WPT to introduce shot clocks
This year’s World Poker Tour will utilise timer in order to speed up play and combat tanking.
The latest season of the World Poker Tour is on its way and the WPT recently announced that this year’s run will include an Action Clock.
Timed at 30-seconds, the new clock from Protection Poker will be implemented in all Main Tour events, starting with next week’s WPT Choctaw.
From then throughout the season, players will be capped at half a minute each to make their call, with a maximum of four time extension chips, also timed at 30-seconds, available for challenging conditions later in the tournament. Once the tournament has reached its final three tables, players extension chips are reset to six, with eight permitted for the final table.
Making the game quicker
The point of the shot clock, which was implemented for the first time in last year’s WPT Tournament of Champions, is to keep play moving and avoid problematic slow play, generally making it quicker for players and those watching at home and on the rails.
WPT Executive Tour Director, Matt Savage said;
“The World Poker Tour is proud to be the first to implement the Action Clock across all of its Main Tour events. Many players, both recreational and professional, have expressed concerns that unnecessary tanking has taken a lot of the fun out of poker. Poker should always be fun, and it was a no-brainer decision to bring the Action Clock to all WPT Main Tour events following its success in the WPT Tournament of Champions and WPT500 Los Angeles. With the Action Clock, more action equals more fun, and who doesn’t want more fun in poker?”
This isn’t first such decision we have seen from live events recently, with 888live announcing back in June that their Live Festival in London this October will also use a shot clock for the first time.
The same initiatives are beginning to enter the online game as well as just this week PokerStars announced new timers on ring games.
Do you think that the Action Clock will improve the tour? Let us know in the comments:
