Why Poker Forums and Reddit Are Killing Your Poker Results

Poker can be a lonely pursuit especially if you play online. I have played 10+ million hands of poker online and most of that was done while sitting in a room all by myself.

So it is nice to talk to fellow poker players once in awhile, bounce ideas off each other, and discuss poker hands.

But unfortunately this can also be a double edged sword. Many people will turn to poker forums or poker subreddits for this sense of community.

However, unfortunately these places can often end up doing far more harm for your poker game than good.

And this is why there are no professional poker players that I know of that take them seriously at all anymore, (or even read them).

So in this article I am going to explain why you should avoid poker forums and poker subreddits and talk about how poker pros and serious poker players are networking instead these days.

Poker Forums and Poker Subreddits Offer You Bad Poker Advice

Let me just start off with the #1 reason why poker forums and poker subreddits are often bad for your poker game. 

And that is bad information.

As I have discussed before, at least 70% of people who play poker lose at this game in the long run. Honestly, that is a very generous estimate. It could easily be higher than this.

So this means that most of the people who you are talking to on poker forums and poker subreddits are actually losing poker players.

If you listen to them too much you might end up making very basic mistakes. 

If your goal is to make something like $100+ per day playing poker (like I discuss in my latest video), their "advice" is going to keep you further and further away from ever achieving this.

Now the fact that most forum posters are not winning players wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if there was some sort of vetting process to see who actually is a winning player and who isn't.

But there isn't. In fact with poker forums and poker subreddits there is no way to even tell who the person is!

Nobody uses their real name and so you have absolutely no idea who you are talking to and whether you should trust their advice or not.

It's literally just an endless string of text and noise from made up fake names hiding behind cartoon avatars (more on that later).

Too Much Noise

The other thing that this anonymous public discussion leads to is a very high amount of noise.

In other words, there are so many different opinions being offered, along with random tangents, derails, trolls and flame wars, that it can be difficult to even follow the discussion at times.

This is why almost all well known poker pros stopped posting or even reading poker forums and poker subreddits a long time ago. 

There is just way too much noise, negativity in some cases, and not enough high level poker discussion.

Now there are exceptions to this I want to be clear. But I am mostly talking about the biggest well known poker forums and poker subreddits in this article.

Time Wasting Off Topic Discussions

The last reason why poker forums and subreddits can be harmful for your poker game is that many of the most popular discussions aren't even about poker strategy!

For instance, on one of the largest poker forums the most popular section (called "NVG") is basically a place where people gossip and spread rumours about other well known poker pros.

This is something you would expect out of a bunch of high school girls, not grown men!

Now I get it though. 

Clearly many people like this sort of thing. Look at the success of TMZ for instance gossiping about the private lives of celebrities.

The bottom line though is that from a purely practical perspective, time wasting discussions like this are very unlikely to do anything good for your poker game.

My Free Poker Cheat Sheet Teaches You How to Make $2000+ Per Month in Low Stakes Games

Are you struggling to beat low stakes poker games like 2NL, 5NL, 10NL, 25NL online or $1/$2, $2/$5 live?

Do you want a simple step by step guide to show you exactly how to start winning consistently right now?

That is why I recently wrote this free little 50 page no BS guide to teach you exactly how to start crushing these games right now.

Never guess again about when to bet, raise and bluff. I even include charts showing you exactly what hands to play in all situations!

You will learn the exact strategies I have used as a 10+ year poker pro to consistently make $2000+ per month in small stakes poker games.

Enter your details below and I will send my free poker cheat sheet to your email right now.

Name

Email

You Make Money by Playing Poker, Not Talking About It!

Now, let me give you the biggest reason of all why you should avoid poker forums and poker subreddits like the plague.

This is something that I (thankfully) learned very early on in my 10+ year professional poker career.

And this is, poker is a game where you only make money when you are actually at the tables, playing poker.

Just like with a regular job, when you are not playing poker, you are not profitable.

I have never heard of any poker forums or poker subreddits who pay people to make hundreds or thousands of posts and waste countless hours of their time.

For instance, while the keyboard warriors are grinding it out on the forums and reddit, the real poker players are at the tables stacking the fish and building their bankroll.

My grind station near the beach

But hey, I get it. Maybe you just really, really, really love to talk about poker!

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Ok cool, so why not start your own blog, podcast, Youtube or Twitch channel?

Heck, some of these guys have so written so many poker strategy posts on forums and reddit that they could have written an entire book. They could be published poker authors earning royalties!

Just think about how crazy that is for a second.

I have actually written 3 poker books myself which have become incredibly popular among small and mid stakes players, and therefore make me a consistent side income.

Some of my books have even been translated into different languages like Spanish and Russian at this point.

Thankfully, I decided to stop wasting my time posting on poker forums and poker subreddits many years ago, or else these books may have never been written.

Look, the point here is that if you are going to spend enormous amounts of time talking about poker why not at least own the content so that you can build an audience and then monetize and make money from it?

You owe yourself that at the very least!

Ditch Poker Forums/Reddit, Do This Instead

Ok, so now that you know all the main reasons why poker forums and poker subreddits are largely not helpful for your poker game, what should you do instead?

Well, you have probably heard the old saying that iron sharpens iron. And that is because it is true.

So the first thing you are going to have to do is get yourself around some winning poker players or at least some people who are really serious about improving.

