I could use some B&M survival tips.

[WriterBoy]

I live in Nebraska, and the nearest cardroom is an hour or so away in Iowa. They only have two hold 'em table. 3/6 and 4/8. When I first sat down I bought in for the same amount as everyone else did, 100$ in chips.

I busted out about 1 1/2 hours later, and didn't win a single pot.

I've done thousands of hands online, but I've discovered it's very easy for me to go "surfing" while playing. So I'd like to make the move to casino play.
I honestly don't think that there were any professionals or regulars or anything like that. But I'm obviously doing something wrong.

Are there any 3/6 B&M tips that you can give me?

[STLantny]

Get caro's book of tells, and write some common tells down, and memorize them. Be on the look out next time you go. Study your opponents at all times. Basically thats what I do, as folding does get boring.

[Paul2432]

No advice can prevent what you experienced. My advice would be to bring more than $100 and rebuy as needed.

Paul

[That guy]

in 90 mins of B&M play, you probably played what, like 50 or 60 hands? Not winning a pot over ~55 hands in a loose B&M game is going to happen a fair bit. The more opponents, the more likely somebody is going to suck out on you. But the rewards are greater as pots are bigger.

Only enter pots with good multiway hands and don't put any more money in if the flop sucks. This is boring but a bet saved is a bet earned. If a flop has virtually no texture, I will continue with overcards getting proper pot odds (7-1). But on most flops, I think you are better off mucking if you opponents are not observant (ie, they don't realize how tight you are playing). Pissing away bets after the flop costs a lot and you will often lose in multiway pots drawing to only a single pair (laying implied odds). Limp a lot with Ax-suited and Kx suited and pairs and muck KJ/AT-offsuit a majority of the time.

You will win few pots but they will be big pots. B&M poker is pretty boring in my opinion but pretty profitable if you only enter and continue in pots with a nice overlay.

[k_squared]

[ QUOTE ]
in 90 mins of B&M play, you probably played what, like 50 or 60 hands? Not winning a pot over ~55 hands in a loose B&M game is going to happen a fair bit. The more opponents, the more likely somebody is going to suck out on you. But the rewards are greater as pots are bigger.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Losing a hundred bucks at those levels is going to happen. Bringing a hundred bucks is just not enough to play at that level game in so far as you will frequently lose that much in a session.

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Only enter pots with good multiway hands and don't put any more money in if the flop sucks. This is boring but a bet saved is a bet earned.

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THIS IS VERY SIMPLIFIED ADVICE... and suffice it to say, that as such seems to be lacking... a bet saved is not a bet earned in all cases. If you save a bet because you are scared you might be behind, and fold, and then lose the pot then that bet saved was equivalent to a lot of bets lost. Sometimes a bet saved isn't really a bet saved at all! Also, depending on how your table is playing you need to adjust your starting hands. If it is a passive table with a lot of people calling flops you can add hands like small pocket pairs, and suited connectors to your starting hands and play them more liberally. If you are on a tighter table then you might want to stay away from those, especially when you are out of position.

[ QUOTE ]
You will win few pots but they will be big pots. B&M poker is pretty boring in my opinion but pretty profitable if you only enter and continue in pots with a nice overlay.

[/ QUOTE ]

Playing at a B&M casino means you see less hands, but get to see more of the people playing them, i.e. their reactions etc. Often this allows you to make folds that might otherwise not be justified, or to make calls that might otherwise be justified. It is more interesting in so far as you know have more information about your opponents to use in making your decisions. I like online play more personally because of the sheer volume of hands that you can play in the same amount of time. I would advise any player to not simply be conservative in your approach to poker. You play hands when you have an edge. If you fold whenever that edge is small you are losing a lot of potential profit. Realize that poker is a game of ups and downs and that at any B&M casino getting into the long run is going to take a LONG time. If you try to minimize your loses rather than maximizing your winnings, you will probably be a losing player albeit one who loses slowly!

-K_squared

[Ben Thornton]

"That Guy" offers a lot of good advice concerning good multi-way hands. Those kinds of hands can be very valuable on a loose table.

I share a similar situation, I am not near any Casinos so I rarely get to play a real B&M game. For me, playing on the internet is boring and really only a shadow of what a live poker game is. Why is that? Because, poker is about the people playing the game and not the actual cards.

Now, I'm not saying that cards aren't important, but once you get a basic idea of which hands you are going to pursue and which ones you are not, the B&M game comes down to understanding the table you are sitting at and the people around you. In other words, 90% of the time you spend at a B&M card game should be spent learning as much about the people sitting around you as possible.

I don't mean you should ask for a blood sample or an autobiography, but you do need to be learning their betting habits, their gestures, and their mannerisms. People are predictable. I have seen people grimace or even frown as turns or rivers have hit the table. Wow, talk about a tell!

I recommend folding anything that isn't a premium hand for the first 30 minutes to an hour of live play. This gives you an opportunity to learn the table without investing a lot of money. When I say premium hands, I mean high pocket pairs almost exclusively. If you want to limp on a small pocket pair to try and hit a set that is acceptable as well, just stay out of the way of 2 or 3 bet raises unless you have a real hand.

