12's are Wild

Boo-hoo -- just lost about $150 pretend dollars at a Yahoo table, where someone completely threw me off my game.

This person claimed in a chat message to be 12 years old -- and he acted like it at times. He'd bet on almost every hand, whether he HAD a hand or not.

In one hand, he bet big $$ all the way to the river. But someone kept calling him -- and he got caught holding a 3-2, which didn't match anything on the board. "Yuthful exuberance," he explained afterward. Absolutely. (By the way, he left the table with his "chip count" at more than $6,000. Yes, negative.)

That sort of ultra-aggression, "devil may care" approach admittedly can scare me out of a lot of pots -- especially if I have a small pair. I dumped a pair of 2's at one point before the river, which seemed promising.

When someone is that wild, it's not easy to stay calm and focused. The last time I placed second at Lil Kim's Cove, I quieted my enthusiastic opponent a bit by using the strategy of Proverbs 15:1, KJV: "A soft answer turns away wrath...." It also makes you look MUCH more civilized than the person across the table.

Now how do you do that online? I'm open to suggestions....