Before you post that hand, READ THIS

[GrunchCan]

There are too many new threads in micros right now, and too many frivolous ones.

I know what many of you are thinking. "This is a poker strategy board. How can posting a poker hand and asking for strategy advice be wrong?"

Everybody has strategy questions. But many of our questions have already been answered. Sometimes, threads get a really great discussion going, with lots of people chiming in with a new angle to consider. Everybody benefits from those threads.

Some people post great advice, and everyone who reads that advice benefits.

Some people post bad advice, and when they are shown the error of thier ways, everybody again benefits. Not only does the bad-advice poster get his play corrected, but so does every lurker who felt the same way. Believe me, there are lots and lots of lurkers like this.

There's almost never just 1 way to play a hand or just 1 thing to think about during play. The more people who respond to a thread, the more angles that are discussed, and the more everyone benefits.

Of course, everybody who has a hand they felt icky with wants to post that hand and get a million responsed from all the Big Name posters. So people post. And post. And post. It's like they keep calling, praying to hit thier 1-outer that will win a big pot. So the board gets innundated with posts. Post after post after post falls off the bottom of the page with only 20 views and just 1 or 2 responses. Nobody can keep up with all the posts. Its impossible for any single thread to gain any momentum and gather lots of discussion, and the whole forum suffers.

This doesn't benefit anyone. Everybody has to initiate fewer threads, and reply more often to existing threads. Don't be afraid of posting bad advice. If you post something that's wrong, you will quicklly be corrected. That's OK! Nobody thinks you are an idiot for posting bad advice, and everybody has just benefitted by reading the correction.

So please, for the good of the forum, start fewer threads and reply to existing threads more often.

[btspider]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

(aka: i concur whole heartedly)

I took a brief break from posting in the micro forum to work on my 6 max game a little bit. I came back the past couple days and have really been surprised by a lot of posts which basically contained hands with zero thought provided. This is not an answer forum. I highly recommend a lot of the vets ignore posts that make no effort to provide reads, attempt an answer, or at least begin the process of breaking down their own question. that's not to say those are appropriate (or available) for every topic.. but make an effort.

reading and responding to existing threads is how i learned to play. i find it much more valuable than posting a hand, unless there is a specific situation that i feel uncortable with. when you feel uncomfortable with a huge range of things, just read/respond to hands and you'll tackle things much faster. save the topics for specific hurdles.. not general learning.

[UncleSalty]

[ QUOTE ]
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[/ QUOTE ]

Doh! You took my line.

As a n00b to the forums I must admit that when I finally decided to start asking for advice, my first inclination was to post about 10 hands from one session.

Obviously I restrained myself and only posted one. That one hand post, and the discussion and advice that followed, has resulted in a leaps and bounds improvement in my game in the last two weeks. It is imperative that newbies be shown upfront that the quality of advice they receive is not correlated to the promiscuity of the poster. Definitely sticky this thread or add the advice to the updated FAQ.

-Salty

[Buckmulligan]

This advice seems to go against what I see as being the purpose of these forums. Whenever I see a new player asking for advice, people tell him to "post hands that make him feel icky," as is the case with the articles in the 2+2 magazine.

Also, the "icky I dont know what is going on posts" are much less annoying to me than the "did I miss .5 SB with this flopped quads" junk that I see.

[GrunchCan]

[ QUOTE ]
Whenever I see a new player asking for advice, people tell him to "post hands that make him feel icky," as is the case with the articles in the 2+2 magazine.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your absolutely right about that. And I must admit that I commit this sin myself. But when I first realized (a while ago) that more threads are paradoxically worse for the forum and me personally, I started to change my advice. Now instead of telling people, "Post more hands." I try to tell people "Reply to threads more often."

I suggest that everyone else do the same, or something along those lines.

[deepsquat]

as a relative "n00b" any and every post is an opp for me to answer and learn more and have my answers challenged by the vets if need be. The more posts the merrier.

The "did i extract enough value" threads are garbage but every other post serves a purpose for me.

The purpose of this forum as i understand is to learn and share ideas.

[btspider]

[ QUOTE ]
This advice seems to go against what I see as being the purpose of these forums. Whenever I see a new player asking for advice, people tell him to "post hands that make him feel icky," as is the case with the articles in the 2+2 magazine.

