Thoughts on being "Results Oriented"

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With all sincerity, this is not a flame post. I really want feedback on why everyone gets so pissed off when someone posts results.
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Why is it assumed someone is being "results oriented" when they post the outcome of a particular hand? It's probably safe to say that 95% of all postings here are lost hands anyway. Why not post the results so we can look up the villan and see if the reads were correct?

I hate that phrase. We're all results oriented. Period. Otherwise we wouldn't be reading, studying, posting, laboring to IMPROVE. Improving is a RESULT. Playing winning or losing poker is a RESULT. I AM RESULTS ORIENTED. WTF difference does it make if someone posts hand results? The outcome is still the same, the advice does not change. As long as someone isn't posting a tilt/rant/'can you believe this donk call?' that wastes everyones time, what's the big deal?

AND, why do we even have the option to include results in our hand converter if it's so taboo?

Results are appropriate in something like the bad beat forum where we want to see all the hands. Also, I think having a HH converter with as many options as possible is +EV.

The reason we don't post results when we want serious hand discussion is that when we see the results, though some may be able to avoid this, our opinion about Hero's play and Villain's range is instantly colored, so that any discussion may end up not being valuable or full of good poker thinking. Think about when you watch poker on tv and you can see all the hole cards. You're going to be able to say that a lot of plays are stupid and a lot of plays are amazing just based on the cards you see without thinking about previous hands, the betting so far, stack sizes, etc.
Example: If a player has been 3-b light and 3-b our hero, if we know that he has AA we are more likely to say that hero should have folded preflop instead of thinking about villain's range.

Results-oriented thinking is bad in poker because in the SHORT run, the value of our decisions cannot be judged based on their results, because of variance. All FTR posters should be results-oriented in the LONG run, that is, they want to be winning poker players. Since we are nearly always examining a hand or a few hands in the SHORT run, results-oriented thinking about those hands is poisonous.

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Originally Posted by Parasurama

The reason we don't post results when we want serious hand discussion is that when we see the results, though some may be able to avoid this, our opinion about Hero's play and Villain's range is instantly colored.

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I completely disagree with this. Analyzing PF, Flop, turn and river play has absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of a hand. Here's what I look at when someone posts a hand:

1) Is your pre-flop play correct from position? (ie, hand strength, PFR to isolate, etc.)

2) Post flop, given you're oppenents reads, are your bet sizes weak or strong? Was it a bad call on the 3-bet? Should you have 3-bet? Did you get it all in when the math was in your favor are are you playing nitty?

The results do not cloud this analysis, but I think there is critical information left on the table when we strictly forbid posting the results. Namely, are our reads correct? Have we analyzed our opponent sufficiently?

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Originally Posted by kb coolman

The results do not cloud this analysis

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I completely disagree with this.

results do cloud analysis though? I don't get it.

How do you guys analyze play? If you look at the entire hand, then perform you analysis, isn't is automatically flawed? What good is it to analyze the turn if you have no idea what happened on the flop?

Analyzing a hand is done by
1) Opponent reads
2) pre-flop
3) flop
4) turn
5) river

Analyzing the river before the flop would be useless, as would be viewing the results before seeing how the hand played out.

I'm not saying that results should change how we analyze someones play. But I also don't see the harm when someone is giving us additional information to validate #1.

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Originally Posted by sil693

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Originally Posted by kb coolman

The results do not cloud this analysis

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I completely disagree with this.

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Originally Posted by kb coolman

How do you guys analyze play? If you look at the entire hand, then perform you analysis, isn't is automatically flawed? What good is it to analyze the turn if you have no idea what happened on the flop?

Analyzing a hand is done by
1) Opponent reads
2) pre-flop
3) flop
4) turn
5) river

Analyzing the river before the flop would be useless, as would be viewing the results before seeing how the hand played out.

I'm not saying that results should change how we analyze someones play. But I also don't see the harm when someone is giving us additional information to validate #1.

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What an opponent has on a certain hand doesn't necessarily validate or invalidate whether we read him correctly. I don't understand what you mean by looking at the entire hand and analyzing is flawed. I analyze each street only in the context of what has happened before. Results also make it less fun,interesting, and useful for people to estimate ranges and guess hands. The point is that we have to learn to evaluate people's play independently of what villain actually had or whether or not our hero won the hand.

We can only judge the hero's decisions based on what he knows during the hand, which includes what he tells us, what his cards are, and the betting in the hand, not the results. If the results give us new information about the villain, then we make a note and move on. But our play has to be justifiable based only on what we know while we are making decisions (before showdown or the end of the hand).

Not posting results provides a great discussion tool. One of the keys w/ HH's is hearing how various regs on FTR approach the decision(s) in the hand up to the questionable action. The analysis is worth hearing, and it's hard for many of us to reproduce that objectively when we know the hands.

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Originally Posted by kb coolman

Why not post the results so we can look up the villan and see if the reads were correct?

