Enjoy the chat ban, pal

I just finished my daily $10 HORSE tournament on PokerStars. Took $40 for the #1 spot. I started heads-up play slightly behind, about 5000 to the other guy's 7000. But we had just started razz, which is my best game, after hold'em. That is to say, in those two games I have the easiest time determining where I stand, whether I'm ahead or behind. In Omaha and the two stud games, I often still feel like I'm randomly groping to ascertain that, especially when playing one on one.

Anyway, I reversed the chip lead during razz by simply playing better--an assertion I'm quite comfortable making in this situation. I pushed and got him to come along when I was ahead, and let hands go when I was behind. During stud, where we finished up, I twice caught a lucky river card to make what turned out to be a better two pair than my opponent had, winning me big pots and giving me an 11:1 chip lead. It was only a matter of time at that point.

Inevitably, we kept getting it all in, because he was so short-stacked by then. He won the first couple, but then the luck shifted back my way.

All of that is a lead-in to what he said in the chat box just before what turned out to be our final hand, the first thing he had said during the entire tournament:

vegasqq: wow you are just a f ucking luck box... holy s hit your a horrid player

Hey, pal, I never claimed to be Doyle Brunson. In fact, in the late stages of the tournament, when it got down to the final four, with a few good Omaha hands in a row I climbed from the short stack to the big lead, and said in chat, "Wow--how in the hell did I get to be chip leader? Must be the blind squirrel finding the nut thing." That's not exactly crowing about being the best player, or any other such self-promotion that might tempt one to seek to pop an opponent's over-inflated ego.

Still, I have now played enough of these things to have a valid statistical measure, and I am unquestionably doing better than average. Out of 76 games, I've taken first place 15 times, when only 9.5 would be expected if the wins were evenly divided among the eight entrants. I've cashed 31 times, when 28.5 would be predicted by chance. I'm consistently making a profit. Admittedly, this may, for now, be the highest level I could play and be beating the game, but (1) I freely admit that I'm still early in the learning curve, and never say anything during the game to suggest that I'm better than anybody else; and (2) I can prove that I'm more successful--and thus presumably more skillful--than the average player entering these things. I am objectively not "horrid," at least as defined by the mean of the players in this kind of tournament.

And, by the way, if you were really an expert yourself, would you really be trolling the $10 tournaments, where your biggest potential profit is $29 in an hour and a half, if everything works out perfectly? The very fact that you play at these low stakes announces pretty loudly that you, like the rest of us, either know or believe that you're not ready to make it playing higher. There's not much room for anybody to be claiming vast superiority here.

I copied his little literary gem in an email to PokerStars support, and less than an hour later received confirmation that they had revoked his chat privileges.

Enjoy playing on mute for a while, you insolent, immature, stupid, self-destructive dirtbag.

In case it isn't already obvious, the way to deal with an opponent that you think is a "horrid" player is to buddy up to him. Be extra nice. Compliment him on his play. Then search for him every time you sign on, sit to his left, and take his money, all the while being friendly and self-deprecating. When you win, tell him you just got lucky. When he wins, tell him, "Nicely played." Do everything you can to keep him from (A) discovering how bad he is, (B) going away angry and/or embarrassed and deciding not to play any more, or (C) improving his game, all three of which are disastrous outcomes for the better players' profitability.

I hope that vegasqq's little time out prevents him from unleashing his vitriol in the future on others who might respond in one of those three ways. It is just horrible for the game to let crude nastiness like this go unchecked. What do people find so difficult about simply being civil and polite to each other?