or maybe they play because they enjoy the mental stimulation enough to deal with the other stuff. but if the other stuff becomes overwhelming, it's no longer worth the mental stimulation, and they stop playing.

i get it. you and the other dudes at the table are fine looking gentlemen with effervescent personalities and smell like roses. no where else could a woman find such catches that she just has to be around y'all.

Dealers talking about players (that are usually not present) skill levels. Both good and bad. Bad seems worse but i dont like it when they talk about the best players in the room either. Really bad for the game and unprofessional.

No it really isn't. There's nothing that inherently links bawdy talk and poker. If you walk into a strip club and you're offended by men oggling women you're doing it wrong. If you want to play poker away from misogynistic commentary you should be able to.

And this is why any for profit establishment should curtail talk that clearly drives away a portion of their potential customer base.

Look if you want to run a good ol boys home game where you slap asses and tell racist jokes then go for it. But this isn't the 1950s and it's in everyone's best interest that women and people of every color, sexual orientation and gender identity be welcome in public places.

Football season is coming up and it brings w/ it my biggest peeve: Dealers who talk football during their entire down and there are always a couple of players who like it so they won't stop. Sometimes I ask the dealer who is pushing them and hope that it's an Asian woman. I say 'woman' bec I've learned just how powerful sports can be by being astounded that an Asian man w/ a thick accent can reel off the entire NBA's stats along w/ the entire NFL's.

this post and avatar are perfect together.

. The only plus to football season is the promo at Talking Stick where players get a ticket that wins decent money if it hits.

Maybe it is because I play primarily in the Southwest, but this is not the norm in any casino I play at. Profanity, sure, that is not terribly uncommon. But rarely are obscene or offensive comments made. Occasionally the risque joke, but nothing over the line.

I am not offended by profanity, but I would be offended if another player said, about a female, 'Check out that fine piece of @^&%#. I want to grab her by the &*%@**&%"

If you can't make the distinction between humorous and risque comments and degrading and offensive comments, you probably shouldn't be talking in public. Hell, I wouldn't even tolerate that stuff in a locker room.

I had a dealer at SHRT actually out me as a grinder in front of the table. I'd played Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, for like 10 hours each, then on Monday I had grinded up a big stack. I'd seen this dealer quite a bit. Somebody asked him about dealing after some tricky side-pot hand, said it must be hard to keep track of everything for such long shifts. His response was something like "Yes it takes a lot of practice, but it's nothing like what pros like this guy have to keep track of [Looks at me]. I don't know how you do it honestly, tracking everybody's actions not just for this hand but all night."

I didn't know what to say to this. I'm not a "pro" but arguing that would seem to make matters worse. I just mumbled in agreement and hoped he'd shut up and that nobody was paying much attention to the conversation.

He didn't seem to be saying this maliciously, rather conversationally, but maybe I didn't tip him enough in an earlier pot or something. IDK.

While I don't care about sports, I don't care if the dealer does.

I do care if the dealer spends more time looking at the TV screens than the table action.

Dealers as a whole seem to gossipy, especially in places which have a more reg-heavy clientele. It doesn't matter to me if they talk about me, but I tend to cultivate an image of being tight and competent.

You did the right thing. For most people at the table, the dealer's words will fade from memory pretty quickly.

One question (probably because the term "grinder" amuses me).

You're not a "pro", but you're a "grinder" which makes zero sense.

If your primary income is from poker, you're a pro. So if it's true that poker is not your primary source of income, why do play if playing is a "grind" (meaning you really do not enjoy doing it)?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Admittedly it can be an arbitrary distinction.

"Pro" means different things to different people. You could define "pro" as someone whose primary income is from poker, but then people like Doyle Brunson are not pros, as these people make way more from their websites, books, advertising, etc.. I generally think pro = world class player or at least 5/t+ solid winner, regardless of primary source of income.

I think the term "grinding" has become a generic term for putting in long sessions and not dependent on level of entertainment.

by the end of a 10hr session, I'm exhausted from the "grind".. I still love playing and would play longer if exhaustion/place closing didn't get in the way.

Maybe I should think of it as grinding your opposition into dust.

It is very wrong for dealers to talk about how players play at all.

When I first started playing I was a very tight player, mostly playing the top 10% of my hands. There was a hand where I won with something like 65s and the dealer joked that that was the first time in a week that I hadn't played a strong hand.

That dealer had no business talking about how I played. It was the job of the other players to figure out what cards I like to play. Most of the players probably weren't keeping track of what I played, as it was a $50 charity poker room tournament.

