Hi guys,

So i've been playing online for a few years with mixed results. Basically i'll play solidly and have some good results and then find myself tilting (often due to one hand where i lose to runner runner) and lose my mind and often move up several stakes (I play 25nl and have opened up 400nl while tilting)

I play in my local casino (Melbourne Crown Casino) and play their 300nl tables as their other tables didn't allow a 100 bb buy-in. At one stage they only allowed you to buy in to $80 max on a $1, $2 table.

I play once a month and have had profitable sessions 10 of the last 12.

I'm wondering what you did when transitioning from grinding online to live?
I was playing 10-12 25nl and 50nl tables and now need to work on maximising my bb100 because obviously i'm not going to be playing the sheer volume.

I have a full time job that sees me earn well over 6 figures and have a 10k+ bankroll (but that's my savings) so i don't plan on losing it all. I plan on playing 300nl 2-3 times a week. I don't plan on becoming a pro or plan on earning a living off poker, I just want to have fun, while being profitable at the same time.

Look forward to some advice and no time wasters please.

p.s whats the difference between brick and mortar thread and the mortar and brick one??

Sounds like lesson #1 is: Learn to take a beat. You have much, much more time to think about (and stew over) beats and subsequently donk off. You can spend 5 hours doubling your stack and then donk it all off in 10 minutes while you're going haywire inside about a beat you just took.

Lesson #2: Respect your "elders" (by "elders", I mean the elder statesmen at the table, not the grouchy old farts who are just pissing away their pensions). You don't have to play like them, but watch how they act at the table and learn. You need to be able to easily shift between playing against the other online players who show up in B&M, to playing against the rec players who don't think like online players. You also need to be able to socialize and be, well, a human being. That's what you can learn from the elder statesmen.

Yeah I think live play has more skill which I like.
Over a computer it's quite mechanical. I get in a robot like state where i just click away.

I think I want to be better at live, read people better, play the people rather than the cards.

Plus you can't lose 10 buy-ins in 10 mins like online when you're 12 tabling.

I think live i can minimise myself. Go with 2 or 3 buy-ins and if i lose them i have to leave. I can only withdraw 1k per day from my bank account.

Yeah i've noticed the elders who are the regs always seem to win. Everytime i sit down i see they have 300+ buy in stacks. But i've noticed it's far looser play live. People calling frequently $18 on a 300nl table pre-flop with marginal holdings.

Is it common knowledge that live play is far looser?

At $1-2 or 1-3 play is MUCH looser than online. You have to remember that this is the lowest stake offered so it's where the newest players go, or the players withthe least disposable money. Many people are there for entertainment, for the thrill of a gamble, so they bet and call amounts that are meaningful to them. $15 pre isn't a lot of money in an absolute sense, so they call. Another dynamic is action. When rec players drive 30 mins to the cardroom and have their wives downstairs they don't want to sit and fold for 3 hours, they want to play, so they do.


Please, for the love of god, don't refer to $1-2 as 300nl, or 2-5 as 500nl ... live poker is (almost) always referenced by the blinds, 1-2, 2-5, 5-10, 3-6 Limit, etc.

LOL.

I'm strictly a live player these days, and I didn't hang around 2p2 for a number of years since the early 2000's. When I saw a bunch of posters referring to 500nl, I was thinking, "Holy ****, these kids are playing with some serious money now!!!" LOL.

Just play a lot to get used to it. You likely will be one of the better players in terms of poker knowledge or "skill" but making the transition to live can be a little awkward because of how different the play is for some people, especially at 1/3.

In live poker, players are there to play hands. Low limit live poker is about making hands and getting value. Winning without showdowns is much more risky and less effective for most low limit live games compared to online. This doesn't mean you shouldn't play aggressively but don't expect to win too many pots raising Q9 in the cut-off. Bluffing plays a much smaller part than it does in 25nl online. People don't pay attention to how you play or just don't care. Many successful live players are super nits that wait for monsters raise/bet all the way through and get called down.

Playing a single table as opposed to several has some effects that may seem awkward. It is going to feel very slow and variance is going to increase. There are a lot of things that may tilt you especially if you have a history doing it. A lot of players are annoying and slow the game down to pretend they are good. There are a lot more distractions; dealers, waitresses, floor managers, the fat smelly guy sitting next to you with stubbly shaved arms that keeps rubbing them against you while he tells you about the time his AA lost to AQ. I think you need more tilt control live personally.

For someone in your situation I would suggest getting some money together separate from your savings. You have a decent salary and can save some extra money for a few months and have a bigger roll than a lot of low limit regs. And just based on basic financial security, you don't want to be gambling with your emergency fund.

Play 1/2 or 1/3, what ever the smaller game is, until you get comfortable and confident in understanding how it works and then switch to 2/5. It is not much harder of a game, you have the money for it and if you were break even or a winner at 25nl you should be fine. You can win a lot more than 1/2 and it should keep you more interested. Wait until you are comfortable though.

Except in L.A. where it might be referred to as 40NL, 100NL, 300NL, etc. depending on where you play.

