Friday, January 08, 2010

The Poker Rules, Rule 1 Do not chase away the Fish

When I first started playing I was in my early Twenties, I read most of the books by David Sklansky and that alone gave me a pretty big edge in the game.  My play was kind of "nitty" but I was a slight winner from day one.  It was very odd back then though poker was not popular with young people at all, typically I was 10 years younger than anyone in the games.  The games were friendly but none of us were friends.  I literally do not talk to one person that I used to play poker with and in fact the home game that I used to play in I was "disinvited" from once I started winning big.  Early on my biggest problem was that I would lose my temper I remember one night very well.  The scenario was basically this, there were about 8 of us, 2 were decent, 2 were o'kay (this was the group I was in) and 4 losers.  At one point I was down a good bit and the biggest loser hit a miracle card on me and I flat lost it.  Not like people lose it now, mostly cursed just loud enough for people to hear it and then I committed the cardinal sin I carried on about the miracle out letting the fish know that he made a very bad play statistically.  I knew I had done something real bad immediately, everything got quiet and the game broke up soon after that.  One of the two winners was asked to have coffee with me, so I met him the next day.  I knew what he was going to say but it surprised me a bit how far it went.  He basically said "look, you are OK, you aren't great, you have emotional problems that I am better off not helping you with", "basically what I am here to tell you is that the guys don't want you in the game for a few weeks and if you do that again you are gone for good".  Wow, I mean wow, it was such a bad play clearly a guy should be able to get a bit worked up a bit, right? He continued to let me know that it was not the blow up it was WHO I blew up on that set people off.  This guy was down big, like one celled organism big.  To have a guy like that in your games just does not happen often.  He also seemed to have an endless amount of money, there were a few just like him too, though not quite AS bad.

The maturation of a poker winner

I think about that moment a lot because if I had not listened I almost certainly would not be writing this now.  Something really changed inside me too, I had good days and bad days but at that point the money was just not that big.  Eventually I became one of the top players in most of the local games.  As that evolution happened I began to see myself as more of a host for the games rather than some silly version of a shark that everyone seems to aspire towards.  Thing about sharks is there is only one at the top of the heap and that son of a bitch best not break a fin or his ass is toast.  It really is better just being part of a fun environment where people feel like gambling.  That's how hustlers make their money in poker.

Which of course brings me to online poker.  Their are seemingly no etiquette rules at all in online poker.  More disturbingly though is how the good players feel it is their right to berate losing players when they make a bad play. 

So here are the rules:

If you are a big winner you are the host at every game you play in, you likely know who the winners and losers are.  It is your responsibility to not only make players feel welcome but to also make sure that no one gets out of line.  It is very common for me to speak up when someone starts railing on a fish for some bad play, typically the person berating them is not nearly as good as they think they are and so I try to calm them down.  That does not always work and in fact some of them will say something to the effect of "what business is it of yours what I say to someone, you weren't even in the hand".  Which leaves the door wide open for me to say to them "look, that guy probably has a wife 3 kids and 2 mortgages, just like me, he sat in this game to get a break from life's reality", "there are enough douchebags in real life he does not one here".  Often times the guy I am defending will say something like "thanks Beanie, I only have one mortgage and no kids but yeah, that guys a douche".  In live games I am always the one buying drinks and straddling, not because I want to get people drunk, they were going to get drunk anyway it is the atmosphere that it creates that is important. 

If you are a slight winning player just shut the fuck up and wait to hit your sets or whatever it is that nits do to past time.  Do not tap the glass while people are actually trying to gamble.

If you are big loser you can literally say or do just about anything you want, just keep depositing.

It's easy to look at Phil Hellmuth and see that as an excuse for your bad behavior just remember that Phil is the meat in virtually every cash game he sits down in.

Tags: poker   the   tapping   glass   rules  

3 responses to The Poker Rules, Rule 1 Do not chase away the Fish