(bit of a rant) read if you dare

i put this here because this is where the traffic is. and because a lot you veterans reside in here instead of "beginners" or "NL Strats." and, i expect to receive a lot of short, sarcastic responses, too. i mean no real harm here...just want something off my chest.

i understand the short posts/responses. i understand the "no time, i'm too busy" attitude. i also understand this has been done before.

but, i dont like them, and i bet i'm not alone. i dont think they teach anyone anything. its nothing personal in either direction, but i try and explain myself thoroughly in my responses, and appreciate the same.

i understand the responding to 50 emails about threads, and trying to play some poker, and have a life...all at once. but, when i get bogged down, i get more selective.

i dont want those of you that do a lot of responding to disregard my posts because i am complaining about short answers. i realize i may be alienating myself here, too.

but, it frustrates me to no end to spend my time responding in great detail, and not have the favor returned by those that know a ton more than i do.

how would you feel if you went to your mentor and he said, "i'm too busy." or, "go find it yourself." i would feel like i was 5 years old again and bothering my father. thats not what mentors are for, imo.

some of you are VERY well respected. and you have worked your asses off to get that respect. a lot of it on your own without mentors of your own. i get that. but, why hinder everybody else because it wasnt easy for you? i dont want my kids, students, friends, etc, to walk uphill both ways in 10 feet of snow barefoot because i had to. i would rather shovel the path since i've already walked up the hill before them.

and, i also know that some of you, like athletes, didnt ASK to be a mentor. thats fine. but, just like athletes, please realize you are in that position because you are good at what you do. and in participation/community, there is a certain degree of responsibility/courtesy.

if it takes so much time to go into detail, then get selective. if you never respond to another post of mine, i guess that will have to do, and i deserve it somewhat for being a little BIOTCH about this.

but, are you here to teach and learn, also? or are you here to give a one-liner and be done? i contend you cant learn if all you get are one-line answers, either.



all that was said is not directed at any ONE person, or any ONE thread. i just want it out there for the others here that may get frustrated and for whatever reason dont/wont speak up.

i'm sure i will regret this like Jerry McGuire and his "mission statement," but its late, and i've had a beer...or two.

Really?

i think a lot of stuff doesnt need to be gone in to depth on and explained.
if you want to know why someone said something just ask them to explain or expand on it.

144 so sick

lol
42
am I the lowest?

I get you Chopper and I agree for a big part.

Though everyone here more or less wants Gabe, Sauce, Fnord, Luke, ISF and the likes responses, and want them to be very in depth. There goes a lot of time into writing down whole reasonings ....I don't think you can expect that they will give it at a lot of threads.

I think a good step would be if comments would be at least like "bet turn, because...", "raise bigger, because....", followed by a short reasoning in a few words.
Though for some people certain things are very clear which aren't for others and I can imagine it's hard and boring to constantly repeat those things if you know them.

And in the end, if you don't get something you can always just ask it....but ask it directly and be precise in what you don't get.

good post

wait, is that too short?

j/k

I know what you mean, but ultimately the top players on FTR don't actually *owe* anything to the newbies, and understandably, in many cases they feel the issue at stake is one that's been said many times before, or has already been dealt with, etc. etc. If you look at some of the discussions the higher stakes players do have, they can get quite detailed - indeed I have trouble following anything that happens over the $200nl limit because so many of the factors that determine their play are different.

While I'd love great, detailed content from good players in every thread, I think the only way to view their posts anfd their contributions to FTR is that when they do post good stuff, we appreciate it, but we don't beat them up for doing so in every thread. Of course, when they are actively rude or unhelpful, then by all means call them on it - but you'll notice the real pros almost never do this.

I reckon it's a sign of being a good thinker if you can summarise your thought process in a few words, and it allows you to respond to as much as possible.

Quite often an advanced player will respond to a low-level post, the OP will go wtf? and the mid-level players will justify, which I reckon is a good system.

I personally think sauce does a great job, short answers but big detailed explanations/thought processes every couple of weeks or so, which is pretty awesome - you can't reply to every OP with an essay.

Also, I reckon any hugely long-winded post in response to a HH (not theory) is a sign of a messy incorrect thought process.

tl;dr

You know, i made a post that was pretty much the exact same as this a year ago. I was also frustrated about the whole thing, but quickly i realized i was being dumb.

I think your first mistake in your reasoning is thinking that the great, respected players on this forum give you short responses because they are "too busy" or "don't care." This just isn't the case, if this were the case you would not get any responses at all.

