Live games

[gsdavid]

What is your estimate of how much ptbb an online player can have in live games of same limit? For example you have 5ptbb in 500$ NL online, how much you expect to have in live game(given that you can play looser and such more profitably) once you make proper adjustments to playing live?

[Aisthesis]

I think that depends on too many factors to have any kind of conversion factor.

If you're good at reading people and hard to read and patient, you'll do better live than online in bb/100. If those aren't your strong points, you can also easily do worse.

A lot also depends on the specific texture of the live game. In my experience, it's pretty much always somewhat looser, but that still leaves a LOT of room for table differences--clever LAGs, bad bluffers, some loose-weak, some loose-tough. So, it also depends on how your particular style, and ability to adjust, fits into the particular live game you're playing.

My experience has also been that the highest limit in a given casino will generally (with some short-term variation) be filled largely with skilled players. When you go down from that, I think the number of fish is higher than online.

Example: There's a 1/2 and a 2/5 here locally. The 1/2 players are MUCH worse than the online 1/2 players, probably at least 2/3 of them are in fact complete idiots by my standards. But the 2/5 players (although you occasionally also get some live ones) are every bit as good as 2/4 or 3/6 online players. They play a little differently, but their skill-set is adjusted more to the skills that do well in live play.

Since live play is slow and only one table, it's also very important to get good reads and capitalize on those. It's much more "playing the player" than in online games where you're playing 4 tables and relying more on generic strategies that do well vs. most opponents.

[black_knight6]

[Rhound50]

[iceman5]

[Aisthesis]

Yeah, I did the same thing, and 30 is realistic.

We even counted 40 on really good (=fast and disciplined) dealers. But those are exceptions. I can only think of 2 dealers that probably come close to maintaining that average.

I use 25 as my basis for calculations, though, but I take a break every hour, so I may actually play a little less.

[Triple B]

Slightly off topic, but when you do take a break what do you do with your chips?

Its probably a stupid question but I'm a live cash game virgin. However, I just found out my local B&M has switched from spreading 3/6 limit and 5/10 limit to 1/2 NL and occasionally 2/5 NL. I'm going to have to go soon and crush their souls.

[JimmyJet]

[Notorious_JC]

[Aisthesis]

[Triple B]

[Aisthesis]

[Rhound50]

Playing live is very different from playing online. People call a lot more and fold a lot less especially at lower levels like 1/2nl. A lot of good online players have trouble making the adjustment, they try to run over players who wont fold. Live poker is very slow and the slow pace takes it toll on a lot of good players. People tend to get impatient which causes bad decisions. The overall game play is much worse then online, if you can stay patient its easily exploitable but staying patient when when you go through a 2 hr stretch of unplayable hands is much harder than it seems.

[black_knight6]

low limit NL is just like low limit LIMIT...you have to SHOWDOWN the best hand to win