I was outed by the dealer, and that's never OK.

I agree with part of what you said.

Yes, when you walk into a poker room, you have to have thick skin. I don't let anything get to me. If someone called my wife a whore I would ignore it, wait until I win a big pot from him (or knocked him out of a tournament) and maybe say "Thanks, my wife will appreciate this money." My job is not to defend my family's honor. My job is to stay focused and bring money home to my family.

I also agree that women need to have thick skins when they play. When Dana White said that women would never fight in the USC, Rhonda Rousey said that she would make him eat those words. She did exactly that. Poker needs more Rhonda Rouseys.

Now, where I don't agree.

When you're around someone you don't know well, whether you're on a busy sidewalk, in church or at the poker table, I think it's really rude to use profanity, racial jokes, comments about breast size or any such banter around people who you don't know and who might find it offensive.

You might be at the poker table sitting next to a woman who was verbally and physically abused by her husband before she divorced him. You might have a pastor sitting across from you. Yes, some of us who go to church and read the Bible regularly play poker, in fact, about a year ago I talked to a pastor in the chat box.* A woman who is very active in her church (she's always on Facebook inviting people to church events) lives 10 miles from me. She played heads-up with her coach/backer every day for a year.

My bottom line is that with people you know who can handle whatever you dish out and go right back at you, all in good fun, fine.

I know that this won't be a popular stance, but that's OK. You can verbally abuse me if you want. I almost never tilt, and only when I make a really stupid play.

-----

*If anyone is interested, I saved a long E-mail discussion with my pastor about Christians playing poker. I wanted him to know that poker was know my job in case someone in my church (or more than one) freaked out.

What actually happened was that there were and are a lot of nerds in my church, especially engineers, and most of them found it interesting and asked me intelligent questions. Of course, many of them had known me for years and new I wasn't a degen.

If I don't care for the church or for religion, why do I have to show extra respect to those that do?

I'm actually a very polite and respectful person who rarely offends anyone, but the above is a serious question.

I don't think he was suggesting you should. He was suggesting you should not take liberties with anyone you don't know well.

On the flip side, strangers shouldn't go out of their way to get offended by things strangers say around, or even to them.

If more people followed these two rules, the world would be a nicer place.

Probably the same reason you should refrain from making racial slurs even if you're white.

I don't like censoring myself either but it's a small sacrifice to make if it keeps the table happy.

Nobody's talking about misogyny. If a player calls a female player a "b" or a "c", that should get the person sat out from the table.

We're talking about sex talk. Some men-- who I think are stupid, antiquated, overly chivalrous, and basically not men I ever want to be around-- think that it's simply wrong to talk about sex in front of women, and perfectly OK to talk about it around men.

And that's a stupid and, in fact, misogynist (women's ears are too sensitive to hear sex talk) way to go through life generally, and is an even worse way to approach poker.

You realize "down" is a football metaphor, don't you?

We weren't talking about "degrading and offensive comments". I agree, misogyny should get you kicked out.

We were talking about sexual comments. Like calling 69 big lick.

You're only concerned with your own views and opinions, but you're one speck in a sea of billions. The definition of "being considerate" is putting what OTHER PEOPLE feel (or might feel) above what YOU feel. Being considerate is a trait smiled upon in our society, and helps you have a positive affect on the people around you instead of a negative one.

If a woman is grossed out by a disgusting degen or retiree proudly announcing BIG LICK, she doesn't care about your societal views or sense of what's right and wrong. Her primal reaction to this was "ew." I am very pro gay rights, but I would be equally grossed out by guys discussing blowies at the table.

In civilized society, we try to avoid disgusting other people, or making them feel uncomfortable. Heck, I've done lots of stuff that'd get me banned from here if I described it, but even I don't want to accidentally picture you doing anything with your tongue, even if it's hetero. I gagged just typing that.

tl;dr It's not about you.

That's exactly right. I'm not talking about poker behavior, I'm talking about common courtesy, wherever you are. A good rule of thumb is if you wouldn't say it in a job interview, don't say it around someone you don't know.

People notice when you're not going along with the crowd.

In army basic training I refused to sing some of the marching songs because of the sexual nature of the lyrics. I didn't make a big deal of it, or say anything to anyone. I just didn't sing some of the songs and I was never called out by a drill sergeant. Many of my fellow soldiers were impressed with the way I handled it.

It's 2017. Women aren't the delicate flowers who need to be protected from anyone who ever mentions sex. Only sexist misogynist old fogies believe that anymore.