There's a few reason the responses might be short, i'll take some guesses:

1) It's so obvious to them that at first they don't even realize their answer needs more explanation.
2) They want you to ask more questions because they feel it will make you learn better.
3) The question is simple (ie. "do you shove or fold?") so they give a corresponding simple answer.
4) They don't know what to say besides the simple answer because they don't know where to start.
5) someone already answered the question well already and they just wanted to reinforce that "yes he's correct" by agreeing.

If you really really want to a more thorough answer, just keep asking more questions and they will eventually come. And if they don't, you can even IM or pm one of the guys you feel are "respected" and i'm sure they'll be happy to give you the answer you really want.

But remember, it's your thread and your question. So if you want others to participate in it you're going to have to do the work in making your questions good, clear, and thought provoking, and also ask detailed follow up questions to get the more detailed responses.

Originally Posted by Ash256

I reckon it's a sign of being a good thinker if you can summarise your thought process in a few words, and it allows you to respond to as much as possible.

Quite often an advanced player will respond to a low-level post, the OP will go wtf? and the mid-level players will justify, which I reckon is a good system.

I personally think sauce does a great job, short answers but big detailed explanations/thought processes every couple of weeks or so, which is pretty awesome - you can't reply to every OP with an essay.

Also, I reckon any hugely long-winded post in response to a HH (not theory) is a sign of a messy incorrect thought process.

Even tho' I tend to fall on the side of the verbose, I disagree with this rationalization, because being able to truncate your thoughts into a sentence isn't the sign of being a "good thinker," its the sign of either not actually knowing why you do what you do or being unable to teach why you do what you do to some one who isn't as experienced as you.

I played Chess and taught it to inner city kids for years, and the two most important things in teaching Chess are A) not patronizing your players by simplifying and B) structuring your analysis from A to Z so they can understand the complexity. The amusing thing is, I've seen Grandmasters fail, and I mean fail miserably, at describing ideas to their students but succeed at communicating their ideas to other masters in a single word. If a Grandmaster tells me "isolated or backwards pawn," that communicates about a book's worth of information to me, but it's complete gibberish to you even if it's the right answer. His students followed his advice, and they were losing because of it. Not because it was the wrong answer, but because there was no reasoning, and it put them in a simple/difficult situation with less understanding of that position than their opponents.

Sometimes giving some one the right answer with out the right reasoning or no reasoning at all is more precarious than telling them nothing and letting them figure it out for themselves.

Being right isn't the same thing as being a good writer.

Originally Posted by Massimo

There's a few reason the responses might be short, i'll take some guesses:

1) It's so obvious to them that at first they don't even realize their answer needs more explanation.
2) They want you to ask more questions because they feel it will make you learn better.
3) The question is simple (ie. "do you shove or fold?") so they give a corresponding simple answer.
4) They don't know what to say besides the simple answer because they don't know where to start.
5) someone already answered the question well already and they just wanted to reinforce that "yes he's correct" by agreeing.

If you really really want to a more thorough answer, just keep asking more questions and they will eventually come.

6) They want you to give you just enough information to get your thought processes started off in the right direction to work out the answer for yourself.

nah, we're just lazy

lolz 69 WPP, ship it holla, im the awesomest poster.

not that I exactly have nuggets of gold, butI have been replying short lately

1) usually there is a fixed amount of time I/others can spend on FTR, so one can post more short replies or just a couple long ones. If someone wants more explanation, if time allows one can do so

2) don't look at short replies as rude or get annoyed by them, I think we're all trying to help each other.

whats weird is my WPP has steadily gone down the longer I've been here. I started out making really long posts all the time and now the posts are shorter and shorter.

I'll reply properly to your c/r thread soon.

Originally Posted by breathweapon

Originally Posted by Ash256

I reckon it's a sign of being a good thinker if you can summarise your thought process in a few words, and it allows you to respond to as much as possible.

Quite often an advanced player will respond to a low-level post, the OP will go wtf? and the mid-level players will justify, which I reckon is a good system.

I personally think sauce does a great job, short answers but big detailed explanations/thought processes every couple of weeks or so, which is pretty awesome - you can't reply to every OP with an essay.

Also, I reckon any hugely long-winded post in response to a HH (not theory) is a sign of a messy incorrect thought process.

