A few procedural things for SSNL
 

first off, the board has been reallygood lately. i think a lot of that has to do with having a mod. good work xorbie.

second, what do you guys think of a "how to post" thread. a lot fo interesting hands are going to the wayside because the poster titles them "what to do here?" etc.

third, how about a sort of gentleman's agreement to make one hand post per day with say a max of three hands. when many people put like 5 individual hand posts up it dilutes the number of responses that each thread gets and often there are threads that get posted with no good responses, which is bad.

fim

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

fim

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

I think alot of people find it tiresome to read 3+ hands in one post. I don't really have anything to back this up with, but I sense that the post I have made that contain 3+ hands, get few ansers.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

I think it's a good idea. I believe something along these lines was going in the FAQ that was to be stickied. I clearly think the whole one post per day thing should be nothing more than a guideline since I posted three at once yesterday but that was because I thought at least one of them would be pretty quick and because I hadn't posted a hand in a while before that. But I definitely don't think anyone should really AVERAGE more than 1 or 2 hands per day.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

Oh, I agree with this. But why not just select the most important one or two hands from each day and post those instead of the five most interesting ones? I think that really good discussion of 2 hands would be more beneficial for everyone than mediocre, non-concentrated discussion of 5 or 6 hands. Imagine if there were only 10 hands posted each day but every single one of the best posters made a long detailed response (or several) in every thread. Wouldn't that be SO much better than having 100 hands posted and having people kinda responding quickly or randomly to a few of them?

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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I think alot of people find it tiresome to read 3+ hands in one post. I don't really have anything to back this up with, but I sense that the post I have made that contain 3+ hands, get few ansers.

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i think that also may be a function of the fact that you're now a known poster. if i see like TWP, you, xorbie etc. posting hands i'll open them up and respond, but very often the guy with 45 posts will post a really good hand and nobody looks or responds because nobody knows him and the post volume here is so high that his question falls down real fast.

fim

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

I completely agree with your second part - all the time I see some guy decides to post 5 hands in a one hour period, and getting 1-2 responses on each, when it would probably be better to just post 1 or 2 important hands a day. And people take notice when someone keeps posting hands without really contributing to other hands.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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And people take notice when someone keeps posting hands without really contributing to other hands.

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I think that a lot of the new poster dont have the confidence to give their advice and thats why they only post their hands.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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And people take notice when someone keeps posting hands without really contributing to other hands.

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I think that a lot of the new poster dont have the confidence to give their advice and thats why they only post their hands.

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I don't think anyone objects to that (although I'm sure they would learn a lot from trying to contribute to other people's thread, too, I know I did) but there may be others who are playing NL100 or NL200 and post more than they contribute.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

I don't like the multiple hand threads. If people are going to post three hands I would prefer them posting three seperate threads.

A "How to post"-thread is a good idea.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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I think alot of people find it tiresome to read 3+ hands in one post. I don't really have anything to back this up with, but I sense that the post I have made that contain 3+ hands, get few ansers.

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For what my (still relatively) newbie opinion is worth, there are some posts with multiple hands in that I find quite interesting. If it's just "here's three beats I took, am I doing anything wrong?" then, sure, it sucks. But if the post is a general question about strategy, supported by a collection of 3-5 hands that demonstrate a problem, I think it sends the posts value way up.

The other day someone posted a general question saying they felt they over-estimated their implied odds. If the poster had made that general point, and then talked through 3 hands from a recent session with common villians where they made calls based on implied odds, along with their thinking, I (would like to) think it would have generated some great discussion.

JMO.

Edit: looks like I might be in the minority here

I absolutly agree. I am in dire need of this!
 

I concur. I do not seem to get a lot of help with hands. ( I am not complaining here) I assume it is my own fault for not posting correctly coupled with the idea that I am a mere fish.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

fim,

i agree w/one hand post per day/3 max and also just want to say thanks to everyone for the advice going on in this forum, it's been a great help.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

The question of how to keep the signal:noise ratio high in a forum like this is a difficult one to answer; but fortunately there have been attempts to answer it in other forums before now. Some attempts have been successful, others not so much.

In my opinion, there are three factors in particular that help keep the signal:noise ratio high in a forum like this. I will draw on examples from the micros forum, because I am familiar with a lot of its history, and the various attempts that have been made there.

1) There needs to be a comprehensive FAQ, and it needs to be stickied. The FAQ needs to be sweeping, answering questions that run the gamut from "how do I post on this forum" to "what are good stats, what are bad stats" and "what is some lingo used here." For an example of what I think is an very good FAQ, look here. This FAQ could use updating, but it would be incremental, nor revolutionary. The FAQ is good, and it has helped the forum’s quality which is, after all, the purpose of any FAQ.

Note the focus of the FAQ: it's pretty procedural-oriented. This was on purpose -- there is a distinct lack of strategy advice in the FAQ. Questions like, "What line should I take with TPTK?" are best answered in the forum, and not in the FAQ. But many of the noise threads that originate that ask for basic strategy advice would be avoided if the posted had access to other basic information, even if his actual question isn't directly answered in the FAQ. The FAQ empowers a lurker/poster to answer many of his questions himself.

