WoW & Should You Put Someone on Tilt?

I’ve only done this a couple times in my time playing poker, trying to purposely put someone on tilt. I don’t believe this is unethical, but should this be part of your arsenal?
First, a few things before exploring the topic. I went another week without playing any blogger events, including missing out on the Mookie last night (won by TripJax). Well done after a tough final table. TripJax has his take on the impact of the Unlawaful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act on big tourneys. I do believe we won’t reach the WSOP Main Event number next year, but how much we decline depends on Harrah’s and on the online sites. It seems easy enough, as TripJax and others have suggested, to deliver the entry fees for tourneys at the event itself. The sites will have to invest in security; otherwise, just have cashier’s checks from a local bank wherever the event is being held and go from there.

One of the great things about playing at FullTilt is watching or playing with top pros. Some of the pros are the top players in the game; e.g., Phil Ivey, Dags, E-Dog, Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch. Others are up-and-coming players. One of my first interviews done for PokerWorks was on an aspiring pro, Lynette Chan. Well, Lynette is now with FullTilt and has her own table (avatar in the works). She’s a buddy of mine, but it was neat to watch her during her inaugural visit to her very own $2/4 NLHE 6-max table. If Michael Craig ever plays poker again, he might get his own table too!

My brother just emailed me this post from one of the top World of Warcraft players who just quit. WoW is one of the top role-playing games on the web, with close to 7,000,000 subscribers who addictively play online. It’s similar to Dungeons and Dragons (I played D&D for a brief period in high school as I tried to reach out to some of the geeks in our school; yes, I successfully straddled the fine line of nerds, jocks, and popular kids, although I was probably not fully accepted in any of them). All that to say that the WoW pursuit sounds eerily familiar…View from the Top Redux follows this post, with a lengthy comment from the original author.
So back to my original question: should you purposely try to tilt someone? I had a short razz session then ended with a $5/10 LHE table on FullTilt. I got burned in a huge pot in razz when a guy caught one of two aces left in the deck to squeak out on me, so I headed to the LHE table after a break in the action. It was a swingy session, down about $70 before finally ending up $195.50.

I don’t know how this happens to most folks, but one thing I frequently do during a session is get drawn toward one person. It either happens via a smart remark, a bad beat, or some benign reason. omniscent ended up as a 25/17 player, so he wasn’t particularly out of the norm (although misspelling your screen name is good only if you had to do it on purpose). Our first scuffle was no big deal (he flopped a 9 with K-9 and I caught the ace on the turn with A-8), then he caught quad 8’s on the turn vs. my flopped ace with A-J. No big deal, he didn’t smart off or anything. He caught a boat on the turn with 8-7s vs another guy’s trip 7’s with 10-7o (I stayed with my pocket deuces through the turn, donkifiedly betting the turn then folding to the raise of the trips). I won five of six pots (none with him in) then lost a couple small pots where I bailed early (one to him). Then this hand that started the fireworks:

FullTiltPoker Game #1116787314: Table Del Rey - $5/$10 - Limit Hold’em - 15:29:07 ET - 2006/10/18
Seat 1: quicksort ($143.50)
Seat 2: omniscent ($655)
Seat 3: RiotRox ($237)
Seat 4: sofocon ($200)
Seat 5: Pettycash ($427)
Seat 6: csquard ($301.50)
Seat 7: DakoKid ($135.50)
Seat 8: InsanePokrPosse ($95)
Seat 9: Aupair ($328.50), is sitting out
InsanePokrPosse posts the small blind of $2.50
quicksort posts the big blind of $5
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to csquard [Ks Tc]
omniscent raises to $10
Aupair stands up
RiotRox folds
InsanePokrPosse is feeling confused
Pettycash folds
csquard calls $10
DakoKid folds
InsanePokrPosse folds
quicksort folds
*** FLOP *** [3h Js 9c]
omniscent bets $5
SLAPP-NUTZZ adds $100
csquard raises to $10
omniscent calls $5
*** TURN *** [3h Js 9c] [7d]
omniscent checks
csquard bets $10
omniscent raises to $20
csquard calls $10
*** RIVER *** [3h Js 9c 7d] [Qs]
omniscent bets $10
csquard raises to $20
omniscent raises to $30
csquard raises to $40
omniscent calls $10
*** SHOW DOWN ***
csquard shows [Ks Tc] (a straight, King high)
omniscent mucks
csquard wins the pot ($164.50) with a straight, King high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $167.50 | Rake $3
Board: [3h Js 9c 7d Qs]
Seat 2: omniscent mucked [9s 9d] - three of a kind, Nines
Seat 6: csquard showed [Ks Tc] and won ($164.50) with a straight, King high
A hand I misplayed yet caught in the end. Now, I could have theoretically been ahead from the start, but only with pocket jacks (which I guess I could have just called his raise with pre-flop). I rarely chase gutshots and can’t get into why I did in this instance, but there it is. That normally leads to chat like this:

