Table Chat???

what is a good way to help your game with chat? aggressiveness or cockiness to tilt someone and if you do how to play that person aggressive, check raise reraise, check raise call, not talking always seems good to me but dont see a way to help you get a little better advantage. are should i chat like im new and ask questions and limp , check , call to think im chasing? just an idea wondering if this has potentcial to get an advantage and hopefully throw off reads

I never use chat at all I mainly play pokerstars and just have info tab open.

Maybe you mean live?

Personally I always leave the chat off for the following reasons:

1) It's distracting to my play. If you think you can better distract others than them distract you then fine go ahead but the better players will have it switched off or won't contribute from my experience
2) Most of what is written is drivel
3) Some of what is written is downright abusive. So your Jacks lost out to a straight? Live with it......
4) You have to be pretty skilled to tilt someone through a chatbox. Someone may let you think you've got them on tilt whilst luring you into a trap themselves.

My advice - concentrate on the basics of playing the game unless you have a dark talent in this area!

Both live and online... mostly online though because i play alot more on it but live to because i play in some live tournys to so ne thoughts would be helpful

I think live it just makes you look like a douche when people realise you can play and online it just gets out of hand and people will not answer any begginer questions seriously anyway

The good players hardly ever chat. When i see someone alot in the chatbox I tend to notice them more and watch for the chances to take their money as from chat I am already under the impression they are a donk.
no offense.

no offense taking im actually glad to hear that because thats the kind of impression i would like to come off as...

i actually feel the same way about people that chat abusive or cry about a hand and is usually right so im thinking it just might be possible to turn the tables with it by not being a donk

Online -- I've started turning the chat off...kinda distracting...unless I'm @ a table where most of the peeps are sitting out then I'll chat with the other 1-2 peeps about the weather, etc...(as we take turns picking up the blinds from the MIA peeps). Back in the day (last month ), when I always had the chat turned on, some guy told our table he was leaving his wife in the AM...before he even told her...then he proceeded to tell us why...I think he forgot he wasn't in the Dr Phil forum (or maybe it was his strategy for us to become engrossed in what he was keyboarding so we wouldn't be paying attn to what was going on @ the table?).

Live -- I'm a recreational player in b&ms so it's a social event for me to chit chat with the other peeps @ the table (when not involved in the hand + I primarily listen anyways). It's a good info-gathering tool though...peeps on vacation (& drinking ) will tend to tell about bad beats & take downs...it provides an idea of the types of hands they play to a certain extent.

Switch it off.

1. reading it becomes a distraction from what you should really be concentrating on.

2. you may not like what you read and become tilted by it.

3. you will make far more money from playing good poker that the one time in a hundred you get someone to pay off a bit lighter than they normally would had you not spent the last half hour trawling through an online thesaurus for alternatives to the word "donkey".

4. its a newbie thing.. newbies sit at their computers with their sungalsses on and actually believe they are influencing the game with their trash talk when in reality the decent players haven't even got it switched on and the bad players are bad regardless of what's being said in the chat-box.

5. being as you are asking about the use of "chat" as a tactic, your next post will likely be asking the merits of using the timer to give misleading tells... I'll save you the time and trouble and tell you now its yet another newbie-fail-tactic.

Just concentrate on learning to play good solid poker and forget about the gimmicks.

Other than the occasional "nh", "wp", "gg" I find that the chat window is normally just used by players on Tilt.

Though I ignore most of the chatter, I derive great pleasure from reading the Tilted players view on life. It may sound weird, but their banter actually calms me down.

What Stu said...

Plus, be nice.

Read some Mike Caro stuff on table image.

Make it win/win for everybody. You get the money and they have a good time.

You don't think the speed at which someone plays gives off any information? Checkbox people let you now what range of hands they are willing to play from which positions. I'll check to see if consistently slow people are playing many tables -> usually safe to bet they are playing fairly tight if they are at many tables until they prove otherwise. I used my full time bank once this weekend in a hand and for what it's worth I did make the call and it was a bad one. My first instint was fold and I should have followed the little voice. I basically outthought myself into trying to make a great call. heh. I try to play every action at the same speed whether I'm raising or folding I like to count a little 1 2 3 in my head. I do that live too. Maybe it's all for nothing, maybe not, maybe it helps prevent kneejerk reactions.

Not really.

Instant reactions are considered the most reliable of online tells, but then they really only go as far as to tell you they have a polarised range. They are either bluffing or have a big hand (but you knew that by the fact that they bet) so all you know is that they didn't face a tough decision.


Slow reactions times should be treated with real caution. They may be thiking, they may (and often are) multitabling and therefore may not be instantly aware of that particular hand. The phone may have rang and they have just picked it up. The doorbell may have rung and they have had to get up and answer it. The poker software may have just crashed and they are reloading it. The oven timer may have just indicated their pie is about to burn. They may have dashed to the toilet. Someone in their home may have just asked them a question. They may be responding to an email and so on and so on.

Multitabling is the single biggest killer of on-line tell reliability. Even if the person is sat at their computer 110% focused on poker, still there are factors which reduce the reliability of any timing tell.


So no, I don't really think timing tells are all that usefull

Well you could do that.. or you could just take a quick glance at your HUD and see what range they are infact playing.. takes a lot of the guess work out.

I like to watch the chat and make notes. I am usually playing multiple table so do not chat that much. However, when I am playing only one table I will chat and try to get some info from them. Of course, you can only believe about 20% of what they say. I really like the ones that tell you how you should play. They are the ones that give away too much info, so you can figure them out easily. Although, I do make some comments on play just to get a responer from someone at times.

