Poker Articles

I’ve taken a couple of stabs at the 20+2 satellite tournaments that UltimateBet is running to their Stone Cold Nuts II tournament coming in January. The fields are relatively small, usually between 30-50, so you’ve got to win it to get into the big tournament, with 2-3 more places paying out. In my initial forays into these tournaments, I’ve found the play to be looser and a little crazier than in a traditional MTT of the same buy-in, which makes sense....a lot of players are going to think they have to get off to a huge stack early in order to compete. That’d be an interesting topic for discussion, but I’m not going to talk about it here. Instead, it’s about that “gg” thing that people type at any given time that makes me completely insane.

In my last effort, I ended up 19th out of 31 players. Not good, by any stretch. I played a couple of hands poorly, got unlucky with AA, and got cold decked against the chip leader on my exit. I had QJ spades in middle position, limped, and called when the chip leader 3x raised on the button. Flop came JJ5. I check, chip leader bets half the pot, I raise, and I’m put all-in. I’m shown KJ…and it’s time to go do something else. I’ve played for approximately 30 minutes, and gotten less than halfway to my goal. The chip leader tells me “gg”, the universally accepted abbreviation for “good game”, as I virtually exit my seat.

In another example, I was playing in a MTT and got eliminated in 7 minutes. In that case, I made a terrible call for the vast majority of my chips that I didn’t need to make. As I left, the guy who all had my chips said “gg”. What on earth was good about paying $7/minute to play bad poker?

Now, there’s no malice in the statement, in either case. I wasn’t being told that by someone being rude or spiteful or vindictive or condescending. But like “how are you?” on the street or in the office, “gg” is a phrase that’s being tossed around without thought at the tables. As a general rule, if I didn’t see anyone play good, I won’t say “gg”. If they played good but didn’t sniff the money, I won’t say “gg”. There has to be some consideration as to the circumstances. Otherwise, it’s meaningless…which in its own right, I find to be as condescending as I would if it was intended that way. I shouldn’t, but I do.

So, this is a call to arms to the PocketFives community. I know I’m not the first person to bring up this topic. If things go right in my crusade, however, I might be the last. I’m asking for any feedback, any ideas, any suggestions that any of you may have as to replacement phrases. There’s the traditional “gl” (good luck) and “tc” (take care), but I’m looking to shake things up, to inspire the entire online poker world to save the use of “gg” for when it’s really needed. How about “blnt” (better luck next time), a phrase I have not seen used in a chat box before?

So feel free to drop me a PM here on PocketFives, or send me an E-mail at grapsfan@frontiernet.net with your best suggestions. I’ll compile a list and maybe we’ll have a vote or something else democratic (since I’m a native Chicagoan, that could admittedly be a wide variety of solutions). We’ll talk about the results next time, along with my other big catchphrase pet peeve, one that I share with lots of you…you probably already know what it is.