How to make poker less fun - silence
It's business for you but it's a night out for other players at your table, so make them feel welcome.
Continuing my series on how all of us can be guilty of making the game less fun at times, this week I am covering largely a live poker problem, something which often wrongly gets blamed on online players, and that is an unsociable table.
I’ve written about this before, I think our collective addiction to technology, rather than online poker, is the main culprit in making a live poker table boring. Technology is making us ‘alone, together’, even though it brings us together it does so at a cost. I write this specifically after playing poker last week and being quite unsociable myself, which is rare for me (I’d had a stressful week) as I am usually very chatty. Even though I am a recreational player, as somebody who works in poker I am still an ambassador for the game, and I felt really guilty about not being very talkative.
Live poker can be potentially boring for recreational players when they are card dead, as it is obviously much slower than online. A silent table is only going to make that worse. The most fun you’ll ever have at a poker table is when everyone is laughing, joking and making little side bets, it really does make you forget the relative slowness of the game.
The wrong signals
There is nothing wrong with being shy, but I’d still suggest that maybe you take out the headphones and put away the smartphone. Earlier this year there was a poker event organised specifically to get us to stop using our devices while we played poker. Not only do these things slow the game down (because you are distracted) and prevent you from chatting, they also just send out an unpleasant message.
When you are sat at a table with somebody and all they can do is stare at their phone, it does send a signal that they would rather not be interacting with you at all. I hate this at the poker table or any other social situation (and in particular I think it’s tragic when I see people do it on dates).
I totally understand why some people prefer to shut down and not chat too much during live poker. I myself also find it annoying to have some of the same conversations over and over again, and pretend to laugh when the same cliché poker jokes come up again and again (Like somebody saying “You just had Aces” when somebody returning to the table missed a hand).
Silence speaks volumes
The art of conversation is a ‘meta game’ within itself just like anything else in life and poker. Most conversations are to some extent formulaic and redundant, but they serve way more of a purpose than the immediate thing being discussed. Small talk is a way of making people feel welcome and signaling to them that you want them around. Opting out of the conversation entirely sends an equally important message, and not a good one.
Nobody is forcing you to be the next Will Kassouf at the table, especially if you are shy or just not in the mood to talk. But live poker can be a very boring, stale, experience for recreational players sometimes, especially if they are losing money. Friendly banter around a lively table is precisely the sort of thing that makes poker feel like an experience worth paying for, win or lose.
Do you think it's important to be chatty at the tables? Let us know in the comments:
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