26 replies to this topic

[wrto4556]

I've been noticing this more and more online these days. A couple of folks that know a little bit about the game get roudy when a fish sucks out on them.They say things like: "why were you even in the hand?" "You called two bets cold with J8s!?" "You see too many flops, and don't protect your hand!"Why on gods green earth would you tell people they play bad!? There mistakes are what puts money in your pocket. Some of them even know this, but continue to educate the opposing playing by saying things like: "I want that call all day." Woah!! Don't say it...think it. You catch a fish doing something and you capatalize on it, and them let him go back to what he was doing. Hints, "catch and release."If you tell somebody they suck and what they are doing wrong two horrible things will happen.1) They will get mad and leave the table, and you are now forced to play better opponents.2) They will learn from what you tell them and cieze making that particular mistake!Now, I was playing with a buddy of mine when he started to tell some fish off. My buddy sais to him: "I only see 25-30% of the flops, you should see less." And the fish replies: "I try to see about 50%, that way, if I win half I know i'm getting somewhere." Before my buddy could say anything more I reply: "50% is pretty good, but when the cards are running hot I try for 60%." Unfortunately I'm always the guy that takes jokes way too far and he ended up catching on that I was making fun of him. He left. I couldn't capatalize on him limping with AK, or AA anymore. Crap.My point is simple, dont tap on the aquariam, the fish don't like it.While i'm on the subject. Don't talk about poker stategy or theory either. People realize you know a little bit about the game and tighten up against you. They also listen, and people that listen...leeaaarrrrnnn.good luck at the tables

[Spidurman]

Absolutely agree - I just say 'nh' or 'nice catch'. You can learn alot by the response. If they say something acknowledging the crappiness of their play, they are probably a good player, but not a rock. If they say 'ty that's my favorite hand', you have a live one.

[VirginiaGent]

Nice point. I used to coach the table with my new found knowledge about PC play (Pokerially Correct)...but then it dawned on me...why should I try to improve this guy's play???Also, I just say "nice catch" if they shouldn't have been in there or "nh" if it was a truly nice hand.Shuffle up and deal....

[tekn0wledg]

Yeh I see alot of this online. You will sometimes see this in live games but it's not as frequent because you can't behind the veil of any secracy.It is unfortunate. Usually the people who do this are people who are as uninformed as the person who made the mistake in the first place. When I first started playing seriously I was one of these people too.... I took my frustrations and lack of game knowledge out on them. Fortunately I learned it wasn't good for the game or my image, so I quit doing that fairly soon after I began playing more seriously.These days I see players berating others about hands like that, and in some cases they are yelling at me for calling a raise with 78s or something, hehe.... at any rate I will only get involved when I think it's getting out of hand, but there isn't much you can do online anyway.It's unfortunate, but it happens. If you have a true sucker at the table I try to follow them to another table when I can, or get n the waiting list at their other tables....

[Smasharoo]

Why on gods green earth would you tell people they play bad!Because they suck and instead of working on their game they blame the sucking on other people playing poorly. As if people playing badly made it HARDER for them to win.

[JMHeel]

I def. enjoy reading some of the banter online. Man some girl tried to chat it up about a play I made the other night in 7 card stud when i was chasing a four flush but caught two runners for 3 of a kind. Made some smart comment about how I needed to read a poker book or something. I proceeded to double my buy in within an hour and she fell fast. Then i left her have it big time. JMheel

[bluff2much]

That is such a good point. I had that happen the other day. This new player stayed in because she had a flush draw....lol...runner runner. And totally took down a huge pot off another player. He went off, and that player left. This player was calling down everything, a total fish. So when the on tilt player chased her off, I was pis sed and I let him know.If i'm playing w/ a player who I know plays a lot ( i have a few people in mind) and stays to the river every hand. I'll say something like....Keep playing like that and I'll have all those chips, but I don't say it an angry manner. But I back it up because I know the way that I play, I'm a huge favorite to someone who's drawing to 2nd pair or something stupid like that. The reason why I say that is because I want him coming after me, to prove me wrong. Then I show down the best hand.Thats where I cut it off though. I try not show any emotion at all, and I think that all good players should play that way. Texas hold em is a 7 card game, and if a players hand is good enough for him to put chips in, then its good enough to win. I really try not to criticize anyones game, just try and take advantage of it.Jason

[Wlleiotl]

in that case then, i hope you really dont mind hearing 'but it was suited'

[bluff2much]

No I don't mind....but it seems to happen a lot....This guy yesterday capped it on the flop and turn on the come. I flopped the nuts....trapped one other player between us....Club didn't come. At least thats what he told me.

