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I know the question, but I don't know the answer.
Tikay10
Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 169,112
in Poker Chat
Earlier this week, a brand new player turned up in a £3.30 DYM I played. By "brand new" I mean Sharky said it was his/her first ever MTT or SNG on Sky Poker, though it's possible they had played some cash.
Not to be rude, but it was obvious from the get go that he had never played poker before.
He limped or called into every single pot, & called bets on every street.
He lasted until early in Level 2, just calling off all his chips.
His exit hand was truly horrible. The game was PLO8 (High Low Omaha), it was an all low board, 4 way, the board was something like 2-3-5-6-7. Anyone with any sort of low draw would hit that hard. His hand was J-J-Q-4, so he thought his Jacks were good. Jacks are good for half the pot there maybe once in 100 hands.
He has not played since.
So the question is.....
Comments
What can we as poker players do to help guys like this?
First up, I'm not expecting anyone to go easy on the guy. I never had the chance to grab his chips, but if the opportunity had arisen, I'd have done so in a heartbeat, of course I would, so would anyone else.
However, it's bad for everyone when a player is subjected to such a humiliating experience in their first game.
For the players, we NEED new players all the time, to balance those who stop playing for whatever reason. The more players the better is good for all of us.
For the Business, recruiting new customers is a very expensive affair.
So it's lose lose for all of us.
Trying to set up "new player only" games is almost impossible, as it's so exploitable, & if there's a chance to exploit anything, poker players are in like a shot.
A "buddy" system whereby a new player is paired with an experienced player for a few weeks, to get help, advice tips etc would be wonderful, but I just don't see any way it could be organised.
I'm pretty sure that enough good players could be recruited to help these guys, & they'd be willing to help. I just can't see a way of doing it tough.
It's pretty sad really. I almost feel newbies - genuine newbies - would benefit from some help, followed by a "proficiency test", but I just can't see how it can be done.
I will say this though. If any newbie players happen to read this, don't be shy in asking for some help. You'll get lots of it, & no mocking. The Community here is better than on any other site, so don't be shy guys, don't be frightened to ask for a bit of help if you at just starting your poker journey.
We do so by helping him learn the game.
Folks really don't mind breaking even, or even losing a few bob every week. We like a gamble, & we don't mind losing a few bob.
But when you are THAT dire, it can only end badly.
So even if you had some kind of help system, I feel like a lot of new players would be too proud to use it, or even admit that they're a beginner. Am sure there's a psychological reasoning for it somewhere, like when blokes chuck away instruction manuals without reading them!
Have an area very specifically targetted at new players, explaining strategy (if you scroll through some of the older posts, that was definitely a feature on the site in the past, but as a newbie how many really want to scroll through so many pages)
Perhaps in those specific areas anyone willing to help some of the newer players could organise some contact, HH etc etc.
Maybe more links to some of the vids etc, stickied posts regarding in game ettiquette and the actual rules, so many new players (and many experienced players) really don't know what is and isn't allowed.
And lastly perhaps a little more help directed to the new players in game, I remember the first time I registered a hi lo game by mistake and hadn't a clue, the players actually very patiently explained the rules (obviously as Jac mentioned thay had cleverly recognised value).
Players do actually try and help one another. Some great recent posts from groggy for example in the clinic.
But by doing this we aren’t helping ourselves. It still feels the right thing to do though.
I wince when i see players limp/folding at 200/400 in a Dym but i like it very much if i’m honest. I kind of feel pleased for players when i see them improve and i have to change my notes. At the same time i’m also disappointed.
Of course we smile to ourselves when the guy limps at 200-400 in a DYM from a 4 BB stack.
But I'm pretty sure, if push comes to shove, most of us would try to help the player if we could.
It's not just new players. Several regular players in the PLO8 pool still limp into every hand, irrespective of blinds or stack sizes, some of these guys have played many thousands of games. To be honest, they are beyond help. It's not them that bother me though, it's the Newbies who have such a bad experience when they first play.
That guy earlier this week must have felt totally humiliated. And as Angmar wisely noted, ego (or misplaced ego) is very important. We'll never see that player again, I'd bet money on that.
Maybe give all new players a free entry into a low buy-in Deepstack.
A great way to learn as you can make mistakes, and still have fighting chips.
All the best.
Rainman215.
I think if you had to teach them one thing, that would be it. You can add stuff as you go along, but just being allowed to play premium hands stops a lot of problems. If they are limping in out of position, and least they are doing it with a good hand.
It wouldn't be that difficult to do a series of very, very, short videos, that they might watch. The second one could be 10 minutes on position perhaps.
The temptation will always be to try to teach them too much straight off, overload them with information, and confuse them. Then the shape of the result will become that of a pear.
If I decided to start playing the guitar and just jumped straight in, it would sound awful. If I watched some YouTube vids, perhaps read some articles and whatnot, that might give me a small chance of not sounding awful.
I think one thing to bear in mind is that newbies will probably split themselves into 2 groups; the ones who are just rolfing around and want to 'gamble', and the ones that are looking to get into the game properly. The latter type should be level headed enough to seek assistance as they start to get their feet wet, the former won't give a toss about the intricacies of the game, and may actually feel put out if someone offered them pointers.
If there was a way of pointing them in the right direction of a small amount of appropriate information at regular intervals is bound to help.
The sooner a new player is able to achieve a minimal level of competence, after they start, the more likely they are to continue playing
the balance should be tweaked towards retention rather than acquisition and incentives should be more towards upsell rather than cross-sell.
there are newbies to sky poker and newbies who engage with sky poker
i would like to see incentive schemes which target newbies to major tournaments. we need to retain more, engage more in higher buy-in games, engage more for longer.
i would like to see less spent on acquisition, less given in incentives and rewards to the top 1% of players. more given to those who have put their toe in the water already. this to me, is the great opportunity that has been missed for years.
incentives are not just intrinsic money based rewards.
With regards to the question of clueless newbies, perhaps Sky could make more of an effort to direct new accounts over to the academy section of the website (maybe a couple of email nudges or a big popup about it during the sign-up process). However, the academy could do with a serious overhaul imo. For example, it recommends 5x open raise sizes with premiums but making your opens smaller with medium strength holdings. It also suggests limp/calling with the low end of chosen starting starting hands. All pretty naff advice for online poker in 2017 frankly.
At the end of the day though, I am rather inclined to agree with hhyftrftdr in that people need to take some personal responsibility if they intend their poker experience to be anything other than a gambling punt. I have no idea what I'm doing in PLO so I don't play it. If ever I do fancy giving it a go (with the intention of it being anything other than punting a few stacks for the lolz), you can be dam sure I'm going to read up a little first.
Edit: Dam intentionally spelt incorrectly. A pretty sensitive profanity filter round these parts it seems!
At the spinup table he quickly lost a couple of buyins through limping his stack away .
Ive seen him a few times at the spinups since, same story.
I dont think he knows there are other cash games and I havent the heart to mention the error of his ways, there is no way to bring the subject up without me looking like an ****.
Edit : guess the expletive.