Finding people who have a real name or at least a well known online screen name would be a good start.

Like I said before, one of the main problems with poker forums and reddit is that everybody is anonymous. Why should I trust the advice of some guy named "pokergod87" or "bignuts92"?

In my experience poker pros and serious poker players are not going to hide behind some silly made up name like this or be too afraid to even show their face lol.

They will use their real name and real picture instead and can be easily found on all the major social media platforms as well.

Social Media and Private Facebook Poker Groups

So as mentioned, social media is a great place to find other poker pros or serious poker players. In fact I use it all the time.

I am available on all the major platforms:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter 

Plus a bunch more. And I always use either my online poker screen name "BlackRain79" or my real name, Nathan Williams, and of course my real picture.

So I am very easy to find and people know who I am.

Poker players send me dm's and messages all the time on these social media networks and I am often in contact with other well known pros as well.

You will never see me hiding behind a cartoon picture or a fake made up name like they do on poker forums or poker subreddits.

BlackRain79 Private Facebook Poker Talk Group

Many people these days will also set up a private Facebook group to discuss poker hands and talk about strategy with other serious poker players. Discord is also a great resource to use for this.

In fact, recently I decided to just go ahead and start my own private BlackRain79 Facebook Poker Talk group.

At the time of this writing there are already 500+ members.

2023 Edit: It's close to 9,000 members now. Fastest growing poker group on Facebook in the past year.



And I only started it a few days ago! You can join for free right here.

My Facebook Poker Group is private though...

This completely eliminates all the noise, negativity/trolls and bad advice problems that often happen with large public poker forums and reddit.

In fact, if you come to my private Facebook poker group bringing your negativity or trolling, you will be quickly BANNED.

Because unlike most poker forums and poker sub-reddits I don't tolerate this kind of nonsense, at all.

I think this is one of the biggest reasons why private poker Facebook groups like mine are surging in popularity, while big poker forums and poker subreddits have been seeing their numbers decline for years now.

It should be mentioned that many advanced poker training sites also offer this sort of exclusivity.

My new Elite Poker University does not offer this at the moment. But I plan on adding a private discussion group to it in the future, like many other similar high level poker courses. 

Meet Other Poker Players in Person

Now there is one last option for networking with other good poker players and it is easily the best option in my opinion. Just meet up with them in real life!

I have personally met countless poker pros in real life and it pretty much always started by connecting through social media.

Now admittedly this is a little bit easier for me to do since I decided to move to SE Asia and grind online poker from my laptop on the beach over 10 years ago.



This is something that tons of other online poker pros have also decided to do. 

So unlike all the keyboard warriors in the poker forums and poker subreddits there is a big group of us professional poker players out here, who actually meet up in person.

Crazy I know!

But still in most of these cases we connected initially through social media, this blog or my Youtube channel.

This is yet another great reason to start a poker blog or a poker Youtube/Twitch channel! 

You will naturally start to attract more serious poker players just by putting your thoughts out there on a regular basis.

Lastly, attending big events like the World Series of Poker can also be a great way to meet other poker players as they tend to attract all the big names and serious amateurs as well.

I regularly travel to these as well in order to meet up with some of the biggest names in the industry, and talk strategy with other proven poker pros.

Final Thoughts

Poker forums and poker subreddits can seem like a natural place to discuss the game and get advice especially for many newer poker players.

And unfortunately many beginners get sucked into them and get a bunch of bad advice from the majority of people in these places who are losing poker players.

Of course, since they hide behind made up names and cartoon avatars it is impossible to even know who they are in the first place!

And if this doesn't sink our beginner poker player, then the endless negativity and squabbling that you find in most poker forums and poker subreddits surely will.

Serious poker players simply do not surround themselves with people like this and expect success. They surround themselves with other proven winners instead.

Often in small private groups online or in real life.

By the way, I discuss this in much more detail in my brand new Elite Poker University training. 

Specifically, how moving to SE Asia many years ago allowed me to meet (in person) with many other high level poker pros, which in turn improved my game tremendously.

Enroll in BlackRain79 Elite Poker University

Get $100 OFF Use Code: Elite100

I quickly ditched poker forums and poker subreddits after learning that no real pros take them seriously at all anymore these days.

One exception to this however is CardsChat. 

This is the only major poker forum I recommend because I know the owners and I know how committed they are to keeping a good positive and welcoming learning environment especially for beginners.

I actually did an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") on there just recently:

https://www.cardschat.com/f11/ask-blackrain79-anything-about-cash-games-443750/

But to re-iterate, the reasons why most poker forums and subreddits are counter-productive are numerous. 

Bad poker advice, high amount of noise, negativity, and too many off-topic time wasting discussions just to name a few.

If you want to network with other serious poker players it is a better idea to seek them out and build online friendships through social media. 

Starting a poker blog, Youtube or Twitch channel can also be a good way to attract other serious poker players.

Never before have you been able to contact other poker players and even well known pros so easily by simply commenting on their posts or videos or with a simple dm or message. 

If they are really popular you won't always get a reply of course but you catch my drift.

Lastly, once you build a small circle of serious poker players you can create a private Facebook or Discord group to discuss strategy or even meet up in person.

If you want to know the strategies that I personally use to make $2000+ per month from low stakes poker as a 10 year pro, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.


Let me know your thoughts on networking with other poker players and discussing strategy in the comments below. What works best for you?