2) Posters should be actively encouraged to reply to strategy posts, and actively discouraged from initiating strategy posts. I'm not trying to self-promote, but take a look at this thread. If I had it to do over again, I might explain certain things more fully and perhaps reword other things, but overall that suggestion has been overwhelmingly accepted in micros. Again, I'm not trying to self-promote, but I can see a visible improvement in the signal:noise ratio in micros due in part to that thread. I hope this isn't taken as bragging.

Read the thread for a thorough discussion of why this works, but here’s a synopsis. When posters post bad advice to a strategy thread, it actually benefits the forum as a whole. Paradoxical, but true. The reason is because when an SSNL poster like me posts bad advice, it is quickly corrected by someone who knows better. That better poster might not have replied to the thread if no bad advice were given, simply because the need wasn't as great. So an interesting thing happens: when posters post bad advice, everybody on the forum benefits from the advice from the experts even more.

3) A weekly threads digest. This is a new phenomenon in both the micros and SS limit forums, and it is probably the greatest single benefit I have ever seen to the forums. Once a week (usually Mondays), some designated person (usually self-appointed, not necessarily the mod) selects the 10 or so threads with the best content from the week before, and posts a link to each. Usually there are 5 or 10 words describing the thread content.

This has been fantastic. There are so many new posts every day by so many people that nobody can see them all. A lot of people only open threads where certain people have contributed, and that's fine. But then they may miss many great or potentially great threads because nobody they are looking for contributed to them. But by putting links to them in the digest, these great threads get popped again. More often than not, the resulting traffic in the digest threads is even better the second time around.

So, those are the things I'd recommend for this forum too. Since this is my new home for learning, I have a pretty vested interest in the quality here.

Another thing I might recommend with reservation is the idea of a weekly session post & review. This is another new thing happening in micros, and it has a lot of potential. Once a week, someone is selected to post a session of about 100 hands, including all the PF folds. That person can be anonymous or known, and the session can be from any level or structure. The rest of the forum then reviews the session, and posts hands that they find interesting in some way. The resulting discussion has been really good. Many topics are covered that otherwise would not be covered, because everyone sees an entire session. Everybody benefits, including obviously the session poster, and the people who review the session but don’t post reviews, and those that do post reviews or replies to reviews.

I recommend this with reservation for just one reason -- it's a hell of a lot of work. First, someone has to select the poster. Next the poster has to convert 100 hands for posting (there's software to do this en masse, I think). Finally, everyone on the forum has to study the entire session. That's a lot of work for everyone, but it's worth it. I'd recommend every 2 weeks for the session post.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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about a sort of gentleman's agreement to make one hand post per day with say a max of three hands. when many people put like 5 individual hand posts up it dilutes the number of responses that each thread gets and often there are threads that get posted with no good responses, which is bad.

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I think this would be a good idea. However, I think the most important thing is that posters try to have ~10:1 response to new post ratio. If you don't feel quailfied to give advice, ask questions of the people who are giving advice. Everybody benefits when people ask questions.

Btw, this is a total non sequitur, but does anyone have any idea what happened to Soah? I haven't seen a post by him in ages.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

I like the idea of minimal hand posting, maximum hand analysis.

People may be posting numerous hands thinking that their situation is unique, when in fact, there are five similar situations that have each got 2 replies and fell off the first page.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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If you don't feel quailfied to give advice, ask questions of the people who are giving advice. Everybody benefits when people ask questions.

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this is great advice, all new posters should read this.

fim

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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I think that a lot of the new poster dont have the confidence to give their advice and thats why they only post their hands.

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I am not scared to make a reply but I somtimes feel awkward giving advice to ppl who I KNOW are better than me. Also, I feel that I have way to much to learn right now and that my advice is not really good advice. So yes i agree. problem is when I do post hands they don't seem to be accepted all that well.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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I somtimes feel awkward giving advice to ppl who I KNOW are better than me

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Not me. I look forward to giving advice to someone better than me, becasue I know they will correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll get better. In fact just today I responded to Ed Miller's advice in micros, hoping that he would improve my thinking and not the other way round.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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Not me. I look forward to giving advice to someone better than me, becasue I know they will correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll get better.

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This is a very good point IMO. From now on I will respond to TWP Fim Xorbie and JK's posts religously. and anyoine else I am forgetting.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

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3) A weekly threads digest. This is a new phenomenon in both the micros and SS limit forums, and it is probably the greatest single benefit I have ever seen to the forums. Once a week (usually Mondays), some designated person (usually self-appointed, not necessarily the mod) selects the 10 or so threads with the best content from the week before, and posts a link to each. Usually there are 5 or 10 words describing the thread content.

This has been fantastic. There are so many new posts every day by so many people that nobody can see them all. A lot of people only open threads where certain people have contributed, and that's fine. But then they may miss many great or potentially great threads because nobody they are looking for contributed to them. But by putting links to them in the digest, these great threads get popped again. More often than not, the resulting traffic in the digest threads is even better the second time around.


