Online Players Anonymous

[tap tap tappy]

Over the past few months I have had a great deal of success playing live. I made my third trip to a B&M casino in upstate new york. I played for about 40 hours at the 100 dollar max buy-in NL tables. I made about 1600 bucks. I would not like to say that I was lucky, the whole trip I only hit 3 full houses and must say there were several 6 hour stints where I folded every hand even when I was small blind. Prior to that I would play a couple times a week in a home game for a forty dollar buy in. I've put together something like a 3 or 4 grand bankroll based on these winnings which is great. This is my dilemma. I have lost about half of that playing online. I consider myself a great live game player as I have even received some respect from the regulars and pros in the casino for my play but I am a terrible online player. I don't play over my head I only play the PP25 NL tables. I play way too aggressive in my opinion. I feel like I am terribly impatient. I only play 99-AA and ATs, AJ o/s, AQ o/s, AK o/s and KQs. There have been stints where in four hours I will win a hundred bucks easily or I will drop 150 on some bad beats and over aggressive bluffs. Would I be incorrect in thinking that perhaps bluffing online is not the way to play, perhaps its too aggressive and costly? I know everyone will ask if I have poker tracker, no I don't have poker tracker. Over the past two years I have probably won something like 6 to 10 grand in live play but have lost almost four in online play. I want to hear some encouragement or discouragement. Have any of you had similar stories? Does anyone else out there find the transition hard to go from live to online play? Do any of you sit and fold for hours online just as I typically do live? SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME SOMETHING! haha But in all seriousness many of you are successful players online and I too would like to be successful. In fact if I ever decided to play online again my goal would be to build a bankroll to go from the 25 dollar games to the 50 dollar games.

[krazyace5]

The only part I caught was folding for hours online.

Online you can multi table so it is not as bad.

[mason55]

One thing that might make a difference is that live the play is much weaker for a given level. Playing 1/2 NL live might be equivalent to .25/.50 online. Something to think about. Not saying the match up exactly like that but it will be something similar, so you might try playing at lower limits online than you do live.

[ihardlyknowher]

I would guess that you are giving the online players too much credit and probably have a style that works better against stronger competition. I play much looser than you online and bluff all the time and still make money. Also, maybe you have some innate ability to pick up tells in live play.

[TheWorstPlayer]

You can beat online poker. Easily. But you have to realise that it is quite different from the live games you are playing. There are several differences, but I think the most dramatic easily changes will come from a few key ones.

1. Don't bluff online. Of course you have to bluff, even online, in order to beat good competition and to get paid off on your big hands. Not so in online SSNL. How you have played previous hands is completely lost on these guys unless you raise ten hands in a row. People love to call online because it is just numbers and it is just clicking. Think about the psychology: If you had to reach into your pocket and pull out cash every time you placed a bet, you would be pretty reluctant to place bets. You would fold easily. When you have to reach into your wallet when you go into the casino and buy chips and then you have to go to your pile of chips and place them out on the table, and they say $5 on them, you are somewhat reluctant to place bets. You fold fairly easily. When all you have to do is click a button and some numbers just flash up on the screen and you haven't touched that money in months and don't plan on doing so for more months, it is very VERY easy to call bets. You do NOT fold easily. That is why at SSNL, the way to win money is to play good hands and bet the crap out of all the stupid calling stations. Not to bluff.

2. GET POKERTRACKER. In live games, you can read a player to see if they are weak or to see if they hit the flop. Online, you are (or should be) playing several tables and you can't see your opponents. Instead, you can see exactly how frequently they have played hands, how often they bet, how often they have won money when they went to showdown, etc. These statistics take the place of live reads and they are crucially important. The $55 it takes to pay for PT would have certainly saved you hundreds by now if you had simply never bluffed someone with over 35% frequency of seeing a showdown. GET IT.

[tap tap tappy]

I do have a somewhat innate ability to play live and of course like many players am much more comfortable with stronger players. One of the things I can do very well by the way IHARDLYKNOWHER which perhaps you or others might want to pick up for when they play live. Listen I am sure you are a better player than I so by no means take any offense to me giving advice because I may be out of my league saying this. In live play I have the ability to very well guage the tightness and strength of the others players as well as have a great grasp on their post flop play. All whilst I talk to everyone and start tapping into their heads and figuring out the way they think about the game. For instance if I know a table is very tight, if I am 90% certain from my observations of the other players behaviors that no one is sitting on AA,KK,or QQ, I will raise for about an hour every time I get two cards ten and above. While will I do this? If you are playing two face cards, or really any two cards, you are about 1/3 to hit your hand or make a pair so what I will do is raise preflop, which over the course of an hour becomes very aggravating, but I am takign the house odds basically that they won't hit which is 2/3 so then the flop comes and regardless of my cards as long as I read them weak I bet and pick up these pots slowly but surely in these ring games. What does this allow me to do? First off it makes my stack larger as 66% of the time I am mixed up in a pot I am going to win some chips, secondly it gets a whole table of players pissed at me which allows me a couple of hours of ridiculous action because I have become a ring game bully so I just kick it and wait for the edge like a sniper and I fire them down, and thirdly I am getting mixed up with players regularly so I am markign down what they have done when their weak or strong but also I am noting what they see me doing when I am weak hence when I hit some aces in an hour, I just play like I am weak against a guy who thinks not only am I a bully, but also a dick and I hustle the [censored] out of his chip stack. This is just one of my different methods of makign things easier on me. Anyways, what does all of this mean? It is very hard for me to bring that over to 6 handed online play as it is very impersonal and so hard to read the other players. I have heard that poker tracker will aid me with reads as it is so intricate with statistics. I just am so heartbroken having lost over a grand recently playing shitty online poker that I fear it wouldn't be worht my time to buy in for another 200 and try to run it up based on some of the advice I have received from this post.

