Party’s Pool of Retards

READ MORE: Online Poker, PartyPoker, Poker

Don’t let anyone tell you the players at PartyPoker aren’t special. Short bus special. During their “Three Billionth Hand” celebration this week, everyone at the table on that milestone deal got $10K, with $50K added for the person who would go on to win the pot. Iggy from Guinness and Poker cribbed this post from the 2+2 Forums:

“Humorously, 4 of the 6 players at the table folded before the river. Apparently the 10,000+:1 odds on their money to chase a miracle runner-runner were not appetizing enough to warrant a call. At least one player was clearly aware of the situation at hand proclaiming “we did it” in the chat box before the flop. The same player folded after the flop.”

There is no mercy in the passing lane… [Guinness and Poker]

Reader Mail: Is Everyone Who Plays Online Poker An Asshole In Chat?

READ MORE: Online Poker, PartyPoker, Poker

One of our loyal readers writes in with the following question:

Last night, while trying to kill some time… I went ahead and downloaded and played a few free hands on partypoker.com for the first time. I went to use the chat feature, to ask what I thought were a few innocent questions (not about poker, but about the “software”) and was summarily met with angry replies to “shut up” and “get out of the room” by at least two other players after typing what amounted to about six words in two messages each!

I figured I just ran across a few jerks, but on my second game, when I made a comment to the effect of, “Wow, you pulled a good card there” after I was beat, I was once again jumped up and down on by at least two other players. Is there some poker chat protocol that I don’t know about? What is up with these cyber geeks and WHY are they so angry? Not used to human interaction…

Yes, there is an unwritten code of chat ethics in play, but we can’t talk about it. It’s unwritten. We can, however, give you a peek at who you’re playing against, and what’s swimming around in the heads of these retards. After the jump, we’ll give you our FBI-caliber personality profile so you can be prepared…

WAIT, SO I’M THE FISH?!?

Look, this is Internet poker, which means that interpersonal communication in this advanced medium is just what you’d expect to see on a message board, which is to say it’s a whole bunch of fourteen year-olds who can’t wait to tell you what a piece of shit you are. Our first piece of advice would be to knock it off with these “play money” tables. There really isn’t anything worth doing that isn’t worth doing for money, particularly poker. Throw in the fact that every ninth grader in the country who can’t get a hold of mom’s credit card is pushing all-in in these play money games, and you shouldn’t expect to have a pleasant discourse on the proper way to handle suited Aces preflop.

So, with it being a given that everyone else is the asshole online, here are the assholes you’ll likely be running into as your poker Jones takes hold.

THE TABLE CAPTAIN

The Table Captain is probably the most common chat dick you’ll see online. He’s the guy who’s typing “ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ” when someone’s taking some time to think about a decision and offering his congratulations to every player at the end of every hand with the ubiquitous “NH” (nice hand). His running commentary is usually limited in topic, as is his knowledge of poker. He’s not going to be the guy to tell you when your pot odds were wrong, but he will be the guy who will type “LOL” without irony when someone hits their one-outter on you. When challenged, the Table Captain usually becomes a more irritated and aggressive poker-chat type, such as “the Genius,” “Testosterone Boy,” or “Sarcasmo.”

THE GENIUS

Face it, you don’t know crap about poker. You could be getting 10 to 1 on your nut flush draw going into the river, but the Genius is still convinced you made a terrible call to suckout the flush that busted his middle pair. He’s a master of evading expletive filters, calling you a “Fukking Fish” when your hand beats his, and is always ready to tell you what a retard you are even when he’s not the one losing money on the hand. Confrontation with this guy is pointless. You could type, “I was getting 10 to 1 on that call, and was 25% to hit my hand,” which completely justifies the play mathematically. Problem is, he’d just retort with, “That’s why I don’t play for real money anymore. I can’t win against you fukking fish.”

