Keeping It Real With the BBT3

What I'm going to write about today may sound funny to some of you. Some of you may have the baseball cap shocked right off your head. Others may fall over in their chairs. If you've been out there reading some the poker blogs like I do, then you may find what I have to say today to be very "out there" or at least "contrarian". But Ima gonna say it anyways. So here goes:

Since the BBT3 began, I am generally happy with the level of dirty chatting in our private tournaments, and I think the players as a rule are playing better in all the games.

There. I said it.

Let's take those two statements in reverse order, because I think the second point is a much quicker discussion. I haven't seen or read this anywhere over the past month or so, but since the BBT3 kicked in and with both the Skill Series and the Riverchasers playing weekly or at least bi-weekly versions of non-holdem poker tournaments, the play in those events has gotten better. I was one of the loudest voices on the intertubes a couple of months back about how god awful most of the play in, say, the Omaha events in Riverchasers and early in the Skill Series were. I remember entire posts -- tens of them at least from all around the poker blogiverse -- detailing the truly laughable starting cards and the uncommonly terrible hands being played all through these events. It was a minefield the likes of which haven't been seen since the last time Trip ran one of his Blogger Luck Games.

But with the past couple RC and Skills Omaha events, I have still seen the usual donkery, but not that uncommon donkery that was so omnipresent early on. So, don't get me wrong, we are all still bloggers playing these games and that means the donkery is copious and eternal. But it is noticeably not as much donkery as there was a little while ago. And that my friends is Good Thing #1 to come out of the BBT3. People are certainly taking the nlh tournaments more seriously and we are seeing -- in general (leaving out donkeycalling my allin on the flop with just AJo unimproved and then sucking the 6-outer at the river to bust me from RC last night) -- slightly better poker being played early and late in those events as well. But in the non-holdem games, the RC and the Skills Series have really contributed to what is to me a noticeable -- albeit not huge -- increase in the overall skill level in these other games. And all "don't tap the glass" people aside, I think that is a great and really cool thing that our little online poker tournament series can create in a group of people like this.

But now on to the more-talked-about topic today -- the alleged dirty chatting going on in many of these events. I'm not going to link to all the bloggers who have been writing about this stuff lately. They're the old schoolers, the Guys You Already Read Every Day Anyways. I don't need to link to it, you know if you read a lot of blogs that it seems like right now everybody is complaining about people being assholes in the chatboxes of several of the more recent BBT events. I've been following along with this story with some interest, mostly because deep down, and if you've read here for a while then you already know this, but deep down I really can't stand the dirty chatting either. I mean, what's the point? I've written about it many times, but while I can forgive almost anyone almost any transgression in a particularly tilty moment at a public table with people you don't know at all and likely will never see or hear from agaain, I simply cannot get how people would join in our community's games and then be raging assholes in the chat. It's lame, I've said it before, I've said it so many times that there's nothing more for me to even say about it. You all know my position. I argue that I tilt harder than any of you clowns and yet when was the last time any of you saw me type anything derogatory to anyone in the chatbox of one of our private games? Exactly. I don't. And I won't. So all of this is just a long way of saying, I am no fan of the dirty chatting. I really can't stand when people write things in our private tournament chats that are rude, crude and designed to hurt or embarrass other people, things that are above and beyond the normal table ribbing present at many tables comprised of guys who largely know each other.

But that's just the thing: I'm not seeing much of that here. I keep reading blog post after blog post after blog post about what assholes the guys were in chat the night before at the latest MATH or whatever. But I was there, and I somehow didn't see anything that rubbed me the wrong way? How can that be, I've been wondering. But in the past few days as I have been seeking some clarity on the subject, it has suddenly become more clear as a few of the people making these claims have let me in on the actual language that was offensive to them. And you know what? Most of it just isn't that bad. I mean, I think all the Booooooooooms! are stupid too, we all do. I wasn't the one who started that gheyness, and I'm not the one continuing it now. But do I really care? No. Why would I? That is now an example of chatting that is so out of bounds that it gets talked about on blogs for its rudeness? Rudeness? Come on guys. I bet my sets on the flop because I am a Man. Are you Women? Let me get this straight. You are a poker blogger and here you are letting a random blogger get that much under your skin because of a few Booooooooooooooms! in the chatbox? When did we as a group lose our collective testes? People suckout-eliminate someone and then call it out in the chat with an lol about their play afterwards, and guys have their panties all in a twist about it?

