Missing for a while

Hi Everyone,

First off I want to thank Spoon, Robb, Chris, Xianti, AFChung, and a million others on here, I know I've left tons of you out in the above list but I want to thank all of your for your patience and teaching.

Due to the recent tone here on FTR I am going to lower my participation greatly. I may come back and work through my own Operation thread but I'm going to seriously reduce my participation in this and other threads. I may stop in and read here and there, but my replies will be greatly diminished.

Why you might ask, when I have tried to be an active member of this site and contribute what I can?

- The recent topics I have participated in have led me to want to reply with anger and detrimental content rather than accepting people's differences and let their derision bounce off me.

- Poker was a hobby for me, I'm taking it too seriously now and it is causing me too much stress when I lose, mostly because when I do post something about my play I get slammed.

- The over abundance of new members who are either unwilling to start working through the material in a search of freeroll passwords, or who just drag down the site in general.

Many of you have helped me progress in my game over the last 12 months, I thank all of you for that. But this site right now is not beneficial for my game. When I look at a post and just want to scream at the poster, things aren't good here. So I'm going to leave out for a while... maybe things will change in my absence, maybe it's just me.

Good Cards all (I won't wish you good luck, you make your own luck by being the best you can be) and thank you to those who strive to continue to make the site an informative, engaging and valuable source.

Monty

In order for someone to make good contributions to your post they first need to understand your game. That is why it is very good if you continue with your OP thread, because people will put your play into context.

Many people just skim through the threads and make generic responses. They will try to put you down and force you to stick with the basics and recommend the most obvious play.

However, there are many great players here. When players like Spenda, meeloche, Xianti, Chardrian, Spoon and Nutsinho take their time to respond there is often gold to be found.

Increasing our poker knowledge is like digging for gold. We might look for months without finding anything- but sometimes we find a nugget here and there. One day we might find a massive gold ore and reach new levels of insights.

I do believe that refining our own poker strategies, without any input from others, is a very long endeavor. Critique, flaming and suggestions from others might help speed up our rate in which we learn.

But it is also vital that we have strict standards for what we decide to accept as good advice, and what we should disregard. You are God when it comes to creating your own poker system. Anything that you want to add, or deduct, from your system must be very well thought of. Every little change has enormous bi effects to the whole system.

Poker is a game of big egos- and few people will accept that they are no good. This leads to a situation here on FTR where everybody takes on the role as advisors. Some advice will piss us off. Often this is because people do not understand what you are trying to say, or that people have not read the thread thoroughly. Other times advice just suck on principle.

I read FTR for two years before I started playing poker and like you I learned a helluva lot from the veterans here. When I started posting I got mostly negative responses. This was not because people disagreed with me, but because I used common poker terms in a very personalized way.

If we can separate misunderstandings from disagreements we have come a long way. It is when we thoroughly understand the nature of disagreements that we can grasp the conflicting poker principles in play.

The day we stop searching for Gold is the day we stop finding it.

Sir, you are one of the reasons I am lowering my participation here. Thank you for your response but you do not come across in your messages in a way that is constructive, your tone comes across as that those of us who learn differently from you are inferior and not worth your time. Likely this is not your intention, and I am dealing with that. I won't respond further to your posts, mostly because if you have been here for two years reading you've seen my progression and I'd like to think you are trying to be helpful, in your own way, but your responses do nothing but anger me. That is likely my issue but I don't care for your style of response. It is a personal thing. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

If he was here for two years he wouldn't have listed Xianti as one of his poker players.

I thought Xianti was the founder of FTR.

I am sorry for my posts, and know that I come across as arrogant.

This is my last post on FTR.

TY

Xianti is one of three admins/founders of this site and rarely if ever posts strat or poker advice. Nobody knows if he even plays poker

Originally Posted by Sir Pawnalot

This is my last post on FTR.

TY

Originally Posted by jyms

If he was here for two years he wouldn't have listed Xianti as one of his poker players.

Booooooooooo!!

HU for rolls?

Sure, If you've been following my OP you wouldn't make that bet.

Sir, you are one of the reasons I am lowering my participation here. Thank you for your response but you do not come across in your messages in a way that is constructive, your tone comes across as that those of us who learn differently from you are inferior and not worth your time. Likely this is not your intention, and I am dealing with that. I won't respond further to your posts, mostly because if you have been here for two years reading you've seen my progression and I'd like to think you are trying to be helpful, in your own way, but your responses do nothing but anger me. That is likely my issue but I don't care for your style of response. It is a personal thing. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Wow, I'm not trying to be a dick but I didn't get this at all from his post. I thought it was well thought out and offered some valuable advice.

IMO, having the mindset that reading threads in the BC is not worth your time doesn't really work when you're playing the micro stakes...

I'm sorry if any of my posts made you angry as it is never my intention to put people down. fwiw If you really feel like you don't want to post anymore then that is your decision but I think it may be a mistake.

I think the OP's problem with Sir Pawnalot is covered a little bit in what SP said. He doesn't really know what a lot of the terms he uses mean. This can lead to a lot of confusion.

Even worse, his sig, "The Sir Pawnalot Postulate" is an incredibly simple concept that is presented like it's actually meaningful. The Dev Demarcation: The game changes from preflop to the flop.

Every post he makes we all see someone who knows very little and acts like he knows a lot. I was a lot like that and to an extent I still am. The thing is, the players that really believe they know what they're talking about when they don't can hurt the people here that are trying to learn.

