That is completely immoral as it goes far beyond the game and into the person's personal life. Essentially this whole "friendship" outside of the poker room is a sham and a lie, and is only being done to manipulate another person.

At the poker table it's fine for the most part, but when you step away from the table and attempt to manipulate another person on a personal level acting as a vampire trying to suck a victim dry things are much different and the person doing so is highly immoral.

If you deem a man immoral for his actions, and those actions aren't/shouldn't be illegal, the best thing you can do as an individual is to stop associating with said person as much that is possible given the context. Not doing so is a silent sanction of the actions of said person that you have deemed previously to be immoral, i.e., evil.

You have the added advantage of extra revenue streams. So for one, its easier for you not to try & push every little edge you can get.

In the grand scheme of things ..... collusion, bots, online cheating, borrowing money and not paying it back, stealing essentially. Not to mention the online sites themselves. I don't think this is that bad. People always have a choice whether to play or not so getting manipulated into something like this is really the person's own fault.

When I saw the title, I thought you were going in a different direction.
Cause poker can be cruel in many ways.

Sometimes I feel bad about taking a bad players money. More so online, when there is so many sharks and so few bad players, 1 fish at the table just has no chance and I feel bad sometimes for the one guy just trying to play some recreational poker and these pro's (who suck) therefore really play a strategy thats not very skilled but not much fun for a fish to play. Mainly
the fish gets iso-raised so the pro can Cbet the flop and capitilize on the simple play. Sometimes I wish the pros would limp along once in a while with the fish, but there games are too pathetic and they have to isoraise Cbet because they have no postflop skill.

I think in a way your attitude sucks too. Calling them pitiful players?
For someone like you that attitude makes no sense. You should recognize that most of thei pitiful players play poker once a week / month, and you
spend hours & hours & years & years and read / written books etc.
I mean you better be light years ahead of them. I take no pride whatsoever in beating a fish who'm I've probably played 100 times more poker than.
There's nothing to brag about there.

This is certainly true with me, and thus makes it easier for me to bring this topic up.

By definition, the sort of thing I'm bringing up is much more difficult to pull off online. So that's something to keep in mind. Also, I agree with your other points.

I'm not going to get into what the proper strategy against a fish might be. Also, once the fish is in the game, as long as his expectation is negative, I don't see anything wrong in his poor play making your expectation positive, or perhaps more positive than it normally is. So this is not what I'm talking about.

I don't think I said anything like this.

I strongly disagree. There are strategies to maximize your win against a poor player. While you'll certainly should win against weak opposition by playing your normal solid game, the question is "Do you win the maximum?" I think you may be missing this, as well as missing the point of my opening post.

Best wishes,
Mason

I don't think Mason was referring to the player's abilities, but rather to the fact that their ability to recognize a false friend seems to be as bad as their ability to recognize a bad poker decision. Of course, differentiating real from false friends is not particularly easy, even outside of the poker context. Perhaps we are all borderline pitiful in that regard.

Well he said "There's also another side of poker, and it's the idea of identifying the live ones, some of who essentially just give their money away, and to take advantage of them. Now instead of using high skill to be successful, the best way to be successful is to take advantage of these pitiful people."

Implying the bad players are pitiful people. I feel like the term fish came from players trying to be nice, and not calling players pitiful, stupid, morons, etc. Just don't like the connotation.

But this is kind of off topic. Maybe Mason should be calling the manipulaters pitiful.

But are people who do what Mason suggested pretty much the exact same as a casino. Casino's are super nice to action players and give them free hotels, concert tickets, meal comps, all to get those players to the table gambling.
Really no difference, just a fake niceness that exists.

Plenty of women do this also no?

Hi fasterlearner:

We're now starting to get into a different topic, which is fine. I prefer the older term "live one" over "fish" because I consider it less degrading to the person involved.

As for "pitiful people," there are plenty of them at the (live) poker tables. But from my perspective, these are not usually the live ones who just play poorly. They are more likely to be marginal players who can't win enough, if they even win, to be independent poker players, and they often have other problems, such as too much alchohol when playing, a history of borrowing money that they never intend to pay back, or just an angle shot every so often.

Best wishes,
Mason

Mason wrote books on how to gamble wisely, which still are ignored to the detriment of gamblers both “live” and “fish”.

You can not force a gambler to read.

https://www.twoplustwo.com/books/gam...theory-topics/

OK before I sound like a bit or worse.

"BUT", isn't that part of the game? I mean saying you can't do that is like saying you can't 3bet or shove in a NL game. I mean if you had to play against better players all the time you'd either go broker become the best/better. That's how I think the old school players worked.

It has evolved and devolved, but some grimy aspects of poker will always be around. But I've seen company's do way worse to employees. And poker is in fact a business,"Right?"

I mean we can't all win all the time.

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To me there's a big difference between what goes on at the poker table, and what goes on off it. There are certainly lines that can be crossed with table talk and general behavior at the table, but as a general principal, I am fine with all sorts of gamesmanship. I don't know what DNeg video was being referred to, but if its anything like most of the videos I have seen of his, there's probably nothing particularly wrong with his actions.

But trying to outwit someone at the table is very different from being deceitful away from the table in an effort to try and extract money from someone. There are literally laws that may be being broken along the lines of "fraud in the inducement". I wouldn't be shocked if some of the behavior Mason described is border-line illegal in certain jurisdictions and circumstances. But even if its not, its still depicts pretty scumbag behavior and violates laws of common decency. These people might gain some short-term benefit, but they lose their credibility and trustworthiness, and those things are far more valuable in the long run.

