Have you ever felt the burn of an attack at a poker table? You know what I’m talking about here right? A donk makes some UNBELIEVABLE calls, all the way down to the river, hit’s the absolute nuts, and doesn’t even realize it.
All of the regs (regulars at the poker table) are sitting there with that knowing smile, waiting for their sharky buddy to scrape in a huge pot, when someone at the table, generally not even the dealer points out that the table drunk made a hand!
In fact, the guys holding the absolute nuts, while making audible excuses for calling the river. He has no idea he’s won, and neither does anyone else at the table, as is apparent by the dropped jaws all the way across the felt.
Not a happy moment for Sharky.
Sometimes this situation becomes a bit uncomfortable, as the player who just tasted that juicy big pot realizes he will be stopping by McDonald’s on the way home from the poker club tonight, when only moments ago he was dreaming about a big fat juicy steak.
It has become acceptable to publicly ridicule other players at a poker table, most especially if you’re rudely pointing out what idiots they are, when you only moments ago were so very glad they were idiots.
In fact, the situation does not have to be this severe. It’s become commonplace to out the donks right at the poker table.
It’s unclear how a player benefits financially from these verbal beatings, as the fish player obviously does his best to defend himself, looks around the table for support, finds none, and never returns to that poker room with his bankroll.
After all, most unskilled poker players are out looking for a good time are they not?
Poker is known widely as highly social game, and it’s a game of math. Therefore, it’s a great opportunity for players from multiple social circles to get out and socialize, hence the popularity of mid-level poker tournaments.
Imagine how this public ridicule and the raw anger being directed at the ‘unskilled’ poker player has to feel for a moment.
In fact, poker players sit in wait for hours at a time waiting for one another to make the smallest of mistakes so that they can profit from a days grinding.
Only to ridicule the player that made the mistake?
Witty 2+2 forum users suggest singing the song shown in the Youtube video here to the table bully, just after felting the fellow for the night. A sort of re-bully maneuver. That only works however if the ridiculed player actually does win all of the bullies money, or at least $50.
In a game where manners have been thrown right out the window in many situations. There are consequences, and as we learned reading a recent Pokerlistings.com story, even poker pro’s are real people, with very real feelings.
In an interview, actress and returning pro poker player Jennifer Tilly admitted that she was actually hurt by the things she read on the popular online poker forum 2+2.
In fact, the gorgeous poker prowess was ridiculed right out of the game.
Looking back, Tilly admitted she found it all rather hurtful and it was one of the reasons she decided to leave the poker world behind.
“I did get very discouraged because lots of times you read online, people are saying all these horrible things about you, people who don’t know anything about your game or your stats or anything,” she said.

‘I’m kind of in a place now in my life where I don’t care what people think.’“I had to get my computer expert to break the link to Two Plus Two, because Two Plus Two is like crack. Those guys are really smart and funny and I would go there every day and laugh and laugh and laugh, until I saw something bad about me and I would feel really horrible.”
But after a little soul searching in her time away from poker, Tilly feels she’s now more equipped to handle the criticism.
Much of Tilly’s criticisms came from an infamous hand Tilly played against the stunningly sexy Patrik Antonius.
Tilly put Antonius on a monster hand, believing her pocket jacks were the underdog preflop. When she flopped trips, she made a bet, however, when the turn came king, she slowed way down and checked it on down. The river was an additional king, giving Tilly a boat. However, putting Patrik Antonius on quads at this point, she again checked.
The poker industry as a whole rushed to ridicule the fun loving (if not a touch hyper) Tilly for her misread.
Video’s showed up on you tube, and of course there was plenty of banter in poker forums all over the Internet.
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Last I heard, was Jennifer was returning to Poker after doing some acting, because that’s where she wanted to be. Hopefully, she won’t let what anyone says get to her, no should anyone else for that matter. People will always talk, and some people still have a lot of growing to do. Make that a lot of people 😉
But no one has power of you, unless you give them that power.
Yeah, amazingly stupid to make people feel uncomfortable at the poker table. More than one book has called bad beats the best thing to ever happen to the poker economy, because it encourages bad play like nothing else. So why point out that the person made a mistake? Why not just go with it and make him think he’s the next tornado to hit the poker world, instead? “Great call with that 83 suited chasing the flush against my top set! You hit it!” Hard to do, I know, when it’s all your money that paid for this anti-lesson. But your praise coupled with his win really will help make him think it’s brilliant poker, and it’ll take him losing his buy-in four more times at least with that bad move before he starts to think maybe it wasn’t so good.