After you have stayed out of they way for a while and gotten the lay of the land, start playing a few more hands. If you are seeing a good bit of reraising at the table, playing suited connectors or A-x suited for a cheap flop can pay off big time. A warning though: Do Not Chase Hands! This is the fastest way to give your chips away at a table. If the pot odds justify a call then make it, if not...DON'T!

After that first hour or so of playing nothing but premium hands, the rest of the table will start to suspect you may be a very tight player. This is a good time to advertise that you will play less than spectacular hands. Example: I made some big bets preflop and called down someone elses hand with just a pocket pair of threes. No one said anything at the time, but the hand would be rewarded later when I got a pair of bullets a little later. When I bet them again this time, the man across the table from me said, "Got those threes again, eh?" I just grinned and bet again. I got alot more action than I thought I would because everyone had seen me bet a low pair the same way earlier. I gave away 5 or 6 bets on the threes, but now with the aces I won 15-20 bets. This kind of posturing is 10x more effective in a live game then it is online.

If you are worried about other players getting "tells" off of you, there are a few things you can do at the table to reduce the chance of this happening. That first hour of folding is a good time to get in a pattern of behavior. You should make the same movements and gestures everytime you look at your cards, move your chips, or declare an action. Now you might think, well, wouldn't a pattern make me predictable? The answer is "No." The reason it doesn't is because you act in the same manner no matter what you have or what the situation is. This requires you to be very mindful of how you are presenting yourself at all times. Last time I was in New Orleans at Harrah's I wore about 6 lbs of beads and pretended to be intoxicated. (OK, so I wasnt pretending...) I don't think anyone really took me seriously or considered me a threat at the table. Well, that changed after I had increased my stack from $200 to $500 in the course of about 3-4 hours. (Also, $100 is a little weak for sitting at a 3-6 table. I would recommend buying at least $200 to sit at that table.)

The only way this system breaks down is if you are the kind of person that may be unable to control your reactions. If that is the case, try never to do the same thing twice. It is unfortunately one more thing you have to think about at the table, but don't get too bogged down by it, its not as important as good poker fundamentals or keeping an eye on the rest of the table.

Well, thats just a few things I could think of to get ya started. Hope it helps! Good Luck!

[SeattleJake]

The first time I played in a cardroom, I lost though I think I played well. At first I rationalized that I just didn't get any good cards for most of it, which was true. Later, I realized that I just didn't know how to play against the LAG table I was at.

I think I had more opportunities to limp in with mediocre hands than I normally would have, and that I would have hit quite a few and still been able to get away from the ones I didn't.

Characterize the table you're going to be playing at (general modeling) then get used to the individual players (specific modeling). Learn how to play against those styles, and you should do much better.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
But I'm obviously doing something wrong.


[/ QUOTE ]

Why? Because you lost $100 at a 3-6 table? This really isn't a solid indication of anything. You could play a table full of idiots for 5 hours and lose $300. That doesn't necesarily mean you were playing bad. Could mean you just got caught into a couple big draws with ram n jam and missed.

Go over the hands you lost money on. Starting with preflop and go from there. I wouldn't worry too much about 'reading' opponents until you're sure you're play is sound. Which it could very well be.

cya

b

[Mike]

Not playing anything but the pairs -> AA - TT for the first hour will help you a lot. You need time to make the adjustment to a completely different type of game. Every one but you knows they will probably lose, so they play much differently than you do.

I suggest you take that first hour, fold, fold fold, and then you will only be down a small amount and you have a solid plan on how you are going to attack the table.

I see Ben mentioned the same thing in his post. My bad.

[Gbob]

I make this point to a number of my online playing friends. When you play online you're not realy playing the full game of poker. Online doesn't, and can't, give you any practical experience of playing mind games at the table. In online play you, and everyone else, has a database of facts available to you that you don't have in live play. You can bring up stats telling you exactly how the other person plays online. In a casino you have to rely upon the MK1 eyeball and that big hunk of gray matter between the ears. You have to be able to create a table image and you have to understand the other players. You have to intimidate and outplay them.

Also, because you play less hands you have to make every hand count. I agree with the "don't play anything but good cards for an hour" advice. Your first hour needs to be a recon mission. You need to find out what size bets chase what players off. You need to find out how to goad someone into putting more money into the pot when you have the nuts. You need to get into the other players heads.

So first figure out your strengths. If you do well online, then it's safe to assume that your strength is the math and calculating odds. Next figure out your weakness. Did you have an issue with body language? Were other people getting good reads off you? How about adreniline? Did your heart beat too fast and your hands shake? Obviously drinking at the table is a bad idea, but sometimes a shot can help calm the shakes.

The best players are the ones who combine acting with math. Create a character for yourself and your table image. Once you know your table, then play the part. Here's an example. I wear a suit without a tie when I hit the casino. If it's a LAGgy table, I'm the drunk buisnessman. I order a drink early in the morning, and complain about how long I've been awake. (I play in the morning after a good nights sleep.) If it's a tight table with old men, I'm the slick pro you better back off from. Stupid, but it works.

