i will play you 1v1 heads up anytime. then we will see who is correct!
Good post lad44 and I really don’t disagree, but I want to clarify what I said.
Notice I didn’t say 90% of the advice was bad. I said a newbie should ignore it.
Most of the advice given here is too narrowly tailored to be of use to a newish/lowish-bankroll player. The hands presented for instruction are usually analyzed with a heavy dose of hindsight(Good Result=Good Play, Bad Result=Bad Play).
Much of the advice seen on these forums is white noise to low-stakes players. It is too much of virtually useless inormation. It generally boils down to “Play Tighter” & “Have a Scientific Calculator at Your Side”.
Also, the advice can be very confusing. The same hand in the same position is praised for a strong bet by the elite players at a high-stakes table, then lambasted as fish-play at a low-stakes table by those same elites. When pressed with the math, they will retreat, saying it was a bluff or semi-bluff(the fail-safe excuse for preaching tight play and doing the opposite).
The bottom line here is that specific and situation advice doesn’t translate well from one stake level to another, one tourney to another, one tourney stage to another, or even one table to another. Yet most of the advice we see here is way too specific to the author’s narrow experience.
The basics:
*The math counts.
*Position counts.
*The table flavor counts.
*Each opposing players tendencies count.
*One’s table image counts.
Only the math stays the same. Once a newbie has a reasonable understanding of the math, the next step is to develop skill in evaluating the other factors.
It is not helpful to a newbie to follow the result-based advice given from a hand from which he lacks important context.
There are nuggets of good advice on here for newbies & low-bankroll players(most of the players on Replay, I’d guess). The trick is wading through the pages to find it. Such as:
-Advice on taking notes on other players.(This is huge for a low-stakes player, probably the most helpful advice to be given)
-Wide, average & narrow opening ranges for tables of 4,5,6,7,8 & 9.
-Final table & head to head strategies.
-Bluffing and bluff-calling strategies(massively under-addressed on this bluff-heavy site)
-Bankroll Management(This is well-covered on the forum…some excellent advice)
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Thanks for clarifying. A lof of what you said does make sense to me.
There is a lot of truth to this. It’s not always the case, but it is most of the time. Hindsight is huge in hand review, though. The thought process behind one’s play is much more important than the results themselves, and I know I don’t need to tell you that. 
I have posted a few hands that have had good results where I didn’t like the play, from myself and from other players. The advice is very much tailored to very specific situations, and while that is certainly good and important, I agree that it can be confusing to a newbie. The problem, I think, is that advanced players have the knowledge and insight, but it is difficult to condense so much complex information into something that is useful to a newbie. They can talk about an aspect of the game for hours, but on the forums they are sometimes trying to condense that into minutes, and that can be tough for newbies.
The math doesn’t necessarily stay the same, though. If we are watching poker on TV where you can see the cards, the only thing that changes the basic math is the number of players involved. But when playing, a lot of things can mathematically factor into the game. Basic probability of the cards doesn’t change with anything but number of people involved. But many other factors influence the math. Mathematical factors are based on variables that constantly change from one situation to the next. Fold/bluff equity, implied odds, expected value, bet sizing, and other game aspects all change with situational variables. It changes with opponents, stakes, antes, straddles, tournament stage, relative stacks, among other factors. Again, I know you are fully aware of this and I don’t need to remind you of something you obviously already know! But, what I think you’re saying is that the information presented on these forums is too condensed for a newbie to make good use of it, and that I can certainly agree with. It would be much more beneficial for a newbie to learn the very basics through books or online courses and practice those basics before trying to decipher information presented in these forums. With a better understanding of the basics, they’ll have a better understanding of the information and advice contained in these forums.
There have been a few things posted that are not overly complicated and that are tailored to newbies. The Juicee Basics post was pretty good for people just starting out. Also, I have received some information from a good player that was not overly complex at all. It didn’t even involve much poker terminology or calculations; it was just a general thought process step that applies to ANY situation and that practically anyone can understand. I won’t disagree that advice of this nature can be presented on the ‘few and far between’ side of things, though!
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I don’t think that the advice in this thread is intended for playing 1v1 against a strong player so I am not sure what this would prove. Most players at Replay are playing 9max or 6max against a table of loose-passive players. What would be your advice to these players?
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It would prove who has the strength of their convictions…
Let me rephrase. I am not convinced that playing like a maniac is a good strategy against a table of calling stations. It’s fine 1v1 but that is not what we are talking about. Holding a 1v1 match is not going to provide any useful data about full ring strategy.
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And? There are lots of people who strongly believe things that are objectively wrong. just walk on to any college campus and you’ll be surrounded by people who know next to nothing except that they have strong convictions about “like stuff 'n things”.
I need to make a Post-It note of this and stick it to the screen. Top pair, any kicker is good enough for a station to call an over-bet shove on the river when every last draw filled (I had nothing but air and position). Oops.
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fold 60% lol… hehe the original poster is right about 90% of the time and wrong 10% LOL
Haha, if I can be wrong only 10% of the time then I am doing well
Please can you provide some more specifics about what to do differently and why it works better?
ok, this is completely player depended. We all know the player type called calling station, and there are super calling station. Against those players we all know we can make very thin value bet because they won’t fold ace high. But another type of player which not everyone knows about is called super folding station. Those player are just as bad as the calling station except they lose there chips much slower. Against super folding station it is actually correct to play every hand because when you make a raise on the flop or turn or river, they imagine you have the nuts and fold. Those super folding station will fold almost everything thats not close to the nuts!
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Fantastic. I’ve never heard that term before but I love it. I definitely know a few of these players.
Do you make any bet sizing adjustments against this type of player - for example using more overbets?
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Then I guess for $99.99 I can become all knowing. LOL.
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I only spent $9.95 to become all guessing. That’s a better deal I guess.
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I have read most of this topic, and tried some of the suggestions, other suggestions I discarded.
The more I read on “how to play poker”, the more I lose !
So I play my way, and screw all the endless tags a player gets stigmatized with.
Sticks n Stones right ?
Since playing " I did it myyyy waaayyyy", my profits slightly increased.
Do I get frustrated and go all-in at a torny sometimes ?
Sure I do, I’m human…
I blame it on the random number selector…I have counted at least 15 folds and had I played all 15 of them, not one would have won. I have noticed “hot seats” where a player just wins out of shear luck of the random selector.
Not into percentage of this or percentage of that, or all this jargon, on a computer program.
In real, yeah I guess it’s a slightly different ball game, as there is no random number selector, unless ya hiding cards under ya sleeve, like they do in movies, lol
But point is, after reading this thread because of the topic heading, yeah some of it makes sense, but I can’t apply it, I will lose.
BINGO playing is another thing one can probably master occasionally to gain some lost chips…but it won’t prevail…some one will call the BINGO BLUFF and ya gone for all free chips.
So, I play my way, it seems to work, the profit graph shows me.
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This is a clear and egregious mistake by the V in this hand. Playing sub 10 bb pokerz 3 handed hero has tons of value combos that can shove here. He’s calling 4300 to win 800 where that is the best he can do. It’s just unnecessary.