Players who berate others on the tables are bad for the game!
We don't want the bad players to get better!
We don't want them to start studying after being criticized for playing poorly.
The person doing the berating.... wtf... do they want the bad players to improve and play better?
We want to keep ALL of the bad players on the tables! We want them to feel welcome and we want them to continue playing badly.
When I'm in a good state of mind (not often enough unfortunately), I prefer to congratulate the lucky P.O.S. donkey mother___ing Fish... reinforcing their belief that poker = luck & not skill and their chance of winning is just as good as (or better) than the rest of the table.
I do fail at times. Sometimes you're there playing a tournament for 4 or 5 hours, have amassed a decent stack, waking up with a monster in a crucial spot (say against the huge fish who is also sitting fairly deep) only to have them hit the miracle gutshot on the river, leaving you short of worse... knocking you out. I may have said to them something like "Really? WTF?!?" but moments later I am honestly hoping that they WIN the tourney (it's good for the poker economy).
It seems it's not always bad players who berate others.... look at Phil Helmuth. The guy has the world record for most
wsop bracelets and yet he still cannot keep a lid on his propensity to berate others on the tables. At least he's typically berating world-class players and not just some recreational fish (although it wouldn't surprise me if he were to berate the fish at times too).
