The Scoop -- Andrew Robl

Andrew Robl is a high-stakes cash-game player who honed his skills online under the moniker “good2cu.” He quickly climbed the ranks from small-stakes games, and now consistently competes in the highest no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha games live and online. When he’s not playing cash games, he’s traveling the tournament circuit.

Diego Cordovez: Now, the fact is that statistics exist for people to track how they are doing and how other people are doing.

Andrew Robl: The thing about online poker is that it is definitely in the public realm; all of the games are out there for people to watch, and now there are databases that say who’s winning and who’s losing. And, you know, I don’t think it’s good for the game.

Adam Schoenfeld: The fact that databases exist is terrible for the game, but it’s just a fact we have to deal with.

DC: It’s terrible for everyone, because people who win don’t want everyone to know how much they win or how strong they are; it’s bad for attracting opponents. People who lose are embarrassed that they’ve lost, so they don’t want everyone to know how much they’ve lost, or their wives to know, or whatever. So, on every level, it’s bad.

AR: I think the biggest problem is that people berate the losing players at the table. They are like, “Oh, look at the database.”

DC: Yeah. “Oh, you are negative $143,000.”

AS: That’s the single worst thing they could do, but they still do it.

AR: The people who are the biggest losers are not dumb people. They are extremely successful, way more so than any professional poker player is. They are just playing for fun, and if you are making a living off them, it’s just so stupid.

DC: This is old school, but Doyle Brunson wrote in a book years ago about playing with a doctor, and the doctor made some poor call and people were berating him, saying, “Look at this idiot,” or whatever, even though, of course, this guy made 10 times more money than everyone else. If someone had a heart attack there, he’d be looking to him to save his life. Even now, again, players are berating someone who can afford to lose because he is probably successful in some other endeavor.

AS: And I think Doyle said that just because the guy is the loser at the table, it doesn’t make him a fool, and in fact, many times he is anything but a fool. So, the behavior, of course, is another big problem.

AR: If you look at how much money is won and lost in poker, and compare that to what happens in the pit, it’s like one-hundredth of the action. The reason is that most of these big gamblers, guys who would really enjoy playing poker and like to gamble, are made to feel like idiots by some poker players.

AS: That’s a really good point. Just look at how casinos treat the big losers. They treat them like kings. Poker players would do better to take that attitude.

DC: Guys come into town knowing they are going to lose money, looking to have fun, and the casino sends them a limousine, puffs them up, makes them feel important, and tries to make them as happy as possible. They congratulate them when they win, because they know that in the long run, they’re not [going to win]. When they sit at a poker table, and win the one pot that they are going to win in a losing session, people tell them, “Look at you, idiot. You were drawing to that?”

AR: Yeah, it’s really true. It makes me extremely uncomfortable. Especially in the mid-stakes games in the casinos, like $10-$20 and $25-$50, I see that a ton. One guy will be playing just for fun and drinking, and all the regular nit grinders who are there every day berate him whenever they win a hand, or whisper to each other. It’s like, do they really want to sit there every day and just play against each other? I don’t understand the attitude.

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