Poker Room Name Ideas
Choose a screen name that you find funny or interesting. This category is a kind of catch-all. It includes sports teams and players and characters from books, like ‘Isildur1’. It includes corrupted names of famous people, like ‘Cashisclay’ and ‘FidelCashflow’. Also words and expressions corrupted to apply to poker terms.
What's the significance of online poker screen names? With the recent poker boom, all the good online names are being snatched up quickly. And if you have a common real name, your chances of getting something unique on Party Poker or PokerStars are very slim. Some online poker names make me chuckle. Others make me shiver in disgust.
Most of the names break down into a few categories. And I'll briefly speak about each.
- Likely a riff on legendary psychologist Sigmund Freud, Sahamies made up the name in the early stages of online poker. Thanks to his renowned trash-talk and all-around aggressive play “Ziigmund” or “Ziggy” has become one of the most feared names in online poker. Chad Batista - “Lilholdem954”.
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Rounders' Characters: You've seen those guys. I call them the least creative group of the bunch: Worm36, MikeMcD14, and JoeyKnish69, to name a few. It's sad. So many players have adopted these names that if you try to ask Party Poker for TeddyKGB, you'll end up getting TeddyKGB23145569. Outside of the pokerati, no one understands that reference, but inside my apartment I poke fun at you and label you a big Rounders geek in my notes. Hey, MikeMcD14, try slowplaying a flopped straight against me and I'll shove every one of Teddy KGB's Oreos up your least favorite orifice. If you can't come up with an original screen name, either you are lazy or you don't have a creative mind.
Poker Pros: There are a bunch of online players in cyberworld who take on the persona of their favorite pro: AnnieDuke1234, TexasDolly210, GusHansen72, and Fossilman666. Unfortunately, sharing the same online name with a pro is about as close as they are going to come to making a final table at a WSOP event, especially when they chase gutshot straight draws or call all-in raises with bottom pair. I want to play against these folks.
Poker Terminology: Some players use cool poker phrases as their screen name: RiverBeat, FloppedQuads, and JacksUp. Although a few of them are cheesy, the majority of them are some of the more creative names out there. Clever people tend to be more intelligent. Watch out for these players.
Jumble Guys: These are the folks who use an odd mixture of letters and numbers as their names: ksiiik474kfoek or dhduggt2831142. Good luck getting Party Poker support on the phone and telling them your account name if you ever run into a glitch and your table freezes.
Drug/Marijuana References: For some of you older hippies, you might dig on the vibes of the younger-drug-MTV-chic culture. If not, I'll clue you into slang that some slackers would use in their screen names. Anything with 'bong' or '420' or 'puff' or 'blunt' usually indicates that the player at your table is a proud pothead, and usually (but not limited to) from the Northern California or Pacific Northwest area. Chances that they are stoned while playing are... well... pretty high. Take advantage of your opponent's inebriated state. These are the players with names like: FattyNugs, PuffintheAM, Bluntorama, Wooderson69, HighGirl420.
Fictional Characters: I play under a name of a popular 70s TV character. Lots of random James Bond references and a slew of literary ones are out there too. The Simpson's references always make me laugh: DuffMan765, HomerJay765; there's also AllyMcBeal4, Frankie007, Frodo41, and KilgoreTrout4.
Musical References: I've seen a few Phish and Grateful Dead related names, as well as a few titles of random Motown tunes and old jazz standards. Younger players like to use rappers and other hiphop references to spice up their screen names. If you are familiar with different genres of music, especially popular music, you might be able to guess their age based on their musical tastes.
Inside Jokes and Nicknames: These are players using their real world nicknames, like BigMike33 or SmellyEd or AlCantHang. I like asking them the origins of their name.
Residence: These are folks who can't come up with an original name, so they use their city or state as part of their screen name. AmarilloSteve, JoeyTX, HawaiiMary, CincyLou. I always ask them how the weather is.
Year of Birth or Graduation: Here's a tip. If you see a number after someone's name and it's the last two digits of a year, chances are that person was born in said year, or graduated college or high school in that year. EdJones56 is either 56 years old, or more likely, born in 1956. I'm willing to bet that some folks are too lazy to come up with anything else, so they pick their year of birth to make their screen name unique. AlexD82 is probably a college kid. And CoolGuy07, this is probably a frat boy who will get his degree in two more years.
