Abuse at the table, what do you do?

Being fairly new to the game this kind of thing strikes me as not much different from schoolyard stuff, or abuse between friends playing a playstation game or something.

A couple of times though it's really put me off.

Online I can just disable the chatter but in real life it's not that easy.

I can imagine sustained abuse at a B&M table to be quite hard to deal with.

I think I'd be OK with it, as it's the sign of a loser to me, but still it might be a bit off-putting.

What's your strategy?

Never played live, but if someone starts ranting on an online table, I try to wind them up so they get even worse. Then they seem to have it in for me, and try to get my chips. I act frightened till I get the killer hand I need. That works a lot of the time, and is a lot of fun.

Someone hurling abuse is liable to be on tilt at least a bit, so in some ways it's a good sign. If they're angry at you for drawing out on them, take advantage of it, because they'll be looking to take a big pot off you as soon as possible, and if you play a strong hand against them they're going to be less keen on folding, so it may help a premium hand get paid off. Meanwhile, bluffing against them may not work as well, for the same reason.

just laugh in their faces and tell them how much they suck at poker. You'll end up getting more enjoyment out of it than they will.

When you're playing live, you will come across these jerks. Most of them don't know how to play anyway so just stay quiet, don't look at him/her, play your game, focus on the game and in the end you will placed higher than he/she will.

2 words - Pepper Spray.

robwhufc said:

2 words - Pepper Spray.

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ROFL

Online it doesnt bother me at all. I laugh at them knowing they are most likely on tilt and ready to lose a lot of money.

Only been to a casino once and had a jerk next to me and I just ignored him mostly but once in a while I would look at my stack then his stack and smirk, he didnt like that.

I play alot in B&M and have had it happen to me more than once. I start out just ignoring them. They will usually settle down in about 1/2 hour or by that time they are ready to leave the table. It is hard to do something if they are spreading the love around to everyone at the table, because then they are just being a jerk. If they target one individual in the abuse you can call the manager over and get them removed. I have only had to do that once.

It takes time to get use to someone that you may have to look in the eyes when they are just verbally trashing you at a table. It can be very unnerving to have someone do that to you. It is easy to say just ignore them but when you are at most 8 feet from them it is not that easy. That is the only time I wish I had an Ipod at the tables. I just look at the dealer and my cards and no one else. Then it does not look like you are just not looking at him/her and give them more ammo to use against you.

Best thing I ever saw was every hand this guy was in and lost, that person left the table. The table shrunk to under half full so they closed it after he lost 5 hands. He had no chance to win back any of his money from the people who took it, LOL.


Touraments are the worse since you can't get up and leave. That is why Mike "the mouth" is so good at it. He can find the people that it will work against and then does not stop till you or he leaves. You can still ask for a manager but that can just rev them up more and you know they are not moving anywhere. I have only had this happen at one tournament and it was the hardest thing to sit there for 4 hours and listen to him just bash people who played a hand against him. When he finally did bust out and he was out of ear shot everyone said thank you to the person who took him out.

Having worked in an all-night store before now - everyso often you would come (literally) face to face with the odd lunatic who thought he had the god given right to be an arsehole.

Handily - for me - my size alway gave me an advantage when telling them they were leaving empty handed (no matter what they thought )

But online - if you come across somone mouthing off endlessly - just start telling them how funny they are, ie. your funny, you make me laugh, you should be on telly, hahaha.

Just use reverse psychology on them

IanT

I go into my amateur dramatics routine when such buttheads surface.
I start to shake and twitch and roll my eyes and try and make them bulge as much as possible.
I make spittle bubbles appear from my mouth just before I whip out my mobile phone and pretend to make a call saying, " mom, can you send the twins down here right now, some guy is picking on me"

Great!

I have pepper spray running down my screen, now what!?

Online, I just agree with everything they say.. "Yes, I'm an idiot" "You're right I shouldn't have been in that pot." "Yes, I am a donkey."... They quickly run out of things to say. Just keep agreeing. Its makes them even more mad and they tend to shut up. I have even had people start being nice to me the more I agree with their insults. Quite a fun sociological experiment...

There are a few live players who do it to intimidate others. It works for them I guess.

Personaly if I get upset because someone sucks out on me, I don't say anything. I will walk away from the table for 10 minutes or so and cool down.

