Thank you Andy! Sam is a beast, so excited about this video :)

Thank you Nuno for bringing in Sam! Nuno Alvarez

Thanks RunItTw1ce!

“How would you respond in these situations?”
Yea, I’m connecting to a bunch of what you shared. Thinking back on my own experiences, I have tended to feel let down by casinos in these situations. You look around hoping for adults in the room who will come to the rescue, but no amount of rake seems to make helpful and humane staff materialise (in some places). I wonder how many stories we could gather from the RIO community about times they’ve sat there uncomfortably in tense moments hoping for someone to step up and address the situation. Mind you, some guys here might be so established in their own games that they can speak into things freely from a place of being well known/respected. I’m not sure. It’s one of the hurdles for me, I think, in these settings—I get blocked by the sense of “Who am I to speak to this?” i.e. I’m just another punter and I don’t have a baseline of rapport with Angry-Ted that would allow me to say “Oh, hey, Ted, give the guy a break.”

But also, I want to be ‘real’ with people. This is an important value in life for me. And in the end relating/interpersonal stuff of any kind involve a bit of risk, so I’d like to see myself be courageous rather than just avoid yuck spots. So, anyway, I would play it by ear, but there are some default tricks I would use. Here are 3 to keep this short. 1) “Strike while the iron is cold”— bringing it up at a completely different time when he’s not all dysregulated. 2) Ask for permission first before sharing the observation or bit of feedback you’re holding onto. Sounds weird, but it’s powerful because you are basically contracting to the interaction about to happen. 3) Stick to the specifics of the situation and the impact it had on you personally [“When you did x, I felt y and it bothered me because for me z”].

1) [shouting] I WAS calm, now I'm all agitated! Let's take this to the parking lot. 2) [quietly, mumbling] Yes, OK, I see how easily parodied my how-to-talk-to-an-angry-reg-in-3-steps looks now. I just thought, when reading RunItTw1ce 's comment You're a person in the room. You matter. This is a kind of work space regs share. And probably most of the advice we receive in these situations is to mindfully mind our own business, which can be OK, but also, a bit of relational risk and everyone can benefit a lot. And I sort of imagine the other reg's self-awareness increasing a fraction and that having a ripple effect.
3) All great questions. Potentially part of the mystery of the erotic tension of an AI generated image lies in the lyrics of that old country song "If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?" All yearning and no fulfilment potential injects it with something special. And then, wow, yea the piece about the artist-viewer relationship through the object, too... Monday morning rabbit holes... Thanks @Anima. I need more coffee.
About the credit for the AI, that's a very good point. I hadn't even thought of that, which bugs me as I'm pretty conscientious about referencing. I made this one with Vidnoz, but the voice is Speechify. Ah! If the credits are buried in the comments, does it even count for anything? I'll make sure I do this properly next time.

Sorry about that Sam Forde! We'll make sure to keep it in next time

Thanks! Yep! Will be returning to the topic soon and at the application end of things.

Thanks @matlittle. I love these questions!

Or would you seek to remove it altogether from your game and instead aim for a neutral mentality

David Foster Wallace’s speech ‘This Is Water’ popped into my head reading your comment. I just searched it up again and listened through. He starts off with “There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?" To borrow that picture, those norms and expectations in the screenshot are part of the water we are swimming in. We can’t really be ‘outside’ them in any sense. Our language and ideas are all wrapped up in them. So, it’s more that I’m interested in us having some space to notice, name and renegotiate our relationship with them.

A certain level of 'aggression' is required in poker

Yes! A good example of something to unpack. We use this word in the sense of playing confidently, assertively, going for it, taking the initiative, and so on, which are generally helpful approaches when you have a reasonable technical game. Other meanings of aggression are more or less about intending to harm someone; this situation where we have an impulsive angry desire to hurt someone who we perceive has provoked us is the sort of aggression which might be costing us a lot. In poker, the effects of this are more indirect and we often end up hurting ourselves (player us and rest-of-life us), which was my sort of half-baked idea with "Violence at the poker tables".

Take masculinity

Yea, it definitely wasn’t my aim to diss masculinity! My beef with cultural norms is that all too often we are supposed to conform to a narrow definition of masculinity (winning, earning, stoic, independent, dominant, avoiding intimacy, etc.). I wanted to suggest that some of the cultural norms around masculinity are up for grabs. We can give ourselves room to ask What fits? Do any of these expectations of how we are supposed to be as men match up to what’s important to us? Where do they clash, and where does that leave us? This can be at a lifestyle level (e.g. What is it about being men which says that we are not supposed to show weakness or ask for help?) and at a gameplay level (What do you think might be in our training as men, to respond with anger? How are ‘real men’ meant to deal with anger?).

An old memory, but it has parallels with your story. I was in a live game SRP IP and my opponent accidentally exposed his cards OTF. I was so caught offguard by the situation I misread his hand thinking he had top pair. I shut down and didn't make any attempt to bluff with my Ace high. I just checked back on turn and river and mucked my hand. He showed K high as he sheepishly collected the pot. It was the strangest situation. He was confused about why I'd checked down while knowing his cards. I was confused because i didn't understand what I'd just witnessed. As I registered what had happened I got super embarrassed and angry at myself for the mistake. Not long after, I needed to reload. I went up to the cashier and they told me to wait because they were organizing entries for a tourney. I got all pissy about the customer service at this stupid casino and stormed off like a diva. All that to say, a disappointment embarrassment frustration combo is great for getting the anger and blame party started.