two plus two value

[treeofwisdom7]

hey i was thinking.. it seems that most of you that are on two plus two are winners and very smart in poker... i was wondering ,... if anyone with a brain read every post on this forum thought about them, and played 20 or so hours a week woudl that person be a good player that could beat 20$ buy in sit n gos? or is there more to being a good player than reading applying and playing?

[raptor517]

if the person read EVERY post on this forum.. he may not improve that much. however, if he was SELECTIVE about the posts he read, he may just improve a great deal.

also, im assuming you refer to yourself here.. and it doesnt take much of a brain to beat the 22s. play a lot and absorb what you read, selectively.. holla

[treeofwisdom7]

well i try to read them all and find the ones which help my game , most of the posts are good tho.

[Slim Pickens]

You better be able to pick out the garbage if you want to improve your game. Start by ignoring all of my posts.

Slim

[treeofwisdom7]

well i have the general idea on how to evaluate a hand and find out if it was played correct or not. so i think i can tell whatis the correct play. and if not you guys like to rag people who post crap anyway.

[Mr_J]

A good % of the people that post on this forum are winning sngers, but that doesn't make every post worthwhile to read. If you want to learn, then like Slim and Raptor said you should ignore MOST of what is posted here. The stuff here that really helps peoples game is buried, and you have to look hard to find it. Best way is to search for the posts made by 'quality' posters. The threads you really learn from (imo) are the discussions about sng theory, and I don't think much of that goes on anymore (these days it all seems to be about variance, multitabling etc).

[johnnybeef]

to add to what kj said, i highly reccomend participating in as many hand postings as people will often flame your bad posts. i know that that may be a rough way to learn, but i have found that the threads that i have learned the most from are the ones that i have posted sh*tty advice in. also, check out the shadows first post. there are a ton of great links on that one.

[Blarg]

I agree with that a lot. Posting on hands gets your ideas out there to be evaluated and maybe criticized and therefore on their way to being improved. Getting an incorrect way of thinking shot down is just as valuable as learning a new, good one.

I'm actually kind of disappointed if I try to put some thinking into an opinion or analysis, especially if it's a contrary one, and don't get much feedback on whether I'm right or wrong, or if I get just a flat, unsupported statement I have no real way of evaluating. Being shot down sucks if you're just told you're wrong, but not why. Well, I guess it sucks a little either way. Heheh...but it's worth it if you learn something.

Lots of what passes back and forth is basically fun and chatty, which is cool, but since few beginners are going to be blowing anyone away with valuable new theoretical concepts, and since most of the best players don't post a lot or talk about theoretical concepts often or in much detail, it's the hand analysis where we're going to find the most meat to dig into here. So posting them and responding to them seems well worth the time and abuse entailed.

As to whether forums will teach you to be a winning player, my feeling is that the forums have consistently proven that they will not. They can help, but many people don't need them and for a lot of the people that do, they will do some good, but not enough.

A great many of the successful players had mentors and coaches, many had natural gifts, and most of them have put in some real study time on their games. Everyone can at least get one of those things in their corner, luckily. Few of us can't make dramatic improvements, but for most of us that drama is going to unfold pretty slowly and we're not going to be accepting any Oscars for our performance at the end of it.

My guess is that most people could become winning players with decent ROI's at the $22's, but I don't think most people could do it particularly quickly, with or without 2+2 forums. I hope I prove myself wrong.

[lorinda]

I'm actually kind of disappointed if I try to put some thinking into an opinion or analysis, especially if it's a contrary one, and don't get much feedback on whether I'm right or wrong, or if I get just a flat, unsupported statement I have no real way of evaluating.

I can't speak for other people, but I have nothing against someone bumping their own posts (preferably once only) if they are particuarly interested in something and it gets missed.
From the perspective of someone who tries to help, I'll often skim the first page and read 5-6 threads and it's easy to miss some real gems in there.
If a thread comes back 36 hours later, there's a part of the brain that says "Hey, wasn't that around yesterday? I'd better see what it's about" and if I then see a bumpage, I'll tend to reply if I can.

Lori

[Blarg]

You're one of the people who when I see their name in the "last post" column, I'll usually click it.

It's definitely a mystery sometimes whether an idea or analysis is greeted by silence because people basically agree, or don't agree so figure your post is worthless and there's no point replying, or a post or thread just got lost in the shuffle, or whatever. Forums are definitely a pretty haphazard business.

[johnnybeef]

[ QUOTE ]
A great many of the successful players had mentors and coaches, many had natural gifts, and most of them have put in some real study time on their games.

[/ QUOTE ]

2 out of 3 things can be found here.

[The Yugoslavian]

The Yugoslavian's guide to beating STT poker (or how to turn being a luxbox into a consistently winning pokre player):

1. Run well when you start playing...
2. Read tons of 2+2 and identify the posters with winning longevity...
3. Run well for a while longer...
4. Move up too quickly and continue to run well while only reading posts by said expert posters...
5. Keep running well...
6. Get serious....find a mentor, really delve into the game and put in quality time...
7. Experience an extended period of negative variance (many hundreds of break even STTs during which time you hit several drops of ~30buyins).
8. Don't track any stats during that time.
9. Keep reading Gigabet's 'Almost There' post. Fantasize about one day being able to really *understand*...
10. Keep running badly.
11. Quit poker for a short period of time.
12. CRUSH

Yugoslav

[lorinda]

What have you done to Skip?

Lori