Online games are far more profitable for a great player for two reasons:

1.) The volume of hands you can see is potentially 20x times or more
2.) The rake per hand is substantially lower at every level of play in every game on all major sites (USA sites only, I have no knowledge of Euro sites)..

*I prefer the atmosphere of live play and have more fun that way, but the hourly rate is so much greater for me online.

Rule of thumb is that the difficulty of an online game is about the same as that of a live game of 10x the limit. If you're a winning 5-10 player, I'd start at .25-0.50 online, get used to the new game dynamics, and then see from there. While there are plenty of bad players to be had at the 2-4 and 3-6 levels online, most of your opponents are people who won money from other people to get the money they're using to play you. Also, as you move in to these limits and higher, some of the bad players are aggressive and they are harder to take money off of than normal bad players.

Poker in the interwebz is hard. A lot of my live playing friends (people who do OK up to 15/30 live) consider online poker either a joke or unbeatable. They try to play close to their normal limits on the web, and think that they're losing all their money due to bad beats. Don't let this happen to you.

40 hands an hour for a typical full ring limit live game seems way too high, IMO; I'm thinking it's more like 25 maybe 30 hands per hour? Maybe re-run your numbers with this in mind and see if they are closer to what you expect...

GcluelessnoobG

With a shuffle machine, you'll get more than 25 hands per hour. With a hand shuffle, it's probably in that neighborhood. BMF, are you taking notes on every hand you're dealt to get these numbers?

Oh yeah, this is a great point that I missed. You need to stop taking notes on every hand at the table. I have a friend that I played with that kept notes of every hand played on his palmtop. He'd occasionally come out with stats like you just mentioned at the table. This is hugely -EV. You must not advertise your "runs of bad luck" because the fish believe in them. Also, you encourage a lot of the casual players to take shots at you. If you get in a spot where bad players are making correct bluffs at you and they are also correctly folding to your raises (you berate them in to playing correctly) you've taken a very profitable game and made it unprofitable for you.

While you could be having a run of bad luck, I suspect you're playing too tight. In loose/passive games, TPTK isn't the nuts. You need to play more drawing hands in position. Read this, it should change your life. The entire site is good.

Whatever you do, you must stop taking this many notes at the table and you must stop doing things that educate the fish around you.

GL

The other side of this is that you advertise yourself as being a "serious" poker player. Depending on the games you're in, this can kill your action. I used to take notes at the table, not even about my hands but just recording winrate over periods of time, at different times of the day, just trying to plug leaks over staying too long or playing at bad hours, stuff like that. People looked at me when I pulled out my notebook, and I got a few questions about what I was doing. I started to notice that people were really tightening up against me. Most of them thought that I was writing down my hands, which would mean I was writing down [I]their[I] hands. Same as no one wants to look stupid on TV, no one wants to look stupid in someone's notebook for them to have a good laugh about later, so they started to play better and the game got tougher.

I still take those notes, but now I do it away from the table, during breaks or when I get home, and those games went back to being loose and bad. Everybody wins. Well, actually I win, but I'm sure they get something out of it too. I'm all for keeping records, but the best thing you can do for yourself is make yourself look like one of the gamblers, out to have a good time.

I have noticed a bunch of players who bet out before the river card is flipped and after the turn action is closed. They always have the initiative in the hand and everytime I see a showdown they had a strong or very strong hand on the turn. I can't remember a single time someone made this blind bet and when I saw their cards they were bluffing or weak. Is this a reliable tell that indicates strength? If this is a genuine tell, would you consider this a acting tell, trying to represent weakness when you have strength?

IME, this almost always means, "My hand is so strong that I don't care what the river card is, I'm betting. And I think it looks cool."

In my experience, it's usually top pair + strong draw.
Sometimes, idiots do it when they have a set and I'm on nut flush draw.
Or they do it with nut flush when I have top set.
It's too bad I usually brick the river when they do the darkshot, so I can't punish them for it.

Sometimes I will do it just to avoid MUBS when the river card hits. I believe I have the best hand but don't want to miss river value when a scare card hits, so I force myself to value bet before I even see the last card.

Sorry for the dumb question, but how many bets in a pot define whether it is small or large?

