By lakong on August 29th, 2007 (more posts by author)

I was just reading through a thread on twoplustwo that really hit home to me. The author of a post was playing a $1000 satellite to an EPT event online at Pokerstars when a player at his table was deliberately stalling on every single hand by taking the maximum time to play. This has happened to me a number of times and it drives me crazy. It usually happens to me during one table sit-n-goes, so the only issue is the time the sng will take. In the case of a big MTT the stalling has serious consequences because you don't have as many hands to play as other players in the tournament.

The poster wrote to Stars and they told him that there was nothing they could do. He kept on complaining and asked who has taken over since Lee Jones left. Here's what they wrote:


[i]The position formerly held by Lee has not been filled at this time but there are a few people who have taken those responsibilities. However they are not going to tell you anything different. Your simply not understanding there is no violation here so we cannot take any further action. EVERY player is given the full time to act on their hand and is their decision if they wish to use that full time.

Again I am sorry your frustrated but you are going to have to accept that this time is given and they can use it even if you would like them to act faster.


Regards,

Trent
PokerStars Support Team
[/i]


Nothing they could do? Totally legitimate and within the rules? I completely disagree. If this were to happen in a live tournament the floor manager would give a warning and watch the play. If it continued to happen EVERY HAND they would certainly penalize the player. I have seen it happen many times and 100% of the time the floor manager will take a stand and penalize the player.

Pokerstars and other online sites really need to take action on this. It's not really that difficult. If a player takes the maximum time on a certain number of hands and always folds the hands then they should receive a warning. Once the warning is given the player should receive a penalty. What is so difficult about that?