The PokerStars Time Bank

Got together with my friend that is resposible for my unwarranted (snicker) attacks on the believability of Internet poker today. A pleasant little lunch and conversation, long overdue because I've spent way too much time papmering the dog since his days are numbered.

The conversation shifted to my Charlie Sheen post where I again worked a poke at the time bank.

Let's assume I'm wrong. All this time I've been playing against real people. Every since the True Yobbo days when I started playing 5 draw lowball and he disappeared I generally do not see the same players at my table. It's rather curious that whatever table I choose to sit at that my opponents are constantly hitting the warning that they have 12-14 seconds left to act (depending on the game.) Sometimes the time bank is activated, too.

Let's reflect on the possible reasons:

1) The collective consciousness of Internet Poker players has been infected by an alien virus that thinks that if you use a lot of time you'll get better cards. Highly unlikely since we know that alien viruses were eliminated when we blew up the mother ship on Independence Day.

2) The softawrae is unreliable and/or people are still playing on 2400 baud dial up. A tad more plausible, but not a serious consideration.

3) You are doing it to purposefully be an annoying douchebag.

It's amusing who the collective consciousness all decided to be an annoying douchebag after the last so called upgrade. If these are real people they have absolutely no poker etiquette whatsoever.

The conversation with my friend included my thoughts on how the casual once every month or so player might believe that a player or two is slow thinking about what to do. But when you play every night like I do it's laughably obvious. If PokerFrauds was serious about the integrity of the game they would start deleting accounts for "people" that have the propensity to sit out and abuse the time bank.

Ain't gonna happen. Which is fine by me because this is one of those things outside the play of the cards that just doesn't make any sense.