Stop complaining about the poor play of your opponents

I am so tired of people complaining about poor play; I'll say it again: it's how you make your money!! Sure, there are different "poor" plays at different levels, and at the beginning of a freeroll you might see very different poor plays than on the bubble of a $5 sng.

But stop complaining about it, for the love of poker!

In a lot of cases you at least know what the situation is, and can access your position relatively well; if you know someone is playing any two cards to push all in with, pick a hand that you're are comfortable with the percentage against that range, and go with it.

Would you really rather be in a game with "good" players, so that you get into more tricky situations like this, where you don't know where you stand? Give me a break!

Here is my theory on people who bitch about opponents poor play:

1. They are 'relatively' new to poker, and have discovered the concept of hand selection.

2. They want the other player to play predictably based on this hand selection criteria, including post flop play where bets are hand strength based.

3. They don't yet truly understand the nature of poker, in that being a 70% favorite actually means you LOSE 30% of the time.

4. They do not understand that if everyone played equally then no one would have any edge, and that any short term wins would come down to whoever caught the better cards at the time, but the only long term winner would be the house via rake.

5. They don't understand the concept of "equity," or similar concepts like "Sklansky Bucks". Poker isn't about winning pots, or tournaments, or hands: it's about winning MONEY. If your AA gets drawn out on 5 times in a row because your were up against nine all in preflop callers it doesn't matter: the time it holds up will make you money (-5, +9 = +4).

This isn't to say that you can't have a totally human emotional reaction at the time to being drawn out on, or bubbling a tournament, or some other such poker catastrophe (disappointment, even temporary anger at the poker gods, etc.). But these things are going to happen to you thousands of times in poker, so you are well served to come to some kind of peace with it:
it is the nature of the game of poker that good decisions are not always rewarded in the short term/immediate instance.

Read this man's signature.

Ship the Sklansky Bucks.

Well put aliengenius. Good threads are getting hard to come by latley, and not just here. Could have something to do with the age and experience factor. Wonder what the forum would look like, if before you could post, it was evaluated and all the senseless BS was not allowed.

This is what I used to think heaven might be like, but thank goodness I got to live long enough to have time to reflect. Imagine playing in that game day in and day out for eternity. Yuck.

WAH WAH WAH , do you really think people are going to stop complaining ? heck no !! but I do realize the true content of your post is to let people understand why they shouldn't let it get to them. they search for the fish and cry when they get sucked out on by them. very good post just not realistic on the stop complaining part , but maybe you converted a few. hope so.

quads , wah to you too , not very realistic . it's a forum , not just for the older and more experienced ,but for all ages , with many different levels of experience and many varied opinions. life is full of senseless BS , get used to it.

I agree with both of you gentlemen , and it is my hope also that life brings us all , less complaining and less senseless BS.

People who in live games insist that we play out the hand and then complain when they would have hit their gut shot had they called a pot sized bet could benefit from this as well, although mostly these people know they shouldn't have called, it's just human nature.

Excellent post!
I have been trying to get this point across for ages, but i just couldn't find the right way to put it.

So true, AG.

One thing that really irritates me is when some idiot chases and hits an unlikely draw, and then a "clever" person at the table starts explaining to him how he should not have made that call. They really think they are improving the game by teaching the fish not to make dumb moves.

Personally, I almost never post in the bad beat forum (I think I have done so once this year, and then only because it was especially extreme, a 95/5 situation at a critical stage in a big MTT). If I got my chips in when ahead and was outdrawn, so what ? I`ve realised that it doesn`t matter and isn`t worth remarking on.

Far more interesting to me are the (thankfully infrequent) occasions when I make an error and put my chips in the middle while behind. Those are the hands that need to be studied and analysed.

Don't tap on the aquarium, but make sure you feed the fish enough to keep them coming back for more.

This thread is really interesting, I used to piss and moan about getting beat in random strong situations [AK vs AQ etc] and now after playing around 800 games in 2 months you just learn that it is part of the game. You are doing the right thing by making to ther guy make a mistake, thats all you can really do in this game and the rest is not up to you!

Now that is some real Sklansky, convoluted future/past concept.

If I posted before thinking, would my words have any more or less worth if they had already been written in another thread.
And based on those responses to that thread makes this one less or more valuable in hindsight.

And If I had posted does that change the out come of the value based on the quality of the responses, for a +EV.

~(In terms of calling and losing, vs. folding and gaining)~

Superb, AG! Edges in poker are very small. Having an opponent "dominated"' means you lose 30% of the time with your AK vs his AQ.

Very nice OP.

Whenever I see that AG started a thread I know it will be quality.

After I had read some poker books and started actually started thinking about the theory of poker I would find myself berating bad players (and bad plays). When my wife pointed out what an butthole I was being I decided to abandon that part of my game. So I strongly agree with your first point.

