Stars support decision. Should I be mad? (long)

Thanks for the post. I have read it in its entirety and can sympathize with your frustration as this has happened to most of us at one time or another during our poker playing careers.

That being said. I think there are two fundamental problems with your reasoning and subsequent negative cognitive/emotive state. First of all, you posed the question 'should I be mad?' This seems to imply that you are seeking an impartial opinion. However, your responses to the posters indicates you already have your mind made up: you are pissed!

And not only are you pissed at Pokerstar's ruling (and the big mouth who seemingly put you in this position), you're pissed at those who offered you their opinion. Perhaps it's safe to assume there are three guilty parties here causing your anger/negative emotional state:

1) Pokerstars support (for not being severe enough in their punishment and not ruling the way you wished)
2) The big-mouth you believe caused you to 'lose $200' by running his mouth at an inopportune time.
3) The posters who responded because they presumably weren't objective and have a double standard as far as Party Poker is concerned.

Here is my basic opinion since you did ask for it. You don't have any sound reason to ALLOW yourself to get mad now, or as the title of your post implies, in the future. You choose, perhaps unwittingly, to become angry because you have a set of irrational ideas and beliefs that amount to "people must be fair or they are no-good jackasses!'

To simplify things consider this:

A) Activating event: Player potentially undermines my profits by talking during a poker game.

B) Belief about 'A': That's not fair, nobody should talk during a hand and if they do they should be strongly dealt with!

C) Consequence: You become enraged/angry and needlessly upset yourself.

Now suppose for the moment at point B you told yourself something entirely different (and more rational). Let assume you told yourself, "It's unfortunate, highly undesireable, and I don't like it but people don't have to act the way I want (be it loud-mouthed players, incompetent customer service reps, or unobjective posters).

Lets redraw the A,B,C model and see what happens:

A) Activating event: Player potentially undermines my profits by talking during a poker game.

B) Belief about 'A': It's unfortunate, highly undesireable, and I don't like it but people don't have to act the way I want.

C) Consequence: You feel appropriately disappointed but not angry or disturbed.


This model has been very helpful for me in helping control my own negative emotions and has helped transformed me from a loser to a winning player. My basic point is that people and things don't disturb us; rather we disturb ourselves by BELIEVING they can disturb us. I don't think you should allow yourself to be mad. It sounds like you're not only mad in the present, but you're setting yourself up for future anger by trying to find others who will validate and justify your negative feelings.

Let go of it and work on things you can control. Heck, it sounds like you already did one very proactive and rational thing by contacting Pokerstars and expressing your concerns. Perhaps you could work on being just as rational and vigilant when despite your best efforts you get undesireable results.

JeffreyREBT

So stars not only answered your response (no doubt in a timely fashion) but they also justified their response step by step? I suggest you write them a letter of appreciation.