Does stalling late in tournies actually do anything for ya?

[ansky451]

I hate stallers. Thats all im going to say.

[Mempho]

Does turning in stallers ever work? I got really pissed at a staller recently in the Full Tilt $28K VIP Freeroll (I usually only play cash games) when I had a medium stack. I was mad because I was near the bubble (first money positions paid like $85 while first paid like $5,800) and I wanted to get lucky. In other words, I played the tourney because a) it was free and b) the EV was about $50+ in my assumption. Anyway, I wanted to play for first and this moron kept stalling and keeping me from playing for first. If it had been in a casino I would have warned the person that I was going to call the floor once and then I would have called the floor. As it was, I warned the person, but I never contacted support because I didn't feel it would do any good b/c support would have never gotten there fast enough to catch the person in the act. We all made the money, but the person never quit stalling until they doubled up twice. Then, miraculously, they decided they wanted to play with the big stack (Go figure!).

I then considered stalling myself for revenge purposes, but I reconsidered that the best move for me was to continue to play for first instead of a $25 ladder move.

If you are the worst player at your table, then stalling is always +EV. There I said it.

Of course, if you are the worst player at your table, then you should not be playing the tournament. But why do 2+2'ers hate stalling? Because they are good players, which means that on balance, they make money every time the cards are dealt out. If they are making money, someone else is losing money: the fish. So, though they may not realize it, they really are doing themselves a favor. By definition, fish lose money by playing hands. The fewer hands that get dealt, the less money the fish lose.

[Toro]

Stalling in the turbo satellites turns the whole thing into Russian roulette crap shoot because the levels go up so fast, that before you're in the money virtually everyone at the table has less the the BB for a stack.

I personally hate it.

[Yuv]

Turbo sats are a russian roullette weather you like it or not. Not stalling in those gotta be -EV.

[Toro]

[ QUOTE ]
Turbo sats are a russian roullette weather you like it or not. Not stalling in those gotta be -EV.

[/ QUOTE ]

Catch 22 here. They become russian roulette because everyone stalls.

[Yuv]

Your'e not suppose to fix the world, you're just suppose to take his money.

[rwanger]

Don't do it, bad form.

Besides I've seen super short stacks stall every hand for an orbit, only to have the blinds double just as they become the BB, at which point half their stack or more gets posted. If they had not been stalling, they would have seen more hands at the cheaper level, then missed the increase in blinds, giving them 8 more hands to play for free. Sucks for them.

And obviously, you don't even want to be in a position where stalling might help you, because it means that you are probably MORE likely to bust out from NOT playing any hands.

If you have 3x or more, you should be pushing a lot anyway, because the bubble period is the BEST opportunity to steal blinds in the whole tournament.

my guess is that if you are stalling, you won't be doing any blind stealing because you have know FE with your extremely short stack.

[Solitare]

I saw the smartest use of selective stalling in a tournament recently.

The tournament was right on the bubble, one until the money. On another table, a small stack in the big blind was facing a call of his remaining 100 chips (after posting) into a pot of over 2000. Pot odds made the call very tempting.

However, the guy was smart. He waited until the action was done on all the other tables. He saw that another person had gone out on another table and promptly folded, making it into the $$.