Thursday morning reflections (low content)

[chief444]

I think I'm finally starting to get some things we see every day about this game through my thick skull.

1) My variance is like 17.2 BB/100. It sucks sometimes. It's great other times. It doesn't matter. I'm no more an expert player on a really good night than I am a bad player on a really bad night. I lost about 150 BB in the last two days. It's the fourth time online I've had a big downswing and the first time I truly don't care.

2) Sfer I think said it well yesterday as have others (Clarkmeister) that one reason this forum hasn't been as good lately is that very boring, mundane, standard hand or stats posts get 50 replies while anything worth discussing goes straight to page 3 with one or two responses. I decided not to respond any more to posts that aren't really that interesting to me because I've gotten into the habit of posting too much quantity and not nearly enough quality (and I'm sure this falls under the former). But I'm no better than anyone when it comes to this. Of course we'll see if I get bored in another two hours and start posting responses left and right.

3) I commend Jordan for the job he did gathering stats of winning players to create one spreadsheet showing averages. Now hopefully we can use it. I think if anyone has any questions on their PT stats it should be specific and not just one screenshot saying "how does this look?". They've been posted and discussed enough that if anyone has any sincere questions or concerns they should at least take the time to compare to what has been accumulated before posting rather than leave the comparsison up to others. Then, if there are any specific concerns they can be addressed...i.e. "my VP$IP in the SB is 9% lower than the average...in an unraised pot with 2-3 limpers do you complete the following hands: xx,xx,xx,...? If UTG raises and two coldcall do you call with 78s,QTs,xx,xx...?". Or at least a put a little more thought and effort into it since we now have a pretty good set of data that is I think it's safe to say representative of what the general forum opinion will be anyway.

4) I'm glad sthief didn't stop posting and is still "wasting too much of his time" on 2+2.

5) I miss when people used to bet and raise for value and not only to protect their hands. Both are important, but recently the former seems to have been forgotten. Of course they're often one in the same but not always.

6) I think Nate made a great point in the AT hand post that a lot of people here (myself included) should be playing more aggressively on the river. I know I had two hands last night where I missed a draw but would have picked up the pot if I only had the stones to put in one lousy bet in the end.

7) I'd bet money that more than half of the posters here never once during an online session think about the range of hands of an opponent and run through the combinations they beat compared to the combinations they don't beat when making a decision. I'm talking about putting some quick numbers behind the decision...not just maybe he has AK,AQ or AA...etc. I mean thinking quickly I beat X combinations of AK and AQ and lost to Y combinations of AA. X/Y=Z therefore I should....

I'll shut up now.

[jaxUp]

good rant.

[pshabi]

In regards to #3:

That thread should be a sticky or in the SSHE posting guidelines.

[chief444]

For anyone actually wasting their time reading this, I just wanted to clarify one statement:

[ QUOTE ]
5) I miss when people used to bet and raise for value and not only to protect their hands. Both are important, but recently the former seems to have been forgotten. Of course they're often one in the same but not always.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't mean to diminish the importance of protecting hands in big pots. But what concerns me in general is that a lot of posters seem to think of hands more in terms of "protection" rather than "expectation". Poker is obviously about winning money and not pots. In other words if you think in terms of expectation the times you should protect become obvious. I'd rather win a 10 BB pot 75% of the time than a 14 BB pot 50% of the time, therefore I should "protect" because it increases my expectation. Or vice-versa.

[cocked&locked]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd bet money that more than half of the posters here never once during an online session think about the range of hands of an opponent and run through the combinations they beat compared to the combinations they don't beat when making a decision. I'm talking about putting some quick numbers behind the decision...not just maybe he has AK,AQ or AA...etc. I mean thinking quickly I beat X combinations of AK and AQ and lost to Y combinations of AA. X/Y=Z therefore I should....

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a great eye-opening thought for me. I'm quite sure that this is one of my biggest problems and something that I'd like to improve upon.