I don't want to say anything because if they are sucking out on you, that means they aren't playing as well as you (Provided you give them bad pot odds). So I don't want them to think about their bad play. I want them to continue to call with bad pot odds.

Believe it or not, at the BM casinos, its not that bad....mainly because there is no computer screen seperating the two of you... Its quite nice (mostly) to play there.

Never had a problem at a B&M casino. Sat down once and this biker guy joined the table and immediately became a big mouth. He started raising without looking at his cards. We were playing $2/5.00 limit. Needless to say he lost piles of money and had to rebuy numerous times. Although he was annoying and loud no one left the table because we were all winning chips. Then he fipped his hole cards up and starting raising, so we were playing against him and we could see his cards.
The floor manager disallowed him from doing that. I waked away with $150.00 profit. Great return for 3 hours work in a 2/5.00 game

I usually don't respond at all..If they can't get the response they want out of you they usually lose interest and their anger at you quickly turns to pity for themselves...which is even better.

Live, call the floor.
Don't worry about being a tattletale. Let the floor sort it out.

Online e-mail support.
They should take care of their chat priviledges for a while.

Funny Story.
Played last night for an hour or two, and played a small satellite just to get the MTT bug out of my system. Woo hoo Got a seat!
Anyways, Seats to 1-3 small money to 4-5.
With 13-15 left, 2 guys start yapping in what had to be a language other than English.
This site has Live Support, so I pulled up a host, and let them know about it so they could put a stop to it.
The broad tells me to mute their chat if it bothers me.
My response?
"Transfer me to someone who KNOWS the RULES of POKER!"
"NOW!"

Bloody fool!
I should have took a log of the chat and posted it. <End Rant>

It's probably not a great thing to do, especially for an adult ...

But in the past, when someone gave me a hard time online, I lashed out with the most abusive, profane language I could. And I kept it up until I made the abuser crawl back under his rock. Funny thing -- never got reported or sanctioned.

I've never had anyone go after me personally at a live table, but I have been at tables where dealers and players were really nasty. I decided to keep quiet and not get involved since I knew I would end up getting upset, thus ruining the poker experience for me that night. It is just a tough situation.

i think in general, people get more upset when you think its funny. i don't mean to laugh in their faces, but usually a condescending smirk will get the best of them if it is live. maybe throw in a chuckle under your breath.

online, a quick "lol" is usually all it takes.

In an abusive situation, I usually try and calm down and remember that I shouldn't be yelling at the other player.

DukeDrew said:

In an abusive situation, I usually try and calm down and remember that I shouldn't be yelling at the other player.

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lol drew

It depends on the mood I'm in. Usually I just disable the chat online or ignore the person.

Whats fun to do though is egg them on, and a great tactic is to use questions that they can't answer without losing such as:

So, increasing the dosage of your meds didn't work?

I'm sorry that the therapy isn't helping you.

or you can go obscure:

Debbie? Is that you?

Pretend you don't speak english ! (only works online but is very fun) Then you can type gibberish and claim to be from Malawi.

If they insult your 'Poker skiils" reply, "That was lucky, here I thought 6's were wild this hand"

If you are at a B&M casino, strike up a conversation with your imaginary friend sitting behind you named Chuck and discuss how not wearing your tin-foil hat is letting the aliens steal your thoughts.

Really the list is as endless as your imagination.

I have never played in a live game at a casino before. The only live games I play are home games with friends that do not act rude towards one another. It was good to read all the advice everyone had on how to handle this issue. I think I am just going to stick with the online poker for a while. Then I can just mute the chat!

This is a never fail trick that works live in a lot of live situations. You look at the person who is being such a *****, smile widely and blow them a kiss.
This will never fail to have them blow a gasket while you sit back and laugh to yourself.

I think I'm an "Abusive Idiot" magnet, online at least. It seems there's one at every table I sit down at, but it takes all kinds to make the world go round. What I do in this situation is kill them with kindness, act very sweet, innocent and demure. Sometimes being sweet annoys them more, so they go after your stack and make aggressive, but donk - like, moves. Eventually, I'll be dealt a killer hand and take them downtown with it. When I claim their chips, they either leave or back off, their tail between their legs. Unfortunately, idiots like these exist EVERYWHERE, even CC FR's. My advice: roll with the punches, disable chat, and have fun playing poker!