Played a session of $1/2 no limit last night at Caesar's Palace in Vegas. A bit into the session a German tourist joined the table. He seemed nice enough at first, but as the night wore on and he was drinking, he got to be a bit rude about the play of others at the table, basically playing a poor man's poker brat and berating people and their play.

As background, the first hand that set him off was one that he was not even involved in. I raised from UTG to $10, there were 2 calls and the big blind made an overbet to $55 and had about $60 left behind. I'd seen him do that a couple times and realized his hand wasn't great but was probably okay -- something like a small to mid-pair most likely. I honestly didn't feel like flipping, especially since there were 2 people behind me and I might be in bad shape against them. But, one of them did call. the flop was K-10-6 with 2 clubs and, after a check, the raiser shoved for another $60; when the caller folded, the raiser showed 4-4. German poker brat just went crazy about how bad the play was, how terrible the shove was and how could anyone who called preflop not call the shove on the flop. This went on a few minutes and, ultimately as he started adding in the F-bomb, earned German poker brat a warning. Again, this is from a hand that cost German poker brat exactly $0 to fold. There were one or two other smaller outbursts that I could hear from across the table and probably quite a few more as the drinks kept flowing. I'm sure his neighbor, a really goodhearted popcorn farmer from Nebraska, got more than an earful that I thankfully could not hear.

And then about 2 hours after the 4-4 hand came our confrontation...

I open raised from late position with A-Q to $10. Both the small blind and big blind called. Big blind was my German "friend" and small blind was a woman who in 4 hours of play had never made a raise, I believe only bet out once -- when she had the 2nd nuts on the river and it checked to her -- and also just limp called from the small blind with AA and then limp-called German poker brat's shove on a 9-7-2 rainbow flop -- he had KK. So, there was $30 in the pot to the flop, which was 10-8-4 rainbow. Small blind checked, German poker brat bet out $25, I paused and realized that his bet-sizing meant he most likely had absolutely nothing. Had we been heads up, I would have raised. But, because I had absolutely no idea how strong the small blind might be, I played pot control and just called. She called behind and I had no question that I was behind. Turn was a 4 and it checked to me, knowing I was still behind the woman in the small blind, I checked as well. The river was a queen, giving me top pair and top kicker. It checked to me and I probably should have bet, but the woman checking AA was in my head and I just flipped over my hand.

German poker brat went on a rampage repeatedly asking me "how can you call with just A-Q" and "what were you thinking" and "how can I be losing over $100 to players this bad". At the beginning of his tirade, in an effort to defuse the situation, I smiled, replied with my normal line which is "Sir, I never said that I was a good player." But, he continued and the rampage degenerated into an F-bomb laced tirade -- which the dealer quickly and sternly told German poker brat to stop. He did stop with the F-bombs, but continued to rant in German. I know enough foreign curse words to realize that there were several of them and that they were mostly directed at me. I kept my cool until he reverted to English and asked for at least the 5th or 6th time "How the f can you call me with just A-Q." At that point, I had enough and wanted to shut him up, so I looked at him and responded without smiling at all, "If you want the truth, I called you with just A-Q because I thought you were full of shit." That shut German poker brat up. It also got me a well-deserved warning from the dealer. I apologized to him and to the table as the cards for the very next hand were being dealt out.

I looked down at QQ and raised to $10 again. It folded to German poker brat in the small blind who insta-shoved for about $160. After the big blind folded, I snap called knowing that he was on tilt and I was very likely to be way ahead. I will give him credit, he surprised me and woke up with a real hand. He had A-K suited. But, luck was on my side and the queens won the flip. So, on the hand at the beginning of which German poker brat was berating me for how badly I played and cussing me out in 2 different languages, I felted him. I call that a win.

Dave

P.S. As he was storming out of the room, his neighbor realized that German poker brat had left his ray-ban sunglasses and customized case. He said something, but German poker brat didn't hear him. So I opened my big mouth and bellowed "Sir, you left your sunglasses". Not surprisingly, he did not thank me when he retrieved them.