I've been reading this board and 2+2 books for over a year now. Although you all don't know me, I'm almost embarrased to admit to myself that I have never incorporated this into my game - some things just take more time to click than others.

Thanks for the reflection.

[Moozh]

[ QUOTE ]
2) Sfer I think said it well yesterday as have others (Clarkmeister) that one reason this forum hasn't been as good lately is that very boring, mundane, standard hand or stats posts get 50 replies while anything worth discussing goes straight to page 3 with one or two responses. I decided not to respond any more to posts that aren't really that interesting to me because I've gotten into the habit of posting too much quantity and not nearly enough quality (and I'm sure this falls under the former). But I'm no better than anyone when it comes to this. Of course we'll see if I get bored in another two hours and start posting responses left and right.


[/ QUOTE ]

I guess everyone has their favorite number in this thread. Mine is number 2.

How many people have noticed that when someone posts a hand that is obviously misplayed, it gets 10+ replies from people explaining what the poster did wrong? Look at Chris Dow's post where he was asking people to review his stats, which included a near 30% VPIP. How many people does it take to tell him that it's too high?

When you're responding to posts, take some time to think about why you're responding. It seems like many people here respond to improve their confidence. While that's a good thing to strive for, posting obvious answers to obviously misplayed hands is not the right way to achieve it. If no one else has responded, then sure, go ahead and say something. If two people have already given a clear answer to an obvious problem, there's no need to say much more.

Instead of hoping to be right in your responses, I think people should realize that it would be much more beneficial for them to be wrong. Think about it, if you're constantly responding to posts without error, what are you really learning? If anyone here can answer every post correctly without fail (aside from maybe Nate and C-Meister), then that person is definitely playing far below his or her ability. Instead, it's when you're actually wrong that you're able to identify and fix a potential leak in your own game. Isn't that what we're striving for here? While you should try to answer the posts correctly, it's the ones that you actually answer incorrectly that will give you the greatest rewards.

Thus, no one should be afraid to answer a thread because they're unsure of the ansewr. In fact, the hands where you're most unsure are actually the threads that you should really try to respond to. If you respond and someone later comes and gives another way to play it that is better, doesn't everybody gain from that? It's only one's pride that is hurt when one answers incorrectly.

That being said, people should never be looked down upon for failing to come up with correct answers. I would have a lot more respect for a person who continually tries but answers wrong yet doesn't give up than for a person who only answers easy questions. People are to be respected for trying to answer questions they might not fully understand. If they make an obvious mistake, be polite, point it out, but there's no need to linger on it.

[Fat Nicky]

nice post, i agree with just about everything. Especially the point about stat posts getting 50 replies and interesting hands getting 3 replies.

[crunchy1]

[ QUOTE ]
Thus, no one should be afraid to answer a thread because they're unsure of the ansewr. In fact, the hands where you're most unsure are actually the threads that you should really try to respond to. If you respond and someone later comes and gives another way to play it that is better, doesn't everybody gain from that? It's only one's pride that is hurt when one answers incorrectly.

[/ QUOTE ]

However, IMO, it's the generally prevelant negativity on this board that prevents this from occurring with great frequency. People are afraid to be wrong because they don't want to be berated for their incorrect comments. This is especially true of new posters and even more true of new posters who have been lurking for awhile.

A secondary effect of this is that it leads to the excessive pointless posts. Posts of winning hands that have no real content but allow the poster to "show off" his win. Even if the posters of these types of hands get berated for playing it incorrectly they can still feel good about winning the hand (regardless of how good/poor it was played).

[crunchy1]

[ QUOTE ]
nice post, i agree with just about everything. Especially the point about stat posts getting 50 replies and interesting hands getting 3 replies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this pretty much coincides with my previous post. It's much easier to be "correct" (and in consequence "feel good about yourself") replying to obvious uninteresting posts.

...That's how I got to 500+!!! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[MoreWineII]

I'd like to add a couple things:

1. Quit obsessing over stats.

2. Quit slowplaying. Someone made a comment that fastplaying is the new slowplaying, I agree 100% with that.