I think you have to ask that in relation to what is going on. You have considerations about how many people typically see the flop.

If you're in a live no-fold'em game with 6 to the flop for a raise, typical pots are going to wind up in the 10-20 big bet realm. On the flop, you can be looking at a 6-8 big bet pot before it is your turn to act. This tends to encourage things like protecting big hands and cleaning up outs; OTOH, the people who make the pot this big don't tend to be possible to manipulate in that way.

Contrast the previous example with a low to midstakes online 6m game. There, you'd see pots where it folds to the SB who checks to you in the BB. When the flop comes and the SB leads, you're getting 3:1 which is about as bad as it gets... unless you guys check through the flop and he leads the turn giving you 2:1.

On the turn a 4+ BB pot locks in OESD and FD hands, so that's a decent pot. Anything smaller is certainly small. You need about 8:1 to call a 5 outer. Anything more than 10 BB is starting to wander in to the realm of big pots.

On the river, you have trouble knowing with certainty what most players will do with much better than about 90% accuracy. One the pot gets big, say 10 BB, you start having to call single river bets with any hope of winning because "the pot is big". Make that 15 big bets and you're really stuck. OTOH, a 4 BB pot isn't realy laying you that great a price vs. your read, and it is relatively easy to lay down in a small pot.

Obv there is no magic answer and Dougs post does a great job of addressing the issue. In Small Stakes Holdem there is discussion of what constitutes a large pot. Ed Miller suggests something a pot is starting to get large when:

A.) It is 3bet preflop
B.) It is raised preflop and at least 4 handed
c.) It is 6 ways preflop

*These are not exactly what he suggested but I think they are close

I don't have a copy of the book but his answers settled around a 3-4BB pot on the flop. He stated this is when you can begin to consider a pot big. Of course heavy flop action can easily turn a small pot into monster.

Just some quick history:

- Winner @ 9 Tabling $16-$32 NL STTs (Online)
- Winner @ 5/10 - 20/40 (Live)
- I have a decent short handed FLHE game, but it could be better (signed up to Card Runners for this and am re-reading Stoxtrader's book)

I would like to give multi tabling 1/2-2/4 FLHE Full Ring on Stars or Full Tilt a shot and want your opinions as to what you guys would consider an adequate bankroll to withstand the swings associated with 9-tabling these limits. I plan to start off with 2 or 3 tables and adding more (goal is 9) as I get more accustomed to playing FLHE online and understanding Poker Tracker stats.

My full ring FLHE style is on the looser end of TAG/SSHE but I know how to tighten up when its called for, I wish I could give you the stats from Poker Tracker but I have no FLHE history.

I'm thinking around 400-500BB? But I could be way off.

Any tips/advice is appreciated.

i'd recommend starting at .5/1 to make sure you're doing okay
for mass tabling and mass grinding, the more bb the better. assuming you have the funds i would go ahead and overroll yourself if possible. 500bb is nice but 1000 is better. welcome to the forums and good luck

Get autohotkey (or equivalent) and you can 6 table without ever timing out. Your wrist will thank you.

Haven't looked through this thread so excuse me if it was already asked but I'd like to ask the following:
I am getting started in LHE and am debating whether to start at FR or 6m. I see most of the action online is at 6m, but I assume it is harder with tougher players. I also assume that 6m will become even more popular in the future than it is already. Should I learn FR as a building block before I jump into 6m, or does it even matter? FWIW I am looking to focus on one of them and working hard to specialize in it. I am going to start out at the low limits to get a feel for it, then move up if I see steady progress. Thanks for the help.

start with fr imo

The progression of my game has gone like this .25/.5 FR -> .5/1 FR -> .25/.5 6max -> .5/.1 6 max -> 1/2 6max ->2/4 6max. I'd like to play 5/T 6 max one day, but I'm only winning a hair over 1BB/100 at 2/4 so I have my work cut out for me in getting there.

I definitely enjoy the 6max much more than FR games. I think once you get high enough on the FR games you're up against a bunch of people grinding out rakeback and not really winning much at the tables. On the other hand, supposedly there are still good games to be had at 5/T six max and up, but I am not rolled for those so I have stayed out.

