Ugly comments in hand histories.

[MrWooster]

Amazing - thanks

[infinity235]

Thanks Pokey... You are a great writer and player.

[choccypie]

<3 Pokey

[Micro Donk]

this should stay bumped since it still pops up

[Spurious]

nice post

[johnnybeef]

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first of all, I want to say awesome post.

Especially:

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<font color="blue">Call and play poker on the turn/river.</font>

Wow, great suggestion! Here I thought we were playing hearts....

"Call and play poker" roughly translates as "call, but I have no idea what to do on the next street." You should NEVER call and "see what happens." You should look ahead, see what MIGHT happen, and plan your responses accordingly, and you should do that before you call. If you've got QQ and your OOP opponent donkbets into you for half-pot on a flop of AJ7r, you don't "call and play poker on the turn." You decide NOW what you're going to do on the turn. If your opponent frequently donkbets as a bluff and then gives up on the turn, you should call now and check behind on the turn, intending to call any river bet. If your opponent never donkbets without TPNK or better you should either fold now or raise now (if you have oodles of folding equity because your opponent is extremely weak-tight). If your opponent could have any pair you might call down to the river or you might raise now and fold to a three-bet or you might call intending to raise the turn or river. But you never just "play it by ear" -- you act with a plan or you don't act at all. Much of our postflop poker profit comes from knowing in advance what we're going to do on later streets. Because your opponents are too shortsighted to bother looking ahead they'll make FTOP mistakes postflop that you won't make because you've got a plan and they don't. Since this planning is a major source of your profits you should never give it away by "playing poker."

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someone finally said it.

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great post, but disagree with the call and play poker part, sometimes it's ok to say that. Usually the poster does not give nearly enough information on our opponent to make some decisions. If there's a standard spot where raising and folding are both bad, but it puts us in a marginal spot on the next street then we should "call and play poker". In the sense that various subtleties about the player, the dynamics leading up to the point and how he views us could easily change our marginal decision on the next street. Plus, internet poker is fast. Obviously it would be great to draw out a plan for the entire hand, but it's not always possible.

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Totally agree here Here is the thing. We all know that poker is a game of incomplete information. We also all know that the person with more information has the advantage (i.e. position.) The reason why deep stack poker is more difficult than shallow stack is because the turn and river bring more information about your hand, and better opponents will process that information more effectively. So to say call the flop/play poker is not a good way of going about things is a bit shortsighted in my opinion because the turn and river will bring more information about the strength of your opponents holdings (whether it be a bet size or a timing tell, or whatever.) So all in all, nice post pokey, but I think you are just a bit off on the last point as there are a ton of times when it is correct to call and reevaluate in marginal situations.

[whyzze]

you shouldn't know exactly you are going to do everytime you call a bet.

However, you shouldn't call if you dont have any plan. Before you call, you need to know what cards are going to be good to bluffraisse on, you need to be prepared to call the shove in some circumstances, you need to look ahead. Thats the whole point.

call and reevaluate says, hmmm...i has a good hand...ahhhh im scared....but i has a good hand. Which the majority of the time ends in a fold, when it should have been a shove somewhere, or a fold earlier.

[traz]

I had the same thoughts as US...mostly good, but I in alot of situations calling and playing poker is fine

[Pokey]

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I had the same thoughts as US...mostly good, but I in alot of situations calling and playing poker is fine

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Calling and playing poker doesn't SAY anything. It's an ugly comment because the original poster doesn't know what the hell you mean. When you say "play poker" it's always shorthand for something else.

A bad player says "play poker" when he means "I have no idea what to do after I call." For the bad player this is a horrible choice. It is rarely followed by an easy turn and/or river choice, and after you "call to play poker" you are more likely than usual to make an FTOP mistake, and that FTOP mistake is larger than usual. For bad players, calling to play poker is an expensive mistake.

A good player says "play poker" when he means "use my insights and strategy to make good choices based on the turn card and turn action." That's fine at the tables but it's bad advice, because the original poster often doesn't know what those good choices would be on the turn. For the good poster to turn this ugly statement into a good one requires replacing the short hand with something useful. Unfortunately, this requires writing an extra (*gasp*) four sentences, but it transforms the post from correct-but-useless into correct-and-enlightening.

Take a look:

Ugly comment: "Call and play poker." (From a bad player who doesn't have a clue how to play the turn.)

Bad comment: "Call and play poker." (From a good player who knows how to play the turn but can't be bothered to explain.)

Good comment: "Call. On the turn you can fold if it bricks and your opponent bets more than 3/4ths pot. If it's 1/2-pot, I probably call hoping for a free (or cheap) showdown. I'd use the spades as a bluff card because villain looks weak, so if a spade hits and my opponent bets 1/2-pot I'm raising to $11 and expecting to win it immediately. Obviously if my straight comes in I'm pushing over any turn bet by villain. I shut down if the board pairs, checking behind and probably even folding to any bet."

One final note: in HSNL, MSNL, or even SSNL, "call and play poker" can be a perfectly acceptable comment. in uNL, it's an ugly comment because many posters lack the body of poker knowledge required to properly interpret it and implement it.

[traz]

To be honest, I don't have the time to write out big responses like that. When I say "call and play poker", I mean that there are so many variables affecting the next action that I don't feel like exhausting all of the possibilities.

It's not ideal, but really, I just don't have time to fully explain everything I say. I think the attitude of "people should be posting replies with thorough explanations" is largely BS. I'm going to post anything I feel is helpful, but it's really not my responsibility (nor am I able) to spell everything out. In an open, voluntary forum like this, responsibility falls on the learner to ask questions.

I fully agree that one-liners with questionable theory are terrible.