Don’t Bang on The Aquarium!

Recently on a poker trip to Tunica, MS, I was in a $2-5 NL cash game at Binion’s Horseshoe. A Korean lady, Misty, who I play poker with all the time at my local casino in Louisville, KY, happened to be in the game. Misty, who is VERY loose and VERY aggressive, was hammering every pot pre-flop regardless of her position. $35 to go from early position, $40 to go from the cutoff, it didn’t matter where she was, she was raising. There was an uptight, young, white male in the eight seat—you know the type- the guy that complains about it every time a loose player makes a statistically incorrect call and then gets there.

Anyway, in one hand, Misty raises it to $50 pre-flop and the uptight male finally wakes up to a hand, QQ, in the big blind. The uptight dude makes it $250 to go and Misty quickly calls. The flop comes a rainbow J-2-4 and Mr. Uptight bets out $300, and Misty, being the loose and aggressive player that she is, comes back over the top and raises and additional $300. Mr. Uptight, who only has $200 left in front of him, goes all-in for his remaining stack. Misty, of course, being the atrocious player that she is, calls.

Mr. Uptight flips over his QQ, and Misty reveals her hole cards, an AK of spades. At this point, Mr. Uptight was a 70% favorite to win the hand, and had to be feeling pretty good about his chances, however, there was always that 30% chance that disaster could strike, and strike it did on this hand. The turn came a 5 and the river a 3, giving Misty the wheel, an A-5 straight.

Needless to say, Mr. Uptight goes ballistic. “How could you make such a bad call like that!” “Do you realize how far behind you were?” “That is soooo terrible!!”

What Mr. Uptight does not know is that 1) A bad player like Misty is not thinking about stats or any math associated with the hand—she’s there to gamble and 2) Insulting a bad player usually only inspires them to leave the table with YOUR money, giving you no chance to get it back.

Of course he goes on and on for the next 30 minutes about how bad Misty played the hand and how bad of a player she was, until finally Misty racked up her chips and left. Now Mr. Uptight was going to have to battle players that were as good as him if not better in order to get back some of his losses—just a bad move by him. Mr. Uptight banged on the aquarium a little too hard, and the fish swam away.

So next time you’re in that soft $2-5 NL seat at the Palms in Vegas surrounded by Hollywood rich kids who don’t know a lick about poker, remember not to insult any of them too badly for poor play. You’ll only be hurting yourself.

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