Keeping Bad Players Playing – Don’t Tap The Glass

Poker has changed and several skills that players held sacred are slowly disappearing. Such as the ability of staring into an opponents eyes and knowing he doesn’t have it (it’s all hand ranges now) and of course the art of getting to the toilet and back between two hands (wireless connections are removing the need). Perhaps the greatest loss in the modern poker age is the ability to keep bad players playing or to put it another way not to tap the glass.

Chip Reese’s recent death reminded me of the importance of this dying art. He was known as the past master of seducing players into the big game who didn’t belong there. He would be friendly to them throughout the game and if necessary ‘cool off the mark’ afterwards. (you can find an example of this in his befriending of billionaire Andy Beal in the excellent the professor, the banker and the suicide king).
This skill was vital in yesteryear when players with money and limited skill were scarce and had to be seduced into the games. In the internet age the huge amount of players has given the illusion of limitless fish and the need to be nice to them is a skill new players don’t have.

I can’t pretend to have a perfect record in this regard but I’m always shocked by other players need to abuse or correct bad players. It’s as though they want their opponents to play better….curious. Actually it’s become a hobby of mine to start abusing the abuser – telling the tight poker professor he’s a nit and that if he could read hands he’d know the fish’s jack-seven made two pair on the river.

My attempts to play guardian angel and balance the poker abuse aside usually the best policy is if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all. Recently I found myself playing in an unusual situation where this was critical if I wanted to make money. On one of my four tables a really awful player who had been hitting cards with amazing regularity. After felting another poor victim in a big pot his stack had reached huge proportions as he sat with over 800 big blinds.

As Bill Murray stated in Ghostbusters ‘I’m fuzzy on all good bad things’ so it’s important you know just how bad. Basically he was playing over 80% of his hands and playing most of them to the river if he caught any part of the board (‘right that’s bad’). He’d also raise if he hit anything which made him scary as he could just as easily turn over third pair as he could the nuts.

This player created a beautiful natural phenomenon as the other 4 players at the table and I barely played a pot against each other. Instead we took it in turns to tackle the loon and desperately hoping he wouldn’t leave. Like vultures slowly circling some stricken prey.

As I sat and prayed for a hand to get my share or more I noticed – with relief – that the other players were all multi tabling regulars. This meant that they’d be too busy elsewhere or too savvy to criticise this player’s awful play or type anything else to put him off. Eventually I got lucky and won two big pots from him making big overbets which he couldn’t help but call. By this time I’d chatted to him a bit and when I won the big hands I made sure I typed a message of condolence. He finally left with a tenth of the money he had at his peak.

I have no idea if my chatting kept him around longer or not. I’m pretty sure, however, that if he’d been laughed at or abused for making his awful plays he wouldn’t have stayed as long. Online players need to realise that part of the reason the games are tougher now is that there are simply less fish. Every time you abuse or critique one they either find poker much less fun or – even worse – work hard to get better!
Next time a bad player chases you to the river and catches his miracle pair to make two ludicrous pair and bust your aces try typing ‘nice hand’ in the chat box and vent frustration somewhere else – after all that’s what the other half, the cat and china plates are there for. Remember sometimes the lettuce eats the rabbits or – in English – if the weak players didn’t win sometimes, they wouldn’t play.

As I write this it occurs to me that some of you may find the concept of buttering someone up to take more of their money amoral. Well perhaps it is – I’ve never been too strong on the old morals thing – but that’s poker and that’s the business of a poker player. It has far more to do with the dark heart of poker than 50/50 preflop races, sponsored all in moments and energy drinks ever will.

You know I think I might actually be a 70 year old Texan trapped in a preppy English bloke’s body…except that I’m not that keen on Stetsons, country music or the death penalty. Okay gotta go fire up a few tables; I wonder if I’ve got any bourbon in?

Originally published in Poker Player magazine.

Related Content:

1. Playing Poker All Night Long As I’ve grown up some things have become soul crushingly clear to me – father...
2. I’m Isuldur1 and so’s my poker playing wife Apologies for not “blogging” for a while. I haven’t been doing too much of substance...