I was playing a $5 sit and go the other day and got to the heads up stage at which point the other player got disconnected so i kept stealing his blinds and by the time he had reconnected he was seriously shortstacked. He got quite upset and told me i should have waited for him to reconnect. What is the correct etiquette in these situations?

Normally, I give 5 minutes, and I alternate between waiting for a few seconds left and then taking the blind and actually calling from the big blind (assuming it's a hand I would call from the BB), and then taking it on the flop.

After 5 minutes, if they aren't back (or they have low enough money that they likely won't come back) then I play. I know you are under no obligation to wait for the other person (and most people don't), but I always feel bad about stealing the game. I'd rather try to win it fair and finish 2nd than win it by blinding the person out (though, whenever I disconnect, everyone always mercellessly steals from me).

Once, I actually offered to throw a hand to the person to give them some of their money back. I told the person that I'd raise, they could reraise and I'd fold, but they couldn't understand it. I figured it wasn't chip dumping since it was HU at that point.

This obviously only effects HU. If it isn't HU, I just ignore and steal from the person.

Surprisingly often when this has happened to me where a guy I am headsup with get disconnected, he has been a prick to me and everyone else,and then I instal steal as much as I can. I will usually wait for sometime (usually my timebank) untill I start stealing slowly.

yay!
if jennifear says it, it's got to make some sense. :)

i'm just glad someone put how i feel about it so well.

Are you honestly saying that if you and I are playing heads up for like $10k, and you disconnect, you expect me to do a chip equity chop with you from the time you disconnected??

I should state that I wish it wasn't this way, but I think that those of us that would do the "honorable thing", probably lose money with this play, because most of our opponents will not.

I wish that the sites would give a heads up opponent a reasonable time to reconnect, without blind increases so that this wasn't an issue.

I recommended the chip equity chop for the MTT situation when down to HU and someone is disco'd.

I could see where you might do this in just a HU sng, but not normally. The 5 or 10 minute rule that I use is fair IMO for these HU sngs.

I'll add something from experience here as most players probably don't disconnect that often. I have dialup and live in an area where its actually the quality of the phone lines that is the problem, not the provider. So I disconnect often. I can usually get back quickly, but then only stay for a short while then disconnect again. On the first disconnect, nobody ever affords me the courtesy of coming back (nor any other time), so I'd say the overwhelming majority of players will blind you quickly.

That being said, it doesn't make sense that you should expect anyone to wait for you, so why wait for them? So as mentioned above, yes if you knew the player and figured they would do the same then ok, thats a personal decision but I don't think it falls under proper poker etiquitte. I've had the power go out and similar disconnects in big buy in tournaments (over $200) to the point where I've had to make arrangements to play those bigger tournaments at a relatives house in town. So for me to get upset about it or blame anybody else for not waiting is really inappropriate because it's nobodys fault but my own.

I've also been in tournaments where somebody has had a buddy or someone they play with often disconnect at a full table and they time out themselves until they return, and sometimes that's a very long time if ever, and I think that's rude to the entire table because now the other players are being robbed of a number of hands (since all other tables are playing regularly) that puts them at a disadvantage in the tournament.

I usually use my full 15 seconds to act then take their blinds. If its someone I know, I use my whole time bank and stall as much as possible. I still take their blinds when I have not enough time to act but usually they reconnect in time

No Etiqutte?

First, in this case it was $5. Wanna be a dick for $5, go ahead. That kinda stuff will get you noticed and "tagged".

The 20k guy did the right thing. You want to win honorably. Guy could have been in a power outage. Kudos to trhe 20k guy.

unrank -ev.

Their is always etiqutte.

I would like it to be this way...

but let's not confuse this as being a "dick". I am a very honorable player who does this because I expect it to go both ways.

There is no dishonor in doing this. If you win this way, you are winning fair and square.

Anyone who "tags" you for such a maneuver is foolish, because you should not have to give up this opportunity to someone who won't do the same for you.

I've been on the other end, and trust me... 99% of the time, they are blinding your ass out. I think 99% is a conservative estimate.

But I agree with you on one thing:

Kudos to the 20k guy.

What I fail to see is how it's unfair to blind out the other guy when he would almost always do the same to you.

Fair......, I am blinding your ass out. It is funny, I have changed the settings to auto muck to take advantage of the situation. I have never played against an someone who waited on me to reconnect. Who has time to wait?

I dunno what I'd do.............never been HU. LOL

5-10 minutes is 5-10 minutes more than are giving you.

This is not a case of right and wrong.

It is honorable play to blind out your opponent. As long as you expect the same, it's fair.

Look, I'm no asshole. If my opponent is a person I know I can trust, or someone who did the same for me, I wouldn't blind them out. Also, if my opponent says he is having connection problems, I would tell him ahead that I won't blind him out if he loses connection, as long as he agrees to do the same for me.

I hate that this possibility exists. The sites have the power to prevent this, and they choose not to use that power.

Giving a courtesy that will likely not also be extended to you, is just a money losing proposition. You should not assume the liability.

Here's my point:

Say you are in 100 situations like this against players of equal ability and connection. We will say $100 heads up for argumant's sake.

In the 50 situations you disconnect, you will be blinded out about 48 times. The other two times you actually found a courteous opponent, you will win once.

This makes for 1-49.

In the 50 situations they disconnect, if you don't steal, they will not be blinded out, and both parties will win an equal amount of games.

This makes for 25-25.

A total of 26-74 instead of 50-50, because you just gave up 24 games. This move cost you $2400 in this example.

If you are in the forest and are facing a lion, do you assume they won't attack, or do you shoot first? If you don't shoot, the lion is going to eat you.