There’s something wrong with No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) poker these days. That’s according to high-stakes poker pro Tom Dwan, who recently finished fifth at the HL$500,000 NLHE Short Deck Ante Only tournament as part of the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in Jeju. Dwan is one of several players that have recently shown a preference for the short deck version over full deck NLHE, which has led to a greatly reduced presence at full deck NLHE tournaments. But, this isn’t the only reason he’s not playing. He says that full deck is simply not the same anymore.

The game is the same – the way the cards are dealt, the way hands are calculated, the way pots are won. However, Dwan says that the atmosphere surrounding the tables has turned sour. He says, “I think the few tournaments I’ve played lately… people have taken the ‘staring at you’ to a whole new level, taking a long time every hand.”

He points out that players are intentionally slowing down the pace of the game and that this has ruined NLHE poker. “Now I think feel like people are taking [stalling] to an extreme and it’s not that fun… not that sporting,” he explained.

Bryn Kenney agrees. He said on Instagram that Dwan is “dead right,” adding “Should be a penalty for staring at amateurs,” says Kenney, adding how excessive tanking is “not making the game fun and people need to understand how important it is to make the game fun to attract players to wanna play.”