[parappa]

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Are you jopking? All you have to do is say "clock" and there's a rule in play. The fact that some people are trying to argue that, to prevent them from having to invoke the actual existing rule about this common pool problem, then should get all their opps to just self-impose some random "shouldn't take a long time" worry on themselves (which will presumably be a much tougher row to hoe for the newbies than the pros) would be kind of funny, except that some of you guys seem to be on board for it, which is scary.

More power to you, but I am going to start taking three minutes on every decision in each major event I play, just to balance it out...I'll make up for it though by not over-fishing the pond near my house even though there are no license requirements or catch limitations, and by not tossing trash out the window of my car even when I think I can get away with it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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With $5 Million+ for first prize in the main event, I simply don't believe that it should be the players' responsibility to tattle on another player by virtue of the fact that he is unlucky enough to be in the hand with him. While I certainly don't care very much how long players get to make decisions, my complaints is that the game is only kept moving by a rule that must be enforced by a player, and there is social pressure on a player not to enforce that rule (i.e. someone who began calling for a clock on every decision would eventually either stop getting it or be hounded by the others at the table). I don't see why it's hard to have a reasonable rule, like "Everyone gets 27 minutes maximum to make a decision" and have either a floorperson assigned to each table to enforce it (I realize that there are hundreds of tables in the main event, but there are millions of dollars at stake here--imagine if any other event with similar prize money thought it excessive to have enough referees) or to have it enforced by the dealer.

I prefer this rule to the "a player has one minute to act on his hand after the intimidated newbie in seat one (remember, there is also social pressure on people not in a hand to call for the clock, so the short-stacked newbie in seat 5 isn't going to call for it) works up the nerve to call for a clock and a floorperson manages to wander over." After said intimidated newbie in seat one calls for the clock, the staller is going to be permitted to verbally abuse him until his next decision, at which time the pool of jello where the newbie once was is now free to enforce the clock rule again if he can pull himself together.

I don't care how long you get, but it should be automatic. I can't even form the sentence "relying on the goodwill and honesty of a poker player" with a straight face, nor should I have to.

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But for Barry's odd over-reaction in this particular instance, the system works extremely well right now in my view. Social pressure prevents people from doing it willy-nilly (just like it does for littering and other similar pool problems), there is more leeway as the stakes increase (that's why you'll hear "clock" in a 10-20 nlh cash game way before you'll hear it from a pro in a major tourney), and at the extremes, the rules work perfectly once someone invokes a clock.

Plus, if somebody seems to be taking advantage of the leeway, the whole table will often become clock-callers on that person, which both takes the pressure off of any particular person to enforce the rule alone, and also puts a ton of unneeded pressure on the person who was taking too long.

Not every one-off weird situation needs a new absolute rule ("sixty seconds each, no exceptions!!") to remedy it. That's where the saying "hard cases make bad law" comes from. Besides, doesn't even sound like this was an extreme case by Simon at all--anyone who considers picking up an extra $11k in chips by taking an extra minute or two of thinking (beyond the normal amount of thinking), and in a major event with a ton of real money at stake to boot, to be a real abuse of custom has overreacted a lot IMO.

But even if it was a real abuse by simon (which it very obviously WAS NOT), the answer would not be to make millions of other people get precisely sixty seconds max from now on in all situations--it would be to say the word "clock" in the particular situation!

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I don't disagree with any of this enough to, well, disagree. I think this is all pretty reasonable.