Two months ago I reminded you that the the best player in the game wins the most money in the long run. Mentioning that will automatically make you think of ways to improve your game, ways to stay sharp and of course the fact that smoking causes cancer. That's all fine, of course, but don't you feel it's a little self-centered?

One of the ways to be the best player in the game is to make sure that the players who are not as good as yourself remain seated. You know this already of course. My job, as usual, is to try to find a way to make it easy to remember at those times when you might temporarily forget it.

Many years ago I read a news story about a man who firmly believed that he would die before the age of forty. All of his friends knew about this, and he lived his life accordingly. Surprisingly, given how such stories normally go, he didn't die before he was forty and decided that it would be a good plan to hold a huge fancy dress party on his fortieth birthday to celebrate his survival. His own costume was, predictably, that of the grim reaper. He left his apartment in full costume to go to the party and promptly trod on his cloak, fell down the stairs, broke his neck and died.

After reading that, the first things that I thought were "That's funny," followed by, "What a stupid thing to do." "That's unlucky" was a distant third.

This tends to be the reaction of casual poker players when they have to listen to the bad beat stories of players who obviously consider themselves (whether rightly or wrongly) to be superior at the game. Everyone reading this knows that upsetting casual players at the table is a bad thing to do, but many still find it difficult not to whine about runs of terrible luck. The refusal of the casual player to take the whole matter seriously is often what leads to arguments, and this in turn often leads to people leaving the game. One more time... People leaving the game. Yes, they may actually leave poker for good if they run into this kind of behaviour too often.

Try to remember that they don't find your beats interesting, but they are glad that you're running bad, and they are going to tell other people about how the table's sore loser ran really bad, people who are going to laugh about it.

The simple solution is, of course, "Don't do it." However, most players, at least occasionally, fall into the trap of not being able to help themselves. My advice to those who simply must talk about their bad luck at the table is to turn the story around and look at it from the perspective of the other players at the table. Write the start of the story in advance, so you can deal with anything the poker gods decide to throw at you.

For example, if you are at college the story might begin...

"A student who has waited for months for his first live game sits down and finds the players to be even easier to beat than he had been led to believe. After taking in his surroundings and working out how much he should be able to win tonight, in a matter of minutes he loses with aces twice and then to two gutshot straight draws, all to the same player."

At this point you should have some idea of suitable and unsuitable endings. "He winces briefly but settles down and awaits the next deal," would be a nice ending. "He screams abuse at the player in question," would be more amusing to read, but not really suitable to actually do. If you can amuse yourself by envisaging the latter option coming from someone else, while acting out the former yourself, then you will be doing yourself, your opponents, and other winning players around the world a favor by keeping the losing players happy. You'll also stay more focused and play better too because you'll have the knowledge that you managed to control yourself. Most losing players are playing for a nice evening out. They don't really want abuse screamed at them. Who knows? You might even enjoy it too, like you used to before you found out how to improve your game.

Sadly, some people can't be nice for the sake of being nice no matter how hard they try, and their egos force them to enter into arguments with the casual players to prove how good they are. If you are one of those people, you should ask yourself how good you actually are if you can't even keep the less skilled players seated at your table. As stated earlier, winning the most money at poker is about being the best player in your game. You probably even accepted that point as being obvious.

This all leads into another of my favorite stories, this time one that some of you will have heard before. It's a Kerry Packer story.

This particular Kerry Packer story took place around ten years ago. It was a late night in an English village. Mr. Packer's polo team had just won, and he wanted to buy them dinner to celebrate. They entered one of the two local pubs to be greeted by a somewhat unenthusiastic publican who said that food had stopped being served a few minutes before. They then went to the other pub in the village where the publican explained that his chef had gone home, but he would be able to put together some sandwiches if that would be of any use. Mr. Packer and his friends stayed on and had a reasonable meal and a good evening. At the end of the night he wrote a check for an amount for somewhere between $40,000 and $175,000 (depending on which version of the story you hear) with the one condition that before cashing it, the publican must show it to the owner of the other pub.

The story does not relate whether the second publican was merely conducting his business in a pleasant and professional manner, or whether he had worked out who Kerry Packer was and calculated his odds. The end result was the same.

Part of the winning poker player's job is to provide a comfortable atmosphere for the losing players. Some people do this because they are naturally nice people and enjoy it, while others have to force the issue. Most of your opponents are not going to take the time to work out whether you're naturally a nice person, or if you have just calculated the odds and are being polite purely for mercenary reasons. Use whichever of the two approaches suits your personality. It will have the same effect of making the game more enjoyable (or at the very least, less unenjoyable) for the losing players.

If you are still finding it difficult to not be offensive, it may be worth considering whether you are playing too big for your bankroll, or if you have unrealistic expectations of what your results should be. Let's face it. It shouldn't be too difficult to play a game for an evening without shouting at your opponents, especially when you are being paid to do it.