Tilt-a-Whirl Chatting

I played 400 hands of $10NL full ring this morning in about an hour (I was playing six tables). I ran well, and my big hands held up,including rockets twice. I made about four buy-ins and played well. It was a good morning, with good results, but with no really interesting hands to write about. That said, there was something different that I did at one my tables: put another player on tilt. Let me explain:

At one of my six tables, there was a player named Olekander from the UK, who was four seats to my right. He was playing pretty loose-aggressive at 30/25, and he was chatting constantly, bemoaning his bad luck, telling other players they were idiots, etc. I mostly ignored him, but at one point he typed in: "Hey, Bugeye. You c-bet a lot. Everybody here should 3-bet you on flops that you lead into. Bug has nothing most of the time."

WTF? It's one thing to call people idiots, but it's another to broadcast to the table how another player is playing and/or what his tendencies are. Really weird. I got a little ticked off, but I didn't respond. A few hands later at that table, I RR'd another players raise pre-flop with my AK, got called, and nothing on the flop. I c-bet without really thinking. The other player RR'd me, and I thought about folding, but the pot odds were pretty big and the opp was a super loose/aggro player, so I just smoothed. The turn was K. I checked, got shoved on by the LAG, so I called. The opp turned over a pair of nines, and I took a good sized pot down. Olekander of course went crazy, typing, "Lucky idiot!" and "You got lucky hitting your Ace. You were behind preflop! See! Don't believe bug's c-bets!"

I almost typed back something nasty, but instead I calmed down and then just wrote: "Lol. Thanks for setting that up so perfectly Olekander. I wouldn't have gotten the action without your help. It's almost like you're colluding with me."

Olekander went nuts. "I'm not colluding with you a$$hole! You're just a lucky idiot."

So I typed back: "Okay. But thanks again!"

He went crazy again, but I didn't respond, as I had five other tables to play.

A few hands later, I picked up AQs in LP. Olekander open raised in front of me, I 3bet to isolate him, and he just called. Flop came rainbow rags with one of my suit, he bet, and I RR'd him. He thought for a long time, and then smoothed. Turn was another card of my suit, he checked, and I checked behind. River was my gin card, giving me the flush. Olekander led into me and I min-RR'd him. He thought for a long time, and then shoved. I quickly called with the nuts. He turned over KK for a slow-played suicide result. Again, he went crazy. "you lucky #$%&@! you idiot. you got a backdoor flush you lucky @#$#%&*! you should never have played AQ. Idiot!" and so on.

I wrote back "Thanks for letting me see all those cards! I appreciate it. You're a great guy."

He wrote back "STFU! You idiot. YOU IDIOT! You should never have played that hand! I was raising in early position. I had a hand, you idiot!"

So I wrote, "Okay. Thanks for the tip."

"It wasn't a tip, you idiot! I'm just telling you that you played it poorly!"

"Oh? I did? Okay. Well, thanks anyway. Boy, poker is fun! This is only my second time playing. Is it always this easy?"

"STFU YOU #$%^&* IDIOT!"

"I'm sorry, Olekander. I'm new to this game. Did I do something wrong? I'm really new to the game. I'd like some tips if you don't mind. You seem to know a lot about poker."

At this point, the guy went totally crazy. He was basically apoplectic, typing all kinds of stuff that fulltilt censored. Half of what he wrote didn't even make sense. he then started playing every hand that was dealt to him. In about ten minutes he tilted off about $20, cursing and steaming and typing like a mad man. About half the players at the table profited from this implosion, including myself when I picked up a set of fours against his K-high hand and took down his last $3.

I had to go at that point, so I shut down, typing in one last, "thanks for the poker lesson, Olekander!" He went nuts again, but this time four of the other players who had profited from the situation typed in "Thanks, bug." And "Cheers for that, bugeyebug!" As I left the table, I saw that Olekander rebought for the full (deep)$20 at the table, and started berating another player. God knows how much money he tilted off after I left.

Afterward, I thought about the situation. I made some money off the guy, true, but I also feel a little funny about setting him off that way. Yeah, I know, I know... it's all part of poker, and anyone who sits down a table takes the risk of losing their money, one way or another. It's as much a mental game as anything else. Yada, yada, yada. But still, I wonder if I should have done what I did. Dunno, but I have to say, it was actually kind of fun at the time.

In other news, I've tweaked my table selection criteria a bit. I'm still sorting by tables that have at least 8 players, have high table VPIPs, and have large average pots. Now, however, I'm also filtering only for deep stack tables. Because such a big part of my game is set-mining, I'd like to ensure as much as I can that the other players have big stacks that I can go afteer. The deep stack tables tend to have much higher average stack sizes (obviously), so it's going to be interesting to see if this increases my win rate or not (or just increases my variance more). I'll let you know. Maybe even by chatting something nice back to you in a chatbox!

All-in for now...
-Bug