The bitching and moaning I see in chat boxes has turned me off of poker lately. Yes, I know I can turn it off... but I prefer it on. I can usually strike up some friendly conversation with players (anyone who plays with me probably knows that) and sometimes use it to my advantage. So if anyone reading this thread is a "chatbox poker pro"... please, PLEASE stop and think about what an ass you appear to be.

I use the chat-box only if I'm drunk or it's a CC event. Or CC people are railing/I'm railing CC people to get opponents off their game (I think I helped combu a little while ago in that 3+R on Stars a little while ago).

yes very true, i never thought bout it like that, i'd rather play bad players and take their money than play good players who can take my money...nice thought!!!

Thanks AG, this is a subject that's been wandering around in my head a good bit lately. As I've muddled through a case of the variance blues the last few weeks, I've taken some time away from the tables to actually think on some facts about my game vs my general range of opposition. Some days, I convince myself that I was better off results wise when i was "a donkey". Other days, I incline to the theory that I play better against better competition, and tracking my results tends to bouy up this conclusion somewhat.

We do read a lot in these forums about how poor the level of competition is at these stakes or those, but as a confirmed micro player on a variety of games and sites, I think much of this is just self stroking. People will say, I can dominate MTTs at the $5 level, or 3, or 10, whatever, 'cause I know more than all those donks. And the result seldom bears out the assumption.

Truth is, there's good poker being played by decent players at all limits. The % of good play may be higher at higher stakes, but not hugely so.

In other threads, there's been some discussion about the evolution of tournament play. By way of a definition, I'll refer to it as "modern" vs "old school". Old school to me is much more of a finesse game; modern is big plays at big risks, for big rewards. A lot of it is TAG v LAG, but it goes deeper than that. Seems there's a whole different mindset to each. And I think I'm in a somewhat transitional phase right now. My mind is pretty firmly grounded in old school, it's how I learned, but more and more, I find myself examining the "modern" concepts, trying to reach a median point somewhere in between. But maybe there really isn't one.

So where am I going with all this rambling? Some simple food for thought:

Not everyone who beats you is a donk.
Every hand you lose isn't a bad beat.
Different players play different ways.
Making the "right" move doesn't always get the right result.

I had a bad month in Sept., so far Oct. is better. For the most part, it's all on me, not the donks and suckouts. I don't bitch about 'em, they happen. They're part of the game. I get my share back at times,too. Everybody does. That's poker. You make your best play, the other guy makes his. The better decision will out, oftener than not.

I couldn't agree more. The one thing that annoys me more than anything is whenn people instantly blame the site for being rigged when their KK gets cracked by A10os - I have always stood by the maxim:

IF THE BEST HAND WON EVERYTIME, POKER WOULD BE NO FUN.

Some very good points raised in this thread.

What I found the most amusing about it though, was the amount of complaining about poor play buried in some of the posts text.

I'm no talking about the illustrated examples of complaining in the posts either.

Someone already stated earlier that complaining about bad play wont go away no matter what, I guess this must be true.

good reading,i get upset cause of a lossed hand, that would of never happin unless river, mainly connecting a small pair producing trips, or ace on the river,but for the most part, Im the one that aloud it to happin.When i go into a game, i try to remember that im going to be donk,rivered,and at times outplayed,best hand not allways win.
and when it happins,it can put me on tilt. Nobodys ever going to play the way I want them to, so i try my best to read the player and my NOTES tells me a lot about the player allready so why should i have a fit about it. their chips

To win an mtt u must get lucky. Even if u never suck out(which is nigh on impossible), You have to beat the odds by your opponents not drawing out on you. To win the dominating 70/30s all the way means tht u have beaten the odds to do so

Great post, and enjoyed reading all the responses as well

poker fact : best hand wins everytime !

lol, once all the cards have been dealt it does... i'm pretty sure you knew what i meant

Very good point, m8.

I recall we had a similar discussion quite a while back. To win an MTT, you are going to have to get through at least 3 or 4 all-in confrontations.

Even assuming your judgement is always correct and you never go all-in without that 70/30 advantage, average luck will see you lose one of those key hands and get knocked out.

Sometimes you see people criticise winners (I`m thinking especially of the coverage of WSOP and WPT tournies) on the grounds that they were lucky in some decisive hand. They are missing the point.

You need some luck to win at this game and what we are all doing (those of us who study the game) is trying to improve ourselves to the point that, on our lucky days, we will be good enough to sieze the opportunity and win.

Absolutely and a big AMEN.

My ruthlessness training is really paying off in that respect. I am having SO much fun...............sorry -- what was the gist of the thread? Thought I was on track for a moment...........

after finishing reading the original post my entire screen was filled with internet windows cuz of all the damn links....haaha

great post aliengenius
amazing.

Archived~