today while playing a oh8 tornament on ps. i witnessed what i considered to be a great piece of tornament play. the person in question delibertly keeped letting his clock run dowm to the last second before he/she made there play whether it be a raise.check or fold.the effect it had on the table i found to be quite astounding, the amount of people going on tilt was stagering as he/she constantly wound up people with this play. eventually and unfortantly in my opinion one member of our table got so mad they went after the said person with such a bad hand and caught a 2 out river to take them out. after they were taken out crys of such bad sportsmanship and derogetry remarks came out from the rest of the table its was unreal.
my question to you is was it bad sportsmanship by said player or was it good play and have you done this or anything like it in the past and did it workout to your benefit? myself i havent but got to admit im thinking about it now

I personally think it is terribly inconsiderate and annoying for anyone to do that. Imagine doing it live - sitting and taking forever on every play, even when you have 72 offsuit UTG and taking 3 minutes to decide. Someone would probably just shoot you if they had a gun. So don't do it online. It won't help your game any if you do it, but it will get everyone to do their best to eliminate you from the tournament.

If it works in the short term, don't worry, the karma will catch up to you.

There's a guy in our friendly private game who plays very slowly. I don't believe he does it to irritate other players so as to put them on tilt, as seems to have been the case here. Instead he's just carefully thinking about all the possibilities.

I took him with me once to a fairly big tournament. And he played at the same slow pace there. The other players at his table were all screaming at him. I mean all the players at his table were pissed! And of course the tournament director was called more than once and asked him to speed up his play. He's a nice guy and he took a lot of abuse (probably well deserved) for his slow play. I hoped the effect would be to get him to play faster in our friendly private game (but it didn't). I was grateful that he wasn't at my table.

In general when players in a casino play too slowly, other players complain and there's a commotion that would at least be embarrassing to me if I were the slow player. I think if there are enough complaints about somebody, the tournament director or floorperson takes some action. Sadly it probably depends somewhat on whether the guy is a big tipper or not.

Is it good poker to do it intentionally to irritate your opponents possibly putting them on tilt? I don't know. Seems like a cheap shot to me.

Complain directly to the site about the slow player. Maybe they'll do something.

Buzz

I hate players who that even on bubble stages of the tournament but it does not boders me because I am either multi tabling or I just watch a movie!

So, once you run out your time bank you get, what, 15 seconds or so to act?

an eternity, I suppose....

makes me wonder how many on-line poker players are un-diagnosed ADD/ADHD, this.

or off their meds

lol

I played once at a live 4-8 table where one of the Villians was pretending to be drunk. Every time the action came around to him he would "forget" how much it was to bet.

And yet, he was sober enough to check-raise when he thought he was ahead and fold when he thought he was behind.

Even the dealer was on tilt.

Putting everybody on tilt does increase your edge odds, though.

I think a classier way to tilt the table would be to play trash aggressively, suck out and then berate the loser. again and again

Regards

Gar

interesting remarks but most seem to be about if it dont happen live it shouldnt happen on the net. this i disagree with. my reasons are when playing live punches hurt,while playing on the net they dont flippant remark there
i know most wont agree with what the said person did but to put the whole table on tilt(myself not included, i was not tilting i was laughing so much i still got stomach cramps) must have given them an advantage. the internet games give a set ammount of time to play your hand so if you take all of said time then shouldnt this be allowed without the risk of being berated by the rest of the table. some i have spoken too have argued that by the said player taking lots of time this is detramental to everyone elses chances of winning by others playing more hands than themselves but even this i cant agree with as said tornament in question i finished 3rd and benefited by said player winding the rest up.
i just find it odd that no other reasons where given for not liking what said player did other than if it dont happen live then it shouldnt happen online....

Hurling racist insults at your opponents or not showering for a month also isn't against the rules of the game, but it's pretty bad etiquette. Stalling every hand and working the chatbox may or may not result in a tiny increase in your EV (and it's actually pretty hard to say, tilting people helps but you get through less hands) - but whether it's +EV or not isn't the point, there are tons of little angleshoots you can find here or there, but as a rule they simply aren't worth the price of being an *******.

Not only in tourneys but in cash games, it's rude as hell. There are couple that I can think of (flipchik24 and btplg or buttplug) purposely go slow whether they are playing one or more tables to piss people off. This ruins games...

I agree it's a different culture.

Yes.

Here's the problem: Everyone has the option of doing that and it takes no skill to do it. If one person does it, then the other players at the table either have to do it or be placed at a disadvantage.

I would neither want to play like that nor be placed at a disadvantage by not playing like that.

Do the internet game rules allow being berated by the rest of the table? If so, doesn't one follow the other?

If one player is excessively slow, then doesn't it logically follow that the other players are the table will berate the slow player? And isn't it all within the rules?

And doesn't that stink?

