Looking for sympathy in poker: whining
We all carry an apparently built-in sense of justice. We seem to know when something is right or just, and when something is not. When feeling slighted, we react trough what we perceive as just anger. Poker is quite adept at bringing out the best of such “just anger” scenarios. Players complain a lot at the tables and some players whine on all the time, rebelling against the online poker room, against fate, against opponents, against the online poker community and against God knows what else.
What these players fail to understand is that there is no right or wrong in poker (or in the world if we are to generalize). There are just events which may or may not turn out to be favorable ones for a given entity. The same thing which is favorable for one entity, may be quite disastrous for another. Like it or not, our sense of justice is nothing but an artificial illusion created by the society we live in, and nowhere is this more valid than in poker.
You may think the poker room is out to get you (what are the odds of that?), but the opponent who got the better end of your bad beat will most probably beg to differ.
Since there is no right or wrong, just odds, equities, math and some psychology to top it all off, whining is utterly useless. As a matter of fact, I’d go even further and state that whining is counter-productive on account of an interesting psychological phenomenon.
Poker players around a table exhibit all signs of the wolf-pack mentality, as I’ve pointed it out in one of my previous posts. The pack loves weaklings: it loves to devour them, and through your whining, you do nothing but throw gas on the fire. Here’s why:
People seem to dispense sympathy selectively. When some type of misfortune befalls a neutral entity, people will acknowledge the suffering and they will not wish for any more harm on the unlucky one. If, however, the misfortune falls upon a minority, people are much more likely to respond with prejudice.
Poker whiners are viewed as such a minority by their peers, therefore their appeal for sympathy is only met with despise.
The poker whiner always deserves what he gets. Having failed to learn the lessons of the green felt, he now appeals to your sympathy? On what grounds? Why should you feel sorry for him, when by reveling his vulnerability, he’s actually done you a favor and offered you an opportunity?
Being part of a despised minority is not a position in which you want to be anywhere, and especially not at the poker table. It’s not a good decision, and while in real life there’s not a whole lot you can do about belonging or not to such a group, in poker you can just stop bitching and start focusing on the game instead. Don’t hang a target sign on your back of your own will.