TESTOSTERONE BOY

His dick is bigger than yours. You’ll just have to admit that and move on, because he’s not going to let you forget it. Did you lay a bad beat down on the guy? Did your questionable starting hand selection somehow flop a monster? Did you poke a Table Captain with a short stick? He’s going to whip it out and slam it on the table. This guy doesn’t care about your poker skills, he just wants to prove he makes a lot more money playing poker than you, and plays at higher levels. So why is he “slumming” at the play money tables again? Anyway, the poker-chat version of “You wanna take this outside?” is “Let’s play heads-up for $100 fish.” If you’ve got the bankroll and skills, call him on his bluff. You’ll either emasculate him immediately, or you’ll have him on tilt throughout the entire heads-up match.

SARCASMO

It starts out innocently enough. You’ll be playing at a table with a quiet type who takes a mild bad beat. He types “NH” into the chat window. Then another bad beat on the guy. “NH” again, then maybe a “That was a hell of a raise on just a draw into the nuts on the turn.” Poker gods are cruel, this guy will get slapped again in short order, to which he will continue to offer his teeth-grinding appreciation. “No, that’s okay… Just keep chasing third pair into your six-out draw. That’ll always work.” “It’s hilarious when top pair on the flop gets busted by a hand like that. I guess that’s why you play eight deuce offsuit right?” “You raise preflop with junk just so when you flop like that it’s really well disguised, huh?” Steer right into the wake of this guy, and try to catch with crappy hole cards. You’ll feel like a superstar when he shows his appreciation for your awesomeness while you’re counting all the money you took off of him.

THE CONSPIRACY THEORIST

Online poker is rigged, haven’t you heard? That’s why he’s not winning. It’s not for lack of skill or chasing too many draws. It’s the site. It’s rigged, and there’s nothing you can do to change his mind. We swear we’ve seen someone say, “You know (this site) sets it up so the river card helps the worst hand at least 50% of the time.” They’re convinced randomness has nothing to do with anything. Flop comes down Ace Ace King? “Action flop, someone’s going to lose all their chips.” Someone with Aces gets busted by a flopped set by a guy holding pocket fives? “It’s a proven fact that when you have Aces, someone else at the table has a pair 95% of the time.” If you ever beat this guy out of a pot with a solid monster hand, turn over your cards and say, “Sorry man, I know a guy who works here.” Watch the fireworks from a safe distance.

THE NAME CALLER

Then, of course, you have your general run-of-the-mill assholes online who can’t think of anything good to say. Our Poker Editor BG uses the screen name “boygza” at PartyPoker. He claims he’d have to take off his shoes to count the number of times he’s been called “Boy Gay” and “Boy Jizz-a” online. Add the indiscriminate sideswipes like “fish,” “dumbass” and “fag” to the mix, and you’ve got yourself in a battle a chat idiot who hasn’t improved his debating skills since someone stole his Four-Square ball in the third grade. There is no argument, there is no reasoning with these guys. The only thing you can do is invoke the “Rubber/Glue” Doctrine, and hope that shuts the guy up.

DON’T TAP ON THE GLASS

Feeling the urge to be an asshole your damn self online? Don’t. Don’t be sarcastic, don’t be a jerk, don’t tell everyone you’re the shit and that you play $30/$60 with Teddy KGB. Just know that the worst thing you can do to a fish making bad plays is to wake him up to that fact. Do you want the guy playing conservatively, or do you want him pushing his weak-kickered Ace into your Big Slick? Variance is a bitch at times, but when you’re on the Christmas Morning end of the stick, it’s a beautiful thing. No one needs to see your genius, so keep it in your pants and let the jackass across the table get lucky. You’re more likely to make it back the longer he stays and plays like an idiot.

Is Poker Today’s Pet Rock?

READ MORE: Party Gaming, PartyPoker, Poker

Journalists have been quick to the keyboard to drive a stake in poker’s heart after PartyGaming’s warning of a spending slowdown. Is online poker a dying hobby? After the jump, we’ll take a look at a contrary opinion…

WE NEED A RELOAD BONUS AND POCKET ACES, STAT!

