I spent some time recently teaching Cub Scouts to play chess. Of course, first thing I heard from these 7- to 10-year-olds was “I already know how to play chess.” Yet, once we got past the piece names and how they move, it wasn’t pretty. They showed little basic strategy, no thought about why they made the moves they made, nor what their opponent might do in response. The boys didn’t know how to play. They just thought they did. <READMORE>You see that attitude toward knowledge, or lack thereof, in all aspects of life. People think playing with their iPod, putting on makeup and eating a Big Mac are all reasonable activities while driving. Sometimes, simultaneously!!! Americans vote with no clue about the candidates and issues. Millions of adults - who consider themselves educated - can’t name the capital of their own state or find it on a map. And a lot of poker players make the same mistakes over and over and over again, convinced they play correctly.
This is a good thing. The mistakes of others at the table are profitable for you, as a general rule. But it’s also very frustrating when you’re trying to help someone be a better player. I spend a lot of time at PocketFives in the Hand Advice forum, talking about posted hands. When I have the nerve, I post my own questions and mistakes for the scrutiny of others. I’m active in Hand Advice (and write these articles) to help as many people as possible improve their games, starting with the man in the mirror. When people don’t want to improve as much as you want them to…well, it can get a little ugly.
Anyone who reads the Hand Advice forum doubtlessly recalls a recent thread about a $5 SNG wherein someone folded KK pre-flop. The blinds were 50/100, the player with KK had 2000 chips and raised to 350. Another player re-raised to 1000, and the kings hit the muck. My adjective to describe this play was “hideous”…the re-raise is correct with AK, QQ and possibly JJ, depending on how the table has been playing. In low buy-in games – in addition to the correct moves - you see people overplaying any pair, any ace and any two painted cards. Because KK is a prohibitive favorite against the likely range of hands held by your opponent, folding is a mistake.
The more people piled on and proclaimed this the worst single play in history, the more the player who made the laydown got ugly in return. I felt bad for the player under fire, in a way. He was obviously proud of his Hellmuthian ability to get away from a monster hand; he was similarly insulted when no one agreed with him. Pride was blocking him from hearing what everyone else said. Pride will likely cause him to make the same mistake again. Successful poker players do not let their preconceptions interfere with reality.
To cut through the pride barrier, my posts in Hand Advice are expressed as directly as possible. People who are looking for validation of their bad plays won’t hear the truth through sugarcoated euphemisms. If someone’s play is bad, I am obligated to express my disapproval. In return, I go out of my way to find any positives in the way someone played a hand.
I strive to provide some balance in my thoughts. I must admit the balance isn’t always there and I can sometimes be crueler than I should be. If there is a gentler – and still accurate - word than “hideous,” I should have used it. “Hideous” one-upped the strongest thing anyone else had said, which gave others license to be even harsher than I was. The more people added to the thread, the uglier the responses got, demonstrating a mob-like zeal. No wonder the player under attack returned fire with both barrels. As the thread turned personal, focus was lost on a situation that everyone faces and many have trouble understanding.
We often look to the wrong sources for knowledge and education. (Information, by the way, is not wisdom.) It’s only natural to question the source of a statement; it’s one of our primary defense mechanisms. However, if you discount someone’s ideas simply because some of their results don’t match your own, you’re might be making a big mistake. What if Tiger Woods never hooked up with Hank Haney as a golf coach because Haney had never won a PGA major? Leo Mazzone has been the pitching coach for six Cy Young award winners, yet barely had a minor-league career as a player. Yes, I have a negative ROI in the $50-and-up PokerStars SNGs as tracked by SharkScope. That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to play. Maybe I don’t execute as well as I know I should. Perhaps I need to adjust my mid-to-end game to match my positive ROI on other sites. Maybe I’ve been unlucky across a relatively small sample size (less than 200). Some have suggested – kidding here - Lee Jones has a personal vendetta against me. It certainly doesn’t mean I can’t recognize a bad play in a $5 SNG for what it is. As Grandpa used to say, you don’t have to be a cabinetmaker to recognize a nice piece of furniture.
I would like to invite everyone to visit the Hand Advice forum. We all have knowledge to share and, hopefully, enough of an open mind to learn from the postings. I firmly believe I can and do learn something from every single post there, regardless of who authors it. There are almost-daily posts on the Poker Discussion forum from struggling players looking to find a mentor or start a group of people with whom to discuss hands. What these posters are unaware of is you don’t need to ask for a group like that: it already exists. The Hand Advice forum is a great place to learn from players of all skill levels. So come on in…I promise to find a better synonym for “hideous.”
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