Zach, I agree with a lot of what you're saying. However, despite being a reg at borgata 5/10 and getting treated well by the other regs, I'm still the target of the random wealthy idiot fish who shows up to drink and spew chips on weekends. It's fine bc I obviously want that guy in the game, but often I am the one having to bite my tongue and put up with it to keep him happy.
These incidents are rare (just a few times a year), but it really sucks when it happens. While I agree that most sexual harassment and aggression can be found at lower limits, been called a stupid bitch in the high limit area too (on a day when I literally said 2 words the whole time). Another guy got him kicked out, I was so accustomed to accepting his conduct to keep his money on the table that I wasn't going to say anything, lol.

One more thing: yes, once we gain the respect of other regs, we're treated the same. That's hard to do. You sit down and you have to prove you're an idiot by misplaying every hand. I sit down and I'm a fish until proven otherwise. It's profitable for me but it can get under my skin. If all I cared about was maximizing my $/hour, I'd love this extra "edge" but unfortunately I'm into poker for the social aspect, too.

Yeah makes sense sorry my post started out as a basic question and ended up being a long random essay I'm not pretending to know what it's like at all. I guess what I was trying to say though is if someone is making sexist comments and not respecting you at all (as a player or person) until you prove yourself they're probably not worth your time talking with anyway. From my experience though most people are friendly at the poker table until they take a beat, then all bets are off.

What's with the crazy goose avatar? They backing you?

Lol, I love Wawa. I'd wear their patch for free sammiches.

Zach, I start out writing a sentence and then it's a novel out of nowhere most of the time. I didn't take offense to your comments, I just wanted to respond bc it was an interesting post.

Oh ok yeah I just got a pm from someone also saying that I shouldn't pretend to know how women feel in a poker room that's probably 95% male and wanted to clarify that obv I realize I don't.

And yeah wawa's awesome nowhere better when it's 2am (and Chipotle isn't open) and you're craving some food

I'm surprised at this. I thought that racism was a special case. We aren't even allowed to type the "N-word" (even though amazon.com shows more than 1,000 books with that word in the title, and most seem to be authored by people of color.)

To be honest, I think that men verbally abuse each other, sometimes even to the point of causing a fight, where that rarely happens with women involved.

Here's a great example. An amateur playing for life-changing money has pictures of his kids at the table. Tony G. is also there. Tony wins a big pot from the amateur and yells, "I'll take all your money and your children will starve!"

I was in a live situation where guys were tossing around insults (including the word "bitch") and FOUR guys stood up, ready to fight, before the TD stepped in.

I honestly believe that men go after each other much more strongly than they go after women.

The difference is that I can't react by standing up to fight someone literally twice my size, so it's really not the same thing.

I would hope the poker room throws those who do out and bans them permanently. The facts are this type of behavior from men is not going to stop anytime in the foreseeable future.

Because of these sort of situations, my wife only plays in Women Only Tournaments(unless I am playing in same establishment) and valet parks the car. Besides that, I would never feel comfortable with her playing live poker in any nearby casinos. Luckily, she feels the same.

As much as we want to think we are safe and secure, the reality is others have the ability to impose their will upon us; which makes us all vulnerable.

There is a huge difference between having a broken nose and sexually assaulted. As a man, the only way I could come close to feeling what a woman feels, in this case, may be being in a prison shower...or sexually harassed by men where I cannot properly defend myself.

Hi all,

I am a male poker player from the UK. I have never seen this forum before so I wondered in just out of curiousity, and I am intrigued by this, the first thread that I have read.

From reading the very interesting stuff being said here, I have the following thoughts/questions:

1.) Thanks to those women who have explained how they view sexual insults/comments and how that these are related to feelings of assault and being subjected to violence. As a guy I admit that I don't fully appreciate these feelings, and I'm sure many, many guys don't either. Whilst I am a fairly relaxed, easy going guy and don't tend to get involved in any fracas at the tables, others are on a shorter fuse, and so stuff inevitably can happen against males or females. I think personally the issue of the impact of sexually related slurs/comments on female players should be brought out in the open more so it is better understood and steps should be taken to outlaw it from the game just as much as racial slurs are not tolerated. Women players should be encouraged and IMO are good for the game.

