How to ignore the peanut gallery in poker

When you begin to take poker seriously, and start putting in a lot of hours (especially live poker) the one thing you will never be without is advice; whether asked for or unsolicited pretty much everyone you interact with in poker will try to “guide” you! Because of this, it’s vitally important that you learn very early on in your poker career who you should be listening to, and simply tune out the rest of the Peanut Gallery.

Who you should be willing to listen to

Person #1 — Typically, good players do not part with their knowledge to random strangers. Strategy discussions amongst good players often come about after a bit of foreplay, where the two parties size each other up and build up a decent report with one another. Additionally, good players tend not to discuss strategy in a condescending “you don’t know what you’re doing” kind of way; they tend to discuss not lecture.

If a solid regular in your game starts quietly talking to you in a conversational kind of way this is probably someone you’ll want to at least listen to.

Person #2 – Online you’ll find most of the best strategy talks at the poker forums and it becomes readily apparent that the people with the highest post counts, and the people who state things matter-of-factly, are probably best ignored. Instead the best posters on the Internet poker forums tend to be people who respond to difficult situations with well-thought-out posts, not the people who feel it necessary to respond to every single strategy post on the forum.

Longtime forum members with a few hundred posts, who tend to make insightful posts whether it’s in strategy or other discussion, should be given the benefit of the doubt, since they only seem to respond to serious questions and important topics.

Who you should ignore

This list is a lot longer, and the explanations will be far briefer. And while you should at least listen to anything someone has to say, if you feel they fit into the following list then go into the conversation realizing you should take their advice with a grain of salt:

• Anyone who is berating others and lecturing players about the flaws in their game
• Any stranger offering you some “nugget of wisdom” like, “you should raise every unopened button,”… Really, why?
• Players you have pegged as bad players
• Anyone who feels there is only one way of doing things in poker
• People who try to play poker coach to new players -this is especially true at online poker forums
• People who are vague about what games and stakes they play
• Anyone on a poker forum who gives one sentence answers
• Anyone on a poker forum who feels it necessary to respond to every single post