Sorry Pawnalot, I know you mean well. You're me a couple years ago. This situation is a mix of the two biggest roadblocks to people getting better at poker. 1) they think they know, 2) they think you know.

I really don't mean offense to anyone. Losing intelligent players from the board sucks, but our goal here is to teach and learn. We're all assholes, we all have humongous egos, we all think we know something someone else doesn't. It's going to be a pain in the ass to sort it all out, but that's why we're here.

Unfortunately since words typed on a screen are emotionless they can be taken in the wrong context and the reader can actually assign a specific tone that may come across negative based on their mood/expectations/past experiences etc. The problem with electronic communication is I can say "What was that?" and my intention is an honest question, but instead one can see it as sarcastic disgust or arrogance.
I think if you can realize this and understand how misinterpretation can affect the way we read electronic messages, you'll be able to hang around FTR without hating the place. I agree with you about the freetrollers though, something needs to be done about that.

YEAH INTERNET DRAMA!

It really is too bad Monty is leaving, it's also wierd that pawnalot gets dissed, and bails...

That having been said. I know I wouldn't have improved without BC, and even though some of the people here are dicks, and even though one of the best BC posters has been chased off, there are still people here who can direct my thinking so I can improve as a player.

The path you choose to walk is yours, You can do it on your own, you can do it with FTR, or you can do it with someone else, I suggest you choose the one of least resistance, because they will all be offerring quite a bit of resistance.

Originally Posted by jyms

Xianti is one of three admins/founders of this site and rarely if ever posts strat or poker advice. Nobody knows if he even plays poker

Boooo... Be nice to the fish!

Originally Posted by dev

I think the OP's problem with Sir Pawnalot is covered a little bit in what SP said. He doesn't really know what a lot of the terms he uses mean. This can lead to a lot of confusion.

Even worse, his sig, "The Sir Pawnalot Postulate" is an incredibly simple concept that is presented like it's actually meaningful. The Dev Demarcation: The game changes from preflop to the flop.

Every post he makes we all see someone who knows very little and acts like he knows a lot. I was a lot like that and to an extent I still am. The thing is, the players that really believe they know what they're talking about when they don't can hurt the people here that are trying to learn.

Sorry Pawnalot, I know you mean well. You're me a couple years ago. This situation is a mix of the two biggest roadblocks to people getting better at poker. 1) they think they know, 2) they think you know.

I really don't mean offense to anyone. Losing intelligent players from the board sucks, but our goal here is to teach and learn. We're all assholes, we all have humongous egos, we all think we know something someone else doesn't. It's going to be a pain in the ass to sort it all out, but that's why we're here.

His sig has never even made sense to me, how the hell can you sacrifice equity, you have it or you don't, and when summed with FE is what makes decisions right or wrong. That becomes our equity. You can't trade or sacrifice one because of another.

Originally Posted by Ragnar4

YEAH INTERNET DRAMA!

Serious internet drama. As a "newbie" who's still trying to find my footing here on FTR I'm really surprised to find that people take forums so personally. I'm here to learn and share my opinion. I don't really understand how that should drive people away. Even if you think my opinion is completely wrong, who cares?

I have read this post and for the first time on the FTR I have been sadened. People have made me angry in FTR and people have made me angry on the poker tables. But this time it is a sad thing to read that the differences in what people think and how they say those has made 2 players want to leave this place.

Sir Pawnalot dont leave FTR because you are one of the ones here that has helped me and always been support to me even when I play bad and think I am good. I dont know who the OP is and I dont want to judge cos I am new here at FTR. But you should stay sir aswell.

Sometimes the posters will try to hard to sound like they are really good players. Sometimes they make bad assuming about your play without enough understanding of the hand. Sometimes if they think you are bad they will gather like wolfs and rip apart your blood. This makes them feel supreme. But there is a lot of good advice on FTR as well and this stuff and if people always gave help to help people and not to be wolfs it would be better here.

I think that when you take things and knowledge from FTR you should give them back when you are a good player and stay until you are the best in the world. Poker is for me life not just a hobby my farm gives me the money I use to play poker to follow a dream. When I am at 5000NL No limit games I will still be here to give guiding to the young players and the noobs. I think you both should be on this path aswell as me.

Otter.

Originally Posted by jyms

His sig has never even made sense to me, how the hell can you sacrifice equity, you have it or you don't, and when summed with FE is what makes decisions right or wrong. That becomes our equity. You can't trade or sacrifice one because of another.

If you consider 'equity' as your hand's chance of winning only in a showdown, and 'FE' as only your chance to make your opponent fold, than it makes sense... but only if you translate it... Anyone who can explain what FE is knows what he's trying to say.

This is the Sir Pawnalot postulate:
"We can profitably sacrifice equity when fold equity is high."

Monty,

I'm not quite sure what you were hoping to get from this thread but my years of experience on the internet tells me you'll be left wanting. If all you want is an apology or a promise that we'll try to make the BC a friendlier place than you have my word on that.

For now I'm not quite sure the usefulness of this thread, so I'm going to lock it. If everyone could try their best to keep unnecessary comments and posts to a minimum it would be a great help to us all. In the future if anyone has any comments/concerns about issues such as these I'd rather that at first they would attempt to deal with them privately. Whether it be through PM'ing each other or allowing a moderator to intervene it could make the process much more constructive.

That's all for now.