As one scans through any forum on the web you can find countless numbers of people giving out advice to other players. Some of the advice is good and well thought out while other is off the cuff advice that shouldn’t be followed. Now, how do you decide what advice to follow and what advice to ignore? There are various ways to determine answer that question. I will expand on the ways below, but here they are: does the advice make sense, how long has the player been playing, and is the person willing to answer questions or provide more insight.
In my opinion the most important of the answers is if the person is willing to answer questions or provide more insight. If I personally take time to provide you insight about a question you posted, I’m more than willing to explain it further if it doesn’t make sense. If you think someone is giving you good advice, but you don’t quite understand what they are telling you to do find a way to make contact with them. It might be by private message, an online instant messenger, or via email, whatever action works best for you. I’m pretty sure that most people that post insight into a hand are more than willing to explain if you ask them. I will be willing to bet if you asked the person who seems to be giving good advice for more assistance, most will say yes and tell you what the need. It might be that they will watch you play hands in a online game, while giving you their insight into the hand via instant messenger. On a side note, this method shouldn’t be used if the person is sitting at your table while you both play. This can and most likely will be considered collusion by a poker site and result in you being banned. Other players might ask you to send them a number of hand histories so they can put them into whatever tracking software they use. It can help them gain insight into both how the others were playing and how you were playing.
The next answer goes hand in hand with the first one. How long has the player been playing. It doesn’t matter if the player hand been playing live or online, but someone with more experience and hopefully profitability is a good choice for getting advice from. There is nothing wrong with taking advice from a brand new player, but those with 100’s of thousands of hands under their belt have seen more than you can learn from a book. Players play differently under different circumstances which can’t be covered by a book. I’d be willing to bet that there are people out there who have played 100’s of thousands of hands that have been in the exact same situation that you are asking about. There are some extremely smart new players that can tell you the exact odds of any hand beating any other hand. If that’s what you are looking for, great, follow that advice and use it. If you are looking for insight into how to play a hand, a new player might not be the best choice.
When you post a question on a web site any one can see it and possibly post a reply to that question. If the person is telling you to always push your stack in with 7/5 off suit because they always win with that hand is probably not one to follow. If the person is giving advice that seems to fit the situation, but might not be something you thought of, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a good read and try it out. I’m not saying risk your whole bankroll on something someone tells you to do, but if you run into a situation that mirrors the one you posted about, give their advice a try. It might pay huge dividends for you in the long run. Another part of this answer is do other support their advice. If the next 3 posts after the advice you are thinking about following is blasting the player for being “wrong” then you might want to reconsider if their advice makes sense.
You will receive advice that doesn’t fit your playing style, but that doesn’t make it bad or incorrect advice. There are at least 4 different playing styles that all have different pros and cons, but all of the styles are correct at some time or another, based on game level, table make up, game type, and a multitude of other variables. Look at the advice in the context of the hand and consider using it at a later date and see what the results are.
The biggest thing to remember asking for advice is that if someone is willing to offer some up to you; it might be worth looking at and considering following. Most online players won’t waste their time writing a long answer to your question, while providing you insight into their game, without meaning what they say. Consider what other people tell you, most of them are speaking from hard and expensively earn experience. I wish when I started playing poker in 2003 I had a forum or a “support” group to help me find my way in the wonderful world of online poker. Most of the advice that is offered is intended to make the person asking the question a better and more profitable player. After all, most of us play online poker to make money.