Come on everyone. I'm thinking back to when I was writing about the dirty chatting problem last around the end of the BBT2. At that point there had been a couple of raging flame wars in the chatbox during our tournaments, ones where people were calling each other stoopid names, launching personal insult after personal insult, and doing so in a very public forum for a bunch of players and observers who know you watching and listening. And laughing most of all, at everyone who engages in such silliness in this kind of a forum. People were getting genuinely embarrassed, and hurt, and then they'd be on their blogs the next morning in a bitchy mood because of what got said about them last night in the chatbox once things started to escalate and no one had a penis large enough to just stop it.

Now I'm looking at the chatboxes today, with bloggers complaining left and right once again about the chatbox shenanigans, and I'm just seeing a bunch of BOOOooooooooooms!, a few little barbs that are no different from what is said all the time at any poker table in the world, certainly one where the players largely know each other, and of course a couple of comments I would consider inappropriate spiced in here or there. But please guys. Try your hardest to look at what you are claiming was inappropriate chat from an outside observer. If your friends would call you a raging pussy for complaining about what you are complaining about, maybe it's time to turn the lens inward for a minute and try to reset things. It's ok to suck out on someone and then type in "haha" at them. I'm not saying you have to love that, but is that really the type of chat that anyone needs to spend their time thinking about? It's just a game, an $11 game most of the time at that, one largely between friends or at least many common acquaintances, and none of you should be getting anywhere close to this worked up about that kind of comment.

And don't get me wrong, again -- I really can't stand the dirty chatting in these events, and I know it has happened even in the BBT3 from time to time, and I do not support that stuff in any way as my readers know. But for the most part? I'm almost proud of the bloggers as a group for how well we have handled ourselves in the BBT3. I have surely not stuck around to watch every final table, but I've seen more of them than you probably think and I am just lost as to why all the complaining from people about what is being said in the chat being rude, mean or just plain inappropriate.

And I'm not the only one who thinks this, not by a longshot. Several bloggers have had similar conversations with me over the past few weeks as these kinds of posts about the chatbox have been popping up all over the place. Just within the past couple of days I have been having a very interesting conversation with a fellow blogger over girly and email about this very phenomenon where everyone is complaining about the BBT3 chat and yet not many people seem to think there is actually a big chat problem this time around. We've both been struggling trying to figure out why some people seem to be so over-sensitive about it just now. And in the course of exchanging our thoughts on the matter, this person hit it to me pretty much right on the nose as far as the reasons behind this seeming over-sensitivity. Here is what this blogger had to say as to the likely reasons for this, which I reproduce here pretty much verbatim (with permission of course):



"I suspect it is twofold:

1) There actually are some bastards out there, who deserve to be ignored. I don't doubt it, and you've seen that happen too. I've seen it myself. But I haven't seen it at the tables I've been sitting at for weeks and weeks.

2) I think now we've swung too far in reaction to it, and now it's become an overly-sensitized situation. To call somebody out for the chat below [saying "I knew the suckout card was coming" right after sucking out on someone for a big pot] is strange. If Daddy or somebody had said it, it would be hilarious, right? Or at least just fine. When I type "all skill" after getting my money in as an 8% dog and then suck out, I clearly don't think I played skillfully. It's just playful.

I'm certainly not pro abusive chat. That stuff sucks. And I'm also not anti "A lister", which I guess is the new facetious term for "old timer", which I guess is what we mean when we talk about "2003". The ones I've had contact with are just fine to awesome. I think there's some people who have just seen a scene that used to be nice and cozy blow up, which makes it no longer nice and cozy, and they want it to be like it was. But ain't nothing that is like it was. Even what was wasn't the way it was, if you know what I mean. Rose colored glasses are common.

There were asshats back then too I am sure. They're not around now. Why? They were asshats. No staying power with those types. The ones that came in with the later "generation" will be gone soon enough.

The next wave of bloggers will bring their own, and they'll bother me a lot I bet. Maybe I'll be writing posts about how blogging is going to hell in a handbasket in 2011.

So it goes."

Well said, Mr(s). Anonymous Blogger. Think about it.

Have a good weekend everyone. Don't forget the Donkament in its regularly scheduled time tonight at 9pm ET on full tilt. It's not a part of the BBT3 tournament series, but it is a $1 rebuy redonkufest the likes of which have not been seen since -- well -- the last Donkament, and it's always a good time. As usual I never really know if I will be online on a Friday at 9pm ET like that (password as always is "donkarama"), but those of you who play know that I usually tend to show up for my weekly penance therapy. Maybe I will see you all then.