Creating Value in the Forum

[NoahSD]

I'm pretty sure I learned to get good by reading a bunch of very short posts in MTTF. You can learn a ton if you just go through MTTF and read every time a good poster writes one a one sentence response like "You're never ahead here" or "I always bluff here" or "Raising here doesn't accomplish anything."

There are two obstacles to this actually working:

1) It's hard to know who the good posters are. I'm not going to list good/bad posters because a lot've people'd get pissed off. One way that you can figure out who's good is by looking to see who almost always agrees with the posters who everybody knows are like never wrong--Ansky, MLG and Strassa are probably the best.

2) It's hard to extract the information out of these posts. You just have to work backwards and think why you're never ahead in a certain spot or why a raise makes no sense, etc. For me at least, thinking like this made thinking the other way ("I wonder if I'm ever ahead in this spot?") a lot easier.

Like ansky said, learning to be great (not that I'm there yet) requires a lot of talk about individual hands that you don't really find on 2p2. But most people who are complaining about this forum can learn a ton just by doing what I said.

[Bungler]

Since I lurk most of the time I know that you can get better just by reading. However, the times I have come out of my shell and posted a hand or got involved in discussion have been more valuable. For me it seems that the lessons learned by participating, even if it is one emphasizing some simple preflop play, just sink in better. Sometimes the harsh nature of the posters do chase people away, but instead of being coddled, having that sarcastic one liner sink in may save a newer player some time in the long run. Of course, if they really don't understand, there probably will be someone to explain it for them.

[Nogatsira]

Very good thread!
I just started posting at these forums and if there's one thing I like, then it are good long and usefull answers!

If I get some more expierience and start posting replies, then I'll remind myself of this thread [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[JCool]

Two other obvious problems with the forum.

-Its a popularity contest to get your threads read by the best, smartest and most "known" players. This is to the detreiment of new posters who are unknown and still trying to learn the basics.

- The brain drain of the most talented MTTers who migrate to cash games and take their enormous knowledge of the game with them...again to the detriment of the newbies, and everone else in the forum for that matter.

[StrayBullet]

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You will retain more by being involved/arguing than simply lurking.

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Shrug off the insults and keep asking the better players to explain "I fold".

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Mutually exclusive.

[stevepa]

seke, I plan on putting in a lot more time actually thinking about poker now that I have little else to do (yay graduating!) I've really noticed a drop off in my play recently and hopefully thinking about poker again and maybe posting a little more will get me out of that. So basically, I'm going to try to do what you're recommending.

Steve

[Rizen]

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I think one of the problems is that people get tired of saying the same thing over and over again. While they understand the inner details, going through it all over and over again is just tedious, however, it helps people who never do that kind of stuff.

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In my opinion, this is exactly why we no longer see players like MLG, Ansky, Adanthar, Rizen and the likes posting regularly in the strategy forums.

Not to call him out specifically, but I was surprised to discover that Rizen hasn't posted a strategy post on the forums in over a year now! I don't take that to mean that he no longer cares about these forums, but rather that he's already contributed his entire poker knowledge fifty times over in the many posts he's made in the past. There is very little in the way of new and revolutionary thinking here and I'm sure it detracts from his hourly rate to spend a large amount of time reviewing many of todays posts.

There's a natural progression that occurs in these forums. It happened in generations past when FossilMan and Ray Zee used to post here regularly... as did various other pros that have since moved on to bigger and brighter careers.

As is the case with natural progression new people need to come forward and carry the torch. There are quite a few talented players here today that make attempts to do just that but the onus can't be completely on these select few people to generate interesting discussion. That's why it's important for the unknown posters to step forward and start posting more. By that I don't mean just create more new topics. Respond to other posts. Take a risk at being called out. Even if you are wrong, the discussion generated can often be more educational than just sitting back waiting to be spoon-fed a two-word answer by one the forum superstars.

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Or it could have something to do with the fact that I have two kids now and very little time to do more than lurk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I still visit, but forum reading/posting in general has been cut way down due to real life obligations, not for any of the reasons mentioned in this post.

-Rizen

[Soulman]

I don't think it's unnatural for guys with a lot of success to progress beyond the forums anyway. How many have done so? Can't remember too many myself since I started posting a year ago, I bet some of the veterans will remember tons of them.

Life reasons on top of that will certainly make it even more probable that people fade away from posting.