Hey Guys,

I was just playing a session and took a ridiculous bad beat and it got me thinking.  I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this in any of my previous blogs but its pretty much one of my biggest pet peeves in poker.  Basically its when a player loses a hand or gets knocked out of a tournament or just takes a bad beat and starts to berate a player on how he played the hand or how he could of possibly played those cards.  Now it doesn't even have to be out loud to your opponent to be wrong, if you're one of those guy's who loses a big hand and tells the story by saying "Oh my god you will never believe what this guy called me with" or "This IDIOT called my raise with A,9 and sucked out on me" or even "You will never believe what this donkey called my all-in with to beat my Kings".  These are all examples that absolutely put me on primo tilt, honestly, if you're one of these poker player's who talk like this and you come and tell me a story about a guy calling your raise with 3,4 offsuit and cracked your aces.. you will put me in a severe coma.  This is all drives me nuts for a bunch of reasons.. One is because no one likes to hear a bad beat story, that's pretty much common knowledge now in the poker world but telling a bad beat story so someone else can feel your misery is extremely annoying. Unfortunately I think bad beat stories are going to be in poker for a long time so I've seemed to get use to them and just nod and say "oh that sucks man, better luck next time".  Now secondly is because you WANT these bad players playing like this.  And you wouldn't believe how many good players I know can't get this simple little thing in their head.  If all players just played Aces, Kings or Queens.. How are you going to make money in this game? Good players want bad players calling them with 4,6...7,5.. 8,10 and all other junk because thats how good players make their money.  They don't make their money raising with AK and getting no callers.  Now I know if you're a poker player and you're reading this you're probably thinking " Ok Jay, we know this we've heard it a thousand times"  But I really don't think a lot of players (even good ones)  get this concept in their head.  And it doesn't even mean that stopping yourself from telling your buddies what happened is the same thing.  Its a mental mindset you need to get into every single time you play at a table.  If you're ever at a table and lose a big pot and start to think how you want to kill the guy who beat you, or feel you need to win back all your chips from that particular villain.. is the same thing!  You can only control what YOU do with your cards, obviously by the way you play your cards will influence an opponent to react a certain way.  But you can't manipulate a certain bad player to not call your raise with a junk hand or to not want to gamble with you on an all-in.  You have to except the way certain players play and change your game plan towards them accordingly. 

Now if you have no idea on what I'm talking about, here's a perfect example I found on youtube.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zE05bdyVaGw

I brought up this topic because in all honesty I use to be one of these players.  I think it was a bad habit I picked up from the players I was playing with regularly at the time.  But I consistently found myself blaming the way my opponent played a hand instead of taking the blame myself.  Its easy to lose with Aces to 5,7 and go tell someone how a moron cracked your Aces, but if you played your Aces incorrectly then you're the moron, not the other guy.  Once I was able to change my mindset and never had a negative thought about a player enter my mind, I extremely started to be a better player.  No matter how I lose a hand, I analyze it on if I made the correct decision, not my opponent.  Like I mentioned earlier, you wouldn't believe how many good players have this "disease" I like to call it, and would be 10 times the player they are if they changed this.  Now how stupid would is sound if a hockey player after taking a penalty shot says in his interview, "That stupid goalie, I can't believe he poke checked me and knocked the puck of my stick when I was about to deke him, I should of scored!!"  Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?  So why does it make it right in poker. 

As I'm writing this I'm not even sure if any of it makes sense or if it came out like I wanted it to on paper.  So I can't stress enough, if you want to be a good poker player, get rid of this disease.  When I play online I've started to turn off my player chat so I can't see what players rant about after losing a hand.  You should see some of the sick things that have been said to me online after I stack a guy.  A player actually said to me once he hoped I died of cancer of the eyes then went on to say some not so nice things about my mother.  I laughed, wrote a note on the player how he tilts after losing a big pot, and continue to play with him till I made him go broke.

Anyways.. here's the hand triggered this whole blog and rant.  After the hand I was actually happy that I found a table that plays like this and really didn't tilt at all.  Now I'm not saying I never tilt, thats a topic for another blog, but when I do tilt its often because of something I did or if I'm playing like a retard.


eat 2: IchHabeRecht ($104.75)
Seat 3: Blspike ($261.65) is sitting out
Seat 4: Goodfella_84 ($169.55)
Seat 5: Stackedbyacehi ($177.30)
Seat 6: joeen ($311)
IchHabeRecht posts the small blind of $0.40
Goodfella_84 posts the big blind of $0.80
The button is in seat #1

Holecards:
Dealt to Goodfella_84 [ ]
Stackedbyacehi raises to $2.80
joeen calls $2.80
calwesttri calls $2.80
IchHabeRecht folds
Goodfella_84 has 15 seconds left to act
Goodfella_84 has requested TIME
Goodfella_84 raises to $14
Stackedbyacehi folds
joeen folds
calwesttri has 15 seconds left to act
calwesttri raises to $75
Goodfella_84 has 15 seconds left to act
Goodfella_84 raises to $169.55 and is all in
calwesttri has 15 seconds left to act
calwesttri calls $94.55
Goodfella_84 shows [ ]
calwesttri shows [ ]

Flop :
[ ]

Turn:
[ ] [ ]

River:
[ ] [ ]
Goodfella_84 shows two pair Aces and Twos
calwesttri shows three of a kind Twos
calwesttri wins the pot ($342 .10) with three of a kind Twos
Goodfella_84 adds $80

SUMMARY:
Total pot $345 .10 | Rake $3
Board:
[ ]
Seat 1: calwesttri (button) showed [ ] and won ($342.10) with three of a kind Twos
Seat 2: IchHabeRecht (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: Blspike is sitting out
Seat 4: Goodfella_84 (big blind) showed [ ] and lost with two pair Aces and Twos
Seat 5: Stackedbyacehi folded before the Flop

Unfortunately this player pulled a hit and run on me, but I have his name noted, so hopefully I can play with him everyday..

Going to get back to the tables... and remember... think POSITIVE!