Quote Originally Posted by drmcboy
Quote Originally Posted by LawDude
I wouldn't worry so much about what you write. Over time, a fish is either going to improve their poker game or leave when they become convinced that they can't beat the game. Either way, I doubt chat comments will help much.

As a result, I will sometimes indicate, politely, what was wrong with the play. I'll type "nh". And then follow up with "not sure about calling that preflop raise with 10-7, though; didn't you think I might have Aces?".

I wouldn't do this if I really thought my comments would drain the aquarium. But I also want people to learn about the game-- I don't want everyone to play like Phil Hellmuth or Johnny Chan, but I also don't like playing with a bunch of people who don't know the first thing about what they are doing either, as they can increase variance a lot.
The worse people play the better it is for you. And you will have fewer downswings with a bigger edge. You might have larger fluctuations inside a given session (Although I doubt it) but over even the medium term you'll have much better and more stable results. You're basically talking about moving up to where they respect your raises. Let me know if you want me to explain why that's wrong headed.

In addition, the vast majority of table coaches are tilt prone because they do not understand where the money comes from. If it doesn't matter what you say to fish one way or the other, why bother educating them? If you need to release some bad beat steam, we have a forum just for such purposes.
I am not sure where this comes from, but you are way too convinced of your own abilities to ensure that fish never improve their games.

I have gambled all my life. My parents introduced me to horse racing (their game of choice) as a little kid. At any racetrack, there are people who will never learn, even though they hear a million times how they need to pick their spots, carefully study races, look for betting opportunities, keep records, etc. And there are people who seriously study the game and make an effort to learn. The key insight is that NEITHER group is particularly influenced by what one person will tell them; rather, group 1 is impervious to well-known and publicized strategies to improve their game, and group 2 seeks out information from a variety of sources and does so.

Similarly, if you go to any casino in Nevada, New Jersey, or an Indian reservation, you will see regulars grinding away at the slots, the roulette and craps tables, multi-deck blackjack, and other games where the house is guaranteed to win. Many of those people are there day after day. You think that they haven't heard that the house always wins? What about people who play the lottery every week? You think they don't know that the house takes 50 percent of the pool?

The point is, people who want to learn will learn, either from you or from someone else. People who don't want to learn won't. Nobody's comments in chat will make a bit of difference-- we are only typing these things for our own benefit.