I chat in CC games, other than nh or gg...if someone is abusive to me, it tends to make me more likely to try to teach them a lesson. The last one that kept being abusive to me on Stars ultimately lost to me in HU play! That was my very 1st MTT win! I have missed the chatter when I have it turned off, so I usually leave it on.

I don't know about everyone else but I never say a darn thing on chat and neither do alot of people. But occasionally you'll get some people who really give a lot of information away or tell you what kind of person they are by the things they say. So i'll use that to my advantage and play that player either more aggressively or not at all. and then of course of PDC and carbon you have a lot of people who just like to use the animations and I even do sometimes if i'm in the mood.

I have experienced that live chat at live games plays a much crucial role than online chat at online games...
And speaking of online chat, its difficult to manipulate others style by chatting, but one thing what u can do is...
1.) Chat like a stupid, and play tight
2.) Chat like a good descent straight player and play donk moves
By giving such wrong impression of yourself at tables, u may have an edge at few hands...

But what a good player does is, instead of turning off chat, he would just observe other people's chat without himself chatting and analyze his opponents mood quietly.

I spend most of the time with the chat turned on but I don't really use it.

I will say 'nh', 'gg' etc but I try not to engage in any real chat since I am trying to win their chips.

In our CC tourneys and Private events I'm a little more chatty

BTW Stu, i think you can assess a certain amount from the speed in which people fold, bet or call.
It certainly isn't a lot of info but it can be useful at times.

i dont like to chat at the tables ,its distracting and sometimes people can make you mad and make you loose focus and make bad plays, stay away from the chat.

Is it chat really helps in the game... honestly i am hearing it now only, may be it is also true... ty guys..

I'm guilty of sometimes venting a little on the chat after a bad beat. I don't use it much, and a lot of it is drivel, but if something big happens I'll always look at the chat and sometimes it can be pretty funny. I'll turn the chat off if someone is being abusive, but I'll glance over some of the conversations that happen after wacky hands.

Online = turn off chat

Live = don't act like a jerk. Be nice to people. They are more likely to ship their chips to someone they like. So you don't have to try and tilt people. It can have the opposite effect ("not giving that arsehole my chips".)

I read a good article about this recently, but cannot remember where. Basically about being nice to people = nice chipstacks.

Don't you need table chat online to be nice to people?

If someone takes the time to say "nice hand" or something and I see it I'll say "ty"

-Raymond

I keep chat off most of the time. It's a distraction, and I never learned anything I could trust. I used to think I could pick up a tell from what they were saying, but better players are good at only showing you what they want you to see. The donks are hard to read, because they don't have a plan and therefore don't have a pattern. Hard to read someone who doesn't know what they're going to do next...

i appricate all the negative and positive feedback im going to reread all of them and figure out the do's and dont's and how if i am develop a stratagy of adding chat into my play. thank you

You can get a lot of information @ tablechat when you're playing live poker.

Forget it online.

I don't chat. you get distracted.

i sometimes do chat at tables, when i am play and mtt maybe i will chat with people if the chat is nice, i never cry about my hands on chat, i dont call people fish or donks.

OP

On the Internet, do as you like, but I usually find online chat is pretty offensive, abusive and utilizd mostly by bad players or idiots. I usually go the route of civility and let the cards and my play speak for itself. Plus, if you talk enough shit, the calling stations and fish will simply ditch and find a new table and then you've screwed yourself out of money.

Live, where ratholing and table ditching isn't allowed, I'd suggest you be respectful and concentrate on a good/positive table image. I've seen Internet types (not hard to pick 'em out) go into places like the Horseshoe in Tunica and try to verbally spar with some of the regulars there, let me just say that the parking lot can be a long walk...not kidding. Most of the time the guys talking shit in poker rooms have long live play relationships and getting involved can bring much more bad than good. There are some serious gamblers at some live tables and many aren't as casual about table talk as others. Live you are not anonymous and it's a different game.

JMHO

I totally agree. I once played in a tournament where a player pretended as though he hadn't a clue as to how to play the game. I think the majority of the table pretty much knew he was faking it, and it was even more apparent when he was sitting at the final table. I don't think people buy into these types of fake tells too easily, unless they themselves are a new player.

Overall, I think the less a person talks, the harder it is for others to read them.

I do use chat sometimes to try and make people think about me as a tight player. If I made a bad bluff, and the river comes and my opponent could have made a straight/flush/trips or something and he raises, there is no way that i will call, but i will wait a while and then fold typing something like "river", or "always the last card that counts ha?". This will show the player I might have folded what was a nice hand, and this might make him bluff easyer the next hand when i do have a nice hand.

Hope this helps you

I spent a long time with the chat turned off but I've recently begun experimenting for a couple of reasons with chat to mixed results.

For starters many pros state that creating a fun table image increases action and that noisy tables are usually looser than quiet tables so I try to use a lot of humour to see if it has any effect. It's lost on anyone multi tabling but I think it does affect a very small %.

Secondly, when it's appropriate I let the table hear what read I put on a hand. I feel doing this commits me to making a better read and return information I get, I believe with experience and time, will enable me to get a better understanding of my opponents.

What I don't do is use any negativity, at least I try not to.

If you want to learn how to chat at the tables
Just watch how Doyle Brunson talks at the table

I leave chat on usually. Sometimes I like chatting with guys living in interesting cities.
Last time eg. I had a chat with a guy who live in Arnhem (this city's bridge was too far for the allied forces in 1944). So I asked him about the city and the bridge and he suprised me telling that the bridge itself wasnt blown up and still stands there in original shape. :-)


If the chat gets annoying (with continious chat for long time, swear etc...) I turn it off.