Time Is Money; or, the Return of the Waiting Game

I know many regular readers of this blog also frequently peruse the forums, including Two Plus Two. I also know some regular readers don’t ever read Two Plus Two, citing a too low signal-to-noise ratio over there to warrant spending too much of yr valuable clicking-around time. So I’m guessing only some of you might’ve seen a thread over there in the News, Views, and Gossip forum called “Negreanu goes after online stallers.” That thread was started back on April 18 by “doublejoker,” the handle used by poker pro and frequent tourney circuit player Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler.

Kessler’s post begins with a link back to a post I wrote back on April 6 called “The Waiting Game.” My post shared something I had witnessed while watching a SCOOP event on PokerStars. It was one of the H.O.R.S.E. events, and as play neared the bubble a player at Daniel Negreanu’s table began stalling in order to try to reach the money. The stalling prompted Negreanu to respond with criticism in the chat box, and my post passes along some of what was said. I offered a couple of opinions near the end, but overall I didn’t really take too strong of a stance on the issue, and instead mostly just invited others to share what they thought.

A number of thoughtful comments were made within a day or two of my post going up. Later that week (on April 9) I noticed that Kessler had started a thread about stalling in tourneys over on Two Plus Two -- entirely coincidental, I believe, as I don’t think he’d seen my post. He also started one in the PokerRoad forums on April 11. Both had polls, and both got a lot of response.

I think it might have been thanks to a comment B.J. Nemeth made in the PokerRoad thread that Kessler became aware of the post here on Hard-Boiled and the story of Negreanu’s not being happy with the staller, and thus subsequently started the new thread on 2+2.

On the day Kessler started the new thread with the link to that post, a lot of readers clicked through, more than doubling the most active day ever on HBP (in terms of total hits). The thread has continued to attract comments on 2+2, keeping it on the first page of NVG, and thus folks are continuing to click through to the blog to see what Negreanu said. Some are commenting as well, and I think that post might have now become the most-commented-on post on the blog.

The comments continue to be smart and thought-provoking. The 2+2 thread actually contains some interesting ideas as well. If you check out both places, you’ll see the issue being debated both as a matter of etiquette (or “angle-shooting”) and as a possible area where rules could be changed.

David Sklansky even chimed in over in the 2+2 thread with a somewhat abstract comment, momentarily causing the discussion to veer into a more theoretical direction, though it recovered. Another poster suggested that in online tourneys the time bank could be reset (to a reasonable length) with each level -- rather than last for the entire tourney -- thus preventing the several minutes of delaying that was happening in the SCOOP event. And there are a few other good ideers & arguments both in the thread and in the comments to my post as well.

The subject of stalling in tournaments -- online or live -- is clearly one that many people have strong opinions about. Of course, Negreanu’s high profile is also probably causing some of the curiosity. And Kessler, I think, tends to attract some of the 2+2ers’ attention, too. Negreanu himself has yet to jump in over on the 2+2 thread, though I would think if he was going to he would have done so by now. (Watching for that has been the new “waiting game” for me.)

Anyhow, for those who maybe skipped over it or weren’t following 2+2, I thought I’d share how that post had “blown up.” If that’s you, lemme invite you next time yr sitting there waiting out a staller near the bubble of an online tourney to click on over and check it all out.