in our area leading up to WSOP.

I don't see a major issue with slow Players in the Midwest cash scene. And I don't really see an issue with the limited number of tournaments I play either, but I do hear more about complaints in tournaments than cash for sure.

It's certainly something to discuss .. with tournaments actually having a clock/levels AND pretty much every Player under 100bb (if not 50bb) when things start to get crucial it should be expected that Players are more anxious about other Players having an impact on their ability to succeed. GL

dont punish tanking, reward fast decisions, like bro above said... who is gonna determine what a tough decision is?

Look at your ****ing cards before it's your turn to act. There's a player in my regular 20/40 mixed game, good player, but the action stops at him every hand preflop for him to look at his cards. I can't even imagine how many more hands we could play over the course of a year if he was ready in turn, which would actually improve his win rate.

^this is so standard tho, magical game you got there if its just one dude doing it, in literally every game i am in 7 out of 9 players do it

10 second shot clock pre, maybe up to 20 secs post flop.

So many games would be improved immeasurably by this being introduced. At the very least it would make players pay attention and know when the action is on them and what the action before them was.

So we are rewarding fast play by allowing them to play even slower in other spots later in the tourney? Yeah, that makes sense

It is thinking like this that continues to hold us back on this issue. If everyone only had 20 seconds to act and were only allowed to carry over, say one time bank or use one time bank per hand, he would not have to stall in the first place to try to ladder up 3k. Everyone else would be playing at the same pace and the issue would resolve itself.

My issue with this sort of thinking is that it is equating stalling with tanking, when they are very different issues that should be addressed with very different solutions.

If a player who generally plays fast wants to be able to think over a decision for their tournament life for a few minutes deep into the tournament, I think this is generally reasonable.

This is totally different than using a full 30 seconds for even trivial decision on the bubble because you want to fold into the money.

A time bank basically solves the issue with excessive tanking, while allowing for some tanking in rare and especially important spots.

But I don’t think there is a universal time bank or shot clock idea that solves the issue of stalling while not being excessively punitive in actual big and tough spots. Instead, stalling should mainly be addressed in the structure of the tournament, for example by structuring the payouts to make stalling less rewarding, or going to hand-for-hand play more liberally.

right nobody has a problem with this in either cash games or tournaments.

While nothing will ever be perfect stalling should never be a valid poker tactic. if it takes something like a 10 second preflop shot clock/20 second post flop shot clock I'm all for it. If these people can't think faster too bad. They did it to themselves and they suck every ounce of fun out of the game for recs with their stall tactics.

You can still have a time bank but obvious example of stalling (like the one I mentioned with Owen earlier) could be punished. You abuse your time banks, you don't get them in future tournaments. Floormen already have discretion to do what's in the best interest of the game so if some dufus decides to use his time banks to stall with j5 offsuit preflop near the bubble he doesn't get them anymore (not that you'd always know this but more and more hands are being streamed) or puts in 95 percent of his stack pre to tank for the last 5 percent ta-ta time banks.

in sports rules are changed when people exploit current rules to their advantage in a way that isn't in the spirit of the game. we've seen major rule changes in baseball in the last few years for example. things that were legal forever (such as a pitcher taking an extremely long time to pitch) weren't a problem in the past when nobody took that long, but became a problem as more and more people did it. so while in the past a rule change wasn't necessary that changed over time. poker should be no different. guys weren't tanking non stop 25 years ago so it wasn't anything that needed a rule for. unfortunately today it's a major issue that needs to be cleaned up.

I'm absolutely in favour of faster time controls. 20 second shot clock for every street, no timebank for anyone ever.

Quite frankly, 20 is way too long for each street.

didn't read any of this thread

what i can add is

watching theset these million dollar buy in tournies etc i dont watch any of em

guy with 2 x BB tanking 10 mins to jam KQ to fold etc is not my idea of poker/

Clearly some people do have a problem with this, such as the post right after you:

No one can agree to a solution here becasue no on can agree on what the problem is.

I actually don’t think the biggest problems slowing the game down are either tanking nor stalling, but rather general time wasting behavior that causes players to make trival decision in 20 seconds that should be made in 2 seconds, even early in tournaments.

Because it is so important to save half a second every hand.