I'm sure you've all seen it, the fair to average player who can't help himself, and just has to jump in and tell a bad player what he is doing wrong. A few common quotes:

"You went in with that trash hand? Thats horrible! What does it take for you to start? 72o?"

Or:

"Do you even have a clue what you're doing"?

worse still, in 7 stud:

"Are you blind? Look at his porch!!"

Now, you tell me, who is the bigger fool? The fish playing the only way he knows how, or the table coach who is trying his best to either run the guy off or worse yet, actually make him think about how he plays?

In this information age, one can learn how to play poker quite well in a very short time by either browsing strategy articles and web sites, or buying a good poker strategy book. Being a webmaster at a poker strategy site, I tend to enjoy teaching people who show initiative and desire to learn, the basics of poker strategy.

However...

If a player is happily losing his money to those who put in the time to learn the game, please continue to allow them to do so!

You'll notice I said fair to average players make this mistake. A good player knows which side his bread is buttered on, and even when he's been sucked out on a few times, knows that it's a good table as long as the sucker is there.

If you're tilting, take a break. One of the biggest “session“ mistakes you can make is running the suckers off. Who wants to trade quarters with the other tight wads? If you run the weak player off with your derision, you've most likely hurt your profit for the night. If, God forbid, he takes your advice and learns how to play, then you've lost a potential source of income for life.

Catch and Release guys!


About the Author
Keith Freeman is the webmaster of www.poker-strategy.org, a professionally designed poker strategy site. He can be reached at coach@poker-strategy.org