Las Vegas Vegas takes a look at the media’s latest endgame prophecy:

Is this the end of the poker boom? Hardly. Triple digit growth for any Internet gaming site will probably soon (be) history. Today’s announcement may be Partygaming’s acknowledgment of the new Internet kid on the block, WPT (World Poker Tour) Enterprises and Sportingbet, which controls Paradise Poker. The increased competition from the dozens of pop-up poker sites has diluted the market. Land based poker players are a fickle bunch that will quickly replace one brand with another for the slightest reason, they’re not noted for long-term brand loyalty. They also tend toward congregating in large crowds, in other words, they like to play in full games in large rooms. I believe the Internet poker players have similar traits; so, why would the biggest poker room ever fire off a press release with the grim news that their growth will be reduced to rates closer to other legitimate businesses? Do they want the investors to hunker down and weather the storm or sell out and head for the hills? Should I be worried about any of this? What if poker is here to stay and home computers are the fad?

A couple of quick points. First, the initial post-Moneymaker wave of unschooled losers has either gotten better, or cashed/busted out. Mostly the latter, and most are highly unlikely to come back to play. Second, three years ago there were less than ten reputable online portals, with three or four of those pulling the lion’s share of the players - PartyPoker included. Today’s market has quite a bit more competition. Third, the average player has grown far more sensible than his counterpart in the wake of Moneymaker. While players still “take shots” at limits above their bankroll, we’d wager it’s not happening with the same frequency as it used to. The average player is looking at poker as a money making enterprise, and isn’t as likely to wander into deeper waters than for what they’re equipped anymore. That means less rake for Party (and the decreased player spending).

The days of unbridled growth are gone, but poker is still a vibrant business. 30,000+ players every night on PartyPoker alone proves that point.

Is the Party Over? [LasVegasVegas]

Online Gambling: Why Can’t We Play Craps At Bellagio.com?

READ MORE: Gambling Laws, Online Casinos, PartyPoker, Poker

The only thing we hate worse than articles that try to tell us what’s “HOT” and what’s “NOT,” is any show on E! or VH1 that makes liberal use of the word “fabulous.” As if we give a shit whether Britney Spears carries Fendi or Gucci.

What about online gambling? HOT or NOT? After the jump, we’ll let a magazine have its say, and speculate why all the casinos want a piece…

We couldn’t resist taking a peek at an article from Information Week talking about what’s hot and what’s not in IT. Online gambling, apparently, is NOT hot. Predictably, things like Wi-Fi hot spots and slide rules and graphing calculators are HOT, but that’s another blog. Where the article makes a bad logic leap is from “(D)omestic casinos are trying to figure out how to get their share of the booming online market” to “Foxwoods Resort Casino is hoping to bring back a feature of its Web site that allows gamblers to check from home the winning status of lottery tickets purchased at the casino.”

We’re pretty sure checking the status on the Internet of a ticket purchased at the casino directly isn’t what Harrah’s and other US-based casino companies are after on the Internet. They’re after the dollars, or more specifically, the profit margin. From KyrosLaw:

While it may cost up to $300 million to build a new resort casino, ICI’s (Internet Casinos, Inc.) virtual casino was developed for only $1.5 million and employs only seventeen (17) individuals as opposed to thousands for a traditional casino. ICI estimates that the company averages about a twenty four (24%) profit margin, versus the typical U.S. casino, which ranges between eight percent (8%) to sixteen (16%) of each dollar wagered.

No free drinks, no busty cocktail waitresses, no Wayne Newton stage extravaganza, and no guys on the sidewalk shooing the porn-slappers away from the door? Low overhead = high margins. It doesn’t take a Masters’ in Economics to figure that equation out. We’re left scratching our heads as to how the gambling industry hasn’t bought off enough lawmakers to give Internet gaming the Stars-and-Stripes seal of legal approval. Right now there are about eleven Internet gambling impresarios laughing their balls off while sipping daquiris through platinum-plated straws on the island of Antigua who aren’t too worried that Vegas will branch out to compete with their sites.

It remains absolutely astonishing that the government isn’t willing to let American companies compete with Party Gaming and the other island-based online casinos, and instead tries to legislate against gambling they just can’t control. Makes no sense to us. Then again, it’s been 35 years since Woodstock, and pot still somehow hasn’t been legalized, and that’s pretty much just as dumb. So long as they don’t try to limit our access to porno, we’ll still be cooler than Canada.

IT Confidential: IM Cool, Hot-Spots Hot, Online Gambling Not [Information Week]
Internet, Online Gambling, and Gaming Law [KyrosLaw]