Sassy, I agree. To be clear, I would never be against saying “nice bluff,” and have said it myself. I have also sarcastically said, “Nice Pot” when someone jams and picks up 30 in blinds.
As a player, I hate it when people announce to the table things like “He’s a bluffer!” or “this guy plays any ace” or anything that gives up information about a player’s approach to the game. I don’t see this as much different than saying, “he’s a donk.”
As a mod, I wouldn’t take action against people for saying stuff like that unless it’s said over and over and rises to the level of harassment.
But there is enough latitude in the rules as written that someone could take action for any one of the reasons I detailed in my earlier post.
It’s strange to me that the rules don’t make a distinction between saying something during a hand and saying it between hands. Saying “bluff!” or “call him!” or anything else that could alter the action during a hand is wrong. And yeah, most of us understand that, but I have seen countless examples of people who don’t get it, and the Community Playbook makes no mention of it at all.
When an account is deactivated or banned that profile is not visible for other players anymore.
When you replay a played hand and click on the profile of the banned or deactivated account you see your own profile information.
It is a bit confusing when you see your own profile (everyone see their own profile info).
Would be better to show just an empty box or something like that, believe there are plans to change that.
Now I have been known to chat a bit to push players buttons. Saying 'thanks pet" really tilts some players but I expect the same in return. That head to head stuff is part of the game and needs to stay but obnoxious behaviour for it’s own sake is something no site needs. Now 3 mods have made comments since my earlier post, and not touched the issue, so do you guys allow and accept that?
Thank you so much for this thread! I am happy to have the opportunity to share our approach to moderation with you all. My name is Susan, and I am the Head of Moderation for Replay Poker.
The short answer to your question is: It is not allowed while the hand is being played - it is considered coaching and not permitted in any poker environment - live or online. Between hands, we discourage those kinds of comments as well. As noted in the thread, bluffing is an integral part of poker.
Let’s think about this scenario for a minute. You inform the other players between hands that “Player A is a bluffer.” Taking your comment at face value and believing the player is bluffing, a novice Player B pushes all in the next time they are heads up with Player A. Maybe Player A was bluffing and Player B wins. But maybe Player A wasn’t bluffing, and Player B loses all his chips. Who do you think Player B is going to blame? You. Maybe Player B now feels that you were playing head games with them. After all, the object of poker is to eliminate all of your opponents. Did you help Player B or do them a disservice?
Part of the fun process that each player goes through to develop a solid poker strategy is learning the strategies of their opponents. They make notes and decide who is loose/tight; fish/shark; bluff/no bluff; chatty/quiet, etc. There is no substitute for personal experience when it comes to learning poker. Let’s allow each player to gain insight about others in their own way.
Just a note regarding inappropriate chat that is seen on the site.
Each incident is situational, and we don’t take any report at face value. Friendly banter to one person may be highly offensive to another. We thoroughly research the chat and the circumstances and take the action we feel is most appropriate. But, we can’t do that if we don’t know about it. We do not go looking for violations. We depend on our community of players to let us know when another player engages in offensive chat.
All of our account and chat policies and guidelines are available 24/7 in the online Community Playbook at Community Playbook - Replay Poker.
Thanks again for this great thread, your comments and suggestions!
You are absolutely on point here, and unfortunately it does occur on our site. Quite often, players begin to think of a table as “theirs” and others are treated as interlopers. The “regulars” will gang up on a newcomer and demand they leave or taunt them until they do leave. We do NOT condone this behavior.
When we receive a report that involves multiple players, we review all of the circumstances and take action on each player to the extent they are involved. From that time on, any future valid reports of this type of harassment, swarming or mobbing will result in higher penalties and could, ultimately, result in permanent bans for all of the “regulars.”
Our tables are open to every player – including Staff and volunteers (Moderators, Translators). Staff are identified with gold stars; Mods and Translators are identified by their green text and (moderator) or (translator) by their name.
No player has the authority to demand that another player leave a table.
This is a situation that can quickly become out of hand and is downright scary to the player on the receiving end. We want all players to feel safe at our tables.
We encourage players, who feel that they are being forced off a table by intimidating comments, to submit a report. This is not a situation that Replay wants our players to ever have to face.
Thanks for bringing up this topic. We appreciate every comment and suggestion, so keep 'em coming!
The last thing Replay wants is to be seen as a heavy-handed “police” site. We resist the temptation to “intuit” what a player was thinking when they chat. Most often, their intention is evident in the chat itself. We do want a family-friendly environment, and we welcome serious poker players. However, some of our players come to the site mainly for the social side of it and to play recreational poker.
While we know that poker is a typically adult game, we allow 13 year-old youth to play (with an adult’s permission). In addition, we have no idea where a computer may be located in a home or how many young children sit in their parent’s lap and watch them play. We try to be sensitive to these circumstances.