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Because the results do not determine if your play was correct or not. They only show you what the villain had that one time.

Your decision should be based on all the possible hands he could show up at that time, then figure out what the correct decision is based off of his RANGE.

I used to be a fairly results oriented player for a long time and it absolutely killed my winrate.

Basically, the important stuff in a hand that's posted is everything before the cards are turned over. And yes, posting results totally skews people's replies.

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Originally Posted by kb coolman

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Originally Posted by Parasurama

The reason we don't post results when we want serious hand discussion is that when we see the results, though some may be able to avoid this, our opinion about Hero's play and Villain's range is instantly colored.

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I completely disagree with this.
The results do not cloud this analysis

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for me they probably do, on at least some subconscious level...
they at the very least cloud our analysis of villain's range

It's also probably better not to post the cards that arrive after the decision you're asking about.

I understand what you're saying, but if you want advice from all the good regs you're probably better not including results - cos they won't answer on principle (and it's obviously their perrogative not to!)

I like to see the results of posted hands. I go through each street and collect my thoughts, then it's nice to see if I was right or not at the end.

But then again, I'm using posted hands as a teaching tool for myself and seldom feel smart enough to help the original poster.

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Originally Posted by poker_pup

I like to see the results of posted hands. I go through each street and collect my thoughts, then it's nice to see if I was right or not at the end.

But then again, I'm using posted hands as a teaching tool for myself and seldom feel smart enough to help the original poster.

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I think it's actually not a bad idea for you guys to see results after the discussion on how to play it is exhausted. It's a good way for some of the really new players to formulate ranges.

The "Don't post results!" posts is because people include them in the original hand way too often like they should be used somehow in deciphering what was the best play.

I learned a long time ago not to let results scew my analysis of a HH. I don't expect most people can do that. If you cannot look at a HH with results and make an honest evaluation of the hand as played then you too are results oriented. Posting a hand with the results in white should be enough. I never look unless the thread has been beat to death.

What the villain has has nothing to do with are your reads correct. That's a single hand in a vacuum. How you get to the read is what we are trying to learn.

On the other side, HH's with results get fewer discussions and less responses because nobody posts an opinion that differs from the results. Also, why would a Noob post his thoughts on the flop play if they are wrong, then to only get "blasted" by someone else for his thoughts because of how the hand turned out. Without results, more discussion on why someones thinking is wrong on particular streets, and not jsut the OP's but anyone who weighs in and wants to be critiqued on his thought process and improve.

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Originally Posted by jyms

On the other side, HH's with results get fewer discussions and less responses because nobody posts an opinion that differs from the results. Also, why would a Noob post his thoughts on the flop play if they are wrong, then to only get "blasted" by someone else for his thoughts because of how the hand turned out. Without results, more discussion on why someones thinking is wrong on particular streets, and not jsut the OP's but anyone who weighs in and wants to be critiqued on his thought process and improve.

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Exactly. It's difficult to argue for a particular line when the results show that it would have been suboptimal on that particular hand.

Also, kb, I take your point about all of us hoping for the "best possible results over time." The problem is that "results oriented" is a term that has come to mean focusing too much on a particular beat and not on long term success. Good play is often punished by the poker gods. And players who can't unhook from "what did happen" and focus instead on "what will happen a winning amount of the time" tend to not improve very quickly. So we touchy about it. Thinking "long term" is the correct approach, as you point out. As long as you're doing that, call it what you will.

Results give us ranges and reads we dont otherwise have. Getting ai w/ AQs is usually bad, but if we see villain called with 33 then it skews our analysis. UNLESS hero can give a read that villain will have such a wide range based on knowledge PRIOR to the hand.

Basically it adds nothing of value, and can only have a detrimental affect (if any).

Also, tbh most threads that get blasted as being "results oriented" are because the hero had the second nuts and got coolered by the nuts. If someone wouldnt post the hand if they won, then they shouldnt post the hand if they lost.

FWIW, I've probably posted more hands that I won than I lost, because I'm aware its easy to be results oriented when you win a hand, when in fact you may just have gotten lucky that time.

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Originally Posted by Robb

Good play is often punished by the poker gods. And players who can't unhook from "what did happen" and focus instead on "what will happen a winning amount of the time" tend to not improve very quickly.

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People who cannot unhook from the beat are titling, and the post loses any constructive value. But that does not mean that posting the outcome is 'results oriented'. I would also expect any player capable of analyzing their own play (which is a crucial skill) will also be able to analyze someone elses play fully aware of the outcome.

For an extreme example, Mr. Fish raises 72o 4xBB UTG, catchs two pair on the flop and rivers the boat, but asks 'how could I have extracted maximum value on this hand?' Knowing he won the hand is completely irrelevant. The analysis could quickly be summarized as 'you are an idiot.'

FWIW, I will respect the hand posting guidelines. I just don't understand why people get so pissed off about it.