Party SH - bizarre chat

[Robk]

I was asked to play heads-up in a private room. Normally I don't because the rake is oppressive and I lose focus on my other tables, but the guy who asked me seemed incompetent enough, so I went. We played for a little while when and a third player sat in. My original opponent told him that we were playing heads-up, and asked him to leave. He said "OK", but then continued to sit there. I didn't mind because he helped shoulder the rake, and was playing even worse than the first guy. He lost his 500 dollar buy-in. Then three more. His chat was pretty typical for someone tilting off a lot of money:

"wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"OMG!!!!!!!!!!!"


"fu ck you fag got"

"unreal!!!!!!!!"

etc.

After buying in again, this time for 1000, he got nastier. And after every pot he won, he typed in "How did you like that one fag got". He also went on a pretty good run of cards. For about two hours he was winning pot after pot, and insulting both of us, even after blind steals. He was also playing much better, and I was thinking about quitting the game. But then two or three "beats" hit, and his play was as bad as ever. He went from 3000 to 2000 to 1000 to 500. At about 500 he started saying things like:

I'm going to kill myself tonight.

I hope you guys realize you're ruining someone's life right now.

One of the biggest pots of the session came up, capped three ways preflop. On the turn my ak spiked a king, and he had K6. He typed in "Actually I think I'll just shoot myself right now." He timed out and didn't come back, with 91.5 at the table. I thought I had seen it all when it came to poker chat, but this was disturbing, any thoughts appreciated.

[Lawrence Ng]

The one thing about playing online as opposed to playing live is you don't have to read all that garbage if you don't want. Most of the time I just have "Totally Silent" on.

You can also appeal to a CSR and they can ban him from having chat privileges.

[Al Schoonmaker]

There have beem a couple of recent threads here on "trash talking." I think you should read them. I hope they are still here.
Regards,
Al

[M.B.E.]

Clearly the discussion of suicide at the end was a joke. (Not a humorous one, of course.) It could well have been a "cry for help", but don't believe that the person actually shot himself/herself at the end of the discussion.

I would say you should forward the chat log to Party support, and specifically point out the references to suicide at the end. If Party wants to contact the relevant authorities, they can. There's nothing more you can do.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

The dude is obviously FKed up in the head for the suicide bit. Still tho, other than passing it along to party, it's not your problem. Many compulsive gamblers exist, some play poker online, some ruin their lives, and a few probably even kill themselves. Not my problem, not yours either.

al

[chesspain]

[ QUOTE ]
I would say you should forward the chat log to Party support, and specifically point out the references to suicide at the end.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, Party support providing suicide crisis intervention. That would be an amusing transcript to read /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[Mike]

I think the best thing for you to do is know that you are not responsible for that person or anything about them.

He/she obviously has some problem(s), and either it was a very sick joke or it wasn't. I vote for joke. Unfortunate for you that you had to be a part of it, but you had no say in his/her actions.

It's a silly thing to do but try this, it works: Stand up and step to the middle of the room. Close you eyes, extend your arms and turn in a circle slowely. Everything you touch you can control. Everything else you are not responsible for.

Wish I had the source for that excellent bit of wisdom. I am a read-aholic and the source escapes me at the moment. Next time turn chat off or leave. gl

[bisonbison]

I've never played at a private table online, but when you're invited to play heads-up and another player comes into your private (passworded?) room, wouldn't you worry about collusion?

[bigpooch]

Of course, but as Doyle would put it: wouldn't you risk a
little bit just to see if you could win a lot? If things
don't seem to be on the square, cut your losses and then
quit the game right away. On the other hand,... :-)

[Roy Munson]

Unfortunately this person will probably not blow his brains out. However, one can hold out hope that he will follow through.

[Robk]

[ QUOTE ]
The one thing about playing online as opposed to playing live is you don't have to read all that garbage if you don't want. Most of the time I just have "Totally Silent" on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you ever read Sklansky's article on "dealer abuse"? He says that he loves to see it. Not because he enjoys it but because it lets him know his opponent is an idiot. I feel the same way about chat. It's also interesting to see inside your opponents' heads, as sometimes they say some interesting/revealing things about the way they think. In this very game for example, I learned that my opponent folded TT on the flop when it came down KQJ. I'm not such a misanthrope that in addition to to setting in front of a computer all day, I can't bear to read chat. Not yet, anyway. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Robk]

To M.B.E. and others who expressed similar feelings, I don't think my opponent was serious about committing suicide. But at the same time I also don't think he was "joking". One thing I failed to mention in my post is that neither one of us was chatting back to this opponent. He had no real reason to believe we were paying any attention at all. Most people won't spend three hours making a joke if no one is paying attention.

[Robk]

Al, unlike recently I pretty much agree with you /images/graemlins/wink.gif I was more interested in why someone would chat like this. I couldn't come up with a good reason, and I was curious what other people thought.

[Robk]

To bisonbison, bigpooch has it exactly right. In this case it was quickly obvious that no collusion was going on. In order to collude successfully, you still have to play reasonably well or you will be giving up more than your edge.

[Robk]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the best thing for you to do is know that you are not responsible for that person or anything about them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this; I think this attitude is mandatory for a poker player. The undavoidable fact is that (considering rake, especially) your wins mean a lot of losses by other people. Often losses these people can't really afford. If I weren't OK with that, I wouldn't be playing.

[ QUOTE ]
He/she obviously has some problem(s), and either it was a very sick joke or it wasn't. I vote for joke. Unfortunate for you that you had to be a part of it, but you had no say in his/her actions.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I don't think they were serious, I'm not sure it was a joke. To me it felt like he was trying to make us feel bad or guilty, as a way of getting back at us. I know that's a bit of a stretch, but the tone of his chat was pretty humorless on the whole.

[ QUOTE ]
It's a silly thing to do but try this, it works: Stand up and step to the middle of the room. Close you eyes, extend your arms and turn in a circle slowely. Everything you touch you can control. Everything else you are not responsible for.


[/ QUOTE ]

While this may or may not be true, I don't think I would be very happy if I believed it. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[ QUOTE ]
Next time turn chat off or leave.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wasn't really that upset about it, I just thought it was strange.

[Mike]

Sounds okay then. When I was in college I worked a help line during the night shift. It was usually pretty quiet and the calls normally cosisted of std's and girl/boyfriend problems. One night when I was half a sleep, a guy called in and said he was in a pay phone, had a gun to his head and was going to pull the trigger.

Being half asleep and always cynical, I gave a non serious response of, "Go ahead." All turned out well in the end, but I spent a lot of time afterwords thinking about what could have been.

Glad you are okay with it, I thought things like that only happened on irc.

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
While I don't think they were serious, I'm not sure it was a joke. To me it felt like he was trying to make us feel bad or guilty, as a way of getting back at us.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, I agree.