You Can’t Shoot Someone Online

…but boy, do I understand why someone in a 19th Century Wild West saloon might have reached for the hidden gun in their boots to blow someone away after a hand of [online] poker.

I say this after having gone all in on the button with a flopped pair of kings and a queen kicker, having successfully gotten all but one person to fold with that play. Said person was holding an unsuited 8 2, nothing in the flop. On the turn they got an 8, on the river they got a 2. It is my opinion that in a just world in which God exists He should strike that person on the head with a large rock at that point, both because they had no business calling with an unsuited 8 2 on a flop with a K in it (let alone playing the 8 2 in the first place) and even less business actually getting the two running cards to win. I normally hate it when people bitch about somebody else hitting a hand on the river, but this is something on an entirely different level of cosmic injustice.

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8 Responses to You Can’t Shoot Someone Online

  1. back40 says:

    The devil made him do it.

  2. Alan Jacobs says:

    But Tim, someday that idiot — emboldened by his success against you — will pull the same stunt when playing for a lot of money, and will lose his shirt. Thus the justice of God will be accomplished. Such justice may be slow, but it is sure. And this just God has allowed you to be a part of His plan — isn’t that special?

  3. Timothy Burke says:

    Only if God promises me a cut of the action.

  4. ben wolfson says:

    The return of the abominable fancy.

  5. ebehren1 says:

    There is, very rarely, a reason for this…if you’re tremendously short-stacked, and you’re down to a chip and a prayer. I’m assuming this person was just a *&^!

  6. louisa says:

    i’m sure no one wants to hear this, but there is an outside reason this person isn’t an absolute jackass whose money, if there is a Just God ™, will soon be taken off her rube-some self. she might just be evil.

    if she was big stack at the table, and playing smart (and like an &^*$, really \ the same thing in poker), she can and should afford to stay in on the flop, even with the second worst hand in all of hold em, on the chance she gets lucky on the flop.

    and if her stack significantly outstrips yours, even after such a lackluster flop for her, she has vested interest to stay in (especially with no competition) to bust you out at relatively little cost to herself. and then this all just becomes another bad beat story. sucks, but happens.

    moral: big stacks are evil. and God hates you. I’m sure there’s some sociology paper being written on this topic as we speak, extra points given for any mention of either Tilly or the Big Grab.

    please disregard this message if it wasn’t tournament style play (i only play live poker) or the person really was just an idiot.

  7. Timothy Burke says:

    This was just an ordinary non-tournament table. The person was an idiot. When I make a ridiculous call and win, I am a genius, on the other hand. Because I planned to be lucky.

    But yeah, with tournament poker online, what you describe is starting to become a big issue. Lots of satellites for the WSOP are afflicted with tons and tons of players who just go all-in on every hand from the outset, who treat the opening 3-4 hands as if they’re Powerball rather than poker (e.g., if they get wildly lucky against the odds when someone calls them with a much better preflop hand, then they’ve got a big stack and can sit back and really start to play. If not, there’s always another satellite.) It makes a certain kind of sense but it drives the more experienced players absolutely insane, because there’s no relationship between the all-in and what they’ve actually got to go all-in on.

  8. marc says:

    When someone is playing poker face to face, they act much different then if they are online. True colors come out when people feel safe behind their computer. I found an interesting article about online poker that is worth a read.

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