To Rant Or Not To Rant

That is the question. William Shakespeare was massively misquoted.

You have AA and make the 10 x bb raise. Your opponent re-raises you, putting all his chips in. You obviously call, you'd be mad not to. He turns over 89. Not even sooted - 8c 9h. You have 20$ of your hard won money in the pot, maybe more. You may have been playing for over an hour to build that up.
The flop is 6 7 K rainbow. Uh oh. You have a premonition, you know he will get his str8, and sure enough, out falls the 10 on the river and you lose. How do you re-act to this?
This formed the basis of an interesting conversation between Acorn and Rottie, and I joined in when I'd finished my dinner.

A rant at your opponent sure makes you feel better - get that anger and frustration out of your system - as long as it doesn't go on too long and you go a bit tilty.
Maybe you type in 'How the f**k can you put all your money in a pot with 89os?', Did my re-raise not indicate my strength' 'Is this your first day?'
Or maybe just the simple, yet adequately effective 'you f**king idiot'.
Does this make him think 'hmmmm, best not do that again, I got lucky' and he tightens his game up? Do other players at the table start to think that too? Are you better just shutting up so he doesn't re-evaluate his play?

Maybe you thank him for calling? Take's a pretty restrained player to do that immediately I think, but after all, if players didn't make these kind of calls, you'd hardly win anything would you? If the stongest hand pre-flop always won, there would be a lot less players online than there are now. The game would be dull and uninteresting.

In my view, the above player is convinced he made the right decision and will now carry on calling with similar hands, never realising how lucky he was, and that the luck was the only reason he won. He'll confuse this luck with skill on his part and carry on making those mistakes until his credit card is maxed out and he can't get more. I do not use the words 'loses his bankroll' in this, as he probably doesn't even know what one is, or gives this any consideration. He fills his account back up when it's empty, and tells all his friends that he wins at poker online, and can beat AA with 89.

So how do you react? I'm a combination of the above, but I guess it depends on the situation. If the above happens for the 4th or 5th time - I'm the screamer. If it happens for the first time - I usually ask the player if he's staying for a while, because I know where his money will be before too long. In someone elses pot, and I hope it's mine.

Now, let's take the above situtation (which was real btw) with the following that happened about 30 minutes later. I have AA and raise to 12xbb, again the above player re-raises me, moving all-in. I call and he turns over Q9 sooted.
The flop showed a 9, there was a moment of 'uh oh, here we go again', but sure enough, he'd used his luck up already and I took the pot. I typed in 'unlucky' and you know what his reply was?

'They were suited, I had more outs than you'

And that, my friends, sums up the mentality of a fish. I was surprised he even considered 'outs' or 'odds' but apparantly he does, and thinks he has enough to put 20$ of his money on! Long may they continue to hit their unlikely hands as the odds state, so you gotta ride with the 2 out of 10 times they hit, knowing that the 8 out 10 times will make you much, much richer.

For sure, it's great to have a rant and release a bit of aggression - I do it often enough myself - and I'm not saying there is a right or wrong way to react. Only that, if they didn't hit from time to time, I wouldn't have had the loft done, Mia's bedroom decorated and the car's £500 repair bill paid as quickly as they were.

Good luck at the tables and enjoy the bank holiday weekend.