(following hand) omniscent: -you &#%%ing idiot

(next hand)

FullTiltPoker Game #1116793959: Table Del Rey - $5/$10 - Limit Hold’em - 15:31:11 ET - 2006/10/18
Seat 1: quicksort ($136)
Seat 2: omniscent ($570)
Seat 3: RiotRox ($237)
Seat 4: sofocon ($200)
Seat 5: Pettycash ($422)
Seat 6: csquard ($386)
Seat 7: DakoKid ($120.50)
Seat 8: InsanePokrPosse ($118)
Seat 9: SLAPP-NUTZZ ($100)
omniscent posts the small blind of $2.50
RiotRox posts the big blind of $5
SLAPP-NUTZZ posts $5
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to csquard [5d 4d]
Pettycash folds
csquard calls $5
DakoKid folds
InsanePokrPosse folds
csquard: nh
SLAPP-NUTZZ checks
quicksort folds
omniscent calls $2.50
RiotRox checks
*** FLOP *** [Kh 3h 7c]
omniscent bets $5
RiotRox folds
csquard calls $5
SLAPP-NUTZZ folds
*** TURN *** [Kh 3h 7c] [6c]
omniscent bets $10
csquard raises to $20
omniscent calls $10
*** RIVER *** [Kh 3h 7c 6c] [2h]
omniscent checks
csquard bets $10
omniscent raises to $20
csquard calls $10
*** SHOW DOWN ***
omniscent shows [Ks 2s] (two pair, Kings and Twos)
csquard shows [5d 4d] (a straight, Seven high)
csquard wins the pot ($107) with a straight, Seven high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $110 | Rake $3
Board: [Kh 3h 7c 6c 2h]
Seat 2: omniscent (small blind) showed [Ks 2s] and lost with two pair, Kings and Twos
Seat 6: csquard showed [5d 4d] and won ($107) with a straight, Seven high
Now, maybe you would have re-raised the river, but I was just going to pay off the flush and move on. Which then led to this:

csquard: nh
omniscent: you a luck box i dont know why youir gloating
csquard: nh

It ended with this hand:

FullTiltPoker Game #1116809533: Table Del Rey - $5/$10 - Limit Hold’em - 15:36:02 ET - 2006/10/18
Seat 1: quicksort ($121)
Seat 2: omniscent ($520)
Seat 3: RiotRox ($229.50)
Seat 4: sofocon ($223)
Seat 5: Pettycash ($441.50)
Seat 6: csquard ($418)
Seat 7: DakoKid ($117.50)
Seat 8: InsanePokrPosse ($113)
Seat 9: SLAPP-NUTZZ ($95)
csquard posts the small blind of $2.50
DakoKid posts the big blind of $5
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to csquard [Ah 8h]
InsanePokrPosse folds
SLAPP-NUTZZ folds
quicksort folds
omniscent raises to $10
RiotRox folds
sofocon folds
Pettycash folds
csquard calls $7.50
DakoKid calls $5
*** FLOP *** [8d 9c 8s]
csquard bets $5
DakoKid folds
omniscent calls $5
*** TURN *** [8d 9c 8s] [2c]
csquard checks
omniscent checks
*** RIVER *** [8d 9c 8s 2c] [5d]
csquard bets $10
omniscent raises to $20
csquard calls $10
*** SHOW DOWN ***
omniscent shows [As Jh] (a pair of Eights)
csquard shows [Ah 8h] (three of a kind, Eights)
csquard wins the pot ($77) with three of a kind, Eights
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $80 | Rake $3
Board: [8d 9c 8s 2c 5d]
Seat 2: omniscent showed [As Jh] and lost with a pair of Eights
Seat 6: csquard (small blind) showed [Ah 8h] and won ($77) with three of a kind, Eights
I don’t like trying to get tricky here as I should have just bet the turn then three-bet the river (much missed value). He’s tilting, so logically he won’t have me beat on either of the previous two hands. A leak I need to fix, probably residual quads tempering my aggression. This isn’t like me, but I do think you should push a player to tilt if it presents itself, although I wouldn’t go out of my way to do that. Is this hypocritical? Probably. This is part of poker though, getting people to react to you rather than control the game. He gave up his winnings during this time, mainly to me, and it should have been worse than it was. Post your thoughts if possible or email me at csquard@gmail.com.

If you haven’t seen it, check out the Jeff Williams interview as well from my trip down to Athens. A very decent guy with his head on straight, playing some of the biggest online games around. That’s it for now. Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll talk to you later.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 8:10 am and is filed under Uncategorized.