shut up and play?

[oddjob]

i am by no means a great player, but i am a regular in the cardroom i play at and win my fare share at the tables. lately i've found that when i'm talking with some of my friends that are regulars as well, a new player or a fish who overhears us, will try to get tricky on us with what we just talked about.

few examples:
a girl that i'm familiar with is telling me about a bluff she just made as i just sit down at the table. and we get in a small discussion about it. the guy next to me tries to bluff the next pot, and gets busted. he then looks at me and says i never bluff, and that's why. over the next 6 hours or so he makes terrible bluffs at pots that are obvious his opponents can't lay their hands down. he gets busted a number of times. he did however happen to steal a pot on me, and i can tell he felt really good about it. is it the satisfaction that it finally worked, cause he wasted way more money on all the unsuccessful bluffs. but believe me, i welcome someone who'll do this.

a huge pot, and i was drawing at a flush and missed. the board was KQ7 turn T river J. the guy to my right was betting the king which was obvious. i made a raise, as i had no chance of winning the hand and the pot was huge. everyone folds but the guy to my right, he calls with his pair of kings, and i get busted. the dealer and i, who i'm really friendly with, get in a discussion about the bluff (don't worry he's good and it didn't slow his dealing down at all... heh). then a new guy who isn't very good, but who i haven't seen any obvious bluffs the whole time, tries to bluff a number of pots off of me. this was also welcome cause i caught his tell, which is very rare.

another one where i was playing a fun table. two blind hands with a paired board, tell this loose aggressive maniac that i'm going to check raise him. he bets i checkraise he folds the first time. 2nd one he bets, i check raise, he reraises, i 4 bet him. he finally folds on the turn. i only had it once. then it seemed like guys were check raising out of nowhere at the table.

now it bugs me that these guys overheard my conversations or whatever, and then tried to use it, but it only hurt them, i almost welcome their failed attempts, as it became profitable for me, as they didn't really seem to know when to use them.

so....

do i shut up at the table

or

do i just welcome their poor attempts at these plays?

[TobDog]

You make some interesting points, however, I remember hearing from Moke Caro, that you want to encourage your opponents to play poorly against you, if you challenge them, like talking about check-raise bluffing, then you might encourage that from them. If you are picking up tells from these people, then by all means go ahead, if you are gaining more information than you are giving. This is just one observation that I have made in my short career of playing, htat the people who were loud and annoying often took much of the $$$, this may be because they are just loud, or they may be trying to lead others to play badly while at their table. Of course, this may be giving these people a lot of credit, but my point was, if you can make them play worse, do it. Good Luck! /forums/images/icons/spade.gif

[oddjob]

actually i rarely pick up on bluffs, but i just happen to watch this guy, as i couldn't really put him on any hands. a check raise from him meant he had a set, he was drawing to a nut low flush, he was bluffing, or he had a mediocre hand, and thought you were bluffing.

i think there's validation in the loud obnoxious guy. i actually play this sometimes, and i can tell that i get on some people's nerves at times, even though i'm just joking around and having a good time. but it seems like they really want to take me down at times.

i might have to use clarkmeister's "shhh, i'm stacking your chips", when i get the i cant believe drew out on me!!!

heh