Where have all the fish gone?

The funny thing about fish is that most of them know they are fish. I mean, if you have played on line for any amount of time, you know what I am talking about. You flop top set and your opponent calls. You turn top full house, and your opponent calls your huge bet. The river comes and gives your opponent a one outer hitting quads. Bad beat. What is your next move? If you are anything like most of the players out there, you begin to berate your opponent for his fish like calls.

After years of playing, I have seen it all. I have had my quads beaten by quads, I have had my straight flush beaten by a bigger straight flush. I have had quad kings beaten by a Royal Flush. And all of that happened in live games. Online play is even more brutal. Online bad beats happen more because of two reasons. There are more fish, and the hands per hour are significantly higher. If you can’t get over those beats, you need to find another hobby, because no matter how good you are, you are going to find someone will make unbelievable calls and catch unbelievable outs to beat you. It will happen, over and over again.

What I really want to talk about today is belittling those fish for making those bad calls.
Why? Why would you get mad at him for calling? Because he hit a one outer on you? Get over it. That is poker. If he paid to get there and actually did hit it, good for him. In the long run, I want those fish calling all the way. Keep calling me, please!

We used to have a player that played with us every week. This player wasn’t very good, in fact, he was down right terrible: The quintessential big fish. Each week, this player would dump $300-$500 into the game - EVERY WEEK! On the rare occasion, this player would book a win. Well, that just meant that next week, the player had even more money to dump into the game. This player played religiously every week for years.

Then one night, Mr. Fish put a bad beat on a guy who’s ego barely fit into his cranium. I will admit that the beat was pretty bad. After calling all the way, when the river came, our Fish made a bet. We all knew he had made a big hand, but Mr. Ego couldn’t believe it, so he raised Mr. Fish. Mr. Fish re-raised - clearly indicating that he had the nuts. Mr. Ego called in disgust and turned over his full house. Mr. Fish turned over his gut shot straight flush to win the pot. Definitely a bad beat.

“You are a fucking idiot! Didn’t you know I had the full house? How the hell can you call with that fucking hand?” Mr. Ego yelled going on major tilt.

Mr. Fish usually played all night…or until he was out of money. So with this win, it was a guarantee that he would be playing all night. That is until Mr. Ego wouldn’t stop running his damn mouth. Mr. Fish, being quite offended, simply cashed out (a winner no less) and we haven’t seen him back in over a year.

Thanks Mr. Ego.