something about poker table

Filed Under poker news, poker table

i’ll tell you one thing l’ve never been at the poker table, not last week or any week, and that is visibly enraged. l’ve never thrown a card or cursed a dealer or berated a foe. i can’t, in fact, imagine any set of circumstances that would find me raging against someone’s bad play or my own bad luck. i find this sort of behavior not just abhorrent but incredibly self-destructive. Any time I see another player letting his anger get the best of him, I instantly know that this is a player i can beat.Talk about a tell! The fool who throws cards at the dealer is demonstrating su ch a heavy emotional investment in outcome that he can’t even contain his own fury.

Someone who is that invested in outcome is clearly a player on tilt not just in this moment but, functionally, all the time. At minimum this is a player more concerned with winning or losing money than with playing his best game. Beneath all this visible anger lies a deeper and more crucial reality: The player who rages in this manner has no self-awareness whatsoever.
It’s manifest.

If he had self-awareness, then he would recognize how these rank demonstrations of anger hurt his game.

If he had self-awareness, he would know that play¬ing angry leaves him open to attack from more stable, less emotional players.

If he had the slightest shred of self-awareness, he would recognize that this sort of ire is bad for him, bad for the game, and bad for poker as a whole.

If he recognized any of this in himself, he would shut the “frick” up and just get on with the game.

ln fact it’s astounding to me that the fury-heads last as long in the game as they do.

You would think that the fust episode of card hurling or, worse, card spindling would warn a player that he is badly out of control. Strangely, this doesn’t happen. 

I suppose that if your hostility is that high and your rage is that raw, it’s easy to direct all of your emotions outward and blame the universe for something that is, let’s face it, completely and entirely your own fault.

Our responsibility as special Poker players is simple and twofold:

First, identify these players and exploit the crap out of them; and second, never be this kind of player, not even for an instant.

Unless you’re faking it.

Unless you have decided that there’s an image play to be made by railing against the cosmic forces that seem to oppress you so. 

I would validate this strategy as long as you stopped short of tearing up cards or abusing dealers or other players.

Even in the name of image, and even if the strategy is fundamentally sound, sorne things are just over the line.
Then again, sorne things just aren’t.

Things like being a bully.

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