Stalling beginning on the first hand of a multi?

[napawino]

I played one of the $100 multis on Party Sunday and had one of the worst times playing poker in my life. The reason is that the player to my left (Gabrielle from Moosomin) started to stall ON THE FIRST HAND and continued until we went hand-for-hand 10 places from the money. What this meant was that our entire table was below the average at the 1st & 2nd breaks because we had played so few hands. (I'm not sure if no one busted out or maybe only one person.)

Since we were table #5 & there were ~300 people in the tournament, this became the longest 3 hours of my poker life! Despite repeated questions & attacks from nearly everyone at the table, Gabrielle never responded or altered his/her play except that maybe one out of every 100 times to act, they acted quickly. (Returning to stalling the very next hand.) At first we gave him/her the benefit of the doubt - assuming that maybe it was a connection problem. However, as soon as we went to hand-for-hand, the stalling stopped, so it was not a connection problem.

I understand (but hate) stalling when near the bubble if the site doesn't have hand-for-hand, but what possible logic is there to stalling starting with the first hand? The only advantage I could see is that a couple of people lacked patience & went so bad on tilt that they basically committed poker suicide, but they were "gunning" for Gabrielle before losing to someone else, so it didn't help Gabrielle any.

Incidently, Gabrielle finished in 30th place & netted $113 for the 4 hours of work, but it wasn't because of the stalling - he/she caught a couple of great hands when about 10 from the bubble & folded into the money.

Was there logic to this madness?

-Napawino

[Chief911]

Logic yes. The logic was stall to increase odds.

But it is a sorry way of doing things. Is party willing to intervene in issues like this?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

How can you be certain this person was stalling on purpose and not just experiencing connection problems?

[napawino]

Of course it's not really possible to be CERTAIN, but the evidence is pretty compelling:
No matter what position they were in, they always waited until 2-5 seconds were left before folding, raising, or calling. This happened every round during which they were in a hand - again no matter what position they were in. Surely if it were a connection issue & they were on the button with 72os, they could have clicked the pre-fold button at some point while the others were acting. If it were a connection problem I would expect to see the delay mostly when they were in early position.
Also (& the biggest point), the stalling abruptly ended when the tournament went hand-to-hand when we had 40 people left, so if they were having connection problems it was pretty convenient that they ended just as the advantage of stalling ended also.
Finally, as someone who has experienced connection problems before, I would expect to see the occasional long interruption where the player folds because of an interruption and sits out until they reconnect. This would result in at least periodic immediate folding. Ironically, every time they seemed to act immediately, it was for a raise or a call.

Like I said, I sat next to Gabrielle for 2 1/2 hours, so I had lots of time to analyze his/her play.

Regarding an earlier question, Party's live chat feature was out of service on Sunday. I sent them an email but have not heard back from them.

[Chief911]

Does Party's live chat EVER work? I've tried it about 5 times, always unavailable.

[nolanfan34]

Gosh, that doesn't sound fun at all.

The only thing worse is idiots who try to stall when it's ALREADY down to hand-to-hand. Happened the other day to a couple of players on the bubble in a sat seat tournament. Instead of just holding up their table, they were holding up the other 3 tables as well. That was frustrating too!

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Typical of online players - the anonymity of the net and lack of rules that are commonly enforced when playing live allows them to be incredibly stupid and irritating, with no reprocussions at all, completely protected by their being online.

This person was just doing what the VAST majority of online players to, acting incredibly stupid.

Just think, they're allowed to breed.

al

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]
Just think, they're allowed to breed.


[/ QUOTE ]

Now thats a scary thought.

[stevec25]

not to sound like a jackass but when I first started playing 1-3 buck tourneys i did something similar as over 2000 folks in the tourney and more than half dropping in the 1st hour ( i use to hesitate on folds and bet quick when i would stay) but I soon realized that you cant win any significant loot if you dont play hands the more hands you get the more you can play so I say to your enemy so to speak hurry up buddy. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[MadSci]

Huh?

You'll have to eplain that better.

As far as I can see, players at a slow have less cahnce of advancing far due to less consolidating, and good players certainly suffer from having fewer hands to play.

People are certainly willing to do stupid and jerky things when online. I even think that the kind of person who does these things tends to do it more when admonished or when the ineffectiveness of what hey are doing is explained to them. "If my oponents are complaining, it must be working!"