Originally posted by jbpatzer This weekend I watched four movies (!), and played just two HUSnGs as I realized I was a bit drunk and this didn't seem to be helping me with the soulreading. Watched Tron Legacy with the kids yesterday morning (surprisingly entertaining I thought), which condemned me to an afternoon of playing this with number two son, and the The Girl Who Played With Fire in the evening (this was well made, and really similar to the book, but not as good, so I probably won't bother to watch the third film). Woke up this morning to find London rioting again, and the four places marked on the BBC's riot map were Enfield, where I grew up, Edmonton, where I went to school, Walthamstow, where my parents were born and my grandparents lived and died, and Tottenham, centre of the football universe. Is someone trying to tell me something? Can this be a coincidence? Well can it?! Speaking of conspiracies, I'm very disconcerted by the Girah/Jungleman thing (You think Jungleman didn't know? Come on!). Mainly because I was reading a 2+2 thread where they pointed out that having Skype groups where lots of players get together and play one player HU are basically unfair and cheating. And when you see it like that, what are we doing when we have a sweat session? We're basically ganging up on some poor unsuspecting mark. This can't be fair. And when TT coaches me and says 'That's a snap call/fold', and I say 'Surely I have to fold/call', and he explains his reasoning, and I do what he says, and he's right, isn't that unethical too? My moral compass is a bit wobbly this morning. Here's an appropriate song for Girah/Jungleman/anyone who's ever sweated or been coached.
It's pretty grey, I agree. Funny thing is, while buying HHs always seemed obviously wrong to me I never thought sweat sessions were wrong.
Here is one (possible) justification. When we watch a pkr vid or read a poker book, we are arming ourselves with knoweldge to help us beat other players. That is available to these players too, whether or not they choose to avail themselves of it. When TT says "that's a snap fold", he is saying 'in this situation, the thing that will make you the most $ long term, is to fold'. Its similar to reading an article that says, e.g., 'dont set mine for 50bb effective stacks'.
However, nothing guarantees that the piece of advice is correct in particular situation. The snap-fold occasion might actually have been a call (villain might have been bluffing) and you should set mine for 50bb if you can see the other guy's hole cards and he has Aces.
If you do a hand history review and your coach points out a particular situation against a particular opponent where you have been losing money and helps you to fix that leak, it's still going to improve your win rate against that opponent even if the advice doesn't come "real-time". But if we said that too is wrong, we would effectively be saying that all coaching is wrong, which seems to me to be going too far.
I certainly don't see anything wrong with someone sweating you playing a 10 man SnG against mostly unknown players and telling you to fold ATo under the gun. It's hard for me to think there is a moral distinction which kicks in if the advice comes when the number of other players is reduced to 1 (i.e. heads up).
Partly I think it's because the key elements of poker (that there is imperfect information) is still in place. However when you buy hand histories of people or fix it so you can see their hole cards, you are impinging on that fundamental element and that's where -- in my view -- it becomes much less grey and much more black-and-white.
Well, I'm rambling now...
