Online Poker Strategy Articles

Jeff Henry

If you've played online in a multi-table tournament and done reasonably well, you've seen them'stallers. One thing that requires no debate is that they are annoying. You're close to the money, and some guy takes the maximum amount of time before he folds every hand. Invariably, there is someone else, sometimes more than one, who are telling Mr. Staller why he's an idiot or simply getting hot under the collar generally at the guy.

I feel bad for these guys, and I never get angry at them. They are only doing what is best for them. Here are two examples of why these guys aren't so dumb after all:

You're playing a turbo satellite into a bigger tournament on Pokerstars and the top 22 people win seats into the bigger tournament, regardless of whether they finish first or 22. There are 35 people left, you are in eighth place, and there are quite a few players who are very short stacked. Should you stall' Maybe, yes. The blind levels increase very quickly, to such an extent that you might have to put a large percentage of your big stack in as a big blind if the tournament goes on a long time. It's unlikely, but it does happen. And those blinds increase with the passage of time, so you might cause more of the short stacks to be forced all in in their blinds, or to push all-in if they see those growing blinds coming around to them soon. Again, you're Daddy Fat Stack, you can pay the bigger blinds no problem, but you can put pressure on the short stacks if you can stall enough to make the blinds go up. On Pokerstars, this is even more true, because they generally don't go hand for hand until you are a spot or two from the money, whereas some other sites like PartyPoker will go hand for hand much earlier. The likelihood that stalling will help you is less when hand for hand, but it can help on some occasions.

Here's another example to show why that is true:

You're playing the PartyPoker Super Tuesday No Limit Hold Em $150 buy-in multi-table tournament. Eighty spots get paid, it's down to 84 people left, blinds are 100-200 and you have 450 chips left. The tournament went hand for hand at 90 players left, which of course means you wait for all tables to finish their hands before your table's next hand is dealt. Should you stall' Maybe, yes. People will yell at you and say 'It's hand for hand now you idiot.' True. But suppose you have a time bank of 120 seconds, and the blinds are going up to 150-300 in just over a minute, and another table has a guy with 400 chips who will be the big blind next hand. The blinds go up based on time of levels, not based on a number of hands played per level like might be the case in a sit and go. If you fold immediately and the other tables finish quickly, that guy might post a big blind of 200, not 300, and he can survive past the blinds. You and your 400 chips will be all-in by posting your blinds when they get around to you in four hands at 150-300. If you stall and the blinds go up, that same guy will be all forced all-in when he posts his blinds in these next two hands as he posts the now higher 150 and 300 blinds. He might bust and you might sneak into the money. By stalling here, you improve your chances of making it into the money, and you can see why it matters even if you're hand for hand!

Conversely, I have seen people stalling way before the tournament is near the money. There isn't really any value in doing that, but I suppose some people just don't know any better or have heard stalling is generally a good idea, but don't know all the reasons behind it. And similarly, there isn't much reason to stall if there aren't particularly any really small stacks who will be forced all in soon by a modest blind increase.

So be smart about it, use the stall when it makes sense, and ignore the whiners.

note by gank: Jeff Henry plays multi-table tournaments at Pokerstars and Full Tilt poker.