Sit Out

[Andy B]

Recently, a couple of different posters have mentioned that they play multiple tables on-line, and when they get a good hand on one table, they immediately sit out on the other tables so that they can concentrate on the matter at hand. I have voiced my objections, and thought I'd expand on this just a bit.

The vast majority of my playing experience is live action. In live games, when there are two or three people gone from the table, many players will start to complain. A lot of people prefer playing in a full game. For stud, stud/8, and (shudder) Omaha/8, I prefer a full game. For hold'em, I prefer a short-handed game. When people start complaining about the players who are walking, it takes them out of the gambling mood. This is bad for your bottom line. One of the posters mentioned that a player who objects to the game being short-handed all the time has the option of finding another game. This is particularly true on-line where there is never (to my knowledge) a must move* scenario. In my experience, though, the players who complain the most vocally about players who are walking are the live ones. Do you really want these people to find another game?

If everyone who played on-line played four tables and sat out on three of them a good chunk of the time, the games would break down. Obviously, not everyone is doing this, but of the people who do, I ask, "what makes you so damned special?"

And of course you couldn't do this playing hold'em. If you sat out on a given table after paying your blinds with any degree of frequency, you'd be costing yourself way too much.

* For those of you who only play on-line, in the larger games in many card rooms, when they start a new game at a limit where there is already a game (or games) going, the new game is a "must move" game. When seats open up in the existing "main" game, players are moved from the must move game to fill those seats. If there is more than one main game, you may have the option of changing between those games as seats open up (this is the case at Canterbury Park and Foxwoods; I can't speak for other rooms), but the must move thing does limit your mobility some.

[greenage]

Good post Andy,

For the first time today I 2-tabled 7 Stud/8 and never sat out one for the other. Maybe I was lucky that one didn’t conflict with the other, but also I feel a certain obligation to not do anything to detract from the “fullness” of the table(s) I’m at. I sit out enough for pee breaks.

These 7 Card Stud tables are hard enough to keep full w/o people playing these games.

[Michael Emery]

I have never had the need to sit out online myself, when involved in another hand. Like I've voiced before I dont believe playing 4 tables of stud online is as difficult as some people make it. There are plenty of hold'em pros that play 8 games of hold'em (which I admit is easier to play several games of than stud for many reasons). But all in all, assuming your playing a very tight game (as the ante in the mid/upper limits of party dictates) you wont be involved in more than two hands all that often. I have notes on just about all the mid to high stud players on party though so it makes my task a lot easier multitabling. For a player that dosent have any knowledge of their opposition, it certainly would make more sense to play two games and take notes, as you see a lot of familiar faces in the stud games. But I agree with Andy that constantly sitting out is something that should be refrained from.

Mike Emery

[blackize]

Sitting out for any reason at a stud table almost ruins the game for others. I play low limit stud of which there are few tables and everywhere except party the full tables have a wait. So when someone sits out and doesnt post their ante the game changes and money that could be won is lost. This is especially the case in games with waits. I dont mind if someone says brb gotta pee or something like that, but most of the time what I see is people sitting for 5+ minutes and that is just horrible.

[mshalen]

Yesterday I got so pissed at people sitting out while I was on Party that I sent an email to customer service. They responded (surprisingly very quickly) that a player can sitout for up to 20 consecutive hands before they will take action. Once a player returns and plays one hand they could then sitout again for another 20 hands.

So I took things into my own hands and tracked the offender down while he was playing at another table and typed into the chat that he was sitting out at another table and would he either play or leave so someone else could have his seat. He caught a lot of flack from the players at that table and quickly dropped off the table I was playing at.

[BeerMoney]

Was it Ponchoo555? That bastard is always hogging up 4 tables. But he doesn't even bother to try and play hands at the other tables. He just takes a seat and will play 1 out of about every 15-20 hands.