Grunch

I bolded the part I think is important. I don't particularly think poker is doing the twisting. I think mostly if people are twisted they were already bent by life; you just see it manifesting itself at the poker table in some of the ways you listed.

nature/nurture lol. ive seen 100s of poker players from beginning to end, most start out like 80% "good" and end up at least 90% "evil" (by op's standards). i honestly believe they werent predisposed for all of this. poker does do something to a person.

so many LONG TERM WINNING poker players have certain things in common:

love for games
high IQ (not necessarily meaning smart, just high scores on available tests)
laziness, (many times manifested in efficiency)
hate for authority/rules

this is the seed, it grows into other things, live and online (maybe more online)

To all the people making this guy's poker experience a bad one. You suck. Like, you suck way worse than this guy could ever suck. He's just trying to have a good time and you are making him uncomfortable--and possibly making him not want to play. There is a built in punishment for making mistakes at the poker table. No sense heaping coals.

Having said that...put on your big boy panties, OP. Life is hard and people can be mean. Try not to let that ruin your day. Also, some amount of celebrating is surely just for themselves...not AGAINST you personally. People like to win--that isn't something awful.

I mean, honestly, I do have some idea what you are talking about because I play live fairly frequently. I can recognize what you're talking about, but I think you've really kind of overplayed this and amplified out of all proportion--you've really lost perspective on things.

Like I spend a lot of time out in the country... I mean people can get wild anywhere, country or city, right? In downtown LA you've got weird gang neighborhoods and areas where you wouldn't even want to look sideways at some people rolling around in their cars or at the supermarket. You've got people wasted off their *** on sherm and strapped with 9s ready to shoot at anybody who "disrespects" them. In the country lots of people are wild and there's a lot of guns out here too. In a lot of social situations gossip or social exclusion rule the day, because there is no "game" other than that.

I mean in Poker *ooooooooh* somebody said "nice hand" and took an extra 2 seconds to roll over their nut flush. Wow. That's like the chess nerd at Santa Monica pier how pretends he's puzzled and then checkmates you, or makes a snide comment. I mean it's games, and it's gamesmanship.

Like some guy beats you at ping pong and throws his paddle down and say "yeaaahh, beeeeoch!"

and then what do you say -- "Ping pong players are conceited, narcissistic, anti-social predators who are consistently mean to me and enjoy hurting me."

I mean LoL right?

I mean not to be snarky but you should realize you've built this up to much in your mind.

like if you suck at playing Call of Duty or Halo, and then you play against people who are really good at it, it should come as no surprise that the good players will look down on you as a fish and will make fun of you, tool you, be "sarcastic", "conceited", "cynical", etc...

I'm surprised that you just want to go all the way to the mat with this and try to carry the flag for the original post...

Although i think OPs post is stretching it in a way that makes it hard to take too seriously, i do think the emotional rollercoaster with its excessive highs and lows is pushing a lot of personalities for the worse.

It seems the ego in this game is continually adressed on so many levels in the pokerworld, it creates narcistic selfindulged pricks on the one end and selfloathing degenerates on the other. Both types grow increasingly anti-social though. At least much more heavily so as it seems than most different pursuits in life.

Of course this doesn't apply to all, far from it............but still

Well, I would say this... that Poker, like core video gaming, chess, BJJ, football, auto racing and some other fields are largely male sub-cultures.

Actually I think that what the OP has touched on can kind of be merged with what that one thread was saying about introverts, myers-briggs and INTJ/Ps.

Because introverts and thinking types have a definite advantage in poker; online this goes without saying as it is a totally introverted pursuit. But in LIVE games there are a lot of players who are maybe not so talented, or who are very extroverted. These guys may not be Tom Dwans or whatever, but they still want to be ballaz so they will be more adept at game selection, fish hunting and also tooling and distracting players who they perceive as somewhat skilled. Like players might not let some nerdy math whiz sit there and just be totally happy in the flow picking the game apart... they will probably tease or distract him.

Some games I notice you almost need earplugs because somebody will just be on some hour long rant just spewing every fact or story about their entire life. Some people are just so loud and grating that it becomes a distraction after a while. They might have low expectation long term but they can drag you down and influence a bad session. These seems to be like another breed of fish in a way though... but like if poker is totally their way of life with all their friends and its totally their identity, it can get unpleasant if you are a newbie in the game and start winning from them.

Thanks for the support...

Amidst all the chaos of the internet poker raid, I forgot about this thread!

The sad implication is I am gonna be forced to play more live poker now, and be exposed to more poker personality disorder!!

re: the OP. You are describing "regs" in pretty much every human group I have ever been associated with from coworkers to church choirs. I believe you are more liely to notice certain types of people more than others. Some players sit down, shut up, win or lose, leave the table and we barely notice them. Same in other human groups.


As for this:
You must play in some rathole. Half this stuff is just poor character, or someone trying to tilt you, and no one should or can do anything about it. The other half would get you thrown out of Foxwoods.

So, yanno, poor you.

Believe it or not, all these things have happened to me at famous and popular casinos, and nothing was done about it...

I left saying, "thankfully there is still online poker"..

This post is bs, poker players are some of the nicest most genuine people out there.

you just described a typical politician...

rebanning op wouldn't be a bad idea imo.

You have a couple points that you make in your opening post. The first thing we were talking about was assuming that the traits you mention are inherently negative. They're not.

"So over time you ADAPT, and soon you become the cynical, detached, and somewhat cruel person, because it leads to profit."

Yes, personality can change over time, but again, your assuming these traits are inherently negative. Are there other ways to be successful in poker without having these traits - of course. My entire career is based around it. But there are plenty of players who aren't interested in changing - because it's profitable. Until these traits become unprofitable, calling them a personality disorder isn't accurate.

I don't know about live poker players but this type of jaded negativity seems to be rampant in some poker forums and specific sections on 2+2 (which I'll never visit.)

Just being in those forums for a week can really bring you down to their level of thinking..

Awesome OP. I was thinking today how disgusting it is this idea that we should never educate the fish. Like some pathetic people get off on watching others self destruct. Maybe they've never been hurt or vulernable, or throwing their money away for no damn good reason, but I think so much of the poker world is heartless and shallow and idiotic. Now, gambling is very emotional, and it hurts when you lose a lot of money, so that is one reason why you see these sides of people. It's important to be a ruthless competitor, to want to destroy people in any manner possible at the poker table, while caring about the people you play against, wanting to best them but not to take advantage of them.

Because of the rake, poker is a very predatory game. It doesn't have to be, but we seem to be too stupid to play w/o rake. C'est la vie.