A bulk of my playing has been online. After taking a long break I've decided to get back in the game and have been playing 1/3 and 1/2. Trying to really work on my game.

It seems like the "standard" preflop raise here is $15. Coming from online this feels really big and makes me a bit uncomfortable and feels awkward post-flop. Especially when you get 3-4 callers preflop regularly.

Is there a reason why bet sizing pre-flop is much higher in live compared to online? Just looking to understand this so I feel less awkward when I play.

PM jungmit. He's the resident Online v Live guru.

The online game is much faster and players use the buttons to 3bet. If you bet 15 online, only AA-KK is calling. Live the players are using $5 chips. The live game 6-7-10-15 opens a pot. If there are regularly 3-4 callers on a $15 bet that is a good game if you are winning. It sounds like you are betting OOP and have shown some weak hands. In UTG positions, try betting 6-7.

You are hitting the same trouble I get playing 2-5

Finally. Some quality advice in this forum.

+1

live 1-2nl games are inefficient. Bad players call more. Decent players need more value on the nitty hands they play.

when i bet 15 into coolfire he calls with every hand

I once read a quote I think applies, "Just because everyone else in a game is playing incorrectly does not mean you should play incorrectly."

I think raising to 7-8 in a 1/2 games is probably optimal. In the type of games you are referring to I would just try to play super tight and pop these loose players at the right moment.

As long as theyre calling with a range dominated by yours,keep raising and betting larger and larger.

I'm with payador on this one. Why are you uncomfortable with the $10 or $15 opening raises? Are you playing too many hands? You beat this by playing tighter and in position. You can even play suited connectors and suited one gappers in position and have these players over-commit themselves. My experience has been playing tight in these games and NEVER bluffing will be profitable, because they're calling very light.

I 5x always live and add a BB for every limper. Much better to have a heads up pot than see a flop five ways. Also the fish really don't care if you 3x or 7x. If they wanna see a flop with their Q7s after limping they'll see that flop.

x6 EP and rest x5. ISO depeding o how much the fish will limp/call, but always x6+.
Always watch stack sizes behind you and adjust your range accordingly, because a lot of recs/fish will rather buy in 3 times minimum than 1 full stack, so they can play longer and stack off pre with pretty pictures pre or OTF for adrenaline.
Since you're going to x5, it's good idea to buy in table max or more than 100bb at least.
So deep stack game is essential, and where all the profit is.

I hear it's better to over limp some speculative hands in LP such as small pairs Axs and SCs instead of iso raising them. What do you guys think of this?

SCs depends like anything in poker, but Axs hand vs serial limper in LP IP its good to iso.
But in live you can get away with overlimping small PPs, since isos will only ever be from hands like JJ+/AJ+, so not a big %.

No difference between live and online for this statement. I always laugh when the majority of regs still only raise 2.5 or 3x against those players thought admittedly it's darned annoying raising a ton of BB preflop and still losing to whatever crap they played.

Because vast majority of live players are terrible and play weak hands even against large raises.

Players at a typical live 1/2 game did not take time out of their day to patiently fold and not see flops. As someone mentioned before, people are not really thinking about exact numbers. Since you are playing with $5 chips, a standard 3x raise looks like just 1 big chip and 1 small chip. Likewise 5x is just two chips. Its not really unheard of for people to open raise $15-$20. Also if people really want to play a hand they are going to play regardless if someone raises behind them, or they have to cold call. A standard raise of $8 behind a limper (3x + 1) is not really enough to discourage the limper or the people behind. Also more limps and cold calls equal greater pot odds. In my experience $12-$15 (more than 2 big chips) seems to be the magic number. At this point the hands are more than likely to be heads up or 3 way. Anything more than $15 is overkill. I usually go with 5x + 1 for each limper, or a straight $15 in early position.

The caveat is that I play tight in most of these games, so $15 to play AQ+ and TT+ is not optimal but is not horrible either. A small ball strategy breaks down in these weaker games because too many people call regardless of position. I'd rather limp with suited connectors lower than JT and pairs 66 and below from middle and late. 77-99 and suited connectors JT+ fall into a gray area that I mix up with the stronger part of my range depending on the table. Sometimes the table will allow for standard play, but this is the exception not the norm.

-My 2cents

+1

I think The_Kidd broke it down pretty well there...I just think everyone is thinking Bad Beat Jackpots too when talking live play and are fairly willing to do just about anything to see each hand through...