[Key West]

I'm not really a tournament player, but I'm an avid gambler and have a massive poker library, so I can hold my own and usually place in the money. I've played several tournaments, but had my first forray at a Party Poker speed-tournament, where the blinds go up every 30 minutes. It paid out 90 places (850 started) and I got 66th, but when it got down to about 120 or so players, the most bizarre thing happened. Everyone started stalling and taking forever to play their hands. This has probably been discussed before, because their logic is that the other tables are all doing it and therefore you lower your risk of being eliminated if you stall, too. This is such simpleton logic in my mind, there has to be a discussion somewhere on these forums about it, and if anyone would be good enough to point me to it I'd be much obliged. My contention is that, if a table didn't stall, they'd play more hands during the same blind levels, and therefore would be paying less per hand. This only works up to a certain blind level, past which it's pretty irrelevant since the blinds exceed everyone's stack size, but my thought are that, before that point, this strategy only helps the largest stacks, since they're the ones least affected by increasing blinds.

Thoughts? Links? First time I've ever considered this, so I'm prepared to be wrong, although I don't think I am. I'm sure there's an element of game theory and the prisoner's dilemma that I'm mis-applying, as is usually the case. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Edit: I'd be especially interested to hear Mason Malmuth's opinion on this, as I just finished reading Gambling Theory and Other Topics, and loved it.