You remind me of the thread "Why I don't tell people I play poker." And by that I mean the dumb responses the people give, such as "How can you read them when you can't see their faces."

MGraham, Well reading someone online is completely different to reading someone live.
So what's your point?

Also whenever I have a monster - eg flopping a full house, turning the nut flush. I come out and bet and I feel like I have this uncontrollable shake. I'm not sure if it's obvious, but it's a real effort to grab chips and put it in the centre without fumbling. I've played several hundred hours live so i'm not exactly a beginner, but it still happens to me alot.

^ same, lol. It's a massive tell and I also do it when I have air on purpose as a bluff. So when I shake I either have nothing and nervous I might lose more money if called or shake because I'm so excited to have the nuts and already counting the pot in my stack!

Yeah played last night, but focussed more on not shaking.
But still had the shakes a little and again, yes I shake with a monster and shake while bluffing. So i guess it evens out.

Ended up walking around $300 up at $2,$3 in about 3 hours.

Some lady came in acting like she was drunk, but was running the table over. Decided to cut my losses and leave

Getting used to live play just takes exposure. The more you play, the more comfortable you will get over time.

Similarly, the better your reads and feel will get. I suggest you visit the LLSNL forum and read up on a lot of the live vs online threads on here, the LLSNL, and Poker Theory forum.

And you simply must read Tommy Angelos "Elements of Poker"

Lastly, thought I would add that in live play, what you see 95% of the time is what you get. Yes, your villain really just did call an all-in bet on turn with a gutshot. Yes, your villain just chased down the nut flush and then NOT bet river because he figured "meh, he wasn't going to call me anyways." Yes, your villain did just call a 3bet shove on river with a straight on a paired river board... No, your villain did not do these plays to set up some sick 4th level bluff later. The reality is your villain is as bad as he seems and so you need to adjust for that. Yes, your adjustments will be exploitable. No, you don't have to worry about this villain exploiting you...

Yeah, what is it?

If you have years of experience and some success, I assume you know how to play ABC and tight aggressive; usually the changes needed, to make more money, are to become selectively loose aggressive and improve your table selection skills. How and when to do that is beyond the scope of a single thread but there is much good information on some of the forums.

In an area that is largely, but not completely, separate from how you play your cards and read your customers; it will help if you perceive the other players as "valued customers" (not your opponents, enemies or villains) and yourself in a business that is partially entertainment and part sales and marketing. Always make sure they are not shoplifters.

The shakes might go away over time, or you may always have them. If you can't shake the shakes, see if you can fake the shakes. If you are always shaking the same way, it will never be a tell, though you already seem to have merged your shake range well.

One of the advantages of live play is that it takes more effort to move up four levels when you tilt. Most live players avoid the effort and tilt by playing worse at the same table. Don't do that. Learn that bad beats will happen. If they seem to happen more frequently at low stakes, remember that they are more than compensated for by the ridiculous value available to you on most hands you play. In the long run, bad beats are a good sign.


Typical adjustments to make when moving to live from online seem to include:

• standard raise is often more BBs than online
• bet for value more
• bluff less
• tables will be looser, so you need to be a bit looser too
• expect more limpers, so you will have odds to play more speculative hands - this should be the prime source of the added looseness mentioned in the previous point.

The biggest change from online to live has nothing to do with the stakes or the play of the hands. You are moving from an isolated, anonymous environment to a social environment. Gioco's comments are spot on. Learn to be popular and engaging. It probably wouldn't hurt to get to know the staff. Assuming tipping is normal in your cardroom, be a slightly better than average tipper.

Another important adjustment from online to live is that there will be far fewer tables available yet table selection will become more imprtant. Sometimes the only way to handle this will be to choose not to play - unless you want to lose money for entertainment value. Walking away from an unfavourable situation, as you did in post #11, is sometimes your best move.

Learn to pay attention to the play when you are not in the hand. You will have a lot more time avaialble than you do multi-tabling online. Split it between being sociable and studying your opponents.

Obviously, 12 sessions is not nearly enough to tell if you are a winning player at live 2-3.

If you are moving from 25nl online to 2-3 live, it might seem you are going to need a live bankroll that is 12x that of your online bankroll. However, if you will only be playing once per month, you can probably get by on a bankroll only 4 times as large as long as you can and will replenish any downswing losses by diverting entertainment expenses from your regular income stream. If you don't have much discretionary income you can convert to cover downswings, then you will need a live poker bankroll 12x your online bankroll - something on the order of $10K.

What is your bankroll, really? Don't confuse your savings with your poker bankroll. They ought to be two separate things. It sounds like you don't actually have a poker bankroll at all. And $10K is not nearly enough savings if you have income of 6 figures annually. Your short-term savings balance alone should be 1/3 of your annual after-tax expenditures. Since your savings rate seems minimal, your annual expenditures approach your after-tax take-home, so you should have nearly 1/3 of your annual take home available in liquid assets. Then you need another $3K to $10k for your poker bankroll.