Be careful what you say at the poker table

Be careful what you say at the poker table
小心你在牌桌上所說的話

At the Asian Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) tournament in Seoul, I got a terrible table draw. At first I thought the tournament was really that tough, but later I heard several people pointing out the different players at the table. There were a pokerstars pro, a recent Asia Player of the year winner, the winner of Jeju tournament that took place the week before and several other highly accomplished online players at my table. The game was played eight handed, and it had a really fast and aggressive playing style. One of the most exciting tables I played at in very long time. 

當我去打APPT首爾主賽事的時候，我抽到了一張非常硬的桌子。我原本以為這是一場非常難打的比賽，但之後我被告知我的桌子上有許多亞洲撲克圈的撲克名人 。其中有曾經拿過亞洲代表玩家的，有同一年濟州APT冠軍的，還有一些網路上有名的玩家。這是一個八人桌，是一個"快"又"狠"的桌子，至少從我開始打國際級的比賽時最具有挑戰性的一個桌子。

 I was seated in the 6 seat, with the two “other” Taiwanese players to my immediate right. With all the other players at the table being white or Korean, they started to discuss hand ranges and strategies. I mean why not, it is not like that Scandinavian guy to your right is going to understand. Everything was going great; they were giving me a lot of free information. I could fairly quickly double my stack during the first 4 levels of play. 

我被分配到6號的位置，旁邊坐了兩位來自台灣的選手。因為來比賽的大部分都是韓國人或白人。他們就開始用中文討論一些對手可能持有的牌，或比賽戰略等等。他們大概想說"應該沒關係吧~旁邊這個瑞典人反正也聽不懂啊"之類的。這個比賽進展得非常順利，他們給了我很多免費的資訊，所以我可以在第4階段就打到兩倍的籌碼。

Then I made the biggest mistake of the tournament. A guy from Slovakia had just sat down at the table, and he looked at me and said:

“You look European, where are you from”

Without thinking I responded

“Sweden, but I live in Taiwan now”

The two Taiwanese players instantly stopped talking and turned to me.“do you understand Chinese”

No more free information. The look on their face was hilarious though... :)

之後，我犯了一個很大的錯誤! 一個來自斯洛伐克的玩家被分配到我坐位的旁邊，他看了我一眼，然後對我說 
" 你看起來很像歐洲人耶，你從哪裡來的?"

我完全沒多加考慮，就回答
"瑞典人，但我現在住台灣!"
這時，坐在我旁邊的兩位台灣玩家立刻安靜了幾秒，然後轉頭問我
"所以你聽得懂中文?"
他們是誰我無可奉告，但他們臉上的表情絕對經典!

If you are at poker table, you need to think about what kind of information you are giving out. Even a question as “Where are you from” could change the outcome of a tournament. Even more so, you can never expect that someone doesn’t understand Chinese. Especially if you are playing poker in Asia!

 There are a lot of westerners in Taiwan that knows Chinese a lot better than me. I only understood about 80% and I got a huge advantage. So if you are going to talk about your hands this is what you do. Change the cards to something else. Since Taiwanese people always talk about food, it makes things easy. 

當你坐在牌桌上的時候，你必須好好的思考，什麼樣的訊息可以說，什麼不能說。就連一個簡單的問題"你從哪裡來"也可以改變整場比賽的結果，還有，你永遠無法預測在亞洲打比賽，你的對手聽不聽得懂中文。雖然在台灣有許多外國人的中文比我好很多，但我聽得懂80%隔壁玩家的對話，因此我得到了很多優勢! 所以如果你要談論你那手牌，你可以用另一種方式討論。像台灣人非常喜歡美食，相對來說，可以把你的牌比喻成不同的台灣小吃，這樣會非常容易讓別人聽不懂

Here is a rough guide:
 這裡是我發明的指南:

Oyster pancake: 76s  A dish that can be hit or miss due to the restaurant, the name should refer to a hand that is hit or miss.

蚵仔煎:76s，一道時而好吃，時而難吃的一道菜，因為取決於餐廳食材新鮮度。可以代表一手有時可以買到順子，有時什麼都買不到的牌

 

Mala hot pot: AKs Dangerous, but really good. You love it when you eat it, but quite often you end up with stomach pain the next day. No other hand is that good, but also one of the hands you are most likely to go bust with.

麻辣火鍋: AKs，非常危險，但是手很好的牌。吃的時候覺得超愛，但常常隔天會拉肚子。沒有別手牌是這麼好的，但常常是很多人會比賽gg的一手牌。

Stinky tofu: 72o No explanation needed

臭豆腐: 72o 不用解釋了....(小編:對臭豆腐那麼有偏見，哼)

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