It's Differentiation.
I get the idea that many - most? - people play tournaments more than cash games, and in a tournament there are so many factors that weigh in when trying to reach a decision that a hand history is extremely incomplete.
Cash game hands, however, those you can learn a lot from. There's not always a "correct" and "incorrect" way to play any single hand, but by posting them we can discuss different ways of reasoning. And it's not "how to play" that's interesting, because how to play any given hand is only useful if we're in that exact situation again. And we won't be. Or, in the extremely unlikely, borderline once-in-the-universe's-lifetime-rare freak-accident that we are, we probably won't remember what it was that Dorkus Malorkus or tenbob said we should do.
So why post in the HA-forum? Because we get to what's interesting: The reasoning! Now THAT'S useful, since the reasoning can be applied to other hands other than one that we've already played and mucked. We can discuss why some situations are better than others to checkraise, or why checking behind a scary board may not be a totally clever decision (hi, Chris!), but it's not the hand itself that's interesting. It's the situation, in general terms, that learning comes from. Identifying the core of the situation, like "he will call more hands than he will bet with" or "you can bet, but if you're raised you have to fold because...", and then being able to differentiate a future situation into its basic parts and think "this player would call more hands than he'll bet with... I should bet!"
Then you get it wrong, and you post another hand, and someone points out where you went wrong, and you try it again and... And so on. We can't be prepared for every hand that we're ever going to play, but we can learn the situations. We originally, in the beginning of our poker career, start with the basic situations, "good hand" and "bad hand". Then we fine-tune it to "monster hand", "decent hand", "poor hand," "crap hand," or so. Then we keep fine-tuning, and keep practising differentiation, it until we reach a level like "requires-high-implied-odds-but-can-still-be-used-to-steal-blinds-from-tight-players hand" and other variations on finely tuned concepts.
This is why I really, really, really don't like seeing "raise" or "fold, you're beaten" as the only response to a post because IT'S NOT LIKE I'M PLAYING THE HAND RIGHT NOW AND AM LOOKING FOR HELP TO FINISH IT! Include reasoning. Why should I raise? Why should I fold? Knowing that you think I should raise doesn't help me differentiate a future hand.
Grawr.
While ranting, let me add in this:
1. Threads named "what should I do?" or "what now?" or any variant on that theme do not attract my eyes. Perhaps you don't have to add in the entire handhistory in the title of the post, but at least put in some idea of what you're playing.
2. Explain what decision you're curious about. Explain why. Just posting a hand history (and include results) of a tournament hand that you lost and ask if you could have played it differently is not going to get you anything at all.
Anyway.
Fredrik
PS.
I realize full well that one of JD's options was that some people may be too intimidated to post in the HA-forum. And then here I come, ranting and raving, and... Well, I'm a nice guy. Really, I am.
No, really.
And any info given out to you sharks lessens my chances of taking your chippies.
