Poker Writer
The Poker Tournament Directors Association (TDA) met in Taiwan last week to discuss the major issues in the tournament poker world today, with “shot clocks” (or “action clocks”) and disruptive player behavior topping the list. Those are both perennial items on the TDA agenda and unlikely ever to be solved entirely. However, they’re particularly hot topics this year after Will Kassouf’s ejection from the WSOP after his latest controversy-laden deep run in the Main Event.
Other topics also come up. However, much of the discussion centered on the use of clocks at the table, which continues to be polarizing among players. Colloquially, “shot clocks” is the term most often used, though TDA founder and World Poker Tour (WPT) executive Matt Savage prefers the term “action clocks.”
Savage has been a leading voice for the standardization of action clocks across the industry.
Under his direction, the WPT has set the policy of imposing a time limit of 15 seconds pre-flop and 30 seconds post-flop for every player decision. Each player also receives a time bank to use when the situation calls for deeper thought.
Many non-WPT high roller events around the world adopted similar policies. However, the WSOP remains a notable exception for the vast majority of its events. That brought the issue to the forefront during the Main Event, thanks to the Kassouf saga. Without an action clock, Kassouf stalled and mouthed off during nearly every hand, much to his opponents’ collective frustration. When tournament staff imposed personal time limits on him, he played the victim, claiming to have been ganged up on by the rest of the table and treated unfairly by officials.
Clock draws negative attention
Tournament officials are in a three-way bind when it comes to pace of play. When all players at the table are acting in good faith, a less formal approach to timing seems preferable. At the same time, players like Kassouf highlight the need for strict protocols. However, imposing a clock only as needed can lead to accusations of bias.
During this year’s WSOP Main Event streams, a lot of attention and commentary went into the time players were taking to act. That drew focus away from other, more interesting parts of the game. Even when Kassouf was not present at a table, PokerGO announcers would often seize on slow periods of play to turn the discussion to the topic of shot clocks
People watching began to post “CLOCK” in the chat—whether seriously or ironically—almost every time a player paused for more than a few seconds to think. Conversations often devolved into arguments about stalling, even when it wasn’t actively a problem for the table in question at the time.
It is, on some level, impressive that Kassouf has almost single-handedly reignited this debate. That said, players who regularly take too long to act exist at every level of poker. Unfortunately, the heated discussions that stalling can produce may hurt the mood as much as the stalling itself.
Many of the TDs in attendance felt that universal adoption of the WPT’s approach could solve the issue. However, the most common argument against using it for the WSOP is that it adds one more thing for dealers to keep track of. Training enough dealers to run an event the size of the WSOP is already an issue. At this year’s series, the issues with dealer mistakes were arguably worse than ever before.
Other rule discussions at the TDA Summit
This year’s meeting in Taiwan was the first TDA Summit to be held outside of the United States. The reason for holding it in Taiwan was that one of the TDA’s current goals is to standardize rulesets worldwide to accommodate the quickly growing field sizes in Asia, including the Asian Poker Tour (APT).
Although stalling and poor table manners were front and center, a number of other rules issues came up.
Those other rule discussions included:
- One chip behind: This tactic has become trendy among players in the late stages of a tournament or on the money bubble. In these situations, players will bet all but one chip instead of going all-in. When they’re bluffing, the player intends to fold if raised. Having one chip left allows the player to stall for time and hope for a pay jump. Many TDs were in support of outlawing the move, which they say can create confusing scenarios or lead to angle-shooting.
- Late registration: The consensus was that many tournaments allow late registration to go on for too long. Bigger fields mean more money for players and organizers alike, but allowing players to enter the tournament with only a few big blinds seems contrary to the point of a tournament as a test of skill.
- Freezeout tournaments: TDs in attendance wanted to see more events without re-entry.
- Prompt seating for late registrations: It was proposed that late-registering players should always be assigned the same table position when joining their table. Some players will be deliberately slow to take their seats to secure a more favorable position for their first hand. However, penalizing players for perceived stalling has also been controversial.
