After regular success in home games and online, I spent about a month learning how to take it more seriously. I watched a lot of videos, got a decent grasp of the basics, odds and outs, 4&2 etc. When searching for an answer to "Am I ready for live casino poker?" I found a nearly unanimous (paraphrasing) "Most casino cash games are half full of fish; if you have a good grasp, give it a shot." So I did.

As soon as I sat down I was confident because it was immediately obvious most of the players were casual. They would always show their cards and celebrate their wins "Oh hey! I got two pair!

Before I arrived I had decided against any posturing, having had assumed it would surely be easy for someone to peg me for pretending to be more experienced than I am. So I just went 100% dead face and silent. I literally never said a word until I was busted and said Have a good one.

For the first two hours I saw everything I'd learned play out in front of my eyes. I had to pinch myself. It can't really be this easy. When I felt I had a read, it was validated. When I felt it was time to attempt a steal, it succeeded. At the end of the first two hours I had tripled up and nobody would look me in the eye.

And then a new player sat down with a handful of random chips. He looked like a drunk crackhead. A few hands and he seems loose with calls but easily spooked by post flop raises. I thought I would scare him off a pot.

With a mid pocket pair and a pre flop raise everybody folds but him with his predictable call. Flop JJ9 rainbow. I shoved. I hadn't noticed that his handful of chips included blacks. But even if I'd had him covered, im thinking shoving after that flop would still be pretty stupid. Anyway I knew I was beat as soon as he called. But the funny part is at showdown this clumsy drunk (or so I thought) deftly snaps over just his J.

I have some theories about what happened. One or more or all could be true. Any input is appreciated.

1. I wasn't ready, I had the sheer luck of finding a magic table of fish, and that's really the only reason for my initial success. Even without my fatal mistake, busting out would've been inevitable at most any other table on most any other night.

2. I WAS ready, I played well, and it got to my head and I got cocky and bluffed it away, and it's that simple. Take the ego hit learn from it and get back on the horse.

3. The other players were only ADVERTISING fish and soft playing me into my false confidence so they could bust me, but I gave it to the drunk before they could. Same result would've been inevitable.

4. The drunk was only advertising drunk. He spotted my new cockiness and knew it wouldn't take much to misdirect me. Maybe this is a stretch. There was just something about the way he snapped over just his J so perfectly.

Feel free to be as humiliating as you like. As dumb as I already feel, I can take it lol

No reason to be dead faced and silent. You are there to have a good time, aren't you? Mix it up with people. Laugh a little. Engage in some conversation. I get that you're trying to make money but you do that at your normal job too, don't you? You don't go your whole day at your job 'stone faced and silent' I am sure.

Second mistake. You can't bluff bad. A crackhead (as you call him) will play any two cards and usually do his best to play every street with them. Trying to scare him off pots is foolhardy.

Why on earth would you not be ready to find a table with fish? You've never seen this before given your experience? Naaah, you just got intimidated a little by the lights and action of a casino. Your post insinuates this throughout.

Believe it or not you probably were ready- you just weren't used to that particular setting and lost some concentration. I vote for this option.

That's some conspiracy theory BS right there if I ever saw it! =P You know this is rubbish.

Same as last.

Just get out to the casino more regularly and learn to be a bit more comfortable. And watch as the chips flow your way...

Well can you blame them, two pair is a good hand you know.

what?

Other than possibly #2, none of those are correct. Here's what most likely happened.

Anytime an unknown player joins a table, the unknown player is treated much like whatever the villains think a standard player is like. In LLSNL, that means that if you bet, you most likely have it. If you don't, you fold. Many players won't adjust from there unless something becomes obvious. If you're raising every hand, people will adjust. If you appear you never play a hand, they'll mark you as a nit. So for the first couple of hours (probably 50-60 hands), they will give you a wide berth. They won't call you down light.

You're not talking to anyone marked you in their eyes as an "internet" player. Therefore, they would be a little more wary than normal. That's why they weren't calling as often as they would other players.

