Pros Plot a Course for GPS Sheffield, Frankenberger on Shot Clocks

GPS Heads to Sheffield

The latest leg of the ever-popular Genting Poker Series event gets underway online later tonight before the festival heads to a live venue for Day 1B.

Because the GPS has the ability to use both online and live platforms, today’s opening flight will take place at 20:00 on GentingPoker.com before the second session takes place inside Sheffield’s Genting Casino tomorrow afternoon.

Last season GPS Sheffield attracted the second largest crowd of the season and by the time 546 players had dispersed Mudasser Hussain was left clutching the winner’s trophy and £42,960.

This time around Genting has guaranteed prizepool of at least £125,000 and through pre-registrations and online entrants the field has already hit 210.

Indeed, by the time the registration desks close the organisers are hoping to break last season’s total and top the 600 player mark.

 Frankenberger’s Shot Clock Alternative

The shot clock debate seems to be one that has consumed a large faction of the poker world over the last few weeks and in the wake of the WPT’s impromptu poll at the LAPC event, Andy Frankenberger has offer his alternative.

Writing in an article on Pokernews, Andy states that he is in favour of sanctions on those who take a frustrating amount of time to make a decision. However, while he believes that a full shot clock should be mandatory in turbo tournaments, he feels there should be a less drastic feature in well structured events.

The first distinction Andy makes is between pros who tank over trivial decisions for no reason and amateurs who are genuinely unsure what to do in certain spots. Wanting to ensure that the former are punished and the latter aren’t put off from playing major tournaments, Andy proposes that we should modify the process of calling the clock on someone.

While he feels calling the clock is a relatively efficient system, he offers two critical changes to the action:

• Empower the dealer to call the clock without involving the floor
• Require that a second person “confirm” the clock being called in order to initiate the process.

The idea behind these adjustments is to ensure calling the clock isn’t seen as an unsportsmanlike move, make it a faster process (because you don’t have to wait for the tournament director to come over) and to ensure people don’t abuse the clock to needle other players.

On top of these changes Andy suggests that each player is given a token that allows them to have an extra minute to make a decision. This can be used once when the clock is called on them and would help to alleviate anyone feeling short-changed when they have a genuinely tricky decision.