[/ QUOTE ]

i always cringe when i see that.. i think the advice should be "read a bunch of existing topics, try to answer them, then read the responses". when you feel 'icky' on a lot of hands, you really just need to be exposed to more hands and more situations. that's best done by reading existing hands.

[Buckmulligan]

[ QUOTE ]
Your absolutely right about that. And I must admit that I commit this sin myself. But when I first realized (a while ago) that more threads are paradoxically worse for the forum and me personally, I started to change my advice. Now instead of telling people, "Post more hands." I try to tell people "Reply to threads more often."

I suggest that everyone else do the same, or something along those lines.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now we are in the same page; Spider just complained to me about one of my posts and had a valid point as well, as I became one of my pet peeves. Instead of posting a hand and explaining my thoughts throughout the hand for criticism, I just threw the hand down and said: WTF shouldyou F'in do here?

If new players post hand threads, they won't get anything out of them unless they have their thoughts addressed, not just their play; After all, in a limit game you will never have more than 4 options (check/bet/call/fold) and usually don't have more than two. Good and bad players make the right decision fairly often in limit holdem simply because quite often there aren't enough ways that they can make mistakes. So I say post thoughts on other people's threads, or post thoughts on your own thread, but if they are on your own thread, make them comprehensive.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
If new players post hand threads, they won't get anything out of them unless they have their thoughts addressed, not just their play;

[/ QUOTE ]

Many of my earlier hand posts were preceded (each hand) by a little blurb about what the hell I thought I was doing.

Sometimes it said stuff like "I'm not sure I should have called this pf, but..." and went on to talk about the main question: on the flop or the turn or whatnot.

I got a lot of "fold preflop" responses.

Not really what I wanted to hear.

Probably the funiest one was when I was at work on my lunch break and I posted in mp1 just because I didn't want to waste 5 min of my lunch break waiting to play.

I had people telling me to fold preflop even though I'd posted! (as indicated in the blurb and the hand history)

So I guess the corrolary of this is that if they do post their thoughts, don't simply repond to the action. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

--Dave.

... and bump.

[pokerrookie]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This advice seems to go against what I see as being the purpose of these forums. Whenever I see a new player asking for advice, people tell him to "post hands that make him feel icky," as is the case with the articles in the 2+2 magazine.

[/ QUOTE ]



i always cringe when i see that.. i think the advice should be "read a bunch of existing topics, try to answer them, then read the responses". when you feel 'icky' on a lot of hands, you really just need to be exposed to more hands and more situations. that's best done by reading existing hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

But at the same time, I have taken the above advice. Unfortunately, my comments rarely receive responses. Is this because I am right on in my answers (I doubt that). On the other hand, when a veteran posts a similar answer about 1 hour later than me, every person on the forum stops by to congratulate him/her on their excellent post. Sure, that validates my opinions, but the practice seems to go against what you guys are looking for. Clearly, reputations have been established around here, and I am not suggesting that I deserve on. On the other hand, everyone was a pokerrookie once. And while you guys have been around the board longer than others, always keep this in mind. Some of the posters (not you or the OP, as I recall) treat everyones questions as if they have the same level of experience with poker and the boards as they do. In fact, some of the cruelest, most immature comments are directed at people with the fewest post totals. This seems to go against the purpose of the forums, and discourages people from offering up their insights in response threads. Perhaps then, they are more comfortable simply posting a hand, offering no opinions for their play, but wanting some advice, without being flamed. Just a thought, but I don't think civility is practiced much around here. And not that I am often offended by it, I laugh at some of the immature responses by people like adamstewart, etc...but I do understand how it might discourage people from "getting involved." Is that what these cruel posters are looking for? Perhaps, but I think the majority of people who post here are in favor of helping out the newbies and vets alike. Perhaps one of you (bt or the OP) could make some sort of statement against some of the assinine flaming that goes on here. I think if some effort along these lines is made, you will see the noobs more readily participate in hand discussions as opposed to posting their own (seemingly redundant) hands.

Just a few words from the soapbox. Don't know what inspired me, but I just got my first 2001FP tonight, finally came out of a long losing/break even streak, lucksacked my way to beating cnfuzzd in the CHUMP, so I am on top of (my own little poker) world.