As for the hand in question, you made it very easy for him. If he was playing some unconnected crap, he just has to fold. Unfortunately, you could beat that, so making him fold isn't a great play. If he has a hand, it likely beats you. So you made a bet that made sure you won the minimum and lost the maximum. That's a bad bet.

Is this a troll? Overshove bluffing a middle pocket pair on a JJ9 board?? If he folds you had him beat and if he calls you're dead for your whole stack...I don't get it.

This. OP got a rush of blood to the head and made an awful shove. Think before you make every decision and this should never happen again.

When you are in a forum called 'beginner's questions', and a player is titles his post about how stupid he is, and then starts off by saying he is new to poker and this is his first live game, it isn't a troll, and it is pretty poor form to be abrasively critical.

It is almost a guarantee that no one was softplaying you to get you to lose more later. This would require a coordinated plan amongst all players, plus a confidence that you are good for multiple buy-ins.

Also, while a lot of live players are bad, there are usually several competent regs at any table. Don't underestimate them just because you win some hands while they are sizing you up. It could be they were bad, but very careful and very observant (the more live poker you play, the more you will spot tells on who is truly new or bad, and who is just relaxed and loose)

The drunk guy probably was drunk, but be careful on wet boards against drunk or very wild players, usually not worth the risk to bluff at him

Pay attention to bet sizing. I am trying to figure out how, after tripling up your starting stack, you were able to make one pre-flop raise, then shove n the flop, without it being a very large overbet. One principle of poker is to bet the smallest amount that will do the job. So, if you are trying to bluff at a wet board, a half to full pot size bet would seem more credible than a shove.

Similar thing happened to me my first couple times playing live. Specifically, I remember one hand where I raised pre in EP and got one caller. I had KcQc. Flop came KQJr and I jammed it in for $245 with the pot only being $23. He snapped me off with pocket Jacks and I whiffed the run-out. Moral of the story is if you have a good hand you don't want to fold out hands you beat when you can get more value making smaller bets all the way down and you can get away from a river jam if you miss improving your hand. In this spot, you literally are only getting called by overpair sometimes, a J, a 9, or pocket 9s/Js.

Thanks for the input into the perceptions and scenarios. I already know the shove was beyond stupid.

"wide berth while they sized you up"

This is probably what I should take away from this. And it sorta fits both 1&2.

"Why the stone face?"

I assumed when I went in there I would join a table of 8 pros with 1 noob, me, and I'd be marked as soon as I opened my mouth. Conversely, I figured if I tried to not seem noobish by using slang or whatnot, it would be transparent and I'd be marked as soon as I opened my mouth. So I didn't.

"Why would you be surprised to find a table of fish?"

I didn't think it would be that easy. Most people at a blackjack table know "The Blackjack Card", and will often fuss if a player doesn't, and takes the dealers bust card for example. Why should a poker table be different?

"There were probably some good players"

Yes there were two. An old man and a kid shuffling chips with headphones. It seemed we tended to avoid each other.

Last night I was mostly kicking myself over how stupid that shove was, also that I didn't just leave when I was tripled. Looking back with a clear head it's probably #2. My ABC was good. My first live success went to my head and I got stupid. And if I'm regularly gonna find tables full of tourists like that, and all I have to do is not get stupid, I definitely shouldn't give up yet. Thanks again.

one more thing - player being drunk doesn't mean he's bad at poker. For example, I've been playing poker for a living for many years (mostly online) and I sometimes play low stakes live while drinking for fun. Of course, I'm playing a bit worse than sober, but still much better than an average low stakes live player. Not trying to sound cocky, but there just aren't many (if any) pro players in most 1/2 games

There are NONE unless they are testing new strategies even then that's a bad sample. The rake in 1-2 will kill you it's not even profitable. Also why are we judging crackheads as bad players. I think you need to check yourself because crackhead apparently stack you on a unnecessary all in bluff . You can't put him on on a crackhead range for all we know he can be a poker pro crackhead who plays 1-2 to kill time

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Also how come your post screams, everybody is judging me, and I must be right

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Not super relevant to this discussion, but this is a funny example because fretting about a bad player "taking the dealer's bust card" is superstitious ploppy thinking. A player who hits when he shouldn't is just as likely to cause the dealer to bust as to prevent the dealer from busting.

