Online vs Casino games

How do the online games compare to casino games...I play my local 5-10 and 15-30 games and can beat them for approximately 2.5 BB an hour, this is over a relatively short time, around 5 months. Online I have been playing 5-10 and can only manage to make around 1.5 SB an hour. How to the 5-10 games online rate as opposed to the 5-10 games in poker rooms in the states??

The online games simply have to be much tougher. This is not only based on my observations of both games, but with the math of the situation:

If you play twice as many hands online, and the best players win twice as much, the bad players will almost always lose and stop playing. But there are lots of 5-10 games online. So the best players can't be winning at the same rate per hand as they would in a 5-10 live game, or the games would burn out. Therefore, the games have to be tougher. One could theorize the the win rate per hand should be something less than sqrt(2)/2 * win rate of live 5-10 casino game.

Another factor is that an online player can often play 2 5-10 games, and make some real money doing so. A live player can't make too much at a 5-10 game, because of the slow play and generally huge rake.

Hope this is helpful.

[deadbart]

First, you probably don't have enough data to really know your win rate very well, both live and especially online.

I think the online $5/$10 games are much tougher than most live $5/$10 games. They are certainly more aggressive.

I've found that the 5-10 online games are generally much, much tougher than a live casino game. Not sure why this is, but they're usually composed of tighter, more agressive players. What I've also found is that the bigger games (most only go up to 10-20 or 15-30) are generally EASIER to beat that the 5-10 game. Again, I'm not sure why, but over a 2 year period I'm having WAY more success at the higher limit games. I've also found that this varies from site to site (for example the UlitmateBet 10-20 game is brutal, but the PlanetPoker game is relatively weak).

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[eMarkM]

What I've also found is that the bigger games...are generally EASIER to beat that the 5-10 game.

You know, I had that impression, too. I think there's a certain brand of action seeking fish that gravitates to the biggest game a given site offers and not bother with the smaller games since there's not enough action to satisfy them. I've seen some of the worst plays on PP 20/40 from some god-awful players. You naturally see this at 1/2 and 2/4 where you have a lot of newbies trying out the game on their $100 buyin. I don't see that as much at 5/10. 5/10 seems to be a lot of solid players who just don't have the bankroll for the higher limit and rightfully stick to a level where he can handle the fluctuations. The game's too expensive for the newbie fish and too small for the action seeking rich fish.