Why does everyone talk so bad about sunglasses?

[InkyWretch]

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the main reason i stopped playing at the casino is because it's not even friendly anymore. people want to act like they are at a final table or something and don't even have conversations anymore.

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My gosh, ain't that the truth!

Part of the reason I dislike online play is that there's little, if any, interaction with the other players. It's getting to be the same way in the cardrooms now. I don't understand that, especially in lower limit games.

Where I play the games are always friendly, and there is always interesting conversation, and half the time it isnt even about poker.

The main reason I wear the sunglasses is because I have a tell in my eyes when I get into a big hand. I dont know about the rest of you, but when the pot is 1 or 2k I dont want my opponents to be able to get an easy read on me.

[VeryTnA]

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Why does everyone talk so bad about sunglasses?

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"Everyone" doesn't.

And no, you can not go to Jimmy's party if his parents will not be there. I don't care that "everyone" is going.

[bobbyi]

Empirically, the sorts of people who wear sunglasses in a poker game tend to be jackasses. Thus, people tend to talk negatively about them. The same is generally true about people who think they are badasses because they play no limit in games which they consider to be high stakes (but are usually equivalent to or smaller than the mid-stakes limit games that many of us play in casinos).

[Matt Williams]

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Although there I do not wear sunglasses, there are times that I wish I was. For example, I sometimes find myself counting the pot in the middle of the hand. Anybody with half a brain should be able to tell that I am on a draw and calculating pot odds.

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You shouldn't have to count how much money is in the pot in the middle of your hand. You should know how much is in the pot at all times.

[ddss6_99]

A guy was staring me down once in our 25cent/50cent NL game debating whether or not to call my 7$ all in bet. He asked me whether or not I had a strong hand. You know what I did? I haucked a giant loogy right in his eye and said " That clear things up for you?" So that's why everyone at my game wears sunglasses!

[bobdibble]

I'm uncomfortable starting at people when playing live, especially if I get caught. I'm considering starting to wear sunglasses, but I'd feel like such a tool.

[Xelent]

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It's not the sunglasses its the person...the sunglasses are just a sympton the person being a douche bag. So in summary it's the majority of douche bags wearing sunglasses that give sunglasses a bad name. If you wear sun glasses and your cool it doesn't matter one bit.

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[sternroolz]

WPT-itis, the douchebag thing...et al

Most of your profit in low limit games will come from the bad play of others, not your great play. Read Roy Cookes articles over the past several years. Volume * edge = profit. Since it is much more difficult to increase your edge in low limit games, mostly due to the house rake and just the nature of low limit poker, increasing volume(ie encouraging bad play) is going to be the way to increase your profit. Players at happy , lively tables are more likely to want to gamble on lesser holdings. Sunglasses kill a happy, lively mood. Sunglasses make you look serious and sterile.

You notice that no one in this thread is ripping on those that wear sunglasses at higher levels. Most of the time you are not going to get that lively, happy tone the same you would at a $4-8 table. You expect that players will be more serious due to the large amounts of money that are in play. Furthermore, the high limits have relatively low house drop as a percentage of the money in play. You do not need the huge volume to overcome the house advantage that you do at lower limit games. In fact, except under only occasional situations, you can pull out all the tricks in the bag and you will still often have 4-5 rocks who will not play much. So in the higher limit games, your "skill" comes far more into play.

Bottom line - In low limit games, sunglasses ruin the mood. Since most of your profit in these games comes from the bad play of others, you both decrease volume and "hide" tells from players that can't read the tells or just don't care. Since these things ought to be abundantly obvious to any serious player(and if you aren't a serious player, wtf are you doing wearing sunglasses), you can only be classified as a douche-ey WPT wannabe if you do wear sunglasses in low limit games.

[Wolf101]

I played in a 150 person MMT a couple of weeks ago.Low stakes, $50 buy in. At one point I got moved to a table where one guy was wearing sunglasses, the hat, WPT t-[censored]...the whole costume. Everyone at the table was chatting, very friendly and everything except for the sunglass guy.

He had the face of stone. Funny thing was, he was absolutely murdering the fish with that table image. If he was UTG and threw (literally) 5 times the BB into the pot the whole table folded. If he came in on the button with a big raise all but AA were folding. I watched this go on for a while waiting for a playable hand. They were terrified of this guy, and the guy was the clear chip leader by a wide margin.

He was playing almost every hand and yet no one gave it a second thought. Once I got in I started talking to him. He was a solid enough player and a pretty nice guy. I'll be damned if he didn't figure a way to intimidate the noobs. He knew exactly what he was doing and I give him credit for it.

That act never works on better players, but he stole enough pots in the first few levels to gain a great lead.

Go figure.