Avatars and players' perceptions of them in online poker

[Pharcyde]

I was just in a hand with a guy on Stars and when I raised his flop bet he typed, "okay buckwheat," folded, insulted me again, and left the table. My avatar is a picture of a black guy from a rap-album cover. I'd like to know if people here think this was an isolated incident, or if avatars depicting minorities have an effect on the way online players view their opponents who have these avatars. If you do believe they influence some players, can that influence be used to the advantage of those with the minority avatars? For example, a player sees an avatar with a picture of an Asian and thinks, "He must be good," or, in my case, "He's black. He must be awful." I don't condone stereotyping in any way. I'm just curious to know people's thoughts.

[PantsOnFire]

I've been playing online for several years and have seen many different minority avatars. I have never seen an insult like that though so I would think it is an isolated event.

I don't think most players use the avatar or moniker for poker decisions. However, after seeing how you really play, it may be easier to remember if the avatar or moniker is distinct. Say there are two players Donkey1 and PantsOnFire. These avatars seem to say something about the player, like a donk and a bluffer. If they play exactly like the moniker suggests or the exact opposite of their moniker, it might be easier to remember what kind of player they are.

If a player has no avatar and his name is Jeff1234, you can't associate his moniker to how he plays since it is neutral. So it might be more difficult to remember what kind of player he is.

Personally, I try to associate an avatar to a type of play much like I try to remember a person's name by some body feature. So for me, that Jeff1234 could become "Jeff the assasin" or "Jeff the joker", depending on his play.

For minority avatars, if I see an asian or a black, if they are good I might associate them with Men the Master and Phil Ivey. If they are bad, I might go with William Hung and Oprah Winfrey.

I certainly wouldn't mention any of this of course in the chat box.

[Brad1970]

I draw a perception of sorts from their avatar name rather than the avatar itself. I think people give away their age/gender/abilities/etc from this. For example, if you see somebody at the table named Pokershark1986 & they have an avatar of a "chark" (ala Humberto Brenes), you can bet that that person was likely born in 1986 & is probably proud of their poker abilities. Granted this isn't always the case...

[Downbylaw11]

I used to have just picture of a spade, which was very easy on the eyes, and I think i was able to go about my business without being noticed too much other than when i'd bust somebody. but then I made the big mistake of changing my avatar to a picture from office space of the guy giving his 'O' face. It was a pretty obnoxious picture, and made me laugh, and lots of people thought it was funny, but I get the impression that upon seeing it, some people probably really wanted to bust me out, and it just flat out drew way too much attention to itself. So I sent an image change request today to stars and will be rocking my spade soon enough

[thrasher789]

that reminds me of a time i was playing play chips on FT with my freind and i'm the mike tyson avatar, anyway about 3 minutes into the game some guy asks "hey thrasher you arn't really black are you?" and whne I told him no he went on to tell me that it's good I'm not becuase he hates blacks because they are lazy dangerous and good for nothing. Obviously I was kind of offended at this even though I'm not a minority but to this day I remember thinking how weird it was.

[BigCummins]

Buckwheat is not a racial slur, he was a little rascals character.

[BigPoppa]

The rule of thumb:

People with babies, kittens, or out of focus pictures of themselves as avatars suck at poker.


No avatar involved, but I was involved in an incident somewhat like that. My playername on one of the Crypto sites sounded kinda black, and I'm from the South. Some idiot lost a pot to me, and started ripping into me with all sorts of racial slurs. Well, I could see that he was from Hoboken NJ so I started ripping into Hoboken, and I got all the English dudes to join me. The guy went on crazy monkey tilt and spewed off most of his chips because all these total strangers were ragging on the broke-ass place he lived.

[trangers]

My avatar used to be "Bush es el terrorista" spray painted on a wall. It would either get people to soft play me (mostly europeans) or it would get people to start flaming hardcore. I rarely bluffed, since I'd almost always have a caller or a reraiser who was out to "get me". I made pretty good money for over a year, then all of a sudden PS said it was offensive and removed it. I told PS I found all the pics of ugly babies offensive, and they told me to email them and they'd review them on a case by case basis. Of course, I'm too lazy to email them. Thinking about re-submitting it to see if I can get it approved again.

I have a pretty thick skin, but it put some people on crazy monkey tilt without having to say a thing.

[Sounded Simple]

[ QUOTE ]
The rule of thumb:

People with babies, kittens, or out of focus pictures of themselves as avatars suck at poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is so true! I thought it was just me who thought that.
Id add dogs to that list.

I have also noticed that they tend to be callstations rather than over agressive. If you bet into them really hard they seem to call down all the more.

However Im thinking of turning off avatars on stars since this sort of info usually presents itself very quickly.
I find the avatars distracting and they clutter the screen

[Conte]

I have Carlton from fresh prince in my avatar so people respect my raises.