As for where a "beginner" to LHE should start, I can see going either way - that is get started at the FR micros to get some fundamentals and then move to 6 max or jump into 6max right away. I think the $0.5/1.00 FR games online prepared me well for live play. If you ever see yourself playing limit live, I'd suggest doing that for 15-20,000 hands. The games really are entirely different animals. If you think you'd strictly be an online player, then I don't see much problem with starting at 6 max.

One other thing to consider is if you are really new to LHE, there are a lot more resources for learning FR games than 6 max ones. That void is slowly being filled by the poker education industry and more videos and books are being produced to teach 6 max play. For the time being though, you may want to try learning from excellent "classics" like SSHE and working on your FR game there, and then taking the principles you learn and applying them in new ways to 6 max, sort of a combination of book learning and learning through experience.

So my definitive answer is "it depends." I hope this helps.

FTP regs - can somebody explain iron man to me? i guess i get the basic idea, but about how many hands do you have to play at 2/4 to 5/10 FR LHE to keep it? is this something that can be done fairly easily?

Yes - I would strongly suggest learning FR before jumping into 6-max. The reason being in FR as the blinds do not come around as often you can wait for your more premium hands so can nit it up while learning the basics PF. As SAC mentioned there is far more material on learning FR than 6-max at a beginner / early intermediate level (SSHE should be your starting point no matter whether you want to eventually play FR or 6-max). This reverses as you get higher in stakes, most training vids are aimed at 6-max for mid - high stakes and assume that the fundamentals are second nature to you.

In regards to your specialise comment - they are both limit hold em. The playing styles are generally different in each game (6-max brings out the aggro in everyone) however if you are a good player you should be able to move from one to the other and adjust to the different table conditions as it is still the same game so all the fundamentals, tips, tricks and techniques are the same. Rather than learning how to play 6-max or learning how to play full ring you should be learning how to play LHE.

There definitely appears to be more action in the 6-max world and I agree - this is likely where it is heading as the full ring tables fill with bonus-whoring nits and the games become boring for the average player.

This is an excellent point that I hadn't thought of. If you're just starting you really should nit it up until you get some familiarity with the game. The fact that the blinds come around quicker in 6max forces you to play more hands than you would in a FR game.

As an example, I can't ever see myself playing Q8o in a FR game. In 6 max, I may raise with it on the button with a limper in front of me, depending on the limper and the blinds.

Suppose you've got Q8o in that situation, and the BB calls. The flop is A T 8 with a flush draw. How are you going to play it? What if you know that one opponent will raise any ace that hits the board whether he has one or not. What if the other guy likes to semibluff raise flush draws and it's three bets to you? These are situations you just don't find in FR and it would probably be way easier to learn and absorb those fundamentals at the more placid FR games than jumping into the wild 6 max ones at first.

So I have changed my recommendation.

Post your hands either place. Most people read both forums. You'll get slightly better live small stakes answers here and you'll get slightly better microstakes answers on that forum, due to the slight differences in forum readers.

One thought, that .5/1 game you're playing has a lot more in common with a 5/10 or even a 10/20 live game that it does 2/4. The players are more positionally aware, more aggressive, and tighter than your normal villain. If you don't have much expereince with blind steals and defense, I'd consider moving down to at least .25/.50 or being prepared to do some learning before being a decent winner at this limit. I wouldn't recommend 1/2 without a lot more experience at online play or being a decent winner in tough (say Mirage day game) 10/20 or higher. Heck, I'd suggest that most 20/40 players get their feet wet at .5/1 before breaking in at 1/2 or 2/4. I suspect that most 20/40 regs would do great at 2/4 OL after a little adjustment, but until you learn how to game select online, 1/2 games are no fun.

As someone who plays the limits I mentioned, I think I have some perspective. However, I could still be flat wrong.

what is 3-6 and 10-20 live equal to online?

25/50 cent or maybe 50cent/1dollar

I dare say that even $1/2 Stars is similar to $10/20 live. But maybe I'm wrong since I haven't played that level on Stars in years, but I remember it being winnable for 2+bb/100 using ABC poker. I think many of the $2/4 and 3/6 FR Stars regulars would shred any live game at the Taj or Borgata.