TL : DR

lol

Why only opponents that will donk bet when they hit? I mean standard donkish play is to c/c 2nd or top pair and draws and c/f the rest.

Also what do you think about 66 and like 67ss->JTss type hands after 3-4 limpers. Better to pound in pos or see a cheap flop.

Better to see a cheap flop. I agree about stacking or winning very large pots from donks in a limped pot.

But if this is 1 limper its obviously a pound in pos.. What do you think about 2 limpers? Should it depend on their likelihood to fold and the likelihood you'll get called behind?

Here's what I would consider:

• How lightly can/will they stack off post-flop? The lighter they stack off, the more you want to see the flop to let them stack off horribly. That being said, you may need to make a "pot sweetener" raise (raising to 3BBs after 4 limpers) to make stacking off vastly easier. A small raise preflop means your river betting can be 3x as big.
• Stack sizes. Obviously, if you're a 2p2 reg, then you can outplay them after the flop, but this requires reasonably deep stacks.
• Will they fold to your raise pre-flop? Will they fold to a cbet if they miss? If the answers are yes, you should raise more often.
• More players means seeing more flops with speculative hands. Fewer players means taking initiative and relying on fold equity more often.

Don't raise to isolate when there are 3 or more limpers. Don't make a pot sweetener raise either. You have no idea how fun it is to three barrell 300BB with top pair top kicker only to be called by top pair good kicker.

I'm gonna call bs on $150/hr playing 5/10 live. I played 5/10 live for a year or so and never once saw a player making anywhere near that.

The best player I came across that could be even close to this fabled "sdc" you guys are talking about was Big Jeff at commerce. Yeah he beat the game handily, (and ended up winning a wsop bracelet in heads up nl vs phil helmuth) and I actually liked playing against him because he actually analyzed what you were doing instead of just playing his cards, but he definitely didn't consistently get up to 10 buyins. If you see someone doing that, they've been running super hot over the sample size of 8 or whatever ridiculously small sample that you've witnessed.

I had a 12 day winning streak at 5/10 once which netted me a decent amount of money, and I saw another guy who claimed to have a 28 day winning streak, but its a poker table so you can never be sure.

Bottom line, nobody makes 10 buyins consistently. Even if you are #1 gosu superplayer, you're gonna have days where you get it all in with top set and lose 4k. And there is no Bigfoot.

This if from Brian Townsend's Well.
Also, I've already addressed sample sizes, and given examples of players in my city who you could look for and I'm sure there are others elsewhere.

Perhaps your sample of one year at one casino isn't enough to make conclusions about all live players everywhere?

WOW NONE OF THESE CONCEPTS APPLY TO ONLINE POKER HOW WILL I EVER MAKE THE TRANSITION


Making fun of this post but if I wasn't so lazy I would quote the other 3 zillion "online players have trouble transition to live" posts too...

Dude...anyone who knows anything about variance and/or statistics knows that winrates over about 10PTBB/100 are just insanely unrealistic, even against the worst competition.

And, by the way, I have a 5+ buyin stack at the casino pretty much EVERY TIME I PLAY at one point or another. But to quote the old "How much did you lose?" joke, a very good percentage of those times I started out stuck for 5-6 buyins and made a roaring comeback. Just because every time you see Fred at the table with $8k doesn't mean Fred is up $8k every time.

I mean the number of cognitive illusions you guys are falling prey to ITT is truly baffling.

I would agree. The most I think a normal 5/10 game is beatable for $125/hr. And thats by someone who would probably crush 50/100 nl live as well. Not that 50/100 nl live is that hard or anything compared to 5/10 NL online.

I don't understand, could you elaborate? Forgive me, I'm an ignorant live player who's never played NL online.

I put on a pretty good show live as a "super aggro maniac" and shift gears well, constantly pressure limpers, and know when to slow down when I'm getting too many people trying to "catch me"... I think in the right live game, there's a lot of benefit of being able to "show up with anything on the river" as long as you're able to read the table right...

The games I play, I feel the people practically play with their hand face up on the table, so it's just feels right to run them over. One true thing is that playing 30/25/3'ish you set yourself up to lose big or win HUGE. When I'm winning though, I'm able to use the momentum to win more and more, so I often win much more when I win, then I lose when I lose, and if I actually RUN GOOD TOO?! DEAR GOD!

I only got to play 56.5 hours last month, but I performed at 16.03 BB/hr ($80.16/hr @ 2/5 NL), but I honestly think in addition to the approach that I take, that I also had a pretty good runnin' month. The most I've ever made in one month at 2/5NL Live was $14k, but that was playing about 8 hours a day, probably 25 days out of the month ($70/hr), but again, was running good and playing against poor opponents.