2.) Many guys, particularly younger guys, do not treat women differently these days purely on gender alone, in my experience. In live events I play I cannot recall one instance of a man insulting a woman at the tables on a gender basis, or even at all. I always imagined if that did happen other guys would stand up and say something, I know I would feel like doing so.

3.) To what extent should female players be treated differently? I mean, you could argue that in an open competition such as a poker tourney, then everyone should be subject to the same rules? But clearly as mentioned above sexually related stuff is threatening and should be outlawed. But are there any other areas where special rules should be in place? One thought I have is that whilst a woman may know whether a comment is out of order or not, guys generally are perhaps not as sensitive and can make comments without understanding the seriousness of it or potential implications. I shout a random and general "you bitch" occasionally when something doesn't go my way. There is no intention to be sexually insulting whatsoever, it really is just a turn of phrase. If I did this at a poker table, and a female player was at the table and took offence should I be thrown out of the tourney? Should my inevitable apology be acknowledged and I receive a warning? Should tone and perceived intent by the female player and others be taken into account? Do I need to be dealt with harshly and taught a lesson that this kind of language should never be acceptable - just as seriously as a racist comment?

Ok, I'll leave it there - I'm sure I have other thoughts about this, but they haven't yet presented themselves with enough clarity for me to articulate them here!

I agree with this point, and I don't like where this leads at all. Who gets to decide which is the bigger insult? I rarely insult anyone, unless I know them well and it's in jest. But I go into any poker situation knowing that someone could say just about anything, and I have to be able to take it without tiliting.

Guys go for the jugular all the time, for example, more than once playing online I've got the famous "Your mom was good last night" line. On these forums, I have been told that I shouldn't be allowed on 2+2 because of religious beliefs, and because of my political preferences, all from guys as far as I know. But I never asked anyone to be banned, and never let if affect my game, and I never considered changing my posts, since none of that came from a moderator.

I might be able to blow off "Your mom was good last night", but to another guy those might be "fighting words". Where does that rank on the race/sex/whatever insult list? It is worse that Tony G. telling yelling at a nervous amateur that "I'll take all your money and your children will starve?

And, as previously mentioned, What about the word "bitch", with no sexual intent? Guys say to other guys, "you're my bitch", meaning "I own you", all the time.

I've tried to think of any insult that would be too much for me, and I can't think of one. If someone wants to say vile things about my wife (or mother, or sister, or children), my job isn't to fight with that guy. My job is to win the tournament and take that money home to my family. Period.

bump

So here is my issue:

I can deal with men getting upset with me and cursing me out once in a while but the last several days I have been called the "C" word a minimum 25 TIMES the last 5 days I have played online. I understand it is mostly young boys who just finished puberty but it does get old. I rarely make comments back but today after having been called the word by 5 different guys on 2 tables I had enough. Since it is Merge network it isn't like you can just call a MOD ala Stars. I usually block most chat but I shouldn't have to. I am tired of boys so immature and insecure with losing to someone of the other gender. Just deal with it!

Enh, if they didn't call you that they would find something else. People are *******s on the internet, has nothing to do with you being a woman.

Reading back through this thread makes me sad, because at the point it was started we at least had the option to play online or live. It also has shown me how much I have changed as a player, as well as how much my table presence has changed. The days of the jovial, chatty girl at the table are long gone.

Unless I know someone at the table I don't speak to anyone and I don't say a word unless it is necessary. Whenever I get to a new table I listen and observe for a while and then the headphones go on. This spares me the useless chatter and also keeps me out of trouble.

Nevertheless, I still encounter situations where had I been a man, I feel would have gone totally different. Most of the time I don't event respond, however when I do get the urge, I respond with such an unanticipated reaction that they are either stunned into silence or their response is incoherent. Most of the time it shuts them up. But either way it's pretty sad that I even have to be prepared for stuff like this.