And, BTW... the "game" takes place at the table. Anything that happens away from it may also be seen as a game to some, but it is a very different one, with different rules and consequences. Players need to know the difference.

I'm talking more specifically to "dnegs types" vs let's say Tony g at the table. And what might be seen as to much. I agree that some stuff along the line of fresh/baiting off the table is scumbaggy. But isn't online and offline bumb hunting the same? There are slot of rules that are borderline, seems to be if you can get away with it you can. And if a player thinks he can he probably will, it's money after all.

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Interesting question. No, poker itself is not cruel (bad beats notwithstanding ). Every industry where there is money to be made has its share of unscrupulous sharks who take what most of us consider sportsmanship and twist it most cruelly around the throats and wallets of the naive. They are willing to extend it to the extremes you've described into fake friendships and turn psychological gamesmanship into psychological warfare. THOSE PEOPLE could be considered cruel. But it has to be acknowledged that many of these fish are more than happy to hand over the knife that guts them. Very few of them (although I'm sure there are some) aren't complicit in their own demise.

I don’t play online poker for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is it is about 100 times easier for players or casinos to cheat. That being said, I really don’t know what online “bum-hunting” entails. But if it’s the same sort of behavior where players willfully deceive others “offline” in order to somehow take advantage of them at the virtual table, then yes, it’s the same thing.

I don’t think mason was asking whether these “sharks” were breaking any rules of poker or poker etiquette. I think he was asking if they were breaking rules of society. It was much more a moral question, hence the use of the word “cruel” instead of something like “unfair”.

To me the answer is clearly “yes” and the lesson shouldn’t be, “there are bad people out there who are willing to angle-shoot their way through life”, but rather there are consequences to be paid for that sort of behavior that go well beyond whatever short-term benefit may be achieved. I mean, these people clearly were not very careful about hiding their deceit. So that’s certainly something that could come back to bite them.

I don't really know what most of the stuff is either, I have an idea but don't know. It is still a viable option for casinos to cheat. I mean look at the way some use there "membership" cards.(that's what I consider bumb hunting(butt)) but I agree online is much less secure.

Which Mason are you referring to?

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When I mentioned casinos I was referring to actual cheating and/or commiting fraud. I wasn’t talking about selling products and services to an uninformed shopper. I know there are some who think there is a very thin line between the two and I understand where they’re coming from. However the line between legal and illegal activity is usually pretty well defined in law and to my knowledge, nothing with regards to what casinos do with their loyalty “benefits” comes close to being illegal.

The OP of this thread.

Alright that is basically all my argument. So referring to the OP, none of the mentioned in illegal either though. So it would be all hearsay, so to speak.

So table management would be needed as a distinguishing factor in the matter.

" If there wasn't a thin line, there wouldn't be a line at all."

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Think its funny that bad beats have been called unfair by a few, they are just part and parcel of the numbers,

Poker is played at the table, the rest is just social management. I mean, If a live one is a true rich man without much chance of ever going broke due to his work, trust fund what ever I think being friendly albeit false is not cruel, for me it becomes cruel when he becomes a walking joke :

Live one is still around lol, did you hear that John Doe got him layed by a stripper and pretended to hear that the stripper had HIV so he had to stick around for a test and played terrible being all stressed out and stuff, was priceless. (to me thats cruel)

just because the money is made from a game it becomes cruel to be social to people you don't like ?

In almost any other workplace its just called networking.

Also even the notion of cruel, is so subjective that its hard to define,

Like a Cat "playing" with a mouse. Im sure as hell the mouse doesnt see it as "play" , so does it become cruel when the live one finds out he has been "used" ? and just a good time for him (losing some money) but still few rounds of golf, got to talk to someone about whatever he wanted etc

Social elements are paramount in live play. The issue occurs when a celebrity player (DN's instance was also televised) exploits another person's desire to be kind and reciprocated, while the pro is only looking for information to annihilate him.

Take any two players of similar caliber or respect and it's a non factor and fun for the game.

So to be clear ,were effectively playing a game of "mental shotgun roulette​.

When you sat(sit) down at the table anyway.

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People keep bringing up some sort of DN example. Is there a link to a video somewhere? I'd be very curious to see what's got people so upset. From what I've seen he hasn't ever crossed that kind of line. But I haven't seen everything, obviously.

And again, there's a big difference between behavior at the table and behavior away from it. Being somewhat false at the table in order to gain advantage is kind of to be expected. The table is the field of competition. And people engaged in competition should be aware that others actions are not necessarily sincere.

Its when people take the competition outside of the table that lines can be more easily crossed.

Slightly different from how I remembered... draw your own conclusions.

There was literally nothing wrong with that, IMO. DN didn't berate the player or waste time. He just fooled him. That's the whole point of poker. And as long as its at the table and within the context of playing poker, to a large degree its ok.

Bro I think your talking about grapefruit while he's talking about oranges.

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I thought we were both talking about the video.

Agree. This vid has nothing to do with OP's question.

Right, I'm just not sure how DN got into this conversation. Several people brought him up as examples of some sort of bad behavior. I don't know the guy and am not prepared to vouch for anyone I don't know, but I would think there ought to be some easily identifiable evidence if one is going to associate a person with the sort of horrible behavior brought up by OP in this thread.

As it stands, there is obviously a world of difference between the sort of gamesmanship DN and many other people engage in at the poker table and the behavior demonstrated by the folks in the OP. The "cruelty" they displayed doesn't really have anything to do with poker. They are just a-holes. Would anybody be at all surprised if they displayed similarly scummy traits in their interactions with non poker-related people...(family members, neighbors, work-colleagues, strangers, etc.)?