What's the purpose of tanking?

[Dobbler1]

I see, in all sorts of situations, players tanking (running through their time bank). I keep hearing about it being a major problem. I don't understand it. I mean I understand needing a little time to make a decision, and I understand pretending you need a little time to make a decision when slow playing a big hand. I've also seen people do it on the bubble in a tourney, which I sort of understand if you're massively short-stacked... although if you miscalculate you might just get blinded out because the blinds went up when you were tanking.

I keep seeing people do in what look like straight forward situations, or during tourneys where there are no bubble considerations. It seems like they think it gives them an advantage, but for the life of me I can't imagine what that advantage could be. Can anyone explain the point of constant tanking? What's the psychology behind it?

 

[pirateglenn]

Tanking

Hi There,

I think there are players who always tank and those who "situation-ally tank" dependent on the stage of the tourney.
There are also times when you really are put to a decision and you have to take that time to weigh up a call or another move.

As you get to higher stakes, the frequency of players tanking seems to decrease as in my opinion, those players have a better idea of their game.

We all have a time bank and its there for a reason, whenever i have been criticized for tanking, i just ignore it as i am playing my game and not theirs.

 

[Dobbler1]

We all have a time bank and its there for a reason, whenever i have been criticized for tanking, i just ignore it as i am playing my game and not theirs.

Yeah, I have zero problem with someone wanting to take the time to make a good decision. Sometimes I have to count outs in my head to figure out if I'm getting the right price, or giving my opponent the price I want to, and that can take some time. I'm more talking about players tanking every hand before folding it pre-flop. Especially in turbo or hyper tourneys. I guess if you aren't as good a player, when you get to everyone having few bbs, it increases the variance, which favors the weak players... but if you're smart enough to work that out, you should be smart enough to have a solid fundamental game.

I'd be curious if there were players on this site who intentionally tank to make it so that there are fewer hands when the blinds are small, and what their reasoning is.


Or maybe it's not intentional, and it's just my imagination.

 

[pirateglenn]

Tanking

I'm more talking about players tanking every hand before folding it pre-flop. Especially in turbo or hyper tourneys. I guess if you aren't as good a player, when you get to everyone having few bbs, it increases the variance, which favors the weak players... but if you're smart enough to work that out, you should be smart enough to have a solid fundamental game.
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[FONT=NotoSans, Lato, arial, sans-serif]Reference above - its also obvious that they are probably multi tabling and you can work that to your advantage sometimes too
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[Dobbler1]

[FONT=NotoSans, Lato, arial, sans-serif]its also obvious that they are probably multi tabling and you can work that to your advantage sometimes too
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Excellent point. Hadn't considered that. Cheers!

 

[Rachidao]

Sometimes in the late stage almost ITM the low big blinds people tend to let the time roll to get to the money. Some who was bluffing and get re-raised tank to disguise their weak hand, some have multi table and so on.

In the double or nothing from 888 you see a lot of these, people let the blinds go up so the small stacks has do shove with weak hands.

 

[Alex70793]

The main reason for delaying time is that many players play many tables at once, and when a winning hand or an important hand comes at one table, they do not pay attention to other tables. It happens that a player just physically does not have time to play at many tables at once.

 

[BetterThanAvgButNotByMuch]

If I have ZERO RESPECT FOR YOUR GAME or the table's game then I will tank if I think I can go deeper in a tourn.

Like if you're a clueless bingo player then I'm tanking. And it doesn't change the hands that I would normally play or play them, I would just eat up time. The time is more important to me than the hands.

If you ever see me playing and I'm tanking its because I'm playing VERY, VERY BAD PLAYERS.

You wouldn't have to look them up on sharkscope to know they cash like once every 1 in 50-75 times in a freeroll or some hideous ROI, lol I mean just god awful players.

You might say you would want to play hands with them but when you understand that when you have a table full of those players then almost any hand you play goes down in value. It would be shoving with Aces in holdem and have a lot of folks call to the point where you're just a slight favorite vs a time when you could isolate against folks that actually have a clue what they're doing and you're a big favorite in the same situation.

Best thing for me is to just let them play and eliminate themselves for doing silly plays.

 

[77ecos]

that is very rare, I have not experienced that but I have already seen post like yours, when there is no bubble there is no reason for each hand to do it all the time, maybe sometimes it has happened to me that I have to pick up an order of food but it's just a hand because I end up absent at the tables.

 

[milka1605]

I only use this when there are 2-3 players left in the prize pool and my stack is small. With a small stack close to the prize money, there is no point in raising, and going all-in, let’s say there is no excellent card and you don’t want to take risks. Not then I wasted time to fly out before the prizes. Therefore, delaying the time gives a chance, albeit a small one, that at that time someone else will come out at a different table and I will get into the prizes.

 

[whitetailbuck10]

Interesting comments on this post for sure. There are a couple of freeroll tournaments that I do this in for sure and it's 100% for my selfish reasons of finishing further up in the pay-out. Tournament I KNOW this works in. But in regular circumstances unless getting close to the bubble while short stacked I don't do it on purpose. I seem to see it less than I did before, but I am playing slightly higher stakes games as well, so more advanced players I guess. Thanks for the post, interesting to read.