And the end game?

You are so caught up in the justification of your selfishness that you cant be a part of the growth of the business that feeds you.

Bleed it until its gone.





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I don't think it's selfish to try to make money. If doing things like not defending my big blind with K9o facing a big raise cause it's "good for the game" or seat/table changing moderately makes me more money, I'll be doing that.

What is selfish is expecting other winning players to share your philosophy for what in the end benefits YOU and berating them when they don't. I've been playing seriously for nearly 1600 hours (mostly Vegas). Despite the "scummy" behavior I do, my table mates and the staff generally like me, not that I'd lose sleep if that wasn't the case. Basic social skills and emotional control goes a long way.

The loud whale who never shuts up and never folds doesn't start folding to me cause I'm not a 50 VPIP spewtard. Nor does he start folding to me cause I changed seats once in the last two hours or cause I don't feel like drinking (don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE drunk poker I just came back from playing wasted). He calls and sees a flop cause that's what he came to do. All the time when I'm card dead and have a nitty image I hear "you never play a hand" and then have people limp call my big iso raise with trash.

So again, don't be entitled. I don't owe you, whoever's about to flame me or the poker community anything. I go to the poker room to do my thing and the vast majority of the people I encounter doing so are fine with it. I'm definitely bad for the game economically, but I'm good for the game socially. And I can live with that.

I'm definitely bad for the game economically, but I'm good for the game socially.

Nothing wrong with that, and not the point of the original post. Assuming you're describing your behaviors at the table accurately, I'd be happy to share a game with you, although I'd likely be at a (small) disadvantage - it's the outliers which are the problem, and keep me at the bar with my wife.

MM MD

vegas poker is absolutely soul draining aside from anywhere else ive played poker. id never go to vegas for a poker vacation i do other **** when im out there. you dont owe the recs anything but you and everyone else would enjoy playing so much more if the game felt more lighthearted. your allowed to make money just try socializing when spoken too not being obnoxious about seat changes. lie an say this seats always unlucky for you or the seat your moving to you ran like god the other night. recs splash around wayyy more when the games lighthearted and if whales like you they have no problem getting the money in light vs players who are friendly and dont treat playing with them as cutthroat

Much of this ^^^

It doesn't take THAT much effort to be even moderately social. The problem is too many of the internet kiddies have ZERO social graces (this holds true whether they are poker wunderkind or just social media junkies). I get that some tables in the morning hours will be quiet since some people are just waking up, but damn...there are usually televisions on with SportsCenter and many at the table have at least a passing interest in sports. Keeping conversation off of the tank tapping and off of politics helps people have more fun...and people having fun in a place like Vegas are apt to drop more at the table than a person NOT having fun. And if they are re-loading, then that helps the person who thinks poker is just a living.

Additionally, NOT having the attention diverted through headphones allows one to be paying attention to the free information that others at the table may be volunteering without realizing how much free information they give out...

Honestly, the table is usually better off if most of these "internet kiddies" with zero social skills keep their mouths shut and stay on their phones. Their idea of small talk and being social is usually commenting on every hand, coaching fish so that they sound smart, whining about losing or telling a story about how their aces got cracked that everyone's heard 500 times.

I’m picturing the last ten times I sat next to somebody exhibiting the behavior you describe, and “internet kiddie” was rarely the description I’d use.

It was usually much closer to “guy who would ever possibly say the words ‘internet kiddie’ .”

Okay, I will.

Your application of the Nash Equilibrium is so bad that I question whether YOU'VE heard of it.

NE only applies when all the players know all the rules and all are perfectly logical. This is not the case.

Your characterization of the game as a binary decision - make the game better at personal expense XOR make the game worse at personal profit - is ridiculous. Many of the best players in the world are the best players in the world because they manage to find ways to have their cake, eat it, and convince someone else to bake them another cake too.

The idea that there's some cabal of regs who all need to agree how to chop up the singular fish is also ridiculous. At small stakes the regs are the fish and if you think there's more than 1-2 winners at your table, you're probably wrong. At most you're worrying about one other person at the table.

That the other regs are making informed, logical decisions may be the most ridiculous part. Most are probably thinking on your level - simple, short-term selfishness. Nobody's learning how to play OOP so they can move up to games where table/seat changes aren't possible.

Per Bowling for Soup, "Don't be a d--k." Well said OP. Nobody wants to play with masked villains. (see what I did there)