Quote:
Originally Posted by swayzack
I keep seeing posts about how bad strategy talk is at the table... I'm somewhat of a fish, myself, and am willing to donate a bit here & there in the name of good fun. If I'm being owned by a better player I'm not naive enough to think he or she is just getting lucky. I'd rather hear the guy's reasoning behind his plays & try to learn something than have him patronize me and say, "Oh yeah, wow, guess I got lucky there". Nobody believes that - it's obvious who the good players are & who aren't... Personally, as a recreational player I'd rather try to learn a few things from these regs who are willing to share it. It's not like I'm ever going to put in the volume of hours required to become a legit threat, so why not kick over some knowledge? I dunno, just seems everyone here is so, "don't talk about EV, oh man, you'll scare the fish!", but I'm not seeing it - would rather try to learn a few things while I'm there than have people BS/Hustle me the whole time........
I'm not saying bad attitude or berating people is a good thing and of course I'd rather be treated with kindness than have people criticize my plays & be rude about it - just that I don't see the harm in a little bit of strategy talk every now & then....
Well, in the cases that were brought up, the situation was mostly different. As a semi-pro cash game player, I don't particularly mind it when a player who made a mistake asks and receives the response about their play after the hand. However, when such players are getting berated and insulted for their play, a much bigger problem than spreading knowledge is that it ruins an overall fun atmosphere of the game.
As my friend who used to coach (private lessons, not at the table) a certain loose cannon Borgata player from Brooklyn used to say when we drank together: "No Amount of coaching is going to make that guy a winner specifically due to general spewtastic tendencies and lack of discipline. However, teaching the guy about ranges, good and bad bluff and 3-bet spots and other fun theory increased student's number of winning sessions, radically decreased his loss rate (which used to be like - $100+/hr in 2 5) and in all likelihood kept him in the game for the long run benefiting the overall poker economy".
So, if you must talk poker at a table - keep it basic and more importantly keep it friendly. Also, using standard English (raise instead of 3-bet, lots of money in the pot instead of equity, 14 big blinds instead of M=8.2, and so forth...) instead of technical terms helps as well.