Just watched a buddy disconnect while HU in an MTT. The other guy was at a 2:1 stack disadvantage and blinded my friend out within 5 minutes or so. I was mostly just wondering how people felt about this, whether or not it is unethical/shady. Seems like it'd be fair to at least sit out for a reasonable amount of time to give that person the chance to come back.

Would hate for this to happen to me, especially if any decent amount of money was on the line.

You play to win the game! c'mon man.

Doesn't really seem like you could consider this winning....

There has been lots of discussion about this in the heads up sng forum.

There's two main camps:

- It's like finding a wallet, you don't steal it (quote from lotte lenya, and most HS guys send back money in these cases/wait for people)

- Every man for themselves (often lower stakes guys)

If we're approaching this as a problem, in theory, I think the best solution is that nobody does any sending back if you blind a player down to win, and nobody accepts it (send it back if someone sends to you).

As far as waiting for other players, that one is more difficult, since you can't just give back the time someone spent waiting for you after the fact. I guess you could ballpark the EV of the wait and ship it back, but then it gets confusing to the other player. If we're subscribing to "nobody ever sends anything back in the event of a sit out/dc win" then I'd say wait a little bit of time then blind down is probably OK.

It shouldn't need to be taken so seriously though if everyone just uses a decent enough connection (don't play on the damn airport wifi or 6 table HS from the hotel *cough bjoerni).

At the stakes I play the money really doesnt matter so Im not gonna wait and pretend Im a sick ****. Free moneys for my roll.

I imagine at HS people know each other so they discuss returns and what not and would wait for the fish so the fish doesnt come back, get mad and never play again.

There are still times when it's not just a friend or a whale they want to come back and they still send back almost always.

And they may have more money, but the buyin is a larger % of their life roll than the avg $30-100 pro I believe.

I think it has to do with a smaller group of a players, and one that perhaps feels like they are above certain things (feels better about sending back). I'm not totally sure though.

I feel like more lower guys just want an excuse to take the money (shortcut mentality), higher guys aren't taking those shortcuts on average (they wouldn't last at HS long with that mentality). Plus way more instances of guys that won't ever send back to you in the lower to mid stakes, and it takes a lot of attrition to ignore that and still send back.

I'm speculating pretty hard in this post though.

Well, Im a Sng player, but when a dude blinds out with either 4 player left or HU, then we/I will blind him out. This is just instinct now. No friends in poker.

I could see it going either way in an SNG setting depending on specifics but I'd hope at least for the benefit of the doubt. Happened to me recently actually where I lost two HUSNGs from client freezing, was extremely tilting.

But in a 200 player MTT when someone 3b/ disconnect folds, it seems the opponent could give the person a few minutes to try and let them come back. Just seems scummy as **** to blind someone off in a normal speed MTT setting, I mean the dude was back online within 5 minutes.

Sites should really give some time for anything HU when it's a disconnect.
When it happens to me where the other guy disconnects it annoys the **** out of me having to decide how long i should wait per hand.

Specially when it's reaches 5 minutes of waiting, yes I know power probably went out and the guy has to restart his computer but if a site just gave 5 minutes of a pause then I would probably just get a drink and come back after the 5 minutes. Even if the guy comes back both people have to hit, ok resume button or something

while it is obviously extremely classy to wait for your opponent, i think everyone is responsible for his connection just like you have to appear physically in a live setting. should also even out long term.

in sngs some players deliberately disconnect 3-handed because they think it's their best option to become second, similar often happens itm in mtsngs. if you do not blind them out, you guarantee them second place money.

heads-up in a mtt, if i play against a world-class-hu-player, why not just disconnect until we have 20 bb stacks and i can use my unbeatable NE-push-fold-chart?

i would wait in some cases, but only if i had any evidence that my opponent would do the same.

I had it done to me hu in a tourney with like $400 diff 1/2 place, it felt horrible jus watching the scumbag take all my chips that wAy but I'd prib done same so meh w/e

ask yourself what are the odds that he would show you the same generosity. I don't feel bad because if the shoe was on the other foot he would do the same thing.

If you are playing stakes high enough where this really matters, or if you're concerned, get an air card.

My policy is to just start blinding off immediately, and I encourage others to do the same to me.

Kinda annoys me that people consider this 'unethical', when it's obviously not only a simple practical solution, but also fair.

I generally give the person enough time to return unless its someone I hate, thats like less than 1% of poker players. I think its borderline scummy in MTT to start raping a person's blinds if they're away particularly with the amount of $ between 2nd and 1st. SNG is fair game.

Thats just a bad excuse for scummy behaviour. Not everyone is an ******* and just because you assume they're an *******, doesn't mean you have to be one. That is just perpetuating the cycle...

Your friend would have done the same to the other, and btw we would not have a post and I would not waste my time reading this and answering this

The lower the stakes the more OK it is in my opinion. I think at low / midstakes your opponent is going to blind you out nearly every time

woah brah. The thread title was pretty explanatory, no one made you open this thread.

If even the opposite would have happened it would have sparked the thought that made me start this thread fwiw, since I was just wondering how people in the community viewed this.

ethical and fine imo

I've been blinded off many times from disconnect ( even hu) and I don't blame the guy one bit. Part of the game vs randoms.. If I have any friendly history with villain ill wait.. I'm not trying to take a shortcut but at low to mid stakes, if you're not balancing your disconnects with others, I would consider it a small leak.

Here's the argument that has always transcended ethical behavior for me in this spot:

The villain gets 90sec (on FTP) disconnect time if this is their first disconnect. If you believe that its unfair for them to be blinded out my question for you is how long are you planning to wait? Because if you are behind and wait forever you have essentially forfeited your right to win the tournament. Considering that most people refuse to wait until the villain returns regardless of time the next question is how long do you wait? Now if waiting for 3 min is ethical then how is waiting the mandatory 90sec not ethical? The system is set up so that people who disconnect have a reasonable amount of time to return and if they dont/cant thats their problem (or actually their cable providers)

Out of interest what do you do if you found a wallet in the street? Does your answer change if it's in a really rough area since the odds of someone extending the same generosity to you are small?

Well A) you still have to play the BB, not quite sure how you think nash chart will help you with that
B) [ ] Nash is unbeatable at 20bb

Posts as stupid as this make me regret venturing into NVG.

And wrt your second sentence, you're just freerolling doing that and anyone that does send back is getting negatively freerolled. Seems pretty scummy. If you want to completely protect yourself blind them down and if you disconnect and they send back you should send them back and put into place a formal agreement of whether or not you send back in that situation for if it occurs again. You completely protect yourself this way and it's fair on all parties.

The way I look at it, it's everyone's job to make sure they have a decent connection when playing poker online for money. If you don't have a good connection, don't play.

If I lose my connection, or my power goes out or something, I expect the other guy to blind me out. It's part of the rules of the site that after a certain amount of time, you will sit out and start losing your blinds. I agreed to these terms when signing up for the site. If you don't like that, too bad, you agreed to it.

Not the same thing as me dropping my wallet. I never made any kind of agreement that says if I drop my wallet, whoever finds it is not obligated to return it.