Have you ever called the Clock?

[Magicadil]

During live play (cash game/tournament) have you ever called the clock on another person? I've been tempted many times but have never actually done it. I wish players would make decisions in under 30 seconds. Rarely do you need longer than that, & a fast pace benefits everyone.

[Sect7G]

I've done it but only because the person who was tanking had done it to someone else when his opponent was facing a really tough call... obviously had the str8 and a flush came on the river.

I agree that it would be better if there was a shot clock in play kind of like online but with more time.

[BookTheWin]

Never called the clock on anyone, probably wouldn't either unless it was someone I knew personally.  Last live tourney I played at the final table, someone called the clock on me.  Had a 50/50 decision that was so on the line needed to think about it. 

[FreedoM]

I didn't call the clock, but because people take to much time live, it wasn't a beautiful experience, and i mostly stick with online!
Any decision that goes beyond 80 seconds it's 2 long and a waste of everybody's time, the clock needs to go automatic.

[MathrimC]

Don't have any live experience, but each year there are stories from WSOP tournaments of people tanking all the time, or tables playing much less hands than other tables.

For that, I think automatic countdown clocks would help a lot. The problem with a clock that needs to be called by other players, is that a lot of players don't want to call the clock because they fear being targeted by the one they call the clock on, don't want to get involved in a discussion that breaks their concentration, or generally don't want to draw attention to themselves.

For an automatic clock, I think the time should be dependent on the situation. A proposal just from the top of my head: 20 sec for each preflop decision with the option to get an extra minute once every hour; 40 seconds for each postflop decision, with the option to get an extra minute twice each hour. Maybe an extra minute added automatically when you're facing an all-in.

Ofcourse, there's a lot of logistic issues to be solved to implement such a clock, but heard that some people in the poker world have thought about some really good and realistic proposals for implementing it.

[Sweeedeeen]

Never, but i don't like offline games because they are very slow. I don't understand why people thinking so long for every move. Ok, you must count chips etc, maybe happens hard decisions, but not every move

[ChapInAChair]

I had a situation in the Brighton event where I had a big decision on the river for a chunk of my stack at the end of the re-entry period. About ten seconds after my opponent made his river bet a guy who wasn't in the hand started complaining because he wanted to play another hand before the break so he could try and double up or bust and buy in again. He said he would have called the clock but with 40 seconds left it wouldn't guarantee another hand.

I actually made my mind up to fold pretty quickly after that but I let the timer run down into the break anyway and gave him a piece of my mind when I mucked my cards. It was only afterwards that I realised that I should have called the clock on myself for a laugh.

[Magicadil]

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@Sweeedeeen wrote:

Never, but i don't like offline games because they are very slow. I don't understand why people thinking so long for every move. Ok, you must count chips etc, maybe happens hard decisions, but not every move

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This is the major downside with live poker. It can get extremely boring if everyone is playing slow & not much table talk. If table is exciting & talkative (If it's an enjoyable topic), it can make up for the slow players. But we can't have both slow & anti social.

[JamiesOld]

I used to be of the opinion that calling the clock is despicable, and contrary to accepted standards of human decency. As I grew older and played more and more hands, I realised that the issue isn't that simple, and certainly not as binary as "simple decision" = quick fold Vs. difficult decision = "someone taking time to work out their play."

I experienced hundreds of different long tanks, for probably hundreds of different reasons. I witnessed people exploiting this commonly accepted etiquette for their own personal gain, so the more I thought about it, the more I realised that social rules like this one are based on ideas of common decency that don't exist in reality, and thus are open to being exploited.

One can gain an advantage by tanking unnecessarily  (on or approaching money bubbles, disrupting momentum of the big stacks, reducing the amount of hands dealt when short stacked disproportinately affecting the mid/bigger stacks), so I have now taught myself to be much more cynical with calling clocks. 

My general rule is that if people are taking a significantly long (and thus potentially strategic) time with preflop folds/calls in single raise/3bet pots then I will start calling the clock immediately. This is mostly ceremonial as it will never actually be enforced but it highlights the person's action and usually snuffs out any ideas they had about taking advantage of everyone else's politeness.

I am quite the opposite though in large pots involving big turn/river decisions. I will allow you to have half an hour if yu really want in those big pots, and I'll actively condemn anyone trying to hurry you. These care completely different things and should be treated as such.

Assess each situation individually, and don't be afraid to break social convention in order to stop people taking advantage of it.

[Magicadil]



Very valid points. I agree that if someone is tanking as a strategic angle clock should be called & the time they have to make decisions should be lowered. Even in massive pots I don't think anyone should get more than 5 minutes. Your brain can process a lot of information in the first couple minutes, after that you're essentially only looking for live reads. Even if you were to play the entire hand back in your head, you could still do so comfortably in a few minutes.

[FreedoM]

 I will allow you to have half an hour if yu really want in those big pots, and I'll actively condemn anyone trying to hurry you.

giphy

[JamiesOld]

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@Magicadil wrote:

@Jamie-Unibet

Very valid points. I agree that if someone is tanking as a strategic angle clock should be called & the time they have to make decisions should be lowered. Even in massive pots I don't think anyone should get more than 5 minutes. Your brain can process a lot of information in the first couple minutes, after that you're essentially only looking for live reads. Even if you were to play the entire hand back in your head, you could still do so comfortably in a few minutes.

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As someone who used to play £5/10 and £10/25 live cash regularly, I can tell you that sometimes 5 minutes is innappropriately short. Not often, but sometimes it really is. 

In my humble opinion, there should be completely different social rules for tournaments and cash games. In live cash games taking a long time in a hand doesn't impact things as much as it does in tournaments due to the blinds not going up. In tournaments it's so much more detrimental to the game than it is in cash games, and in cash games the short term equity is usually a lot higher. For these raesons I think people sould be given as much time as they need in big pots in live cash games, but treated much mroe cynically in tournaments.

[FreedoM]

 This is why i don't play live cash anymore, because people think they are immortal gods, and have all the time in the world.

[JamiesOld]

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@FreedoM wrote:

@Jamie-Unibet This is why i don't play live cash anymore, because people think they are immortal gods, and have all the time in the world.

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Yeah it can get pretty ridiculous but I find that if you find a nice room with a group of reasonable regulars then you can kind of orchestrate how people act in the games. People follow what's going on around them, so set a good example and call people out for being ridiculous, and people will quickly follow suit (excuse the pun).