Quote Originally Posted by Illfavor
Quote Originally Posted by Robb
Howdy, favor, I'm watching your op. I haven't been around FTR much in the last two months plus. I'd be interested in your thoughts on "where things seem to be headed." I've been around FTR for a long time, and it has peaks and valleys, sure. Just curious what you're seeing.

And glgl at 100nl.
It's mostly a combination of some poor behavior on my part, the handling of the iopq banning, and the attitudes of some of the members of the site, new and old. I oftentimes get the impression that the forum is not as conducive to learning as it might ought be.
Not sure if this will help, but I've been disillusioned with FTR at various times for various reasons. Short story, FTR is the best way for me to consistently improve at poker, so I'm not leaving (and hopefully not gettin' banned either!).

If you're interested, one time I got tired of the same old same old in the forums, so I started searching FTR for "classic" threads that could help when the current threads weren't what I needed. Here's a post on that:

Improving FTR: Get to work dammit

I learned tons from the "old" content, many of the best of which I linked in my operation thread (click link in my sig, scroll down to second post in thread for about 50 thread links together with a description of each). I still go back to some of those threads now that I understand poker better and learn even more.

Another time, I was slumping big time and didn't feel like I could contribute much in the forums because (a) I really did suck at poker and (b) people were losing respect for my input due to lack of success at the tables. So I started answering threads in the BC with links to "classic" threads, which led to the operation thread links.

Another time, I was really stung by someone who flamed me hard followed closely by being "called out" for sucking at pokerz, and I left FTR for a couple of days to cool down. I was really upset, but I sat back and thought about my game and realized that while the tone was harsh, the content of the flame was true. I started working hard on my game and made this post:

What to do when someone says you suck at poker.

You can follow as much of the story as you'd like from that link, but all the FTR regs (including the one who flamed me and the one who called me out) immediately started helping me out in the forums and on IRC. That low point led to the some of the best pokerz I've ever played and bankroll jump from ~300 to ~3k.

Sorry so much of my story has hijacked your thread, but I've learned two things. First, you get out of FTR as much as you put in LONG TERM, but in the short term sometimes we give (or take) more than other times. Second, it's just the internet. While I like to be respected and have fun joking around with the regs here, if someone disrespects me or rips me, so what? I don't even really know that person, and what they think only matters as much as I let it. So now I just try to contribute what I can and use FTR to help improve my game, and I don't worry too much about what others are doing.

Hope maybe some of that helps. BTW, I never got along with iopq, but I looked through his last 30 posts, saw the commune threads and was puzzled. I'm not sure I saw any good reason to ban him.