Daniel Negreanu Hates Tournament Stallers
Stalling in tournaments is one of the lesser discussed topics in poker because most people have the decency not to do it. Stalling is normally a tactic employed by players who are hoping to make the final table of a tournament or just cash despite their dwindling chip stack. Of course their chip stack must be greater than at least one other player’s if they’re going to pull this trick off, but it essentially boils down to trying to blind out the short stack(s) as the blind limits increase.
Recently at PokerStars, Daniel Negreanu really took exception to a player that was trying to stall in the $1000 +$50 H.O.R.S.E. SCOOP event. In this tournament, the player in question started stalling right before the cash bubble so they could earn some money. This angered Negreanu who started typing in the chat box that they should penalize or even bar players who do this from sites.
Negreanu continued by saying only low lifes stall and that younger players don’t get how wrong it is to stall at the table. Of course the player defended them self by saying it is perfectly in their rights to stall at the table and also that they were sorry. Negreanu countered by saying the player wasn’t sorry and that the player was about to make him go on tilt.
This whole exchange definitely brings up a good question though about if stalling should truly be allowed in poker tournaments. As it stands now, there is no rule against stalling and players are free to do this as they wish since it’s not truly illegal. I think it’s really one of those unspoken rules people have where they won’t do it, but will bitch about it as soon as someone else starts doing it.