I just felt like I should comment as someone who's played a significant amount of live and online.

Of course live is easier but that isn't because the grinders are worse, it's because of the sheer number of recreational players in the games.

Live grinders are better at playing the fish. They're more willing to do massively exploitable things to extract the maximum from the fish. Online players have a larger "bag of tricks". The most glaring is 3 betting. 3 bet bluffing isn't even in the arsenal of a lot of live regs but it's something online players incorporate pretty easily.

I don't think online players have a much better understanding if poker than live players. There's a lot of button clicking going on in both arenas. It just so happens that online players mimic very strong players who beat high stakes and live grinders mimic other live grinders who are used to playing against a very soft player pool.

The use of HUDs is overblown. It's not poker on "easy mode". Using a HUD is a skill unto itself. A lot of players barely look at their HUDs or misinterpret the information or don't have the proper stats or whatever.

Each game has different skill sets, but they are fundamentally the same. Someone that actually has a very good understanding of poker should do well regardless of what situation they are put in. It just so happens that it's a lot easier to be lazy and goof off on Facebook than it is to learn correct range construction, develop a detailed understanding of board texture etc.

Cliffs: people are bad at poker.

i love the implication that because huds "do math for you" that suddenly that discredits online players as being robotic and incapable of "feel" play. the numbers are literally meaningless without a sufficient understanding of statistical analysis to be able to plan a course of action based on what the numbers mean. if anything, the numbers-driven nature of online play actually leads to far more clever, interesting, and completely non-robotic strategies that evolve the online metagame far, far faster than live. There are definitely strong live grinders out there and I have respect for them, but most strong online grinders aren't stupid enough to sit down at a live table with a bunch of degens VPIP 80% or something and expect solid online strategies to work, but they are without a doubt going to be far more versatile and able to adjust to a live game than a live reg would to an online game.

online players just understand how to remove the "magic" from poker better than most live players in my experience.

Online the standard raise is 2.5 to 3X. Live you only do those raises with trapping hands. Also many online players raise so many hands that live players limp with that pushing them off these raises is much easier. I think the biggest transition an online winning player has to figure out is how much to raise big pairs/JJ and AKsuited/AK,AQsuited with limpers and first up. The standard weak tight mini raise or mini raise +the amount of limpers can be a painful lesson when 4+players call your raise.

There are way more weak/passive grannys in live poker

who is better GTO players, feel players or math players

Aren't math players and GTO players essentially the same thing?

If Hellmuth could be persuaded to debate this with you, I would pay to view.

lol at measuring poker experience in 'years' and not 'hands played', 'hours studied' etc.

if u think the oldschool grinders like dnegs have a better understanding of poker than todays cash game elite, you suffer from severe delusion.

Do people even seriously play GTO? If playing the man is easier, why bother with the complexity of GTO?

Assuming you're even playing perfect GTO (LOL), any slight deviation from your opponent from perfect GTO as well means you're doing a lot of unnecessary work when all you would need to do is make slight adjustments to your opponents' deviations from GTO.

It eventually reduces to not needing to play GTO when you know your opponent well enough. Live players probably never need to play GTO, since after a few orbits and some showdowns they'd have a pretty good idea on how to exploit a particular opponent. I don't know.

imo

What does begin a math player actually involve, except insofar as game theory is a branch of mathematics?

If it means I am BTN with K4o and CO raises to 3x and I say "I call because my equity gives me the odds to call against his range." then it is stupid, but I don't think that's what people mean.

Having said that, I was playing live last night and someone folded the nut flush draw face up on the turn on an unpaired board when they had 4-1 pot odds to call, so maybe a bit more maths would be useful.

It means crushing 'feel players' at every opportunity.

"Math players" study away from the table. They learn to make profitable plays with ranges of hands, based on equity and long-term EV, against the field as a whole, not just the tellbox in seat 7.

A feel player might say "I shoved the river because I felt villain was weak and wouldn't call."

A GTO player might say "I shoved the river because my range is perfectly balanced, so I don't actually care what villain has. Whether he calls or folds, I cannot lose in the long run".

If you're balancing your range live, you will be losing money. Only a fraction of the player pool is even aware enough to notice. And in most casino settings you will never see them again.

you damn internet kids don't stand a chance in my home casino

everyday there some kid will show up to 2/5 and I ask him "where you from?" he says "the internet". the kid probably made millions of dollars playing high stakes on the internet but i get a set and he pays me off EVERY single time with a lower set, some times two pair (i kid you not).

you guys are lost without your damn multitable HUDS and think it's the same game. It's not,I can look straight in your damn face and see if you got it or not. You wish you could play 24 tables live then maybe you could win. But only 1 table? Get your HUD and go back to partypoker.