I don't know what this means.

"Why judge crackheads?"

Um. Because their brains are fried. Up until my stupid shove, mine are not. Am I missing something about the unique crackheads in your life?

I'll tell you what happened: you trusted your read too much because your reads had been paying off.

You need to combine your reads with solid play.

more like "basic logic", if your thinking is "I think my opponent has nothing, I have strong showdown value, so I want him to fold" then even perfect reads won't help you - you need to go back to the absolute basics (difference between valuebets and bluffs)

Believe it or not I'm really normally not that stupid, and I know there is no +EV excuse for the play. There's no way I'd ever make that play. I'll probably never forget this hand for the rest of my life lol. I'll probably watch over my shoulder for people from that table just in case they remember how stupid I was. I was high on the success of my first time live and got stupid.

Hell I wouldn't even make that play in a play money app. I blew my own mind. Trust me.

Mostly this thread was looking for second opinions about my perceptions and experiences live compared to the average experience. I probably shouldn't have included the last hand details. I meant it for your enjoyment, not for serious analysis. I already know why it was academically wrong.

you misunderstood: everybody punts off stacks sometimes, it happens. However, HOW you punt off your stack and reasoning behind it is telling a lot. Hint: making the same play with 3 high would be significantly better.

Do you remember the hand history? Not just a vague idea but the exact positions, amounts, action and effective stacks. It's one thing to say yeah I played that hand badly I won't do that again, and another to actually dissect it, think about what you could do differently and learn from it. These are all things to keep track of while you're playing anyway so it's good to build those habits.

Yeah, live poker is pretty lol. There aren't 8 people colluding to chop up your buyin (With how much rake there is, the casino would have to be in on it too.) It's really that soft. But being above average isn't enough, you have to be so much better that you beat the rake as well. That's why low stakes grinders get frustrated, when they are obviously better than everyone else but not making money. Gotta keep working and improving.

You said the player who busted you was new, so he probably had very little insight into you or your playing style. Whatever rep you might have built up with the rest of the table, he had to take in everyone there, including you, and start getting an idea of who plays well etc.

You also said he was drunk, which might well have been the case. People play poker to have fun in casinos and they tend not to take it overly seriously. Another reason why it's unlikely he thought you were overly cocky or had a read on your playing style.

If you tripled up, this must have been a huge shove for all your chips and on a very polarizing board. You can't have bet much pre-flop with your middle pair, so your bet size must have been all off. I mean you must have been risking a huge amount to gain very little relatively speaking. That's a big mistake.

Another big mistake is to think that a shove on that board is a strong bluff. You're basically trying to say you have trips with a strong kicker or a full house. If you had a full house, though, would you shove or would you let straights get there? Shoving in this spot kind of reeks of not having the Jack, and certainly not having a boat.

Also, in terms of your villain's ability, he is just going to ask himself one simple question, "Do I have a Jack or not?" If he has a Jack, he's calling. There's not much more to it and it's not like he did some kind of soul read. He just played like the average player.

It's a good thing for everyone to think you're a total noob at poker. If anything I'd played it up the first few times I went to the casino...I knew how to poker from online play but I was obviously nervous due to the much larger sums of money and being awkward with chips etc. If it was remotely reasonable, I would wear a different disguise every time I played and pretend it was my first visit.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it seems like you have choice of either:
1. Having a plan that you'll execute when the flop comes, think about A, B, C
2. Do a lot of punishing of yourself when you play by the seat of your pants

If I had to criticize I'd criticize on what you seem to be focusing on now.