Sure, I could be wrong here, but again, I'm making a snap decision on the fly. You have to attempt to size up online players quickly and age, to me, makes a huge difference. Chances are older players play more conservatively than younger players and will trap you when they have the nuts. On the other side, younger players who have been influenced by television and the popularity of the WPT tend to play wilder, looser, and more aggressively than folks of an older generation.
Location, Location, Location
What's in a location? It wasn't my intent to speak about a player's location, but it's something I'll address for a few moments. On both Poker Stars and Party Poker's skins, you can see where someone is from. Will that give you an edge? Sometimes. Here are some -- admittedly -- broad generalizations.
European cities: Most European players are aggressive preflop bettors. This is not to say that they are loose. They don't play as tight preflop as so many of the Sklansky disciples out there. I'm not telling you to call every single one of their bets preflop; however, if you see a city of European origin and the guy tends to raise a lot, you might consider calling with one of your marginal hands (especially in late position) because you could have the best hand.
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Las Vegas & Henderson: If I see either place mentioned (Henderson is a suburb of Vegas), I try to avoid playing with them, especially heads up. Is every online player from Las Vegas a shark? I'd rather not find out.
Canadian Players: Our Northern neighbors breed some of the toughest and fiercest competition in the poker world. There are some good players out there, so beware. Canadian players make a living off greedy Americans who chase nut flushes and call top pair all the way to the river. Knowing the big cities is easy. But familiarize yourself with some smaller Canadian town names and suburbs, like Carberry, Moosejaw, and New Glasgow.
College Towns: Ann Arbor, Pullman, Madison. Those towns are filled with bored, inebriated college kids with tons of free time and Daddy's money in their hands. Back to my generalization about younger players under the age of 24, especially with parentally funded bankrolls... they are loose and aggressive types. A young gun with a belly full of cold pizza and a six Jell-o shots from a college town is more likely to bluff with second pair or a gutshot straight draw.
Retirement Communities: Places in Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Florida are filled with bored and retired Americans looking to waste their time away blowing their social security checks on Party Poker. Older players tend to be more conservative. When a player from Jupiter, Florida pushes me all-in on a flop that's all rags, chances are he has a bigger hand than the hungover frat boy from Madison.
Summary
Again, all these are just generalizations based on my online encounters over the last twelve months playing at various sites. I'm sure there are fish living in Vegas who are playing online. I'm sure we have WWII vets in college towns and Europeans abroad playing tight. But for the most part, you have to profile your opponents quickly if you wish to seek a greater edge.
Paul 'Pauly' McGuire is a writer from New York City. He quit his job as a bond trader on Wall Street to pursue a career in writing. He is a novelist and screenwriter but became most famous for his poker blog.
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The Tao of Poker (http://taopoker.blogspot.com) chronicles his daily poker thoughts from his late night forays into the online poker world to playing in home games and tournaments around New York City. He also covers his adventures to casinos like Foxwoods, Atlantic City, and Las Vegas.
As an amateur poker player and an avid traveler, Pauly often finds time to squeeze poker into his itinerary no matter where he goes. He has played poker all across America and will track down a home game or drive miles out of his way to the closest card room or casino. He has even played hold'em on a bullet train in Japan. You'll most likely find him slumming around at the low limit tables on Party Poker.
Almost all online poker sites do not allow you to change your screen name – ever. That means you’d better give some serious thought to your choice right now because you’re going to have to live with it throughout your whole poker career.
For example, many Liverpool F.C. fans in 2010 decided that variations on ‘TorresLFC’ were a good idea. They must be regretting that now almost as much as poor old ‘TorresCFC’ is. If you’re a sports fan choose something that stands the test of time. Similarly, don’t use a currently popular band or video game or other possibly short-lived fad. Don’t use the current year or your current age – because next year they both mean absolutely nothing.
The best approach is to ask yourself what you want from a screen name. Let’s assess the possibilities one by one, bearing in mind that there can be plenty of overlap between them.
Choose a screen name that relates to you personally
If you have no concerns about being identified you can choose your own name or parts of it, or a nickname. You may need to include numbers in this kind of screen name as there’s a good chance that your first choice will be in use already. You can add numbers to the name or replace letters with similar numbers, e.g. ‘3’ for ‘E’ and ‘5’ for ‘S’. You can also use the names of those close to you, including pets, but bear in mind privacy concerns. You can even use something self-descriptive like ‘fivebellies’ or ‘sweatynutsack’.
