If you regularly use online instant messaging (IM), you’re likely familiar with a few of the shorthand abbreviations currently prevalent in the Internet community (for example, ROFL for “rolling on the floor laughing”). Online poker has been around quite long enough to evolve its own unique extensions to the poker messaging lingo. Although you certainly are not required to speak this weird language, it does make the poker game more pleasurable and at the very least lets you understand what players have to say about the poker skill of the table. From a general demeanor and decorum point of view, the online poker is pretty similar to its brick-and-mortar cousin. You play with big guys and loud mouths, silent mummies and goofs. Most players play online to kick back and relax from their otherwise glamorous lifestyle. The anonymity of the cyberspace does produce a bit more aggressiveness than you may otherwise observe in the real life.
If you’re playing at a poker table and a player takes a very long time to make a betting phase, it does no good to comment nastily on the fact. They have all the warning signals and controls you do, and the triple honks of the site’s “time’s up!” alert does a great job than any useless nagging you can throw in the chat window. Your opponent may have connection trouble, so the last thing she wants or needs is provocation from another opponent.
If a person’s repeated delays annoy you, just pick up and join another table. That helps to lower your blood pressure and keeps you from the dark side of the online poker world.
The general rule of conduct is easy: be polite, be congenial, or be quiet. The dude who just beat your pocket aces may also drive a Gremlin and listen to The Archie’s Greatest Hits 30 times a day, but you still should not launch into a tirade.
