The Chat Box and Bad Players....

[mtdoak]

I've found that there are two bad situations that occur in the chat area to make it uncomfortable for bad players. Either A) a bad player talking smack or B) A good player berating a bad player.

Obviously, you shouldn't join in the piss party, whatever is going on (i.e. in the pissing), but are there times you should try to befriend a LAG? Lets say TAG has become table coach, starts berating hte cash dumping lag, who you have position on, i've found myself saying something like 'Back off man, if he's so bad, why do you want him to leave? Or are you just afraid he's going to outplay you and take the rest of your chips?', usually to remind the good player why he should STFU and remind the lag that he is going to take that SOBs chips. Thoughts?

[Yako]

Whenever anyone at a table I play at starts berating another player, I usually try to politely remind everyone that we're all there to gamble it up and have some fun. If that doesn't work, then I add the offender to my buddy list and send them an invite telling them to stop trashing the fish. Usually that does the trick. But yeah, you should definitely try to stop any berating from going on. It's +EV I think. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[bobhalford]

I sometimes will attempt to defend the bad player's actions in some way or just tell the offender to chill out.

[tonypaladino]

[ QUOTE ]
Back off man, if he's so bad, why do you want him to leave?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm all for defending the poor players, but saying this isn't a good idea, it implies you agree with the table coach, and introduced the idea to the poor player that he might be a "fish".

If you read Mike Caro's section in Super/System 2, he talks about player berating the fish, and how he responds to them.

[smb394]

I usually call the table coach a deuche. This then diverts his attention and invective my way, letting the fish continue to spew his chips in peace.

[RatFink]

I think being overt if you decide to respond is bad. You don't want to acknowledge the person is playing badly.

If it is getting uncomfortable, I just go with something like "Hey don't let him put you on tilt. Just play your game"

It makes the bad player feel like he's more of a poker player and can dismiss the berating as a tactic, and alerts the berater that he's an idiot.

[Harv72b]

If I do decide to descend into the foray, I generally take the side of whichever player is worse. Things like reminding the table coach that his hand wasn't best on the river, and that's the only street that counts. Or little nuggets of wisdom like "that's why they call it GAMBLING" or "you can't win if you fold." /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Most of the time I just ignore it, though. And FWIW, I've found that LAGs tend to thrive on being insulted in the chat box--they love the action and the psychology behind the game, and enjoy seeing just how badly they're getting to their opponent. It's the loose/passives that tend to get chased away by insults, because they're generally just there to have some fun & get along with everyone.

[SmileyEH]

I berate the good players.

[SmileyEH]

[ QUOTE ]
I've found that LAGs tend to thrive on being insulted in the chat box

[/ QUOTE ] ´

I was just going to say this. Getting into pissing matches with LAGs is fun, theraputic and definitely not unprofitable.

It happened me today. On the flop I had bottom pair, the nut flush draw and a gutshot straight draw to the second nuts. All in all about 742 outs and 135% in pot equity (j/k). On the river I hit trips and took down a massive pot. One of the players, a tilting LAG, in the pot starts humiliating me for catching a "one outer", calling me a fish and more explicit stuff. It really pissed me off, but before I could respond any further, one of the players who wasn't in the pot told us not to be so hostile, and that reminded me how -EV it is to let the other players know you have a clue about odds and equity, so I just put the bully on ignore. I think that's something we should all try to do. Just say something like, "be nice". That's all it takes to calm a situation down sometimes.

[ QUOTE ]
A good player berating a bad player.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this very rarely happens. It's usually a bad player berating a worse player. Sometimes it's even a bad player berating a good player because he doesn't understand a correct play the good player made.

I usually say something like "let's try to behave ourselfs" it pisses the berater off and makes the beratey feel better.