Congratulations. Would you have perhaps also finished third or maybe even second or first without the deliberately and excessively slow play of that one opponent?

Do you think someone should be allowed to behave in a way that most feel is obnoxious without anyone being allowed to berate the obnoxious player?

I didn't intend my own response to read that way and I didn't interpret the other responses to read that way.

But you have a good point in that the culture live and on-line seems quite different. As a live player with years of experience playing live, I've seen fist fights and everlasting hatred erupt at live poker games. In a live game, if you do something to anger an opponent, you might can get the crap kicked out of you if he's bigger than you are, and if he's smaller maybe your tires will all be punctured when you go out to your car after the game. I am not exaggerating. People have gotten murdered as a result of live poker game animosity. On-line it's a different culture.

Buzz

There are both pros and cons to having the whole table pissed at you, Buzz pointed out those relating to live play specifically. Personally I would prefer not to have the table gunning for me in particular and I think there are better ways to gain an edge.

buzz i got to agree with the points you have raised there well put. when i remarked about it seems live must equal online i was not just thinking of here, i posted this in another forum and it was the two combined that led me to think the above.i must admit tho i play online only and except for 2 instances where i played live i have no experience of a live event so wouldnt know the correct ettiquete except what ive gleaned form watching the tv. i cant play live i get the shakes in my hands etc cant control nerves and im like a open book(mind you most say my internet play is like a book to) anyway some good points gleaned from this and thx guys for responses......

I see people try to do that on the bubble sometimes. If it's really obvious you can report it to customer service and they'll probably beat the offender with a wet noodle.

While it's technically possible for this to improve your win rate for one night, in the long run it's a very big no-no to do anything that takes away from the fun of the games. When the games stop being fun, recreational players stop playing and that hurts the games for everyone. The long run is what counts in poker if you're a dedicated player.

I think it is a legitimate tactic approaching the bubble, especially in a "top 99 players advance to the next round" donkament. In this case it generally works to the advantage of the whole table. What drives me nuts is when play goes to hand-for-hand and people keep doing it.

Intentionally playing slow in a cash game has to be -EV most of the time as the one-tabling fish will leave while the multi-tabling regs will stay.

There's a world of difference between stalling to mincash, which may inadvertently piss off the table but isn't done with that intention, and stalling with the specific goal of annoying everyone, which is the case in OP's example. Stalling to mincash is a legitimate tactical decision imo, the only reason I rarely do it is tends to be a bad tactical decision - if the bubble is creating gameflow problems it reflects a problem with the structure. But stalling to purposefully annoy the table is just anti-social douchebaggery.

Colin Moshmann recognises (although he doesnt actually advocate) this strategy for turbo NLH SNG's in his book on the subject. Considering he is one of the top players in the field I think this consititutes a fairly solid argument for 'timing the blinds to your advantage' to be legit strat.

Bob

If Moshman jumped off a bridge, would you?

I don't see how being a top player gives one the ability to ethically legitimize certain behavior.

when i used to play HU sitngos i would multi 4-8 tables and just by default it would take a good amount of time to get to each table and it makes people sooooo mad. People would go from normal play to just shoving or being overall agro in bad spots just to get the tourny over so i did a little trial run and played a couple hundred sitngos only playing two at a time then the same at 4-8 tables at a time and found my win rate did go up not by some huge amount but anything that makes my rate go up is a good thing... so i say great play

Hard to say what made them mad. Perhaps some of them were just spoiled brats who wanted everything their own way. Perhaps others became angry when they thought intentional rudeness was being directed against them. Whatever.

I could not do it. It would be like a cheap shot.

As I look back on the achievements of my life, not one of them in which I have pride involves winning money. I'm proud of some poker tournaments I have won, but it's because I played well enough to win rather than any money I incidentally won.

I don't believe anything in which I might feel pride could possibly depend on a cheap shot.

I agree you are well within your rights to play in such a way as to optimize your win rate. Indeed you probably should play so as to optimize your win rate.

But what a drag it would be, playing against an intentionally slow player!

At any rate, there are lots of different viewpoints represented on this forum. Yours is welcome.

Welcome to the forum.

Buzz

well i didnt do it on purpose but when you mutli hu playing 4+ tables u cant do anything about going slow... i just noticed that ppl got angry as the tourny went along.
Since i was having a higher win rate playing more tables i wasnt going to play less to stop making people mad even though i understand that they were getting mad bc of me playing more tables. I wouldnt look back at it as bad i would look at its as being able to have a higher win rate playing more tables as my acomplishment

There's a huge difference in my mind between doing it intentionally to irritate people and doing it unintentionally. And I realize you didn't do it intentionally to irritate people.

Of course not.

I agree.

I can see your point of view.

I did not intend to be judgmental or critical and I'm sorry if I came off that way. I was more musing.

Buzz