WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage revealed to PokerOrg tonight that the World Poker Tour has already drafted plans to curb what Savage believes are unnecessary delays caused by players taking advantage of the time allowed to make a decision.
PokerOrg asked Savage tonight what plans the WPT has to combat tanking. Savage said, "We're making a change to our action clock system. I spoke to players that have experience with the action clock and tried to come up with something better."
Savage spent a large part of the day commenting on the latest example of the issue which played out at EPT Paris.
Johan 'Yoh Viral' Guilbert took what many people viewed to be an unnecessarily long time to make decisions on each street of a hand. Players called the clock on Guilbert no fewer than three times throughout the hand. When the stories made it out of Paris, the poker community--including Savage--responded.
Guilbert is a popular player with a YouTube channel boasting 165,000 subscribers and significant reach and influence when it comes to introducing the game to new players. Savage and others appealed to Guilbert to stop what many others see as madness.
Savage and the WPT are taking it one step further.
WPT to institute new action-clock rules
For upcoming events, the WPT plans to implement a new system for dealing with time in tournament play.
Savage and the WPT hope that this new set of rules encourages a quicker play style. Savage recognizes this solution may not be perfect for everyone, but it's a start.
"There are a lot of people that say the time chips should be used right from the start," Savage said.
Savage sent PokerOrg this draft of the rules the WPT plans to implement.
Savage told PokerOrg he plans to institute the new rules as soon as the April WPT Rolling Thunder event.