We strive to provide an environment that enforces the fundamental rules of poker and provides our players with an experience similar to a live casino. However, from a family-friendly perspective, the trash talk and psychological “beat down” that some poker pros engage in is not appropriate for our site.
So cumming in a prostitute and anal sex are ok topics as long as a moderator is at the table. And when a player at the table asks the offender to shut up they get no support from the moderator who chooses to leave next hand … really
Please have a look at the hands I listed as a sample and all those between. The player was a troll but the moderator at the table was gutless
I’m glad you asked that question. No, those topics and that type of chat are not tolerated. We encourage players to report the person and then use the mute button on the player’s mini-profile to mute them. Typically, any engagement with a player who would use that type of vile chat is only go to escalate their hate and vile. They are looking for a response, and the chat usually gets worse when they get one.
It is an unpleasant situation, to say the least, and we do remove those players as soon as possible.
Yes, entirely out of line.
Yes, GettyEsq is JrMod, just arrived as has SPG.
Yes, RP levies same sanctions across the board, ligh level - low rank, buying chips or winning them.
So - what to do when you are at the table?
Get Help & stop that sort of abuse pronto.
How? Go to Moderators page & message whoever is online - give table & problem description https://www.replaypoker.com/moderators
also a link at bottom of most pages…
If no moderator is available ( we need more!!! Wannahelp?)
Mute the Player - help everyone at the table mute the player
Report - if the player warranted a mute, they also warrant a report
Actually its a great thread!!! Like Susan, I say thanks for bringing it up…
'Pack mentality" is the exact reasont that I try to take 30 min - hr every evening to stop in dirfferent tables, especially Ring Games. The SnG & MTTs do not seem to be as susceptible to this mindset because of the nature of the games and the table changes.
I stop at all levels of the ring games, but especially at the lower entries becuase there are many new players there who have never seen a Moderator. I say Hi from the rail so they’ll know I’m on the way, and have seen (moderator) green text before I appear!! lol I’ll only play 5-10 min & move on.
Every few days I’ll visit tables/folks who have asked for my intervention before, just to say “Hope You Are Having A Great Poker Night!” and ask how the game is going…
Occastionally we will get a report of folks ganging up… so if you see it, please let us know!!! It’s a form of Harassment/Abuse that can get out of hand quickly…
If you have any other suggestions aobut how we can help overcome this, please speak up.
I think we cannot end the topic regarding Table Talk and Bluffing without including a monster that has been around the Internet since it started, trolling. Yes there is “pack mentality” and “mobism” but how do you moderate when a troll is active either as a player or a spectator?
Every once in a while, a troll will come in and start spewing negative words all over the place. If moderators don’t recognize and eventually ban them, other members will often respond and before you know it, the thread gets thrown completely off topic and becomes nothing but one big pointless argument. The winner is the troll. The loser is the well knit group of friends. Indeed maybe one or two of the friends leaves the site altogether.
So where we should go now is to offer examples of trolls and trolling.
Maybe we moderators need to get to writing & submit some needed changes to the staff for next version?
Let me draft somthing to send to you SPG… as a baseline for you to cleanup, polish & send forward!! lol
MickiFin
I received the following (cleaned up and edited message by me) from a person who I busted in December: “… he began to be aggressive with me first and I answered him as he provoked me so many times, speaking to me like I was … (as he does with everyone) The difference is I don’t make complaints like a little child. Overall, between you and me, I really don t care if I am not playing on the site. I come here to have fun and enjoy my friends, when we found a big … like this stupid and arrogant player, we needed to remove him in his place…”
The troll was successful and got exactly as wanted while he or she left the scene.
“The experienced troller spends time carefully choosing the right subject and delivering it to the right… delivery is just as important as the subject.” The Subtle Art of Trolling
Trolls don’t take sides; their goal is to provoke chaos by bringing up a topic that runs as long as he or she can get it to run. Though the troll will usually stay out and just watch.
Trolls, I believe, are also likely to try to instigate somebody else to report a wrongdoing. So one thing moderators need to do is to consider the source of a complaint.
I agree this thread has unwittingly provoked an entire area of discussion. Clearly the table talk of the moderators will be interesting.
It is snowing bad here in New Jersey; I’m coming Miami, I’m coming!
Since trolls were brought up, it does crossover to “spectators”. Since Replay doesn’t have a deticated chat system with rooms, ect ect … sometimes I can see ppl joining and talking to friends. I won’t say get rid of them, but they should be shown on a simple rollover-dropdown as to whom is watching the table and thus can talk. This prolly will be adressed when RP adds more mute functions, due to the possibility of muting from a dropdown list.
Wordy, while I take pains to make sure I am not misunderstood I was hopefull, lol, that I was ok… I thought tho that it add’d to the discussion xtra points. Its awesome to see so many RP mods add to this thread, it tells us players that while all ppl are different… the mod base here is trying to be on the same page…
