You want bad poker players to stay at your poker table, especially in cash games where they won’t hesitate to rebuy more chips. If bad players with deep pockets are having fun, they’ll stay at the table even if they’re losing money so make them feel as comfortable as possible.
Berating bad players might make you feel better immediately after incurring a bad beat, but it has an adverse effect in the long run. That’s why you’ll often hear someone whisper “Don’t tap the glass.”
Encourage Recreational Players
Bad poker players are given animal nicknames like donkey and fish. You don’t want to startle fish by knocking on the aquarium glass. They’ll scatter and hide on the other side of the tank. If you treat a poker table as an aquarium, then don’t scare off bad players when overreacting to bad beats.
“Don’t tap the glass!” is a common phrase that you’ll often hear at a poker table. It will also appear in the chat box at an online poker table. The phrase pops up when someone berates a bad player for winning a pot with poor strategy or sheer luck.
There are two diverse attitudes about this mantra. Advanced players with an aggressive and in-your-face attitude feel that they’re actually helping a bad player improve by berating them at the table. That falls in line with a football coach screaming at a player whenever they make a mistake or incur a stupid penalty. Public embarrassment is a harsh way to teach poker strategy. It’s easy to blast an opponent if they issue a wicked bad beat.
However, the opposite effect usually occurs. A bad player doesn’t want to get chastised every time they chase a gutshot or suck out on the river with a two-outer. Successful pros follow a big picture approach in which they keep their egos in check whenever an inferior player wins a pot on a bad move or a lucky river card.
As my grandmother used to say, “You can attract more flies with honey.” The poker equivalent is “Don’t tap the glass.”
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Playing Poker for Fun
Most of your friends work hard at their jobs and have stressful family lives. They want to relax for a few hours every week and play poker at friendly home games.
Nothing sucks the air out of the room faster than someone losing their minds on a bad beat when they start acting like Phil Hellmuth. More often than not, that person who is channeling the Poker Brat is not invited back. If they remain a regular in the game and act like a boorish table captain, you’ll soon realize that some of your friends will stop playing because it’s not fun anymore because of the one player who takes it way too seriously.
People play poker for many reasons. The more serious players thrive on pressure and competition, and professionals play poker to pay their bills. Recreational players gravitate toward poker for the social aspect and simply to have fun.
Friction occurs when serious players collide with players trying to have fun. You’ll often see that during poker tournaments especially every summer at the World Series of Poker.
Pros often lose their cool when they’re bogged down in their own losing streaks or running bad. They’re trying to grind out a living while a drunken tourist rolls into town on vacation and doesn’t take the game seriously. When a bad beat occurs, fireworks ensue with the pro badmouthing the amateur.
Pros will often remind other pros “Don’t tap the glass” in those situations. If the tourist isn’t having fun, then they’ll leave the poker table and head into the pits to donk off their money at -EV table games.
Don’t Drive Away Bad Players, Embrace Them
Many pros take the high road when a so-called fish makes a horrible play. They’ll flash a fake smile and say, “Nice hand.” They want to encourage bad players to keep making mistakes. They don’t want them to fix their leaks because feasting off fish is a profitable venture over the long run.