Casinos are an ATM machine because of the poor quality of other players. Remember, don't make mistakes. If you know the math, then there's no way to lose money unless you make an error.

[That guy]

I played some B&M last night which I haven't done in a LONG time. It was a cakewalk compared to online.

Party Poker has its share of softies but nothing can compare to the terrible play I saw last night at a SF-Bay Area poker room.

Calling stations everywhere... every time I raised I got called down by multiple players drawing very thin or dead. I kept thinking I was going to set everybody up and maybe eventually try a bluff-raise if I showdown enough winners to make people think that I have something when I raise them... but they just kept calling me down and the guy next to me tried that and failed miserably when this lady called him down with bottom pair 2's vs his busted draw... So resist the temptation and just bet/raise when you have a hand and make sure you charge the flush draws a double-bet if you can do it.

Raise with big suiteds and pairs QQ or bigger
Limp with all other pairs (you can't reduce the field so don't bother trying to do it with anything else)
Limp with suited connectors
If 6+ players in, limp with offsuit connectors JT & T9 & 98

Watch the play of others and you can easily tell if they know what they are doing... Most bet when they have a pair or 2-pair and check all draws.

Value bet & don't bluff.

[k_squared]

[ QUOTE ]
I played some B&M last night which I haven't done in a LONG time. It was a cakewalk compared to online.

Party Poker has its share of softies but nothing can compare to the terrible play I saw last night at a SF-Bay Area poker room.

Calling stations everywhere... every time I raised I got called down by multiple players drawing very thin or dead. I kept thinking I was going to set everybody up and maybe eventually try a bluff-raise if I showdown enough winners to make people think that I have something when I raise them... but they just kept calling me down and the guy next to me tried that and failed miserably when this lady called him down with bottom pair 2's vs his busted draw...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think your advise is great for the games you describe, but it is not true that all B&M games are like this. At the Trump Casino south of Chicago the games are no where near that good all the time. You will even find yourself at tables full of players who are relatively good. The key to playing online or B&M is having a good feel for the current game your in, i.e. what style of play, and being able to adjust to both the individual players in the game and the overall play of the table. Being able to make those adjustments is crucial to being a winning player... well that or choosing games that only have specific traits for which your style of play is suited.

Poker is a complicated game, and any attempt to simply play according to a strict set of rules will fail to truly appreciate that complexity. If you are a new player, then learn to understand hand values, and more specifically how those values change based on whether or not the pot is multi-way, raised, postion, aggressiveness...

B&M is tougher in a lot of ways because you get less hands in and so a bad swing can last significantly 'longer' in terms of time (while being over the course of the same number of hands).

-K_squared

[me454555]

Same thing happened to me the first time I played B&M. It was my first time in vegas and I dropped $200 over the first 2 days. After playing tens of thousands of hands online over the past few months guess what I did that turned me into a winning B&M player the next day?

Absolutly nothing. Thats right, I changed nothing of any significance about my game. I bluffed a little less and value bet more as the table was playing looser than usual but thats it.

You hit a bad run, nothing to get too concerned about, $hit happens move on. Anyone who says B&M is totally different than online poker b/c of reads, and image and blah blah blah doesn't know what they are talking about.

GOOD PLAY GETS THE MONEY!! Period, end of story. As long as you stick to the LLs, no one pays much attention to your image or the way your playing. I'll fold for an entire hour, then suddenly raise UTG when I pick up AA and get 5 callers. One of them will indoubtedly say, "wow, I haven't seen you raise in an hour, you must have a big hand" and then will proceed to call 2 cold w/Q6 suited b/c its "too good to fold pf".

Don't play "extra tight" at the beginning b/c you need to scout out the table. Play your normal tight aggressive game and then alter it as you go. Just sit down there assuming that everyone else is loose and passive. They will call your raises pf and not fold to your bluffs. Bet when you have a hand, check when you don't.

Don't bother w/Caro's book of tells. Its useful but won't help your game too much at these limits. A better use of your time would be devoted to studying your game and making more +EV plays.

[Rook80]

Well I assume you are playing LH and not NL. You probably didn't see that many hands in an hour and a half so my first thought is you starting hand criteria is to loose. Sound like you would have had to play a high % of these hands. Second thing that comes to mind (because I see this in myself sometimes when I play at a B&M) is you might not be aggressive enough. I think most people are a little bit timid at first when you actually play face to face. Finally $100 is that much, if you run into a bad streak, at these stakes. You might have just had a bad run of cards.

[pokerjo22]

Average SD/hour is often about 10 BB, so in one and a half hours you can expect to be down 1.5 SDs (or about 90 bucks playing 3-6) about 1 in 6 visits to your casino. I usually buy in for a rack, but I expect to need to buy-in for two racks, and I actually take enough money for four racks.

[A_PLUS]

One word "IPOD".

[masse75]

Dude, just get a Sklansky book. Surprised that hasn't been offered up yet.