John Richards

As I said before, I am very pro timebanks in the main, but introducing them mid tourney is crazy. The "does it help recs or pros" conversation is glossing over a few key things: The first impact of a shot clock is that your brain now has to play a completely new game in addition to poker which is called "manage your time effectively." When you're taking a timed standardized test, most of your brain is trying to figure out answers, but some % of your brain is also constantly checking the time, evaluating whether it's strategically beneficial to speed up and answer more qs or to slow down and make fewer mistakes. This is a separate process that takes brain power and must run in parallel. Time management is a strategy game, just like poker. Often times a poker decision is very close, and I decide that it's worth more EV to save a timebank than it is to try to squeeze out some extra equity by thinking longer. Sometimes, I choose to burn timebanks on purpose to balance timing tells. Sometimes, I burn them to stall. It's a complicated game that requires thought, and like all games the more experience you have with it, the more it becomes second nature and can run in the background. If you're encountering this game for the first time, it will take up a disproportionate amount of your mind share. The second impact is added stress. Putting a timer on some people causes their brains to short circuit, and for others it doesn't faze them at all. Even if you give them tons of time, most people feel the effects psychologically. I think this is generally a GOOD thing - I find that shot clocks make most players act quicker even before they get close to the buzzer (i.e. folding in 2 seconds instead of in 5 seconds), although there are a couple players who chose to methodically take the whole clock every time. But again, introducing this in a huge equity spot as a surprise is so much worse than having it from the beginning where players have a few days to psychologically acclimate to the feeling of being timed. The third impact is speeding up the game, which obviously benefits better players as you see more hands, but I think that is a good and reasonable outcome, because more hands in general is more enjoyable and better for viewing. Furthermore, it homogenizes the number of hands each table plays, which is fairer. Then lastly, the question of whether the extra thinking time benefits pros or recs more is sort of a wash. High Roller pros benefit from more time because they think much more deeply about the game, while many recs have very simplistic ideas about poker and think the game is straightforward. On the other hand, High Roller pros are also much more used to the shot clocks and much more experienced with tough spots. Kind of a wash, I think. The players who are hurt the most are smart, thinking players who have studied some, but are not high stakes pros and have never been under the bright lights and big stage before. These players benefit a lot from extra time, and having several minutes to slowly work their way to a satisfying choice is very beneficial. In backgammon, (where time pressure is a standard part of the game) I am such a player - I play much, much better with extra time, while I think extremely good and extremely bad players improve much less.