We all get lucky, whether we want to admit it or not. I got lucky twice yesterday. Twice! But all luck is not the same. There is a difference between someone making what might be considered a reasonable play and finding themselves behind a slightly better hand, and someone hurling their chips off into the abyss with a "what the hell were you thinking" hand. Getting lucky after running A-Q into A-K is not the same as calling an all-in with J-3 and cracking A-A, and one is likely to receiving a more visceral reaction than the other.
Yesterday I was in a game where I was seeing a lot of players shipping their stacks in with any pair or any ace. I'm talking all-in pre-flop with 3-3 or A-6. So when I found myself holding J-J and someone went all-in, I called. They turned over A-A and I needed a miracle to win. I ended up making a flush when four spades hit the board. A few hours later, the same thing happened again. This time my Q-Q got lucky against another player's K-K. I didn't even feel bad, having been on the losing side of these types of hands so many times.
I imagine that it must suck as much when it happens to someone else as it does when it happens to me. I've learned to bite my tongue and try to take it in stride, for the most part. But when someone open shoves with 5-9 off from the cutoff or calls an all-in with 4-10, I'm not sure I can blame someone for wanting to make a snarky comment. I think commenting on someone's bad play or incredible luck is simply some player's method for blowing off steam after taking a beat. I frequently type all manner of criticisms and insults into the chat box. I just never hit send. Instead I backspace over the text one character at a time while concentrating on taking slow, deep breaths. It's my variation on counting to ten.
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None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with all of you. All of you are locked in here with ME!
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