Translating online success to B&M's

[marchron]

Before I ever played a nickel's worth of poker online, my only experience with limit Hold'em was at a $5/$10 table on a casino boat outside of Chicago.

I got eaten alive.

I'd never played limit before, and the subtle differences between no-limit tournaments and limit ring games were lost on me. But thanks to experience, Small Stakes Hold'em, and you goobers here (I mean that in the nicest way), I'm confident enough to march back in there and get my money back and then some.

I'd still like to know more about what I'm jumping into, though, before I take an amount of money roughly equivalent to every penny I've scratched out at .50/1 these past few months and put it on the line at a table with stakes ten times that high.

Obviously, if any of you have specific advice for the games on the NW Indiana casino boats, that'd be great. If not, here's the situation:

—So far as I know, these boats are the only place available to play actual casino poker within at least 75 miles.

—5/10 is the smallest game they spread. If I remember correctly, the house rake is $3 with a $1 jackpot drop.

—The last time I was there, a couple people were at the table who were waiting for a seat at a 10/20 game to open up.

—I am a borderline maniac at .50/1. PT has me as a SLAA, but that's after a limited sample size. I steal a lot of blinds and try to swipe a lot of pots that look to be uncontested. I usually finish sessions with a winrate of between 3 and 5 BB/100, but occasionally I'll drop a whole buy-in if the cards don't fall.


So, how should I adjust my strategy? Should I follow the SSHE requirements down to the letter? Or even tighter, just nut-peddling? Or can my aggressive online game win there?

Or should I wait until I can beat, say, 1/2 regularly before I take a shot at these guys?

[SlantNGo]

Well, I can't really give you any recommendations because I don't know how the games are in your area, but this is what I have found in Ontario:

- The 2/5 Limit (yes, 2/5, for whatever reason, the casinos here do 2/5 instead of 2/4) was ridiculously soft and much worse than 0.5/1 Party. It fit the description of Miller's loose game, except without the aggression (I imagine that's a California thing). Most pots I got involved in were multi-way and only turned heads up on the river.

- The 5/10 Limit played like 0.5/1 Party except less aggressive. I was seeing 4 or 5 to the flop, but I was in shock to see everyone limping AK and AQ! It was so juicy that the rock 4 seats to the right of me was making as much as me despite never raising with less than two pair. That made me sick, but then I realized that I made 52 BB in about 5 hours and stopped caring [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

There are a few considerations to keep in mind when playing live. Don't give other players any reason to believe that you're a good player. I got a bad run of cards to start off with and someone at the table announced that when I entered the pot, they were gonna fold. Of course, they didn't, but that's not good for everyone at the table to hear.

Don't wait till it's your turn to look at the cards. Don't give off any signs that you're thinking about the card game. Practice counting the pot in the hands you're not involved in...

Good luck!

Trumps in Gary has a 3/6 game I know a guy who plays there once a week.

[BatsShadow]

My local 5/10 is also exactly like he said: about the same as .5/1, but more passive. You should be playing SSHE style, looking to get involved with a lot of multiway hands, but stay patient, don't do anything stupid, and you will crush the game.

I'm jealous. The 5/10 rake here is 5+1 for jackpot instead of 3+1.

[McGahee]

You don't need to make any adjustments. Live players suck.
Take the online stakes game you beat and move the decimal to the right for B&M games.

[Hoss1193]

I play both online and live, and I agree with the other posters about the relative softness...you should crush this game. From my own experience, however, I'd add a couple of cautions...

Stay very aware that the pace of the live game will be much slower...you're going to see a fraction of the number of hands per hour compared to online. Especially if you multi-table. I am currently 4-tabling, so I see something like 180-220 hands per hour online. This is analagous to about 6-7 hours of live play. So what does that mean...it means you can play very well, and still be much more likely to lose in a given session, due to a run of folding lousy cards for 2 hours, or a couple of bad beats, etc. This is pretty easy to shake off when playing online, because you're seeing so many more hands. But at the live table, you have to be much more careful to guard against boredom and frustration, or before you know it, you're playing the same crap the fish are, and then continuing postflop with it.