blackchips&spaceships

I recently read an old thread on the 2+2 forums that made me cry. I mean I actually had tears pouring from my eyes. It had been a long time since I laughed that hard.

The back-story goes a bit like this. A Full Tilt Poker red pro named Alan Boston plays a lot of mid-stakes games. As a red pro, you receive a customized avatar designed by the guys at Full Tilt. Alan Boston, IRL, is an older dude with a clean, bald shaved head. He is your typical 50-some year old California bro who doesn’t want to grow up, so he throws on some Ed Hardy, pierces his ears, and calls it a day.

Alan Boston as an avatar, on the other hand, is an alien. Straight up, his avatar resembles one of those tear-drop headed aliens from some horrible sci-fi movie. Naturally, players on the forums were ready to take full advantage of Full Tilts liberal chat privileges and got to work.

Players began to give Alan crap for his image. The joking was all in good fun and would have probably subsided pretty quickly had Boston not retaliated. Apparently, as a red pro, you have the privilege to ban a players chat for an extended period of time. Whether or not he can actually pull the plug, or have an admin do it, is not known. Regardless, players who were calling him out were being threatened and often lost their chat rights.

As the internets motto goes, “If you can’t beat ‘em, keep making fun of them until the commit suicide.” This motto has proven its self time and time again. Naturally, players came in the masses to get a cheap shot at the man they call “Alien Boston.”

Some of my favorite gems:

wsop_caddy (Observer): Hey, Alan

Alan Boston: yes wsop

wsop_caddy (Observer): Can i ask you question?

Alan Boston: only if it is not mean spirited

wsop_caddy (Observer): Is you kid as Ugly as you.

Alan Boston: say goodbye to youf chat

wsop_caddy (Observer): What?

wsop_caddy (Observer): You look like MR clean

jiroz (Observer): alan boston can i ask you a question

Alan Boston: if it concerns avatar no

jiroz (Observer): lol no it just concerns your relationship to john locke

jiroz (Observer): hes your brother no?

Alan Boston: who?

Alan Boston: i have a sister

Alan Boston: not a brother

Alan Boston: and she teaches special ed

jiroz (Observer): oh nvm

CertifiedDon1 (Observer): alan do you ever play plo8

Alan Boston: never have

CertifiedDon1 (Observer): i was just wondering if you ever play against my buddy predator

WCGRider (Observer): alan boston are you there

WCGRider (Observer): when you have a moment sir

WCGRider (Observer): alan i am a moderator from 2+2 poker

WCGRider (Observer): i am here to apologize for my forums behavior

randymilonakis (Observer): damn doug that big of you

WCGRider (Observer): ty

WCGRider (Observer): i have a dream that one day

WCGRider (Observer): people from all cities countries and planets

WCGRider (Observer): can play poker in peace

"Not Turkdaddy (Observer): how come when alan boston wears a turtleneck he looks like a broken condom?"

boleracea: can i ask u quetion on it?

Alan Boston: yeah ask whatever you want

Alan Boston: go

boleracea: why'd u get chemo? i didn't know aliens could get cancer

mister coke (Observer): BOOM

Naturally, there are other great comments in the thread: here is the link.

So the more I thought about this chat barrage, the more I thought of the way it influences the game. Obviously Alien is used to this chat action and probably gets a kick out of it. He has more than likely learned to not let it influence his game. Some players, on the other hand, are reactive to in-game chat more so then they realize.

So I set to the cash game tables to do some research. I picked the more active tables: the tables with chat and large pots. These tabled tend to draw a larger crowd and a larger mix of play types. What exactly was my goal? I wanted to see if I could influence players to stray from their play style based on what I said.

This experiment/strategy has pros and cons. The pros are that you can use your chat as a weapon. The ability to communicate with your opponents and influence their decision is a definite advantage. The cons are that unless you know exactly how to draw out the correct reactions, your plan can backfire and you become a target for the wrong reasons.

I started with the basics, I would say things like “you played that bad” or “how are you not broke?” While often incorrect statements, the words brought attention to me and identified me as a loose cannon. I wanted to convey myself as a tilt-monster, someone who would lose control after a bad hand. After finding a player who was willing to go at it, I would start to get involved in pots with him and define his hand range better.

The results were, for the most part, great! I noticed a wider range of opening hands, which bode well for my tighter play. Most micro-stakes players are easy reads, and they make the reads easier when they play against a player for reasons other than profit. I made players want to beat me and get involved in hands with me. My chat action had in fact made my game easier and more profitable.

Obviously, my sample size was a bit small and I was probably a bit lucky, but the concept is dead on. A week of play is not exactly a gold mine of information. There were probably things I could have said and approaches I could take that would work against my profit; only repetition and volume can help iron out those wrinkles. For now, though, I’ll return to my normal game-play. The chat monster will sleep and wait.