Even tho' I tend to fall on the side of the verbose, I disagree with this rationalization, because being able to truncate your thoughts into a sentence isn't the sign of being a "good thinker," its the sign of either not actually knowing why you do what you do or being unable to teach why you do what you do to some one who isn't as experienced as you.

I played Chess and taught it to inner city kids for years, and the two most important things in teaching Chess are A) not patronizing your players by simplifying and B) structuring your analysis from A to Z so they can understand the complexity. The amusing thing is, I've seen Grandmasters fail, and I mean fail miserably, at describing ideas to their students but succeed at communicating their ideas to other masters in a single word. If a Grandmaster tells me "isolated or backwards pawn," that communicates about a book's worth of information to me, but it's complete gibberish to you even if it's the right answer. His students followed his advice, and they were losing because of it. Not because it was the wrong answer, but because there was no reasoning, and it put them in a simple/difficult situation with less understanding of that position than their opponents.

Sometimes giving some one the right answer with out the right reasoning or no reasoning at all is more precarious than telling them nothing and letting them figure it out for themselves.

Being right isn't the same thing as being a good writer.

cool post

364 man, that's sicker

at one point, he was at 2500+

breathweapon and aok should have a post-off.

Originally Posted by Warpe

breathweapon and aok should have a post-off.

Don't forget Boost, 656 FTW.

Originally Posted by sauce123

Originally Posted by breathweapon

Originally Posted by Ash256

I reckon it's a sign of being a good thinker if you can summarise your thought process in a few words, and it allows you to respond to as much as possible.

Quite often an advanced player will respond to a low-level post, the OP will go wtf? and the mid-level players will justify, which I reckon is a good system.

I personally think sauce does a great job, short answers but big detailed explanations/thought processes every couple of weeks or so, which is pretty awesome - you can't reply to every OP with an essay.

Also, I reckon any hugely long-winded post in response to a HH (not theory) is a sign of a messy incorrect thought process.

Even tho' I tend to fall on the side of the verbose, I disagree with this rationalization, because being able to truncate your thoughts into a sentence isn't the sign of being a "good thinker," its the sign of either not actually knowing why you do what you do or being unable to teach why you do what you do to some one who isn't as experienced as you.

I played Chess and taught it to inner city kids for years, and the two most important things in teaching Chess are A) not patronizing your players by simplifying and B) structuring your analysis from A to Z so they can understand the complexity. The amusing thing is, I've seen Grandmasters fail, and I mean fail miserably, at describing ideas to their students but succeed at communicating their ideas to other masters in a single word. If a Grandmaster tells me "isolated or backwards pawn," that communicates about a book's worth of information to me, but it's complete gibberish to you even if it's the right answer. His students followed his advice, and they were losing because of it. Not because it was the wrong answer, but because there was no reasoning, and it put them in a simple/difficult situation with less understanding of that position than their opponents.

Sometimes giving some one the right answer with out the right reasoning or no reasoning at all is more precarious than telling them nothing and letting them figure it out for themselves.

Being right isn't the same thing as being a good writer.

cool post

lol sauce just guoted this to up his WPP.

I myself have quoted this to make light of that fact and to up my WPP

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Originally Posted by sauce123

Originally Posted by breathweapon

Originally Posted by Ash256

I reckon it's a sign of being a good thinker if you can summarise your thought process in a few words, and it allows you to respond to as much as possible.

Quite often an advanced player will respond to a low-level post, the OP will go wtf? and the mid-level players will justify, which I reckon is a good system.

I personally think sauce does a great job, short answers but big detailed explanations/thought processes every couple of weeks or so, which is pretty awesome - you can't reply to every OP with an essay.

Also, I reckon any hugely long-winded post in response to a HH (not theory) is a sign of a messy incorrect thought process.

Even tho' I tend to fall on the side of the verbose, I disagree with this rationalization, because being able to truncate your thoughts into a sentence isn't the sign of being a "good thinker," its the sign of either not actually knowing why you do what you do or being unable to teach why you do what you do to some one who isn't as experienced as you.

I played Chess and taught it to inner city kids for years, and the two most important things in teaching Chess are A) not patronizing your players by simplifying and B) structuring your analysis from A to Z so they can understand the complexity. The amusing thing is, I've seen Grandmasters fail, and I mean fail miserably, at describing ideas to their students but succeed at communicating their ideas to other masters in a single word. If a Grandmaster tells me "isolated or backwards pawn," that communicates about a book's worth of information to me, but it's complete gibberish to you even if it's the right answer. His students followed his advice, and they were losing because of it. Not because it was the wrong answer, but because there was no reasoning, and it put them in a simple/difficult situation with less understanding of that position than their opponents.