[TheWorstPlayer]

Dude. If you aren't winning online and you aren't having fun online and you are winning live and you are having fun live . . . play live and don't play online.

[BobboFitos]

I play mainly online, and whenever I play live, I'm constantly amazed at how much worse real people are than icons on screens.

Like... I still haven't adjusted to how I'm supposed to play at TS NL100. They're worse than Party 25. Maybe.

[BobboFitos]

[ QUOTE ]
I do have a somewhat innate ability to play live and of course like many players am much more comfortable with stronger players. One of the things I can do very well by the way IHARDLYKNOWHER which perhaps you or others might want to pick up for when they play live. Listen I am sure you are a better player than I so by no means take any offense to me giving advice because I may be out of my league saying this. In live play I have the ability to very well guage the tightness and strength of the others players as well as have a great grasp on their post flop play. All whilst I talk to everyone and start tapping into their heads and figuring out the way they think about the game. For instance if I know a table is very tight, if I am 90% certain from my observations of the other players behaviors that no one is sitting on AA,KK,or QQ, I will raise for about an hour every time I get two cards ten and above. While will I do this? If you are playing two face cards, or really any two cards, you are about 1/3 to hit your hand or make a pair so what I will do is raise preflop, which over the course of an hour becomes very aggravating, but I am takign the house odds basically that they won't hit which is 2/3 so then the flop comes and regardless of my cards as long as I read them weak I bet and pick up these pots slowly but surely in these ring games. What does this allow me to do? First off it makes my stack larger as 66% of the time I am mixed up in a pot I am going to win some chips, secondly it gets a whole table of players pissed at me which allows me a couple of hours of ridiculous action because I have become a ring game bully so I just kick it and wait for the edge like a sniper and I fire them down, and thirdly I am getting mixed up with players regularly so I am markign down what they have done when their weak or strong but also I am noting what they see me doing when I am weak hence when I hit some aces in an hour, I just play like I am weak against a guy who thinks not only am I a bully, but also a dick and I hustle the [censored] out of his chip stack. This is just one of my different methods of makign things easier on me. Anyways, what does all of this mean? It is very hard for me to bring that over to 6 handed online play as it is very impersonal and so hard to read the other players. I have heard that poker tracker will aid me with reads as it is so intricate with statistics. I just am so heartbroken having lost over a grand recently playing shitty online poker that I fear it wouldn't be worht my time to buy in for another 200 and try to run it up based on some of the advice I have received from this post.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mr Brunson, please sign my copy of supersystem

[Jay36489]

40 hours of live play at about 30 hands/hr (which is average) = 1200 hands. That is a small sample size.

[ QUOTE ]
I only play 99-AA and ATs, AJ o/s, AQ o/s, AK o/s and KQs.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can play a lot more then that. Any PP or suited connector if you can get in without a raise is profitable. Most agree you can call a raise with specualtive hands as long as its no more then 10% of the stacks.

Bluffing is bad in low stakes. You bluff to represent a better hand then you have making someone lay down a better hand then you actually have. Poor players don't understand what you're representing and will call you down because they don;t know better.

It's also a lot easier to read people live. Sometimes when someone sits down you can actually see the green behind their ears. You probably are good at reading live, but need to work on reading people soley by the way they play. Look at every hand history where cards are shown. Look at every decision you have seen them make and takes notes.

And yes, as others said get PT. You're just continuing to lose money without analysing your play. How can you ask us what to do when you aren't using the tool made to do just that?

[theredpill2]

ONline players are much better than live players. I got the crap kicked out of me at Party Poker. I've lost 1200+ to party poker. I no longer play there. I don't think I will ever go back unless I become a master poker player. Thing about it ? Those thousands of players online are samples from countries all over the globe that are playing. You could be playing Johnny Chan for all you know. You are basically taking the top 5 % of good poker players from UK, top 5 % from Japan etc and throwing them on Party Poker. Now go make some money. Yeah right.

[luckycharms]

[ QUOTE ]


Like... I still haven't adjusted to how I'm supposed to play at TS NL100. They're worse than Party 25. Maybe.

[/ QUOTE ]

YES they are.... and it's easier to remember the giftedly crappy

[swolfe]

[ QUOTE ]
40 hours of live play at about 30 hands/hr (which is average) = 1200 hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

do you think so? it seemed to me (and maybe i just played at some slow tables), but live hands took about 3-5 minutes each...which means only 12-20 hands/hr.

i don't really like live play. 380 hands/hr is a better pace for me /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[TrailofTears]

There is a great post recently by fimbulwinter on key elements of playing SSNL. Search for it and read it. Otherwise, just be patient and read and post here on 2+2. You will be able to find leaks in your game and thinking that you might not be able to see without the help of others (and maybe PokerTracker). There are tons of great players on here who are here solely to offer and receive advice on strategy and how to beat the game. Take it to heart and you will vastly improve. Take care and best wishes in whatever you strive to achieve.

- ToT

[Jay36489]

30 hands/hr is the standard B&M estimate. Obviously depends on the dealer, the game, and mostly the players. If you have 40hrs at less then that its even smaller a sample size.

[BobboFitos]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
40 hours of live play at about 30 hands/hr (which is average) = 1200 hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

do you think so? it seemed to me (and maybe i just played at some slow tables), but live hands took about 3-5 minutes each...which means only 12-20 hands/hr.

i don't really like live play. 380 hands/hr is a better pace for me /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're only playing 12hands/hr, you're not getting your money's worth. At ALL.

Live is painfully slow (for me) but each hand is rarely more than 2 minutes. In fact, I'd wager the norm is 40 to 45 hands/hr.