Poker Table Verbal Abuse Has Consequences
I know you’ve been there, in a poker hand where you’re totally ahead preflop, on the flop, on the turn, and seemingly on the river. You end up betting and extracting money, lots of it from a horrible poker player that’s been donating all night. But in this hand, on the river, he turns the absolute nuts over your second best hand. This is the same guy you were happy was a horrible poker player earlier, but now he’s just take a huge chunk of your money, and you’re not too happy with him. So you decide to berate him, tell him why his play was bad, and generally just start spewing venom at him. Problem is, this player isn’t a shark, nor does he claim to be. Actually, he’s a recreational player, and he’s really fishy, giving lots of money to the sharks at the table. Heck, you’ve even benefited from his lack of skill from time to time. But now you’re calling him every name in the book and generally criticizing his stupid play that took all your money. Well, let’s think about the consequences. First, being a recreational player, he doesn’t have to be skilled to play the game. He’s there for fun, sure winning is fun, but mostly he’s there to have a good time and gamble (read not play strategic poker). But when you start berating him, you’re actually hurting the poker economy. This guy is putting a lot of money into this poker room. And by making him feel bad about his play, you can only do two things. See you have to remember that even though we’re ruthless players on the felt, we’re also humans with emotions to go with it. So what you end up doing is either making the recreational player go home, study up, and get better, possibly surpassing you and starting to take your money regularly, or you discourage him to the point where he doesn’t want to play at all with you anymore, effectively eliminating his money from that part of the poker economy. So the next time you get sucked out on by a super donk who made a horrible call and hit a miracle card on the river, don’t berate, congratulate. Tell him, good hand, and just wait on him to make the same mistake again. Mathematically, you’ll make your money back if he continues to get in those situations with you, and at the same time you’re helping him not get better so you and your sharky friends can keep taking his money.