Choose a screen name that may tilt your opponents
There are a number of ways to do this. You can choose a name that is offensive, either to almost everybody or just to certain groups. Be careful with these though. If you go too far and use racist/sexist comments etc. you can expect them to be rescinded by the poker room. Mild examples are ‘Religion_LOL’ and ‘lol_poor people’.
Then there are the personal insults like ‘durrrr’, ‘umakemelookpro’, ‘uhaveasmallPP’, ‘MyVPIPisurIQ’, ‘B4IFURU18’, ‘Nh Wp FU’, ‘Om Nom Nom’ and ‘UPay4MyWeed’.
Another way to try to tilt opponents is to issue a challenge to them. Examples include, ‘reload_pls’, ‘YouBetIJam’, ‘NiceTrySucka’, ‘imbad-beatme’, ‘idontchinkso’.
Self-deprecating or condescending names, particularly when combined with aggressive play or chat can also be tilting. Names like, ‘relax_max’, ‘WhyDaddyDrinks’, ‘ifartinmysleep’, ‘2stuk2givafuk’, ‘CheckCallPray’, ‘TrustFundGone’ and ‘LimpinAintEasy’. Although, to be honest, most of these are more likely to elicit a chuckle rather than tilt.
Another effective way to tilt people is to misspell your chosen name. Normally you should take care that you have spelled your chosen name correctly, but if you really want to wind up a grammar nit choose a name like ‘YouLooser’ or ‘PokerProffesional’. 95% of your opponents won’t even notice – but that other 5% will have steam coming out of their ears.
Finally, a clever choice is a name like ‘2donks1flop’ which succeeds in being both critical and self-deprecating – not to mention funny.
Choose a screen name that is misleading
Most poker players are men and many believe that women are no good at poker. Therefore some male players play using a female persona. The same principle holds for certain nationalities. Many players believe that Southern European players play more emotionally and are more fishy than average. You can try to take advantage of that. e.g. ‘repopadopolis’ would be a great name for a Greek player.
Choose a screen name that is unmemorable.
You usually don’t want other players to remember you. Therefore some players will seek out names that are pretty anonymous. Maybe a common name with some numbers like ‘John2589’ or maybe just numbers, or a meaningless jumble of numbers and letters or maybe something unpronounceable using symbols. Just remember not to get carried away and make it so obscure that it becomes memorable. The same goes for avatars. Some players will choose to play without an avatar. However, if nearly all the players in your usual games play with an avatar, playing without one will only make you stand out as “that guy without an avatar.”
Choose a screen name that you find funny or interesting
This category is a kind of catch-all. It includes sports teams and players and characters from books, like ‘Isildur1’. It includes corrupted names of famous people, like ‘Cashisclay’ and ‘Fidel_Cashflow’. Also words and expressions corrupted to apply to poker terms. As you can imagine, the word ‘muck’ features a lot in these. Examples include ‘gomuckurself’, ‘shiphappens’, ‘donkeywhisperer’, ‘MuckingFaster’ and many predictable variations on the hand KJo.
You can simply use words or expressions that sound or look good. ‘ValueTowny’, ‘iclickbuttons’, ‘OMGSPLOSION’, ‘SirMucksalot’, ‘PfOaKcEeR’, ‘toadlystoned’, ‘PeppermintHippo’ and ‘BEEPBEEPIMAJEEP’ are great examples.
Names can just be funny like ‘DontRaiseImGay2’ or ‘wewaise’ (with an avatar picture of Elmer Fudd.) They can be an internet meme, such as 2plus2’s ‘THE F DO’ and ‘[ ]NameDelivers’. They can be just plain weird like ‘sexualintercoursewithdeadcats’ and ‘mydogisgay’. They can even be as obscure as a clever grammar joke such as ‘fckvwls’. Or maybe just something that sounds good, like ‘gobbledygook’ or ‘jabberwocky’.
Now choose your screen name
We hope you find some food for thought here to help you decide upon the perfect screen name for you. Most of the above names are real screen names, and we hope you agree that many are clever and funny too. So don’t just choose the first name that comes into your head. Think about the long term. You can try to be funny but not crude or juvenile, please. We’ve already got plenty of them – yes, I’m talking to you ‘Hugh G Rection’.
Above all be creative and come up with a unique name that you will be proud of for years to come.