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🔊 Listen to this Sometimes you get into a match with an opponent who takes bad playing situations as a direct insult. It would be funnier, if he simply asked the table directly, “Are you dissing me?” It’s the same thing. Or, he might consider every poor playing situation to be an intentional personal insult from you (as if you have any control over his poor playing and planning skills).

🔊 Listen to more of this On every bad roll or pocket rattler, he gets overly emotional. He doesn’t get what he intended and his verbal reaction is in the language of “Curse-u”. He is incaution about who sees or hears him. If any friends are watching, he cries out, “Did you see that? Did you see that?”

Only one other event is even more irritating – losing. Win the game or match and he might follow the form of sportsmanship, but his attitude, voice, and tone is that of a life-long enemy.

There are several passive ways you can react:

• Get upset and play angry.
• Laugh it off.
• Pity him.
• Ignore him and get the game over quickly.

You may want to take a more sneaky reaction. For this, you adopt a strategy of denial. At any opportunity, set up some tough safeties, just for the fun of it. The only purpose is to deepen and widen his feelings of frustration. If he realizes you are doing this intentional, he may accuse you of not being serious about playing. Ignore him and continue with your plan of never giving him an easy shot.

How you handle such a person is pretty much dependent on how you feel. If you like torturing deserving brats, go for it. If you are less confrontational, use one of the passive approaches.