[pat_s_lee]

Here's a quote from an article I read a little while ago. I've always kept it in the back of my mind when some guy with 5-9 off calls 3 bets pre-flop and makes some miraculous boat."John..I make my living outplaying people that aren't as skilled at the game as me. If I was to snarl every time I lost to bad cards, there's a good chance they may not bring my money back tomorrow."

[wrto4556]

I just wanted to dig this up for some of the other players here. *shrug*Im bored, give me a break.

[JFarrell20]

OK wrto, I've read it. lol. I will definitely work on this. Maybe I'll even say "good play" when it was a truly bad play. Do you guys really follow fish around to tables? I wonder if they'd notice that? lol. I tend to stay at 3-tables 10-handed and only leave if I feel like there's some callusion going on or the table gets to 7-handed. I guess I just need more self-control at the tables. I feel like I need to tell someone about all my bad beats though. I tell my girlfriend (she's definitely poker-savvy enough to sympathize), but sometimes she's asleep or something, or watching TV, or she just wants sex. OK, I'll take it.

[Awful]

I don't even do the "nh", "nice catch", etc.; I beleive it's really condescending to say "nice catch" to someone, and it's really fake to say "nice hand" when someone shows you the 57 sooooted they capped preflop with. They know their 96o is crap, they're still gambling it up and having fun. They know you want to win their money, and they know such gestures are meaningless stock responses. Saying nothing, or if you can, something creative and friendly and funny is a far better path to pursue.Just ignore chat, or don't give some sort of stock response. You're in no way encouraging bad play by saying any of the company line beat responses, and as stated, can be quite condescending.OTOH, I love it when people will give me trouble about my play.Today, I was leader in a sit-n-go, 3 people left. small stack (2xbb, so about to bust) folds, I'm big stack, middle stack is the weak/tightest player ever. So I minraise him with garbage (he'd only call or reraise with far less than 50% of hands), and he flat calls, I flop a flush, he has TPTK, flush redraw. I get the money in, he misses his 7 outs, he berates me for raising him with 93s. Plus, he didn't reraise me with his AK vs. a possible steal. Gave me a chuckle.

[holman3rd]

Awful said:

OTOH, I love it when people will give me trouble about my play.

I get a nice chuckle when fish tell me how much I suck. One time, at band camp, no, in a 4/8 game at foxwoods, I took down a huge pot after hitting my hand on the river (yes, i had the correct pot-odds to play that far), another player really laid into me.I just couldn't help myself, so I replied "Shhhhhh...I can't concentrated on stacking your chips when you're talking like such a fool." Wow! You would have thought I just threw a rock through a hornet's nest. Completely put him on major tilt.Disclaimer--I got that line from a guy on 2+2 and liked it so much that I almost couldn't believe I actually had an opportunity to use it. Another quick one. A few months ago I was in a 20-person home game tourney. It got down to heads up between me and one of my best friends. I had him outchipped something like 10 to 1. He went on an unbelievable rush and ended up beating me.I just said, nice game.On the way home, my brother asked, "Aren't you pissed? I've never seen him win, not once. He sucks. How could you lose?"I responded, "Hey, even the fish have to get fed once in a while, otherwise they'll die and never come back."Now the unbelievable part. Except for my brother and best friend, I didn't know anyone else. We played 3 tournaments that night, and I won 2 and took 2nd in the one mentioned above. In the email exchanges the next day, several of the guys were commenting how lucky I was and that they couldn't wait to get me back in their game so they could win their money back.

[DeadMoney6545]

Why didn't u just copy my post word for word from when the last guy went nuts about .50/1 tables on PP? Just kiddin bro..... Could not agree with u more.... Let ignorance and bad play reign everyday of the week every hour of the day... means we all make more monies in the long run...

[MrConceit]

Awful said:

I don't even do the "nh", "nice catch", etc.; I beleive it's really condescending to say "nice catch" to someone, and it's really fake to say "nice hand" when someone shows you the 57 sooooted they capped preflop with. They know their 96o is crap, they're still gambling it up and having fun. They know you want to win their money, and they know such gestures are meaningless stock responses. Saying nothing, or if you can, something creative and friendly and funny is a far better path to pursue.