Sometimes giving some one the right answer with out the right reasoning or no reasoning at all is more precarious than telling them nothing and letting them figure it out for themselves.

Being right isn't the same thing as being a good writer.

cool post

lol sauce just guoted this to up his WPP.

I myself have quoted this to make light of that fact and to up my WPP

if quotes actually increase post count there is a serious bug in the system. i don't think hand histories should count either cuz that's just cheating.

anyways, i'd like to reinforce here that it's better to teach someone to fish than to give them fish. expecting everyone to explain their thought process in great detail is like giving someone fish.

Originally Posted by |~|ypermegachi

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Originally Posted by sauce123

Originally Posted by breathweapon

Originally Posted by Ash256

I reckon it's a sign of being a good thinker if you can summarise your thought process in a few words, and it allows you to respond to as much as possible.

Quite often an advanced player will respond to a low-level post, the OP will go wtf? and the mid-level players will justify, which I reckon is a good system.

I personally think sauce does a great job, short answers but big detailed explanations/thought processes every couple of weeks or so, which is pretty awesome - you can't reply to every OP with an essay.

Also, I reckon any hugely long-winded post in response to a HH (not theory) is a sign of a messy incorrect thought process.

Even tho' I tend to fall on the side of the verbose, I disagree with this rationalization, because being able to truncate your thoughts into a sentence isn't the sign of being a "good thinker," its the sign of either not actually knowing why you do what you do or being unable to teach why you do what you do to some one who isn't as experienced as you.

I played Chess and taught it to inner city kids for years, and the two most important things in teaching Chess are A) not patronizing your players by simplifying and B) structuring your analysis from A to Z so they can understand the complexity. The amusing thing is, I've seen Grandmasters fail, and I mean fail miserably, at describing ideas to their students but succeed at communicating their ideas to other masters in a single word. If a Grandmaster tells me "isolated or backwards pawn," that communicates about a book's worth of information to me, but it's complete gibberish to you even if it's the right answer. His students followed his advice, and they were losing because of it. Not because it was the wrong answer, but because there was no reasoning, and it put them in a simple/difficult situation with less understanding of that position than their opponents.

Sometimes giving some one the right answer with out the right reasoning or no reasoning at all is more precarious than telling them nothing and letting them figure it out for themselves.

Being right isn't the same thing as being a good writer.

cool post

lol sauce just guoted this to up his WPP.

I myself have quoted this to make light of that fact and to up my WPP

if quotes actually increase post count there is a serious bug in the system. i don't think hand histories should count either cuz that's just cheating.

anyways, i'd like to reinforce here that it's better to teach someone to fish than to give them fish. expecting everyone to explain their thought process in great detail is like giving someone fish.

That makes no sense, how do you plan on "teaching some one how to fish" with one line posts? If you give some one your thought process, you aren't just giving them "fish," you're showing them how it's done instead of telling them how it's done.

The Socratic Method is for teachers that can't teach, and the Montessouri Method is for teachers that don't want to teach.

hmmm, i guess that point could be construed both ways. i've always gained a whole more knowledge by trying to understand short answers rather than having the whole thing explained to me. your poker knowledge and insight might be different from the other poster, so the interpretation of the material may not be 100% the same.

Hey guys,

Just read this thread.
I tend to write some really really long posts, and tbh I think the real reason they are so long is because I have a hard time portraying my thoughts and feelings. I always loved the really good players who could post one line posts that said so much in so little. Gabe's one line posts were probably the most helpful posts in my career, because they sparked my thoughts so well. It's almost like a really good poem, the great ones always say so much in so little.

That being said, I understand breathweapon's point. You're going to learn faster if someone really spells something out for you.

BUT the negativity shown about the socratic or montessouri method is very wrong. A student/teacher relationship isn't all on the teacher, its a lot about the student. If the student doesnt want to think about what his teacher tells him or isnt willing to learn the teacher cant do shit. It's why you see all these dumbass straight A students who've figured out that they can get an A without actually being a student.

You can't just spoonfeed someone poker knowledge. You have to figure out deeper levels of knowledge about the game. Yeah, I can show you every branch of the tree but if you understand the tree you understand all the branches. Yet, some people insist on thinking about poker as a series of branches rather than the tree, and this is why we have a bunch of 1ptBB/100 winners at 1/2 who get dominated anytime they think of moving up.

