Helping Fish

I don't mean to seem cold-hearted, as I have recieved my fair share of help in my journey through the limits, but why do you guys flame the fish who post here? Just let them be. By flaming them, you only encourage and motivate them to become better.

Whenever I see someone post something like "I deposited X dollars, ran it up to 5X in 2 weeks, lost it all. What do I do? Help me!", I just laugh to myself and am reminded why poker is so easy.

Poker first and foremost is about money imo. Don't even try to say that it's entertainment or whatever, money comes first at this game, so why flame the fish and encourage them to be better?

Personally, I only offer my advice/thoughts to my peers who I know can offer future insight when I post my own queries. I respect a lot of my peers who post in mid-high limit and am more than happy to give them my two cents about a hand they played, etc etc, because they are my poker equals if you will. But anyone else is a totally different story.

A big reason why poker is sustainable is because of the "learning curve" that players go through. Ie, generally a player will lose a crapload of money before he or she develops any semblance of an understanding for the game. When you introduce a totally ignorant 2+2 poster to tools such as PT and concepts such as TAG multitabling, you shorten their learning curve tremendously and reduce profit for the rest of us who've already "paid our dues".

Now, I'm all over for helping out friends and whatnot. I coach my friends all the time, but why help out some random online person you've never met? Why are they any different to the fish that's sitting across from you at your online poker table?

Just my two cents. Your thoughts?

You do realize that in your post history...which is almost nonexistent, you have both asked for and given your opinion on hand play right?

MDoranD

Sorry, I don't quite get your point.

[PTjvs]

Using your logic, any players better than you are should never answer your questions or help you either, as comparitively, you are a fish to them. In fact, only players who are exactly as good as each other should ever talk to other players, otherwise all players should be kept in seperate, hermetically sealed rooms.

In fact, just to be safe, maybe you should only talk to yourself.

Me, I don't even take that risk. I'm afraid I may not be as good as I think I am, and I'm avoiding helping anyone not as good as me at all costs.

[pudley4]

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but why help out some random online person you've never met?

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Because sometimes you learn more by explaining a concept to someone than they get out of learning that concept.

[pudley4]

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Sorry, I don't quite get your point.

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You got advice from "unknowns", yet you're indirectly criticizing those "unknowns" for helping you.

You've also given advice to "unknowns", yet you're indirectly criticizing yourself for helping those "unknowns".

[Sponger15SB]

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You got advice from "unknowns", yet you're indirectly criticizing those "unknowns" for helping you.

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I see no problem in him doing this. Its like you tell everyone not to berate fish and then you come on this forum and dish out advice to people.

[BottlesOf]

Pudley is back!!!!!!!!!!!


Interesting that you made the reverse change. (It seems more people are gonig from online handle to real name/initial)

You seem to have completely missed the point of this message board. If not to help people improve their game, why in the world do you bother showing up? You could also be driving people away from the game. I know that if I tried to post ten times and no one answered, or better yet, told me I was a fish and to go away, I'd say "to hell with this" and quit.

If you don't feel like helping the weaker players improve, that's your business. But implying that no one else should is much like telling Sklansky to stop writing, and that we go back into the dark ages where no information was available. I can't say the people who have "paid their dues", as you put it, are entitled to having a massive field of weenies to play against.

Think about that.

[TexArcher]

There's no reason not to help the fish. Why would good card players possibly want to scare away interested card players who don't yet know the game??

The bottom line is this -- it's up to the fish to improve. If they take the time to ask a decent question, why withhold the information? If they want it badly enough they'll eventually stumble upon one of the right books anyway.

And what exactly is so bad about helping bad card players become mediocre or average card players? Isn't that preferable for all of us, rather than have them lose one or two buy-ins and then split??