Sorry to double post but I wanted to respond to this.

In my mind online characterizes the style of play you learn about in Winning in Tough Hold'em Games (hell it's written based on online play) while live plays like Small Stakes Hold'em until you get to much higher stakes.

I agree with Doug in that it is all about how you adjust to what is going on around you. When anyone asks "should I do this with this hand" the answer is always "it depends". Thing is in online games the population of your opponents is way more skewed to tight-aggressive/loose-aggressive while live it's skewed way for to loose-passive/(handful)loose-aggressive. So keeping that in mind the proper decisions will be much different.

3/6 and 5/T mostly. If I'm in a mood, you might see me as low as .5/1. I've been known to play in 8/16 and 10/20 games if they look really soft, but tiny sample. I play HUHU a little. I'm willing to play 6m and FR as the games look good.

Have you considered the impact of rake/drop/toke online vs. live?

If you have tracking software take your total amount won divided by the number of hands you've won. Do this for any one single limit. Now divide that by a Big Bet at that limit. That's how much you pay, on average, in big bets each time you win a pot. I think you'll be surprised when you compare it to how much you pay in Big Bets when you win a pot live.

Or may be you've already done it.

For me I'll use 1/2 online. I've played 26K hands and won 4.5K hands. My win rate is 1.07 BB / 100.

I've won $560. 560/4500 = .124. That comes out to +12.5 cents per hand won or 1/16 a big bet per hand won (that's after rake). The total rake I've paid is $1500. 1500/4500 = .33. So I've paid, on average, 1/6 of a big bet in rake per hand won. Live 3/6 you part with about 1 BB per hand won.

I don't think I was really clear with all my numbers and meanings there but it's all there and you get the idea.

Do the exercise ... it's takes a couple of minutes. The results are shocking.

I have done this and similar exercises for years and I know that the affect of the drop (not rake in CA) is tremendously negative and that is one reason why it is very hard to win at less than 8/16 imo.

Let's say that live 3/6 you have 6 players to the flop ($18), 4 ($24) to the turn and 3 ($18) to river - average pot about 10 BB and $4 drop $1 toke ~~~ that is $5/$10*$6=.083 - 8.3% of the pot.

But, if you bet the river and no one calls then the pot is smaller and the drop % is higher.

But, the real difference between the games is the looseness factor - online is tighter while live is very loose.

The strategy is therefore different.

Thanks

If you are looking for games where you are gaining FE, you really look at how you think about the game of poker.

No.. plain and simple. I know many people in the 5/T online games and they are definitely not the people in the 5/T games. Most of the people in my 20/40 and 40/80 games would get crushed in your typical 5/T online game ainec.

I think you are having a hard time differentiating a tough game vs variance. FWIW, you're not going to see many 5/T games online where 3-4 people are always getting to the river. Just because you have possibly been on the wrong side of variance and have had a hard time beating 8/16 live, does not mean that the games are tough or anything like 5/T online. How much 5/T online have you played?

While a lot of what you said is fine, the above bolded statement is pretty absurd. Just because you have not had a good hourly in some minuscule sample size, does not mean that the game is beatable/not beatable.

WAT? Why would you think this? Your variance is not multiplying, but in fact remain the same (not counting for your play worsening as you ramp up the tables). If you take the emotional/physical factors out of it (tilt, not able to make correct decisions when multi-tabling, etc) you're BR requirements would be the same. If you have an edge in the game, you should win xx/100, likewise lose xx/100 if you do not over the long run. This is in hands, not time obv, so if you are 12 tabling, you would get to certain milestones (20K hands, 100K hands, etc) in a much shorter amount of real time. Regardless, your BB/100 and BB/table hr would remain constant as would your BR requirements.
The game is just different. I have a suspicion that you don't handle the online aggression nearly as well. While those 2 games are both beatable and probably have the same overall "talent", the makeup of the games are very different. The online aggression is fare greater (even comparing .5/1 to live 6/12), but there are other aspects as well (ie I think ol players tend to showdown lighter than live, bluff more, etc). You also have to consider the sample size. Say you play live 6/12 for a few months averaging 20 hrs/mo, after 3 months, you've most likely played somewhere around 2K hands. It's easy to get 2K hands in just a few days playing online even if not grinding. So if you drop 25 bets over that time, it would seem like it's "lasting longer" playing in the 6/12 game, but in reality, it's just the same thing only condensed.

NH, bravos1

Ugghh... please don't let the grammar police read it though! I reread what I wrote and was like BLAHHHH..

Proofreading is for suckers obv.

No, the 6/12 at Bay from a few years ago was vastly more aggro than the online .50/1 I've tried. Online .50/1 is tougher imo, but it's not because of the aggression.

And it took me a good couple months to play 2k hands online.

Not the 6/12 games I was playing in a few years ago.

So what is it then iyo?