Older men complaining about my cbet.

[dagreez]

Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. They're old. A lot of the time that means their mental faculties are wearing down and/or they've becomes used to playing a certain way... their 'style' is more defined and they have trouble adjusting to others, or have trouble thinking on their 'toes'.

Enter young whipersnapper who in their eyes is being aggressive and continually putting them in difficult spots with c-bets that could mean a variety of things... top pair, middle pair, a draw, air etc...

They don't want to, or are unable to, make difficult decisions, balancing your range of hands and such, so they get uncomfortable in these situations where they can't easily put you on a hand.

You confuse them by mixing up your play and they get angry because they can't keep up.

On the theoretical poker side, this is what you want, playing against people who are on the cusp of acting emotional, out of anger, snapping back at you etc.

On the social side, you don't want to be the source of their anger and resentment which brings up a somewhat of a conundrum. In Zen they call it a Koan.

Here is the Koan as I see it:

To play optimally, you want them to not know what you have. But by them not knowing what you have, it elicits in them sense of unknowing to which they react negatively... criticism about your play and an out-to-get you mentality which is harsh rather than playful.

You don't want them to be angry since this causes them to target you negatively, but you don't want to not play optimally for obvious reasons. And since you're optimal play causes them to be angry/act negatively, the question is, what do you do?