The player in question is a regular in the 7:30pm and 10:30pm 1m tournies. Each time I’m at a table with him he is using maximum time for each decision which causes a serious disruption to the game. I have no doubt this is deliberate. He is not timing out, he is waiting until the timer reaches the instant before the end before acting. He does this for every decision in every hand.
I have reported this player 4 times now, but it appears nothing has been done. The site rules state
staff may investigate if players are consistently and intentionally trying to disrupt the flow of play.
There is no question this player is “consistently and intentionally trying to disrupt the flow of play.” Will staff investigate this? What response can be expected?
Time trolls are very rare, but they’re definitely an actual thing. One ring game player I’m familiar with - as soon as he shows up at the table, I know exactly what’s going to happen.
He’ll immediately sit out for several games.
He’ll come back, but not play. The clock will max out on every street, game after game.
All of a sudden, he’ll start playing and betting aggressively. How extraordinary that he suddenly springs into action when he has good cards.
Unfortunately, there seems nothing that can be done about it.
I think of these idiots the same as I think about people who call me a fat pig:
An insult is like a drink: it only affects one if accepted.
I can choose to be angry or stressed or upset and so on by the actions of other people. These are sometimes reasonable responses. My response is always my choice! I can choose to laugh at people or laugh with them. I can choose to engage or ignore. My responses to your actions are mine. I have total control.
Before I react, I ask myself how well I know the person, how often I will interact with that person and whether I even care about that person.
Most of the time, I just don’t care about the person.
In your case, time trolls, I just laugh and say to myself “you’re such a w*nker looking for a response that I’m not giving you”. I look at the people who do respond to the troll and think: “you’re an idiot, why are you playing a game (reacting to idiots) that you don’t enjoy?”
You do enjoy poker, you don’t have to enjoy idiots. Depending on your definitions and tolerance, you can just have a good time by totally ignoring idiots.
You actually have to text a moderator who is on duty at the time so they can come to the table immediately and see. The list of moderators on duty is at the bottom of the home page.
Might be the same player I’ve come across though I can’t remember their name. I made a comment about them letting the clock run down every time and they said ‘it is what I do get used to it’ so I left the table.
Have no idea why they do it and the only thing I can think is they are playing multiple tables?
Is he truly a time troll, or is he possibly a multi-table player who has to take time to make a decision because he’s constantly flipping through tables?
If it is someone playing multiple tables, the time to respond likely varies quite a bit throughout the course of the game.
If the clock is simply counted down to the last tick every time it is their turn - which is what unskilled originally spoke of - that is something entirely different. That is someone intentionally being an asshat.
I hate the wait and disruption of flow - BUT - everyone is allotted that time to use as little of it or most of it - only thing i can see is shortening that time span for everyone to speed things up.
Yeah - and using the full length of time once in a while is fine - that’s what it is there for if you need it.
But using it literally every… single… hand… well, that takes a special kind of jerk.
Point of interest: I’ve found some time wasters don’t like the tables turned. Had a couple of experiences where a few of us at the table decided to waste time right along with him. Tedious, yes - but with nary a word spoken, lo and behold the original time waster started speeding up.
The most annoying part about the time wasters is that they fold just about every hand that they’ve made us wait on their play. I’ve found that fighting fire with fire often works against these players. I hate doing it to the other players, though.
Most of the time I see the “time trolls” is when they are playing multiple tables. My assumption is that they are focused on another table, have given up on their hole cards on my table, so just let the timer go. You can verify how many tables a player is at by clicking on their seat, then clicking on their picture in the chat box, then clicking on “Playing now.”
My thought is: If you think you are good enough to play more than one table, see if you can be good enough to keep the play moving on all tables.
OK…with that said…here’s another one of my “complaints” about uncaring players. When you leave the table and you know you are not coming back…PLEASE click on the “Stand” button at the top right of the screen so someone else can join the game without having to wait for the 2-3 minutes for your connection to time out.
Phew…thanks for listening…I feel much better for my “rant!”
If the player was occasionally timing out you could chalk this up to delay from multitabling. This is within what should be reasonably expected during online poker. When the player is doing it EVERY hand I don’t believe it. Especially when they let the timer run right to the exact end before acting each time (as opposed to timing out). I don’t see multitabling as a plausible explanation for this exact pattern of behavior.
I don’t want to say their names on the forum. I don’t believe in public shaming.
Though I’ve encountered two new players today who were clearly time trolling. Using max time, not multitabling, letting the timer run right to the end for each decision. Until recently this had been something rare on the site, but it seems to have become much more common.
You sound like Mike Brady from the Brady Bunch.
Actually Jabr these Clock Rangers are not very rare there are quite a few of them on this site.
It’s a matter of Poker Etiquette and Courtesy for the other players at the table.
I have reported them as well several times and like unskilled said nothing ever happens. It’s deliberate
it’s rude and it’s very selfish and NO I do not consider myself an Idiot for eventually responding to the real Idiot and letting him know what I think and how his actions are all of the above mentioned.
I think the real and only solution is to shorten the clock and fold them pronto.
Seriously you don’t need as much time as they give you to make a decision, especially preflop.
I know in about 3 seconds if I’m playing my hole cards before preflop as do 99% of other players.
So, IDK ?? That’s my 2 cent’s worth.