Exactly Katie!

There are only so many times when I can tell a man if he feels more like a man for berating a woman player at the tables before I have to resort to their level.

Actually, in a room full of men, you can and you can do so easily, because if a man lays a finger on you (even in self-defense) he will almost certainly get the living snot beaten out of him by the chivalry brigade.

On the other hand, this immunity to physical retaliation extends even to emotional berating, and there certainly exist a number of female poker players who use their gender as a blank cheque to act as a sociopath in a way no man could.

So, you have the right idea -- there IS a difference -- except you have it completely backwards.

So I have had an issue with a particular player who has belittled me every chance he gets and at the same time belittle players at the cash table who don't return when he beats them. it isn't terrible until he used the "C" word on me several times as well as other choice words which are derogatory to women in general. I reported him to support several times and their answer was: since you commented against him ( even without slandering him or cursing him out) my chat will be banned also. REALLY??? I told them to ban my chat. I would rather have no chat of my own then have this jerk run off bad players at he cash tables.

I really feel slighted as a woman in this. I don't care if I did make a comment(and I repeat I never slandered him or cursed him out) to him, no woman deserves to be called any name at the tables.

Went to sit at a 2-5 game, older guy says, "no women". I'm only half sure he is joking, so I fire back " what about loose women?". Whole table perks up and I get some laughs, older guy perks up and wants to know what my definition of "loose" is. Ha. Have to go ahead and verbally torture these guys, most of them love that.

Just a thought on the Internet banter that exists, it's my observation that guys handle crude remarks much different then women. Ladies, if they are calling you the Cword, consider it a good sign that you have rattled their cage, scilence is golden, but if some one is making an effort to type your direction in chat, you are in their head, congrats! Guys communicate in these harsh ways between each other and wear it with pride, while us ladies really don't berate each other to form a bond and view this behavior as crude. When we are doing battle with the guys, or even other women, you can't be emotional, and you cant take the remarks personally! You have to change your perception in this context to look at others emotional responses towards you as an indicator of how they are playing the game, and use this to your advantage. So the C-word should really make you smile, you have a person on the other end that has confidence issues and may be emotionally immature. Use this against them.

Better comeback is to look confused then say something like, "Then why are you here?"

Just vague enough that you can claim you were asking why a stud like him would want to play without ladies if he goes off, just witty enough that 99% of the time he turns beet red and shuts his pie hole.

No it does not make me smile when it is used constantly on a daily basis by the same people. If we were playing on PS it would be banned ASAP but for whatever reason Merge network thinks it is OK.

i think the c and p words are highly offensive and extremely demeaning. it annoys me that people throw it around so frivolously on these forums too. That really sucks diana, idk when this all happened but I got chat banned once because I said "You gotta be f'in (not ****in) kidding me" when some CS rivered two pair against my aces (normally dont say anything but i was already running bad and tilted). So Merge is incompetently inconsistent to say the least. Anyway I think you handled it best by just turning off chat.

I notice some guys will call with nothing just to give the lady a big winning hand. I think this is just uncalled for. Ive seen this happen in tourneys and cash games.. I dont really see gender at the table. its more like, "older than me, younger than me" kinda thinking. But I have other ways of sizing up players at the table that I will not discuss.


I dont mind playing with ladies, I will give them calls to get some action with decent hands to try and hit a hand, but will give respect on the flop if i miss. this is probably because I usually play pretty tight and I think women are a bit more straight forward for the most part.

every now and then a woman around my age will sit next to me and a conversation will spark, Women generally are more friendly and talkative which helps when everyone else is either drunk or super serious. I usually keep to myself though.

I cant stand when the older (nasty)guys will to hit on women dealers like they have a chance, its really disrespectful and makes you look like an ass. same goes for players too. This to me is sexual harassment and a lot of these dealers just brush it off and let it continue.