Hella Hold'em

Alright... quickie little post as I run out the door here. I just busted out of a cheapo SnG. I was playing basically to kill an hour before I had to leave - and didn't want to risk a lot of cash killing that hour.

So here I am, playing a $5 SnG. It's early in level 2. I'm up 400 chips or so. I've got A5s in the big blind and see a free flop with it. This table has been folding to most bets on the flop - all of which have been minimum bets of 30 or 50 thus far. Flop comes A-Q-x, rainbow. I'm 2nd to act (SB is still in the hand). SB checks, I bet out a feeler of 100 (2xBB, 1/3 of the pot). Player after me calls, as does the button. Turn comes a rag, killing my backdoor flush draw. I bet out the pot (500). Girl after me calls. Hmmm. I'm feeling a trap, or an Ace with a better kicker than mine. I knew it. This is exactly why I have playing Ace-baby, in ANY position. But I've been trying to mix it up a little, and it was a free flop... Anyway the third guy in the hand folds, and it's me and the other girl. River comes a rag, no flush or straights onboard. I'm down to T1300 chips at this point - not awful but I don't want to risk much more of my stack on this hand, because I think I'm beat. This girl has been playing tight thus far, and isn't running from my bets. So I bet out 250, figuring - if she's weak, she'll call or fold, and if not, I'll do the folding. She re-raises all in, which was another 450 to me. I was probably pot invested at this point, but calling her raise would leave me with 600-ish chips, a pretty unplayable stack. If I fold now, I've got 10 BB left - close to short but with a little wiggle room.

I laid down my Aces/5 kicker.

You may think I'm writing all of this to ask, should I have called? What would you have done in that situation?

Well, sure - go ahead. Answer those questions, if you would. Considering 9th place pays the same as 4th, 5th, 6th, etc, I probably should have called on the off chance that she was holding A2, A3, or A4. Not likely, considering she'd only shown down big hands to that point, and folded very easily, but hey. I probably should have called.

But that's not really the inspiration for my post.

As soon as I made the laydown, the button in that hand (who'd laid his cards down on the turn bet) goes,

"LOL!" in the chat.

There was no conversation going on, so presumably he was laughing at my play.

I wanted to ask him when his book was coming out, since his chip stack was actually less than mine, but I refrained, thinking - maybe I should give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he typed into the wrong chat window multi-tabling or something. I've done that accidentally once or twice.

I said, "Something funny?"

(OK, maybe I was only slightly biting my tongue.)

He replies, "Yeah, that means laughing out loud!"

I said, "No kidding, thus my question."

Then another player started asking me about the origin of my screen name, and I politely chatted. Ignoramous said nothing more.

A few hands later, Ignoramous raises UTG pre-flop a minimum raise with AJo (a GREAT hand in early position), and is re-raised 5x that amount by the button. He calls, which left him with a few hundred chips. Flop came a Jack, and he checks (cunning slow-play), and the button puts him all in. He calls with his monster TPTK, and the button shows AA. The Jack doesn't improve, and Ignoramous is out.

Shellmuth made a very unclassy move, but I couldn't help myself. I typed into the chat, simply:

"LOL!"

It scrolled quickly off the screen with the reports of the hand winner, and I wondered if he saw it. 8:55pm came around a few minutes later, and I was planning to leave by 9pm, so I decided to push all in with my 67 suited on the cutoff. I ended up pulling the dummy end of a straight, but someone else held QJ and I was out (which was my plan anyway, so big deal).

As soon as I was beat, Ignoramous (who had stuck around a good ten minutes or so as an observer), types into the chat,

"LOL!"

Tooo-shay! (Or however you spell that)

Now - I find it amusing as all hell that my little LOL pissed him off enough that he cared to stick around to sic it to me. He's probably some punk ass sitting around telling all of his friends how he was going to get me back. As if I actually care (he obviously did).

But - it made me think: what is it about online poker that makes people think it's OK to ridicule other people's play? If you're SO great at poker, why slum it at the five dollar table? And where's your book? It's one thing to have a conversation about strategy, or give solicited advice. It's completely something else to LAUGH at how someone else plays.

I've seen SO many times where a play will go down, and someone will say, "You called me with THAT crap?" or "Nice raise, idiot!" or "Wow, I guess any two cards will do...." Now, of course, half the time I'm *thinking* those things about my opponents' plays, but is it just me, or is it completely rude to say things like that? I don't know - maybe it's the attitudes proliferated by the Crew and their stellar egos.

And I'd love to see how many of these Vocal Majority Morons would actually say those things out loud in a live game or a casino. Not too many, I'd imagine. Life is all safe and cozy behind an avatar, bad ass screen name, and the glow of the computer monitor.

So, I guess Ignoramous's LOL did get under my skin a bit. So much so that I'm now 20 minutes late heading over to Randy's house.

Here's the second question you can answer for me - am I being too sensitive in thinking it's rude to berate people's plays in the online chat? Is this just normal behavior? Usually I just ignore it, and disable the chat for these people, but there have been so many lately that I really just can't believe people are that rude.

But I guess they are. Kinda sad.

OK I'm leaving I'm leaving!!!