I did actually speak to him / her 4 times to enquire as to why he was playing again!
The silence brought out the worst in me
I guess I should break my silence and explain myself..
When I played in APAT event for the first time, I was bowled over by the friendlyness of the other players & organisation, and could easily see that it could get extremely big. Des and the guys (& gals) do a superb job.
However, I have become extremely disillusioned with the behaviour of players during the on-line events. Whilst every site / championship has episodes of, shall we say "less than friendly chat", I would expect APAT events to set a certain standard. (isn"t friendiness part of the APAT mantra?)
Last night was a prime example.
Because one particular player decided to play A8, he was systematically mocked, talked down and basically heckled by a number of regular APAT players. And this i beleive is because he wasn"t in the APAT "club". and I don"t mean the association, but a clique of players who have obviously been members from very early days and have decided that any new faces should be torn down a strip or two at any opportunity. The unfriendly chat went on for quite a while and was in no way constructive. Nor did the chatters attempt to engage in a conversion with the player in question, instead deciding to chat about the player in the third person, as of he wasn"t there.
I was blxxy fuming at this behaviour. it wasn"t directed at me, and I stayed off the chat, but I have been the subject of such episodes myself in previous events.
And I have seen lots of other examples.
Why oh why do players think this behaviour is acceptable on line??? They would not dare to be so rude and discourtious in a live tournament, but I guess they feel brave with the protection of the screen.
APAT looks to be going in the right direction with a bigger main event in August. If we are not all careful, it will shrink into a very niche organisation because it will not be able to attract new members and keep hold of them. Who the hell wants to join an organisation where the existing members just trash talk everyone else.
Lets all grow up a bit and keep the chat positive. Let"s not single out players because they play one style or another. (poker would be a very boring game if everyone played according to the same formulae). And lets encourage new players, whether live or on-line, and get them to join the site.
As to why I didn"t answer back to your on-line chat, it"s switched off (Because of the above). Not my fault you called my all-in raise with a weaker hand. And I wonder if you would be complaining if the hand had gone the other way.
P.s I"m very pleased I didn"t see your comments in the chat box, if the previous post is accurate, which I have no reason to beleive it is not. (again my chat was off). But perhaps it on confirm"s my comments here.