I always love it when they pay me off when I obviously have it. Two days ago someone "from the internet" sat at my table and was playing aggressive. One hand (effective stacks 400 at 2/5 because I had lost a few small pots) I made it 20 with 97s in MP, he was in CO and raised to 65 everyone folded so I called. Flop K56 I checked he bet 80 thought he had AK so I called. Turn was the 8 so I knew I had him beat and checked to trap him. He bet 110 and I didn't want to scare him away so I only minraised him and he went all in. I snapcall and he showed KK, so I wait for the river to come a blank and I showed to take the pot. After the hand I told him he played it bad and should have folded to my raise when there were two straights on the board and he told me that I played the hand well so I guess online players also know they aren't the best and live players will always get the better off it.

This is only mostly true for 1/2-1/3. If you play 2/5 or above, you're going to run into the same people A LOT.

The level of play that I'm talking about was non-existent until about 2008 when people really started to get a grasp on how the game is played perfectly. I respect daniel and he's one of the very few live players that is actually pretty good, but he'd be beaten by any good HU regular who just plays preflop/postflop ranges properly. The only way to get as good is to put hundred(s) of hours into it, playing against players better than yourself and talking to players/watching videos that are better than yourself.

And yes, the vast majority of people that have been around for 20 years are absolutely terrible, so much so that it baffles me. They never work on their game in a serious way and become less and less winning/start losing as the general level of play goes up.

You just outed yourself as an idiot. Well done.

You got leveled bro.

The cheet guy, i'm not sure, but Kelvis was leveling.

I think Kelvis is levelling here. See the accumulator thread where he seems to be the only person in the thread with a brain.

Ok, so the difference is that maths players are assuming/observing non-GTO play and are calculating optimal exploitative strategies against that play whereas GTO players have to assume GTO on the part of their opponents.

I think it is an exaggeration to say you don't need to be balanced in live play, although you can certainly mess about more:

So last night at the live donkament I got AA UTG, 150-300 blinds no antes and raised to 2.33x, there was a series of calls and a raise, and I raised all in over the top of it and got called by the raiser (he sucked out with JJ but it was a tournament where you get a rebuy chip in the original entry so I stayed at the table). About half an hour later I 3x it in early position and someone says - last time you raised, you had aces (not true but it was probably the next raise from early position), and the guy who'd had JJ says "yes but he only raised to 700 that time", and it sets off a series of calls.* Anyway, I get it all in on the flop with one customer and they are right, I didn't have AA, I had KK and ship the pot that time.

So live players are also looking for patterns in your play and ways to exploit your lack of balance. Of course if you play balanced then their attempts at exploitation (trying to exploit patterns they mis-recognise with the small amount of data**) can take the form of spew or otherwise incorrect play, so balance is a good defensive starting point, but you can definitely move away from it. For example, next time I play with the JJ guy I am going to 2.33x some hands and let him guess whether or not I am still playing that line with aces - but whether or not I will still play it with AA is going to depend on "live reads" from when I do it with other hands and levelling if I show them down, not on GTO or balance.

* I know this is breaching 1 player to a hand but I don't complain as I like to learn about how they think.
** Daniel Kahneman writes well about the "Law of Small Numbers."

Wait, is this a level?

By the turn you have $35 behind ($400-65-80-220). He has top set, so even against your straight he has 10 outs to improve, so he has about 20% equity. The pot is $627 ($5+2+65+65+80+80+110+220) and he needs to call $110, so he's getting 5.7-1 on his money, which means he only needs 15% equity for a call to be profitable, so a shove is pretty standard when you only have $35 behind. (Like he's going to call top set on the turn and fold to a $35 river bet when the pot is $737.)

So I'm confused how he played it bad? Should he have NOT reraised pre with KK? Should he have not bet flop and turn with top set? Should he have folded top set to your turn minraise?

Meanwhile, is calling a 3bet OOP preflop with 97s 80bb deep then check calling a flop cbet with a gutshot standard?

This has to be a level right?

Yeah he got leveled, can't believe that he read through that thinking "yeah that's about right" and then stopped at the part where I told the guy he played it bad.

PS: cheet was leveling, nobody answers "I'm from the internet" when someone asks where he's from.

Poker strategy? Perhaps. But they sure as **** don't have much of an understanding of life, bankroll management, long-term thinking, or being normal, social human beings. Want proof? Pull up any "US Grinders, X# of months or years later: Where are they now?" thread. They're all doing real well, eh?

Couldn't agree more. Walk into a casino and you're basically amongst the cleanest cut gentlemen and pillars of society. Whenever an Internet kid walks in they stick out like a sore thumb. Four eyed sandal wearing dorks. Stay home guys, find some new fedoras on your damn Skype chats. Nerds, get a LIFE

Let's be clear, if a 2014 winning mid-stakes online player (cashgame) can't beat a live game, he is on very hard drugs at the table.

100% this is a level. and what are you suggesting exaclty.. do not play the button more than the other position?