Why Do Poker Players Take So Long to Act?

Not all decisions are equal in poker. Some take longer than others. Some may even take what feels like ages. A player stares at the board for two, three, five minutes over a single decision while the whole table waits. Could it be thinking, performing, or stalling (or all three?)

Often it's the first.

Poker is a hard game, the pots are big, and a stack-defining decision deserves real time. But some long tanks are theatre, staged to induce a call or provoke a bluff. Some decisions are pure clock-burning to climb the pay ladder.

Here's why the worst kind is so hard to stop, what all three look like, and how a recent 15-minute tank brought in a shot clock.

Most of the time, a long tank is a player working through a difficult decision. Poker can ask a lot of a player in a single moment.

Reading the board, possible combos of opponents, weighing pot odds and implied odds. Often all at once, often with their tournament life or a big chunk of money on the line. A lot of that time goes into replaying the hand street by street, seeing if their opponent's actions add up. Reflecting on the play is a common reason to slow down.

The simple rule is that the size of the decision sets the time it deserves. On a huge river call for stacks, a ten-second snap would be the actual mistake. The bigger the pot, the more the pause makes sense.

Not all the time is thinking. Live poker has always had a performance layer, and using it is common. Granted, as long as you're not holding everyone up for nothing.

The classic move is theatrics.

For example, acting weak when you're strong, sighing over a monster to induce a call, or deliberating to provoke a bluff. Players also vary their timing to throw opponents off rhythm and make them overthink. And some take a consistent, deliberate beat on every decision precisely so opponents can't read them.

If you always act in the same tempo, there's no snap-versus-tank pattern to exploit. (Timing is information, and good players manage what they give away.)

Then there's another version.

Near a pay jump or the money bubble, a player with chips to protect can stall hoping a short stack busts first. This is so they can ladder up a pay spot with little effort. What makes this almost impossible to police is the incentive. When one player stalls near a pay jump, everyone still in the tournament benefits. They all move up if someone else goes broke first.

So no one at the table wants to call the clock on the staller, because the staller is doing them a favour. It can be difficult to keep the flow of the game moving in such a scenario. It's not cheating, as stalling for a pay jump is a rational, legal play given the incentives.

Structural time limits exist to combat this.

The problem got a public airing at a recent championship.

On Day 6, with 72 players left and a jump from $105,000 to $125,000 waiting at 71st place, Loren Klein moved most of his stack in. He then tanked for more than 15 minutes.

It was in the hope another short stack would bust first and bump him up a rung. The rest of the table was in no hurry to stop him, since a stall helped everyone ladder. Floor staff stepped in eventually and Klein busted in 72nd for $105,000. As a result, the long stall didn't even earn the jump.

With stalling spreading across the tables, officials acted. For Day 7 they brought in a 20-second shot clock on every decision, giving each player six "time chips" worth a 30-second extension each. Let the clock hit zero with no chips left and your hand is dead.

The game flowed better and took the pay-jump exploit out of the conversation. However, officials removed the shot clock for the final table. There are those that say poker's biggest decisions deserve unlimited time and a clock pressures players into errors. There are others who are of a different opinion.

For example, take Allen Kessler, the game's most persistent anti-stalling voice. He argues that stalling is an exploit the clock exists to stop, and structural limits are better for all.

Shot clocks and time banks are now standard on the high-roller circuit and increasingly elsewhere. It's worth mentioning the WPT® Action Clock used on its Main Tour. They keep the pace honest, remove the pay-jump stall, and make the game far easier to watch.

Tanking is taking time to think or act during a hand, and within reason it's legitimate. Slow rolling is taking your time to reveal a winning hand at showdown, letting your opponent believe they've won before you table the nuts.

That can be deemed by some as rudeness, and it's frowned upon by many. A long, genuine think is fine. Milking a guaranteed winner to embarrass someone, less so.