The Ugly Side at FullTilt

No, this isn’t an expose. If you have a dollar on deposit you can chat at any table. Ultimate Bet does the same thing and I could have used them in the title. But, FullTilt has a number of pros playing the high stakes table.

I am always doing disclaimers, it seems, in these opinion pieces. So, lets get that out of the way: My Mother was a puritanical lady. She also riled at the grammatical errors she caught the TV Anchor making. The grammar part didn’t catch but she did affect my thought on language. I have women I respect who use the ’standard military adjective’; but it does jar. It is a different time and the difference between today and then is dramatic. I still move to the street side when walking with a women and open doors and pull out chairs. It doesn’t make a lot of sense in this age but I am comfortable doing it.

On FullTilt there are a lot of folks playing at the highest stakes. They sit at the tables with 50 to hundreds of thousands. A lot goes on at the 1-2000 Limit Omaha HIgh (LOH) table with Ivey, Matasow, Benjamin, Hansen and others. It is fun to sweater the action.

I think I have heard every surly, tasteless, remark possible directed to many; but often Matasow gets the brunt. His life has been pretty much an open book. His flaws are known to all. Strangely, he probably chats more at the table – even with the dyslexia or really poor typing skills he manifests. If someone is half way reasonable, he may respond. Most of the others seldom chat with anyone including their table mates.

In this background come the lurkers. An there is a lot of trash talk. I actually enjoy good trash talking. I regularly played with a group, afternoons, on PokerRoom and it was incorporated into the game. A lot of them were Brits and they have a tradition of the gentile putdown. It can get very funny. And, I think that, on a good day, I can give better than I get.

Every player at the tables gets ragged, but Mike is the easy target for the types showing up. There is dark humor and I enjoy that along with the next guy. It can be funny, too. These remarks aren’t related to humor in any way. There only feature is they are nasty. Very nasty! Unforgivably nasty! In fact you’d have to say, ‘Without redeeming social value’ if you had a legal bent. It is everything I understand as obscenity — even when the individual words don’t qualify.

It happens regularly at the cheaper tables, also. It is an easy thing to stoop to. You have a made up name and a hokey avatar. You have anonymity. And many cannot handle that. In the Bricks and Mortar world you’ll get an invite to the parking lot for a lot less. Or, security will show up to escort you to the door. Online people have been known to live not that far away or even show a willingness to drive a distance to confront the individual. We can let out more info about ourselves than we should and it can come home to roost. I have a female, poker-playing friend who’s address was found by a rather scary individual.

Now I’ll admit that I am not proactive at this. I think many are like me. It is a pain to write down a hand number and then contact support. And, there is that part that makes you think you’re ratting on someone. Well, sometimes we should respond when we see someone out of control. It is something to think about.

Addendum:

I’ve been semi-bragging up my Omaha play. I do say that I’m a novice but the reporting may seem to some like bragging. Well, let me disabuse you of that now. Last time out I went through two buyins within about a half hour. There was a trash talker at the table and I violated every sound principle trying to nail him. That’s one of the tilts I sometimes make. But, in truth, it was a day I should have taken a pass. I didn’t even have ‘my B- game’; I was struggling getting hands and reaching; I should have caught it sooner.

Ed Bradley passed away. Talk about a class act… He even interviewed Tim McVey with courtesy. He didn’t take any crap and could nail someone to the wall but he didn’t abuse either the people he interviewed or his position. He had a good parent and it showed. He was a year younger than me.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 7:13 am and is filed under Journal, Poker Other. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.