When we play online people always ask me many questions and, although it distracts professional players like me, we always try to answer. With playing one or two tables it’s not a problem but when you are playing twenty tables like some of us it’s hard to answer all the questions. I am not a machine and I like to enjoy the game I play. In order to get more experience with more tables at the same time it takes all my attention and that’s why the smarter and better players DO NOT chat when they play online!

Lately I have found out that there is a lot of jealousy or anger and online it will easily taken to far. It often leads to direct insults. I can take a lot when these kind of players express their feelings at particular moments. Getting bad beats and having bad runs is part of the job so that is really not such a big problem. They cool down pretty fast and in most cases they apologize or feel sorry. A lot of people show this weakness and frustration and a simple ‘?’ will do to correct them. Pro’s and many other players do understand that, as it happen to us all most likely.

I am more worried about the ones that are observers in your game and misbehave with comments and insults to the (online) poker room and it’s players. I would prefer that they would dare to do that face to face so I could respect it a bit more, as it would be their opinion. And not a hide and seek message!

The computer makes it more easy for people to feel safe but it never gives ANYBODY the right to be abusive behavior.  No matter how they play that hand or what they think or what happened. Hiding behind the computer while making stupid comments is the reason that professionals don’t often chat with railbirds. Every now and then there is someone that will behave stupid and that distracts us from enjoying the game we play.

If it only would be the player you play against, the level of acceptance would be a bit higher. We all know that the cards sometimes makes us feel sick. Sometimes the cards come unpredictable and it happens more times now that we play so many hands online. I strongly believe that this abusive behavior needs to be taken more seriously. We should ban these people instead of giving that player a small warning. Of course there is a big difference between a slip of the tongue in the heat of the moment and a person that is only railing to insult the players and make disgusting comments about their plays.

Don’t forget that it only takes a little bit of poison to make us all look bad. We fight for the integrity of the game worldwide and we should not tolerate this! We don’t need players that throw cards to the dealers and swear in public. We simply don’t tolerate this behavior. So why do we tolerate even bigger threats and insults online, mostly coming from railbirds?

When we wrote the International Poker Rules under the Fidpa flag we tried to standardize the poker rules globally and it made us aware of this unnatural behavior that is a big part of the integrity of the game. We need to feel protected at all times so we can enjoy our game! Live and online poker rooms should take this particular issue more serious and do more before it becomes normal to do this. In my opinion. We should never tolerate abusive language in any form! Not online and not live! PERIOD!

My advice would be: Play the games you want, have fun with who you
are in life and understand that you can win or loose when you play. It’s all in the game and the cards really don’t have a memory. And the dealer is just the messenger.  Have fun doing that and good luck.

Marcel ‘The Flying Dutchman’ Luske

Team PokerStars Pro

Enjoy the music