Clock Countdown Procedures - Rule 20

[WSOPMcGee]

With the Clock Countdown incident @WSOP 2010 a new procedure for the 2011 series leads to a new clock countdown procedure.
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Rule 20. Calling for a Clock

Once a reasonable amount of time has passed and a clock is called for, a player will be given a maximum of one minute to make a decision. If action has not been taken before time expires, there will be a 10-second countdown. If a player has not acted by the time the countdown is over, the player's hand will be dead.
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At this years WSOP Floor personnel will no longer do a countdown. They will each carry a timer that is set for 1min + 10 secs. The timer is set in front of the player. The player can watch the time countdown. When the buzzer goes off and the player has not acted, their hand will be declared dead.

Rule 20 calls for a countdown of a maximum of one minute to act, then if no action has taken place, then there will be a 10 second countdown. This is a total of 70 seconds. If you have one minute to act, then why the extra 10 seconds? I have no knowledge of why the extra 10 seconds is there, but perhaps Dave, Linda, Jan or Matt can add extra insight. I suspect it is because during the one minute countdown portion, the player is unaware of how much time has elapsed and only the Floor person is aware of when the countdown started. Then, as a courtesy, the verbal 10 second countdown, was counted allowed.

With this new WSOP procedure, this extra 10 second courtesy is unnecessary. You could set a timer to 1 min and then after the buzzer goes off, the hand be declared dead. The player knows exactly how much time there is to act, and the Floor and all other players know exactly when the hand is dead.

I motion to eliminate the extra 10 seconds of allotment.

Timers are cheap, and if the house doesn't wish to spend the extra couple dollars for a timer, every single cell phone in the world has a timer built into the device.

[Nick C]

Thomas,
The real problem is the definition of a resonable amount of time before a player can even be put "on the clock." I understand that two minutes is what "they" consider a resonable amount of time......so add the 120 seconds to the 70 you came up with and there you have it, 290 wasted seconds out of the game. Who "clocks" the resonable amount of time? I think the whole rule has to be brought down to a more realistic timeframe. It works pretty good for on-line poker.
Have we determined if a dealer can call for a clock, or does it have to be a player? If a player, does the player have to be active in the hand?
I can see it now.....Player A wants Player B on the clock and Player B says, " I've only been pondering my decision for a little over one minute, so you can't put me on the clock yet."..........FLOOR, OH, FLOOR.
















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[Brian Vickers]

290 secs + the time it takes for the floor to arrive...

I think the definition of "reasonable amount of time" has to stay a little vague to give floorpeople the flexibility to adapt the rule to the circumstance.  Say you're down to 10 players at the WSOP Main Event and a player gets set all-in preflop with QQ.  He may (will)need a little longer to decide what to do than a player who is facing a bet of $500 on the river when blinds are $25-50.  Saying that a player gets 1 min followed by a min countdown doesn't take into account that some hands do require more time to dissect than others. 
Personally, I feel that the dealer should never be allowed to put a player on the clock, but that if a player is tanking excessively he should contact the floor about it and allow the floor to make that decision.  We have to be aware of players purposefully stalling before a payout jump, or just someone trying to get their "TV time in" and tanking to waste time.
I also feel that any player who was dealt in on the hand should have the right to call clock, as the timer running has an effect on every player at the table, and from what I've seen, the other player in the hand typically is hesitant to call for the clock him/herself.

What is reasonable is just one of those instinctual calls that we as floors/TDs have to decide, IMO.