Wait, are you saying 57s isn't a good hand? It's my FAVORITE... oh nevermind. :)An amusing story from yesterday in 15/30. My entire table though I was utterly fishy, it was so fun (well ok, part of the fun was I snagged a HUGE pot). Oh, and I did give a horrendous beat, but I was just trying to protect my hand, where do you draw the line? One mild disclaimer, 15/30 on party is filled with crazy-LAGs typically, and people who try to push you off hands with soso holdings or ok draws. So... I'll just give the hand.Party Poker 15/30 Hold'em (10 handed) converterPreflop: MrConceit is BB with 6s, 8s. UTG raises, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls, MP1 calls, 1 fold, MP3 calls, 1 fold, Button calls, SB calls, MrConceit calls.Flop: (14 SB) 6h, 8d, 7d (7 players)SB checks, MrConceit bets, UTG folds, UTG+2 raises, MP1 calls, MP3 calls, Button folds, SB folds, MrConceit 3-bets, UTG+2 caps, MP1 calls, MP3 calls, MrConceit calls.(Ok, so perhaps a 3bet is overkill, but between a flush draw or a hand like 98 or 56 I want to charge them out the nose. Plus I've seen people with 99 or TT play as strongly as UTG+2 here on some of my tables.)Turn: (15 BB) Qs (4 players)MrConceit bets, UTG+2 calls, MP1 calls, MP3 calls.(Ah good, I wasn't raised here, I figured he had an overpair now or 98, I no longer believed he had a set. Apparently he just believed I had the straight. )River: (19 BB) 8c (4 players)MrConceit bets, UTG+2 raises, MP1 folds, MP3 folds, MrConceit 3-bets, UTG+2 caps, MrConceit calls.(I think this was an easy cap. Technically I have 3rd to nuts here, but like I believe he has QQ. [Edit] Oops, make that 4th to nuts. But again like I believe he has 8Q either. [/Edit] I'll take the risk he has 87. Ok, it was a horrid beat, oops! Thanks for the chips.)Final Pot: 27 BBResults below: MrConceit has 6s 8s (full house, eights full of sixes). UTG+2 has 7c 7s (full house, sevens full of eights). Outcome: MrConceit wins 27 BB.

[JFarrell20]

An 810$ pot??? Wow. I get giddy over a $25 pot.Speaking of which I won that pot at a table a couple nights ago against a guy named Gamblar01. This was just hilarious. A member of this forum witnessed it too, as we were playing at the same table. Anyway, me and the other FCP nut were talking a lot and apparently this guy got mad and started flaming at us about non-poker related items. So I played along and talked sh.it back. I then took a normal sized pot from him, and now I knew he was on tilt. On to the hand...So I'm the SB, Gamblar01 is the BB. I'm dealt A4 suited. OK... I raise him since it folded all the way around to me, and I assume he doesn't have an ace. He re-raises, and anyway, we end up capping it pre-flop. Flop comes A x 4 rainbow. YES! lol. I bet it, he raises... etc, we cap again. Now I know he's on tilt. Turn comes another ace. LOL. We cap AGAIN! he's raising immediately too. lol. River card is a rag. I bet he raises, I re-raise etc till we cap. Pot is 25 BB. (.5/1 table) so $12.50 of his money is in here (he started the hand with like $17). lol. And now to what he shows........get ready.....you might want to sit for this one.....King deuce offsuit. LOLOL. NO PAIR! NO F.UCKING PAIR!!! hahahaha, oh man all he did after that was laugh. lol. Did he think I was going to fold on the river when he's re-raising me? lol.

[randomization]

I'd also advise against saying "nice hand" when a guy turns over 37o or whatever. Most guys know that those hands are crap, but play them anyway because they're bored, or on tilt, or don't care enough. Saying nice hand will let them know you're lying in a lot of situations. It can be almost as bad as berating players for playing poorly, if it's obvious enough.

[Degueldre]

Awesome post,just great

[KsItLoLnEeR]

What is interesting is when you try to in any way suggest that telling bad players they play badly is a bad idea, the person dissing the fish usually goes off and gets more ignorant.What I do is I will side with the fish because usually online the majority of the table is fish (at low limits) so by siding with fish you can make them feel like its okay to call a 4xbb raise with K5s, but it also puts the original fish disser on tilt so you can take advantage of that if the oppertunity arises.I usually say stuff like "hey if you are willing to gamble with K5s, you deserve that pot." Or if an idiot is berating a fish I will say "Its a free country, people can play cards how they want." Or "Some people play to just have fun, you should respect that".Or whatever else comes to mind, but anyway my point is that by siding with the fish it keeps the other fish at the table there, makes the idiot go on tilt, and it makes other people think I am a fish which is what I want.