Do Europeans Behave Worse than Americans at the Poker Table?

09:04
05 Dec

A series of tweets during the World Series of Poker has led to a flurry of abuse directed at European players for their behaviour at the table.

Allen “The Chainsaw” Kessler posted messages over his dissatisfaction at serial tanking and pointed out that the player guilty of such at his table was an “obvious foreigner”. He didn’t specify European but judging by many replies to his later postings this seems to be something of a consensus.

Minor altercation at my $500 table.

Obvious foreigner in seat 10 literally tanks every hand preflop and every street he is involved with.

He gets all in with JT v AQ on AQ8 and busts.

I clap and say. "Yes! Finally no more drama".

He freaks out.

— Allen Kessler (@AllenKessler) November 2, 2021

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Stoking Xenophobia?

We’re sure that Kessler did not mean to cause serious offence but straight away there were accusations of unnecessary xenophobia of which he failed to understand why.

“Foreigners are more likely to tank pre flop and on every street. This is a well known fact. Not sure why this statement bothered you.”

He later added:

“But the truth is they are more likely to be serial tankers. That is a fact. Not prejudice or bias on my part.”

Determined not to give up, the following day he posted the following poll, which although clearly labeling foreigners as serial tankers more than Americans, wasn’t a shutout.

Who is more likely to "serial tank" on every decision preflop and and on later streets.

— Allen Kessler (@AllenKessler) November 3, 2021

It’s not just Allen Kessler who thinks there is a pattern here, there were other replies heavily in agreement.

“These players are why I will not play a major tournament anymore. I bet it has been 10 years. The risk of encountering one is too high. I am sure they have chased off tons of rec players.”

There really does seem to be a general consensus that Europeans are more cutthroat than their American counterparts. Is this true?

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Not Just Tanking

It isn’t just tanking that Europeans seem to have been accused of recently. Adam Hendrix posted an angry tweet threatening repercussions if any more Europeans were caught angle-shooting at his table.

Any euro caught angling at my table gonna catch hands from now on.

Tips to not get angled:

*Confirm the action of villain with dealer before snap calling etc

*Dont fall for the fake mistake raise if they overly react, euros dont react to anything

Below ill post people caught.

— Adam Hendrix (@AdamHendrix10) October 20, 2021

In the example that he posted it was pointed out that these things are often just a recreational player unsure of table etiquette, to which he responded:

“I’m not saying that I don’t give true recs the benefit of the doubt and/or explain to them where the like is drawn and that angling is scummy, don’t worry.”

No doubt this recent flurry of displeasure at how Europeans play will be firmly remembered when it’s time to shuffle up and deal in Las Vegas next year.