Poker at its source is so simple. When guys like gabe and sauce look at a hand dont see any complications like you guys do, so its hard to express such basic concepts as they have become human nature.

If you guys remember in my post ISF theorem I wondered the same things you did. I didn't understand why someone didn't just articulate this concept to me. I feel like I am good at articulating concepts and do so whenever I can.

While I understand everyones sentiments, if I just tell you what to do its not enough, it actually probably makes you worse because you have no idea why you are doing what you are doing.

And hey, remember when i was just some dumb spewtard guy who made ridiculous bluffs and threebet like a monkey? I know a lot of guys like this, and guess what, all of them turned out like me, up in midstakes and have actual potential to do well. Why do the non spewtards do so poorly? Because they are too passive in their learning and not willing to experiment or think.


OKAY, that was a rant and argued that people were claiming things they obviously weren't, but take it for what its worth. I always articulate concepts in my posts but if i dont ask me and ill do it, do your job as a student.

Chopper, just so you know, I've made this same thread 2-3 times before. I now am a short answer poster fwiw.

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

And hey, remember when i was just some dumb spewtard guy who made ridiculous bluffs and threebet like a monkey?

Yeah you still are lololol

just recognize who is good at poker, then understand what advice they give. if you can't see the reasons they give certain advice, ask questions. if they don't answer, ask more questions. keep asking questions. i dont just give away everything i come up with to people who dont ask questions. if you wanted a response to something and never got one, use the PM.

ps i have the lowest WPP and am quite proud.

no you dont

Nothing wrong with short posts, or long ones. The only thing that pisses me off is when one person posts a hand, people post advice, the OP responds and then some guy says "Stop ignoring the advice of people who are trying to help you." Usually that OP isn't ignoring anyone, he just doesn't understand the advice he was given and he's trying to clarify it.

The Socratic Method and the Montessouri Method do not work in technical teaching/learning, it has nothing to do with whether or not the student wants to/doesn't want to think about what the teacher is showing/telling him, it's that the Socratic Method presumes that the student has the analytical skills to understand the situation and all he needs to know is where to look/what to take into account, and the Montessouri Method just assumes if the student tries/fails long enough he'll gain a complete understanding of the subject.

Telling some one that Poker is "simple" is the same thing as telling some one that the Differential Equations for Spring Coefficients and Harmonic Resonance is "simple." Poker is like math, relationships are more important than numbers and methods are more important than answers.
Poker isn't that deep of a game, and by deep I mean the decision trees are small compared to other games like Chess, so not including the decision tree is just being inept. You don't turn a math test in with just the answers and expect to get an A, do you?

Reasoning is everything, results are nothing.

@ breathweapon, I see where you're coming from with your post.

I still stand by what I said about overly long posts, because generally the overly long posts that I've seen are from microstakes players who are yet to grasp the basics, for example: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...=586920#586920 (Exceptions made for theory and explanation posts)
[no offence to the poster that I've linked to, we have all been there]

Minimalism still works IMO, for example, the most profitable thing I've ever been told was "put your opponents on ranges on every street". From that I can intuit that tough, smart opponents will be putting me on ranges on every street when I eventually climb up to the low-mid stakes and at the midstakes they'll probably be putting themselves on ranges according to me and adjusting their actual ranges accordingly.. Can you see how one sentence has basically totally changed up my poker thought process? (Props to ISF)

Possibly a "how to think about poker" strat post would be useful.

I've personally found that in horrendously tough spots that have been posted here that I make medium (rather than small) posts, and they're generally crap (messy thought process).

Anyway, I'll post something else later probably, I have to click on Submit now because a rambling messy posting thought process is rapidly turning this post into fart-arsing.

whats my wpp?

Edit: 72 ftw

Imo the replies here on a HH are better then the ones on 2p2 nowadays.
2p2 used to be good but lately its more some sort of "LOLSHOVE" or "[ ] Op played the hand well", wich gets boring after a while.

So afterall this place aint that bad

Tbh I completely disagree with chopper. If all ftr sickos posted one-liners to all my threads I would be delighted and would immediately THINK FOR MYSELF about why they play it that way.

Spot the subliminal messaging

guess i still have the best wpp around

man i make some long posts and mine is still pretty low

quotes count?

thispostshouldlowermywpp