On-line vs Live Tournaments-Is there really a comparison?

[electric2]

I see mainly two camps in the tournament discussion area, live and on-line players. I'm curious, does anyone seriously think that on-line play even comes close to live play? Really?

[cferejohn]

"Come close" in what way? In terms of skill level? Texture? Here's differences I've noticed:

*Online tournaments typically have many more players. This has obvious good and bad things about it.

*There exist online tournaments with much lower buy-ins than you will usually find live (I don't think I've ever seen a $20-no-rebuy tournament live).

*Many small buy-in live tournaments also have rebuys, which makes some players extremely aggressive during the rebuy period.

*This may somewhat offset the above, but there are usually a few complete maniacs in any given low-buy in online tournament. I assume the operate on the theory that they want to big up a big stack right away and have a good shot at the money, or they'd rather not waste their time. Otoh, maybe they're just drunk.

In terms of quality of play, I think there are more bad players in online tournaments, but there are also more players and they are usually playing for less money (meaning more bad players will probably take a shot). However, I've found the quality (and texture) of play and online and live final tables to be fairly similar.

It shoudl be noted that I have played only limit tournaments live (both limit and no-limit online).

[electric2]

This is an excellent analysis, thank you. I often wonder if the on-line players, both tourney and cash, couldn't just have a few laptops wired with two different accounts and play at the same table. I'm sure it happens. Different subject, but I'm very interested in an opinion on this.

[cferejohn]

Well, in terms of multi-talble tournaments, this cheating strategy would be of marginal value since the placement of players at tables is random, and there are often 20+ tables to start a tournament. Its more of a threat in money games (or single table tournaments), but also easier for sites to spot, since they can see if two players play at the same table an inordinate amount of the time. As others have pointed out, it is certainly in the site's best interest to find and remove cheaters.

If you suspect two players of colluding, I recommend you report it to customer service (rather than accusing them through chat). If you have hand histories to back up your allegation, so much the better (and at least at Party Poker, hand histories will show you what cards everyone who called on the river had, even if they did not show).

[Hung]

Last week-end I went to Paris to play my very first live tournament. It was better then I thought. Unlimitted rebuy the first 1.5 hour. People were playing like crazy. Moving all-in with Ax. It was insane. A girl got 9 rebuys. I got knocked out with A /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif K /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif vs 2 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif 3 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif LOL Can't believe it. He got a straight. Luckily I could still rebuy. After the rebuys, they still played the same way. I've seen crazy things happen. AA lost 3 times. I lost my all-in (4500, average stack) with AJ vs K5s. He got a 5 on the flop. I can't believe he called, why did he call?

The big difference for me was the number of hands played. The first 1.5 hour I played 5 hands. Pretty boring. When I play online I play multiple tables, so I can play 4 or 5 times more hands. Even if you get bad cards, it will turn arround. But during a live tournament it goes so slow that you can't turn your luck.
Why do people wear sunglasses? I saw three guys at our table with sunglasses.

[B Shulman]

The on-line sites are very sensitive to this issue and are working in various ways to stop possible collusion.

All have abilities to review hands and know who is playing with whom. This allows a look back that b & ms do not have.

Additionally they have quite sophisticated software knowing what machines log on in what names and from what locations.

One thing I like to do is play in large multitable tournaments on-line because I know we are all seated randomly.

Also you never have to worry about the chips disappearing from an on-line tournament.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

People wear sunglasses so you can't see their eyes. Some do it so others won't pick up on tells, others so they can stare at you unobtrusively.

[RollaJ]

I wear sunglasses so that I can stare at people and not get nervous an dlook away when they look at me. It probably helps with tells as well, altho I havent bought that book yet, its next on the list

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I don't wear sunglasses. I want to see how people react when I look at them. Plus I have real slitty eyes so you can't really see mine.