First impressions

kashhh11

Hey so I’m new here and while I do like the site so far and still have much to explore, I have to say that when doing an mtt simulation, I had 109 suited in the small blind, and it cost me 30 chips to call and see a flop that would have a pot with 240 in the middle. Getting such great odds I clicked advice and it said to fold. Surely this can’t be right? Am I wrong to call there? I had 1000 chips.
Other than that I’ve had fun and so far and look forward to putting in more time but I’m a little concerned that I might learn things that are wrong.

AllenBlay

Hi and welcome,
There are about a bunch of threads on here discussing the advice and how to use it. Search for advisors and you'll find some of them. The advice isn't meant to be a "definite best", it's just supposed to be one way some of your opponents in real games, particularly live ones, will play. The best way to learn on this site is through repetition, seeing which hands are causing you problems by looking at your reports, using the Combat Trainer, Beat the Pro Challenges, and following your weekly training plans. The Brain button within the advice is also very helpful for working on reading opponent ranges, etc. I hardly ever even look at the advice unless I'm totally up in the air and want to see what someone might do. If I already know what I think is the best play, I never look at it.

Allen

kashhh11

But that’s why I’m here because I may think something is right but it isn’t. I want to learn the correct way. My concern is that if this advice is clearly wrong the advice all over may be too generic and not specific enoug. Saying you hardly look at the advice doesn’t help me much. And also you didn’t answer if I was right or wrong in that specific spot

AllenBlay

I have no idea on the specific nature of the opponents or how the game had been going, so I can't speak to that specific situation. If opponents aren't going to pay you off when you hit your straight or flush, you could be negative EV there. However, on a more general basis if what you are looking for in training is advice in specific spots, AI-based computerized training is not the way to go. That requires a human to sit down with you and explain the why behind when things are played certain ways. The bots use decision tables based on a huge number of factors and just make their decisions based on an overall analysis of all the factors. They aren't able to give a good explanation for why.

Computerized training is best at detecting statistical patterns in your game that indicate things you are doing wrong and need to practice - like the weekly training plans or the ability to play AQ 100 times in 30 minutes. I know a lot of our members (and a lot of coaches) use our site to help identify weaknesses and then as a source of practice. Then, they sit down and go through hands with a human and figure out the why - something the computers can't do. For example, Kenna James, Doug Hull, and a number of other coaches sit down with the players they coach and go through their play on APT and watch them practice. It's very efficient and their students love it because you can play so many hands on here it becomes easy to diagnose the weaknesses in your game. That saves the coaches a bunch of time, which is valuable since most of these folks charge close to $200/hr. A lot of our members don't pay for human coaches - they just learn the weaknesses in their game from the training plans and then practice hundreds or thousands of hands focusing specifically on that, and they get a lot better. That's really what our site is all about, not the hand by hand advice, which is more of a computer-based best guess than a human logic-based explanation.