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I think this would be incredibly beneficial. I know for myself I don't have time to read through most of the posts everyday due to work schedule and other time spent on non-poker related things. Granted that also doesn't leave me much time to post replies either (mostly just reading posts atm). I tend to look at who posted and/or the number of replies to a post or an interesting title and open those up and read those first, but I'm sure I miss a lot of important replies by people and I think this weekly top posts idea would be great to those who don't have time to stop by everyday.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

My thought is that no one reads the "Rules to Posting" posts, although I agree that people should limit it to one or two posts a day. If you want to post more hands. Post them in an already open thread and give it a new title/icon.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

I'm just a lurker on this forum but I want to give some support for these suggestions. I think they are all outstanding. The session review is a worthwhile idea as well. It shows a lot of routine hands so after a couple of rounds, the session posts and subsequent criticisms should give new players a good idea of some default lines and common situations. I know that in NL many of the plays are more opponent dependent but there is still benefit to this, particularly in the lower levels.

regards,

raisins

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

I like the idea of not posting too many hands in a day. I won't crack down on it, but people who start three threads every day probably won't be getting too many responses.

I also want to second the fact that nobody should be scared to reply to any thread. I remember when I was new here (not too long ago, actually), I would try to always respond to the best poster's threads. They would generally correct me, and I would learn far more rapidly that way.

With regards to a weekly session post or weekly digest, I like both ideas in theory, but with my semester just having started I have absolutely no time to devote to either.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

As a new poster here, I would very much appreciate a "how to post" guide. I haven't yet been posting several hands per day, but I do take one night per week to review all my hands, so I tend to group all my wierd/confusing hands together and post them at the same time. I've had varying responses from the group so I haven't yet worked out which hands you guys find interesting and which are every day occurrences that I really shouldn't have to ask advice about.

I think the weekly digest would be fantastic. It would also help me to not post similar hands to those already posted.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

What annoys me most in this board, is a recent tendency to just copy/paste plain text from a hand history file. If you want quality advice, at least invest some time in editing a post to make it readable. Also, a broken up convertor is no reason to post converted hands where the betting just makes no sense at all. At least preview your posts before submitting them.

Second most annoying is the endless stream of 20- post newbs asking about no limit books, winrates and stuff like that.

I'd also like to see a more extended version of grunchcan's favorite nl threads. A list of these links with short description could fit in to the FAQ.

And on a final note, I agree with fim that this board does have a lot of high-quality content. Let's see how we can make it even better.

Re: A few procedural things for SSNL
 

Here's a straw man draft. I assume we're more discussing thread origination than simple reply posts, although that deserves mention somewhere too.

Please edit/hack/flame away.

SSNL Thread Guidelines

Anyone can post to this forum. As in all societies, though, there are Good Citizens and Bad Citizens. Bad Citizens get ignored, or worse.

If you aspire to be a Good Citizen of SSNL, please keep the following in mind when starting a thread.

General Topic: Small stakes ($4 or lower big blind), pot- or no-limit hold'em, cash games only, please. There are other forums for tournaments, higher stakes, and other games.

Approach: Especially if you are new, you will benefit most by reading first, and starting threads with great restraint. Many talented and helpful players post here. Read them. When you know who those individuals are and what their standards are for posting, you'll probably be ready to post a thread of your own.

Volume: This is a busy forum. Do everyone a favor by restricting your original threads to one or two, *maybe* three, in any given day. Otherwise, posts come too quickly, fall down the list too quickly, and don't get adequate consideration by other readers. Which benefits no one.

Content: Anything on topic is welcome, but two specific types of post deserve special mention. One is a DON'T, the other is a DO.

DON'T POST a bad beat. This means posting a hand where the subject is not how you played it, but the actual results of the specific hand. We all know that Hold'em is, in part, a game of chance. We all know you can play a hand perfectly and lose your stack, it's happened to all of us, we don't want to hear about how it happened to you, take your sob story elsewhere.

DO POST a hand history for analysis and discussion of your play of the hand. These are by far the most prevalent and helpful threads. When you do this, follow some specific guidelines for your post:

Title. Include the following:
1. Stakes level
2. Site played (if it was live, mention "B&M" -- brick & mortar)
3. Type of game (full ring is generally assumed, specify if 6-max)
4. A few words on your specific topic

For example,
"PP $25NL, Bluff this Busted Draw?"
"Stars 100 6-max, middle set, rock pushes"
[ I don't play Stars, do they even spread 100 6-max? ]

Body. Make sure you:
1. State clearly what you want to discuss. Were you lost on the turn? Are you wondering what hand your opponent had and what others would put him on? Etc.
2. Include the hand history. Either summarize it briefly yourself, or better yet (for online play) convert the text file from the session, using bisonbison's hand converter. If you have trouble with the converter, read the FAQ or post a question. But DO NOT post raw hand history text and expect others to pore through it trying to figure out what happened; that's Bad Citizen behavior.
3. Include your reads, if any, on relevant players. PokerTracker stats, if you have them, are welcome.
4. Omit hand results in your original post. They can influence responses and hamper an unbiased discussion of the hand. Consider posting actual results after others have had ample chance to discuss.