STARTPOST TITLE: Stalling Tactics in Tournaments AUTHOR: Damian DATE: 3/16/2006 10:57:00 AM ----- BODY:

There has been lots of talk lately about people stalling in late stages of tournaments. Is this acceptable? I would say absolutely not. Stalling eats up a lot of the time in a level. Blind levels that late in a tournament where the bubble is approaching is critical to end game play. This is the opportune time to start thinking about chipping up. There's obviously two mentalities here:

1. Just stall and survive to the money.
2. Try to accumulate as many chips as you can in a bubble situation so you can win the tournament and not just sneak into a money position.

Most top players will take the second approach. Whether you are short stacked or chip leader you should be taking advantage of the people just trying to sneak into the money. This is a critical time in the tournament where you can make moves to put yourself in contention to win, not just money.

So how does stalling become unacceptable? If someone is doing this every single hand they are allowing the levels to shorten in time. That means less number of hands per level and less number of hands in this opportune time versus what other tables get to play. Highly unfair to someone that can take advantage of the bubble situation when other tables are playing 2x the amount of hands you are simply cause someone is stalling.

This seems to be a common occurance in online tournaments cause it's easy to do and no one to complain to except people on the table typing "zzzzzzzz", etc. Imagine doing this stalling technique in a live tournament. You are guaranteed to get some dirty looks when you take a full 5 min to decide if you want to call the BB UTG. So smarten up, learn to play in a bubble situation and don't hurt other peoples gameplay by excessively stalling. It's cheating plain and simple.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:  Riverrun DATE: March 16, 2006 at 5:05:00 PM EST BODY: Good Post...Lets hope people read this. Good luck in the rest of Tourney's! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:  ChipnChair DATE: April 20, 2006 at 1:06:00 PM EDT BODY: Nice post but I disagree with your take. It is fair ... nothing unfair about it. Does it put a larger stack at his table at a disadvantage ... of course it does! It is with in the rules ... and yes I have seen it done in land based tournaments.

For a short stack that has 3 blinds left in his stack slow playing is the best way to go when he is near the money. AT least they got value out of their time. ; ) ----- ENDPOST