My recommendation is to experiment. Start out raising a little wider in position. I was talking to a dealer the other day that deals to me regularly and we were joking about how I was a SUPERNIT when I first started playing. One day though, I saw a guy playing that matched the exact description that you were talking about in your OP, and he changed my perspective of the game! I gradually went through the motions of playing more aggressive and more deceptive and began to look for the best lines every single time based on stack sizes, ranges, scenarios, my perspective of how my opp views me and how I view him, etc... and just remembering that although I know the cards that I have in my hand, my opponent doesn't.

Good luck and hope this had something you were looking for!

He is saying that alot of these little tidbits of knowledge and wisdom you guys are talking about are very basic to beating an online game. In fact you won't see them mentioned on the fourm too often because it is assumed that you know these concepts. You should refer to the stickies or Proffesional NoLimit Holdem.

BTW I play at Edgewater, Starlight and Boulivard, and I can appreciate this thread. Just don't start falling in love with pipe dreams of making 150k p/year playing 2-5.

This isn't just tight players. The donkeys "hate JJ" too. But I don't think it's just TT-QQ these guys do this with either, based on the frequency I see it, people must be mixing in 99, KK, AQ, AK and the like. In fact, it seems like some players open for 8bb as a matter of course. It irritates me that people make these ridiculously huge raises that should never get called by a worse hand (but then, of course, they do!). I guess the reason I get so irritated by it is 1) because I inevitably get pushed out of the pot, and 2) bloating the pot like that preflop reduces my post-flop edge. I haven't figured out how to adjust to, nor exploit, the 7bb open or the 10bb raise out of the blinds.

I think Brian Townsend was exaggerating and running exceptionally hot when he was talking about this. Max winrates in live NL games are usually 15x the big blind per hour.

That said, I think the best strategy involves playing somewhat tight and raising to large amounts pre-flop and attempt to isolate as much as possible. Isolation is key because you are charging people the max when they are at a card/position/player disadvantage postflop and because your edge is usually greater in pots contested by fewer opponents.

The reason you play somewhat tight is because a hand is either profitable or it isnt. There is no in between and no reason to limp in with speculative hands unless you believe you will get limp-reraised or you have a hand that plays very well in effectivly deep stacks (Ax suited comes to mind as the most obvious choice). But even then its a very small subset of hands that should be over limped instead of raised. And open limping is always a bad play unless you can profitable limp reraise or bluff limp reraise (with proper regard to stack sizes)

But this strategy is the same used at 10/20 NL live too, just a little harder in that game. I mean really all any live player should do is use this basic strategy and then augment as you move up in stakes and deal with increased preflop and postflop aggression from your opponents.

I came off a pretty good session at the Winstar last night...thought this might be relevant.

Profit margin when manipulating table image:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...l-live-566234/

Spino, I'm sure you are a good player but you are wrong about this. Playing tight will not allow you to achieve a high (relative to maximum potential) win rate in soft live games, period. Now, in tougher games (10/20+) you can't normally get away with playing >50% of your hands, but we aren't talking about those games here.

either a hand is profitable or it isnt. Its kinda hard for 50%+ of your hands to be profitable. That means hands like Q7o in the usual 5-way multiway pot for a live NL game have to be profitable often times out of position. No matter how good you are that is rarely the case.

I can't say for certain that playing Q7o is profitable (obviously it depends on the game conditions) but I am certain that the overall strategy that involves playing ~50% of hands is more profitable than the strategy of playing ~20% of hands (or whatever % standard TAGs play in full ring) given that you are way better than your opponents at postflop poker. And it's pretty easy to be way better than your opponents at postflop poker at the 1/2 and 2/5 levels.

A hand isn't profitable or not. It is entirely and completely situational dependent. When I say "50% of the time I fold KTo UTG, 50% I call" I mean this takes into account a wide variety of things: table image, last few hands, opponents, table demeanor, opponent's tiltiness, opponent's willingness to stack off, etc. I don't see how you can declare a hand is profitable or isn't - it is sometimes, it isn't others. Also, you mention "out of position" but that can apply widely; maybe I'm in position against the loosest call station at the table; maybe I'm OOP but to a super LAG who will bet any 2 if checked to.

I'm not saying you don't know all this already, I'd bet you do. All I'm saying is that is what I mean when I say "50% call, 50% fold" or something of that nature. Going into the reasons why I'd fold or call would be too insane of an explanation.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense to think of individual starting hands as "profitable or not." Your overall strategy is what is profitable or not. For example, you can play 32o profitably from any position if your preflop range is {AA, 3c2h}. And you can play hands that are break-even or small losers but which increase the profitability of your overall strategy due to shania and metagame.

That's right. However, on balance:



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