Should I play live?
Posted by Bernardo Crespo
Posted by
Bernardo Crespo
posted in
Gen. Poker
Should I play live?
I've been thinking about changing to live poker, there are a couple of casinos in my city holding $2/$4 and the occasional 4/8 games that are suuuuuper soft. People there have no clue of bet sizing, they dont think in terms of BBs they just think of the money. A $28 raise in a $2/$4 game is smaller for them than a $40 raise in a 5/10 game, you see people playing draws in insane ways, calling with bluff catchers huge river bets, etc. You know the kind of game where you are gonna get called down a lot and you can value bet huge.
So the thing is I have clearly an edge in this games. Online I play nl25 and I think I have like a 5bb/100 at the most and I play 4 tables max.
How do you think my bb/100 rate or hourly rate would be at those live games?
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Also what win rate should I expect playing short stack vs playing big stack?
Live games are def softer than online. Even regs are fundamentally flawed in many ways. However, there are many adjustments that online players have to make. Unorthodox preflop raising size, how to play 5-6 way pots, limp-reraises, constant limping and over-limping, deep stacks, just to name a few. Player tendencies and betting/calling ranges are very different from what one can expect playing online. Players are very show-down happy and don't value bet nearly enough. You will see strange flop min-raises where opponents are trying to see "where they are at" with top pair hands. A competent online player new to the scene can make grave errors in assessing opponents betting and checking ranges. Balancing is way overrated and often it is best to make the best vacuum play for a given situation. It's really hard to include everything, but you will def go through some adjustment period. Very crudely put, you have to bluff less and vbet more, expect opponents to pass on easy river value bets and not fold often to river bets. Players are usually extremely polarized on the river when they bet, if there was a bet on every street prior to that.
A good live pro can make $50-$60/hr at 2/5NL and $100/hr at 5/10.
brick and mortar poker is usually softer than online.
having said they each offer a different experience to a player it's just whatever you prefer.
live poker - softer games, but you may occasionally have to put up with less than savory characters at the table, etc. etc.
online - tougher games, but you can multi table, etc. etc.
you'll need to figure out what works best for you.
play both :)
if you are only 4 tabling 25NL you can make more per hour playing in a good live 2/4 blind game
OP, if you have the Money for 2/4 Live, then why dont you deposit more online, and try to move up in stakes, where i think its far more profitable than your Live Ventures.
I'm no expert at Live games, but the setbacks of Live grinding
1) Slow pace, not enough hands to establish your edge in these games. Its impossible for your edge to be that great within 100-200 hands frame of time
2) Rake is pretty ridiculous, My Casino is 5-6% or more i think, which i think is absurd, and cuts directly into your hourly. And include the fact that we all tip after every winning hand
3) I just think the opportunity cost lost at spending time grinding Live far outweighs the money you can win from those games.
Although I agree with what Below says, I think the games are pretty easy to beat.
200 a night was average when I played live for a while, and that was 2/2.
But it takes a while before you've found the optimal live playing style.
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