Be Kind, Get Paid With Poker Manners

by Dougie Goguen | Feb 9 2012

Find out how a little patience and politeness can pay off when you play poker.

It was when I was looking through my notes for another piece I'll be writing for Bodog when I noticed the chat in the window for the poker game I was playing in started to go off. What happened was pretty typical, but it made me drop everything just because I thought it was time I addressed it here. What am I talking about? Flaming, of course.

Play in Bodog's online poker tournaments and get more money with less risk!

Don't get me wrong, this is nothing new - I've been playing online poker for almost a decade now and being called names is nothing new, but there are a lot more players out there and it's much more common to come across the sort of person that throws the various f-bombs your way. What's worse is that they're frequently clever enough to leave a space in the middle of their invectives so that the chat filter doesn't kick in.

It's annoying and while it can be awful tempting to stoop to their level, remember this: the view from the high road is always better. Turn off your chat and just ignore them. Don't play in the kiddie pool, don't wade into the dirty water, don't let the toilet splash onto you. Turn off chat and keep playing your hand. Some random guy doesn't like how you played a hand? Too bad. You shouldn't care about how some random player floating from table to table views your play.

However, there's a "but" here because of course there is.

Don't you want people to think more of you? Maybe to the point where they're likely to think you're just palling around with them and maybe they'll give you a bit more money than you'd normally get out of them? Being polite and even friendly can do a lot for your table image and bankroll in the end.

Interested and want to start playing? Check out Bodog's free online poker games!

Think of it this way: if you're a winning player you are actually cutting into your profitability by calling other players names and the like.  Only a certain type of player is likely to leave the game if they're not having fun, and that's the exact type of player you want filling the seats.  If you're running your mouth at the table, it's not much different than giving money away.  Kind of makes you rethink who the donkey is at any given time, right?

| | |