I have recently noticed that in ring games some players have been using one aspect of the site to gain an advantage, which I would consider angle shooting aka cheating.
If a player clicks “sit out the next hand” right as the blinds are about to get to them they are allowed to pay the blinds when they return. Players are doing this intentionally so that when they pay the blinds they are in the “cutoff” (one before the button). In the long term this provides a huge advantage because the blinds have the worst position at the table and the cutoff is one of the best positions. Any informed poker player knows that position is one of the most important aspects of the game. Please figure out a way of adding an additional penalty, such as having to sit out additional hands so that players don’t gain an unfair advantage. Or correct me if I am wrong about this situation.
We have quite a few seasoned poker players here. Is it a glitch in the software or is it in fact the generally accepted rules of the casinos? I played a lot on Full Tilt Poker and never noticed.
My sense is that it may be a legitimate rule and if it is then it may be a tool for some people who want the extra edge, similar to those who will sit down and immediately sit out until their BB.
I agree it is a good tactic and for now I would use the situation myself since it is available for everybody.
I have been considering trying it myself, since it’s not technically cheating, but it doesn’t seem to be within the spirit of the game. It would be like someone in a casino getting up and using the bathroom every time it was their turn to pay the blinds and then sitting down and paying them 2 hands later. Improving your position in every round of blinds would be a huge edge.
Big smile… and think of how many players blame the excess urination on their prostate… It has always been my opinion that Poker was a game designed by the devil himself… or herself. ))
Thanks for raising this JoeDirk, actually Iooks like you found a bug that needs to be fixed.
What’s supposed to happen is that a player pays the BB+SB when they rejoin, thus negating the monetary advantage they achieve when skipping the blinds. But it appears we only charge a BB, not the SB as well. We’ll get this fixed ASAP!
FYI they also are punished in two other ways to negate the positional advantage they are looking for:
They don’t get to play the Button, which is the most advantageous position at the table.
They reduce the number of hands they receive in a full orbit. eg. in a 9 handed game they only receive 6 hands per round.
Paul… Let’s assume somebody goes to get a sandwich, doing so just before the blinds is fair and understandable. Why not just assume he is a new player when he comes back? I can’t imagine a casino charging BB and SB, though I could be dead wrong. How do the casinos handle that problem???
Maybe I’m not understanding, but the site doesn’t let you return in the small blind (and people taking advantage of it aren’t trying to return that soon anyway); it makes you wait for the cutoff. That means that you avoided paying both the big and small blinds, so shouldn’t the penalty be to pay both blinds?
Here i missed the BB and the SB, this is the hand i came back, i payed the BB and the SB, the BB is in front of me and the SB shows above the pot (5K and 1K)
When i only miss the BB i can not play the hand for the SB and not have to pay it, next hand i pay only the missed BB.
But should i pay extra for it when i can not play that hand?
You might be correct. I haven’t checked to see if the small blind went directly into the pot.
But, in the second part of your post, couldn’t that still be used to someone’s advantage? If they sit out the big-blind and then return before the small blind, it should make them pay the small blind as well as the big blind even though they cannot play from the small blind because otherwise they would gain an advantage being being able to pay the blinds from the cutoff (although as Paul pointed out it is not really an advantage because they miss out on being on the Button and they only get to play 6 hands til the blinds get back to them).
To summarize, this is not really an issue… Have a nice day.
Just a quick update. We haven’t yet had a chance to investigate further, but it’s on our to-do list. It’s just a question of whether we fix it now, or wait for our new poker server we’re developing to be completing, and thus saving us the time of having to do it all over again…