I could use some B&M survival tips.

[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.