Poker Needs a Shot Clock: How Stalling Is Killing the Game

In chess, the clock is as much a part of the game as the pieces. In basketball, the shot clock saved the sport from endless stalling — “stall ball” — and turned it into a high-energy spectacle at the highest levels.

It’s time for poker to get caught up.

Right now, most live poker tournaments run on an honor system, and that honor is wearing thin. A typical table might get through 25 or 30 hands an hour, but that average hides a dirty secret when fewer and fewer players remain: Some have mastered the art of dragging their feet when it suits them, especially during high-leverage moments like the money bubble or pay jumps.

In these instances, where one more elimination means everyone else receives more money, it’s common to see players take a minute or longer on every decision just to let blinds and antes erode short stacks at other tables.

The effect is fundamentally unfair; your fate in a tournament can hinge on whether you’re seated with players willing to stall.

And here’s the problem: Because some of the most successful pros in the game have been using this tactic strategically on poker live streams, it’s becoming normalized. Tanking is no longer frowned upon; it’s just “part of the game” if you want to maximize your expected value.

That’s a recipe for disaster if poker wants to grow and be inviting to the masses.

The World Poker Tour has already rolled out an “Action Clock” at many stops: 15 seconds per decision, plus a handful of 30-second “time bank” chips for tougher spots. Tournament organizers say the pace of play jumped noticeably, adding several extra hands per hour and cutting hours off multi-day events. The World Series of Poker has introduced similar rules in its high-roller tournaments. Players adapted quickly, and many liked the clarity and fairness the clock brought.

But the large majority of tournaments at the WSOP have not adopted a shot clock, and this year’s $10,000 Main Event offered a sharp reminder of how damaging stalling has become. Longtime high-stakes regular Isaac Haxton spent more than six minutes tanking on a single decision during a pay-jump bubble in the event, prompting players at surrounding tables to wonder aloud if they could formally call a clock on his delay.

This isn’t a rare extreme — there were examples of this across the two-week event. It is tolerated until it disrupts the pace of play and rips fairness out of the game.

Daniel Negreanu is one of the loudest voices calling for changes to the rulebook.

“What Ike Haxton did by stalling during the Main Event is an example of a high-stakes pro who is unequivocally angle-shooting,” he told Poker.org. “The fact that he told the table, ‘Hey, guys, you can call the clock on me if you want,’ is irrelevant. Everyone at the table is incentivized not to call the clock too, right?”

Negreanu has been pushing for a chess clock in live tournaments. Instead of timing every individual decision, each player would start the day with a set amount of total thinking time. Once that’s gone, you’re on a short fuse — maybe 10 seconds per action. Players could still tank in big spots if they want, but it would come at the cost of time they might need later. It rewards preparation, decisiveness and real-time strategy, and it eliminates the structural unfairness of one table grinding to a halt while others play normally.

“Players should be rewarded for playing quickly,” Negreanu said.

Stalling isn’t just about fairness, either. It’s about the product. Poker is enjoying a resurgence thanks to streaming, social media and the personality-driven content boom. But slow play is a killer for audiences. A shot clock would keep the game moving, give producers a predictable pace for broadcasts and add a built-in layer of drama: Every second a player burns is a second they won’t have later when the stakes are even higher.

Other games like basketball and chess figured this out long ago. It’s time poker stopped pretending that unlimited time is a virtue. When the clock is ticking for everyone, the game gets faster, fairer and a lot more fun to play and watch.