Dec 13
To steal or not to steal (hu sng style)
An interesting situation arose during a marathon 2k hu sng session with a headsup regular last night. We were playing one match and he was sitting in another, I only really wanted to play one at a time but I then said to my buddy online, “I’m going to bed soon, I’ll join the other then sleep”. Immediately after joining the other it became obvious that he was disconnected. He thus was sitting out of the new match and disconnected from the other and I had to decide whether to “steal” his blinds.
My policy on this is to always “steal” unless the player has had the situation reversed in the past and not stolen from me. Believe it or not, the basis of this policy is not greed, it is actually the opposite: fairness. I have lost many many dollars due to disconnecting in sng’s and not once thus far has an opponent waited for me to return. Furthermore I don’t expect them too. For many reasons it isn’t practical, the largest one being that you don’t know if or when they will return for hours! To further illustrate this point, I was sitting in a 5500 heads up match a while back and got disconnected and didn’t play the entire thing. My opponent took all my chips and consequently won the 5500. I’m not going to mention his name because he has become fairly famous and I don’t want to bring any negative press to him, but this was a guy I had met before and had talked to at decent length. We weren’t friends, but we definitely knew each other so if anyone would have cut me a break it would have been someone like him. With that said, I harbored no ill will towards him, and next time I saw him I didn’t utter a single complaint.
The bottom line is, disconnects are an inevitable part of playing sngs online. They happen to everyone, and as long as everyone has the same response to them it will even out in the end. My opponent got back very quickly, i had only “stolen” about 100 chips, and he called it a classless to be “stealing” from a regular. I tried to explain my policy but he didn’t buy it, he said if it’s a regular you are playing, then you should wait. I didn’t want to delve into the lack of game theoretical correctness of his policy or the unwieldiness of it given that you don’t know how long you will have to wait so I told him I would write a blog about it.
The other part of my actions he called classless were joining when I knew he was disconnected. As I said above, I had no idea he was disconnected when I joined so that wasn’t my intent, but it does bring up another interesting ethical question of what is the “right” move there. I’m pretty sure my policy is the same, to join and steal because if you don’t someone else will, but that one I cannot morally justify with such clarity so I’m not totally sure. As a side note he ended up winning both of those games.
This was far from the first time I’ve dealt with this situation, one memorable time was on Full Tilt playing a 2k sng vs Roland De Wolfe. He disconnected so I followed my policy and blinded him off. When he got back to my table he came at me with a rare fury, calling me every name in the book. I tried to explain but he had no interest in hearing it. I did take offense at the time to the names I was being called given what I feel is perfectly proper moral justification for my actions. Some people are just caught up in their moral outrage and will never listen.
So the bottom line, if I disconnect and you take my chips, I will never complain to you or get angry at you for it. If you don’t take them, I will extend you the same courtesy in the future. If I don’t know what you will do, I refuse to do the long run losing act of not taking when others always do take so I will “steal” your blinds. If anyone thinks this is an unfair policy I welcome comments.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I understand where you’re coming from as far as trying to even the odds when you play against others that are willing to steal from you, but I absolutely do not believe it is right to steal from someone you know or a “regular.” If you steal from someone you don’t know, there’s not much wrong with that because the blinds are escalating and if you believe you have an edge, it lessens as it becomes more of a shove-fest. That said, as Jmac stated, stealing from a regular is classless. You’re taking advantage of a disconnect to steal their money. Your justification for this is that “everyone else does it.” That’s very similar to someone dropping their wallet on the ground, and you picking it up and taking the money out rather than giving it back on the basis that “everyone else does it and when I dropped my wallet that’s what happened to me.” Not everyone is morally bankrupt. I’ve personally watched several regulars at the high stakes hu sngs wait for their opponent. I’ve done it as well (although I play lower stakes). I don’t know what jmac does, but I’m sure many of the regulars would be willing to refund your rake plus a bit for the inconvenience. Something could be worked out if they came back partway through.
On a practical note, I think it would make sense for every high stakes player to have a back-up dial-up (or dsl) connection so that situations like this don’t occur. If you’re playing $1k sngs and don’t want to pay $20/mo for a backup internet connection, that seems like a foolish move to me. I have 2 internet connections and 2 computers ready at all times and I’m not even close to those stakes.
December 14th, 2007 at 12:11 am
IMO your reasoning is kind of backwards. Your morals and ethics shouldn’t be dictated by what others have done to you (or what you perceive they may do), they should be dictated by what you feel is right. If you feel that it’s ok to blind someone off and you are fine with other people doing it to you, then it’s understandable but you should understand that most people don’t feel that way (at least publicly).
When I play SNGs (or in the rare case I’m HU in a tournament and my op gets disconnected), I’ll always do my best to wait if the other person gets disconnected. Even if they have done it to me, or even if I feel that they wouldn’t do it for me had the tables been turned. I just feel it’s the fair thing to do (and I likewise get irritated if other people blind me out).
December 14th, 2007 at 1:27 am
I have to agree with Steve’s point-of-view. Furthermore, I would tell players not to extend me any “courtesy.” “Courtesy” is an inappropriate word because it implies some sort of moral or etiquette superiority. As a side note, I have definitely benefited lifetime in these heads-up situations, although I have not blinded someone down to the felt completely.
I follow the unwieldiness argument. Also, there are disconnect and timeout protections that are sufficient to cover normal lapses. Presumably, players should not have to suffer from extended lapses. On FTP, if one notices a player has timed out in a cash game, he can fire even a bet of $1 into a pot of $1000, and the opponent will auto-muck. Are we supposed to wait and use our own time bank to afford him every last second so as not to lose equity automatically!? I think not. Again, I encourage others to “steal” my blinds. It is the risk we take in the game we have chosen to play.
December 14th, 2007 at 1:39 am
It’s just another component to online poker. Having a good internet connection and always having a backup (ie, Verizon Broadband card) is the responsible thing to do if you’re a high stakes player or even a mid stakes regular. Ignoring the connectivity aspect is just another component of being a fish.
And even if he took all precautions possible (doubtful), it will even out in the long run when someone disconnects against him.
So I like the policy.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:41 am
i’m so drunk it’s retarded, it’s 8:41am
December 14th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
OK, it’s an ethical question. Ethical it would be to be fair to yourself and to others. Not stealing blinds is fair, when the others do not steal to - you mentioned it. But imagine, that you do not steal and the others do. So, it becomes obvious, that you cannot be fair to yourself without stealing too. ;)
In real life, you should not steal, you would be punished.
Yes, that’s all, no difficult problem to solve. I can try to discuss fairness here, but everyone seems to understand this concept.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
BTW - great Blog here!
And, another thing, some days ago I watched you playing omaha8 fl, the higher limits, you played some guys and you suspected collusion. Was everything fair at this table?
December 30th, 2007 at 2:38 am
I just read this, so sorry for the belated response. I had the same situation happen with Zangbezan24 at a 5.5k and he went crazy and ended up threatening me repeatedly. I can’t say I understand why as I totally agree with the reasoning that Steve is using. If I go discon, I would never ask for the money back, nor would I ever even think to ask for it, nor would I be offended it someone took it all (once on Paradise about 6 years ago I finished 3rd in a sit n go where I was discon on the 3rd hand, but that’s another story.) Unless you discuss it with someone actively beforehand, it should just be treated as part of the game as misclicks, timeouts, and discons are in a non HU game.