Serious observation B&M vs Online

[thomastem]

A difference that I don't see much discussion on is table turnover and how it effects table selection and strategy.

1st is table selection. Online if 3 fish leave and are replaced by rocks you can simply change tables. However live you don't always have that luxury.

In a live game there may be 2 tables spread at your normal limit and another 2 at the next lowest. If your table turns into a battle for the Blinds you can play it out, get on a 3 hour waiting list, or drive 1.5 hours home after only playing 2 hours.

The point here on table selection is that online it is much easier to play a good table the vast majority of the time.

The second issue of less turnover means learning your opponents and remembering your opponents without being able to take notes is critical. It is also the time that varying your play to make yourself harder to read legitamately becomes important.

ABC by the book poker will lose to the rake if it's a battle for the blinds.

I played a "Casino Night" type charity event that ran for 11 hours. I started and finished the event and 3 other sharks did the same.

At any rate I wanted to share some fundamental differences that I saw in live vs online ring games. Hope someone finds this usefull.

[AncientPC]

I haven't played any live so take this with a grain of salt.

I thought that single tabling live with less hands per hour you'd be able to get better reads on your opponents.

I usually 4-7 table, but I know if I'm just playing one table I get much better notes / reads on the players.

[westmt01]

I find this very useful, and I think you're right. I'm headed to Vegas next month, and to avoid table selection issues I'm going to the Excalibur. I know it's very low limit, but the Excalibur is the B&M eqivalent of Party Poker. You can't possibly pick a bad table; they're all good.

In general though, for money making purposes I'd rather play online than B&M, for reasons you stated. If I find myself at a table online that isn't paying off for me for whatever reason, I can move instantly. At most B&M these days you get on a waiting list that is hours long.

[Blarg]

People reading and table image get slighted by a lot of people, but a lot of people aren't good at it either. When I started playing online, it actually took a while to learn NOT to make as many image plays as I did for the couple years I played B&M. Live, I looked like a bookish, tight-ass nerdy white kid, and I knew it, so I went with it and emphasized it. I found that very little tight playing could get people to start folding to my bets like crazy when I played live. On a good day I could bet the turn with any scare card and get people folding a huge amount of the time, even if they had caught me trying to pull bluffs before. I just had the tight-ass look for it, and my reads on people were good enough that I usually picked my moments adequately. I actually made lots of money with nothing some nights.

Online, I don't have that nerdy white guy with a stick up his butt thing going for me -- well, maybe in this forum -- but anyway even if I did, the table turnover can be so incredibly fast that even image plays that work out well lose most of their value, because half of the table might not be there in 15 minutes to remember the image anyway.

So if I do image plays online, I make sure they're cheap ones, and I know the opponent I'm pulling them on. The opportunity is still precious when it comes, but it's just not as important as when you're playing live.