I thought that money was tied up at the moment??
the Rio is going to suck ass this summer, most likely.

Do you guys think live games are going to get much harder or softer for US players in the NEAR future?

I can only assume that they will get harder just as a result of the fact that the reg to fish ratio online is probably 3-1. Lucky for me I'm 20 minutes from Parx Casino in PA and I think that if there is a sudden flood of regs into live games, it will be to AC, FL, LA or Vegas.

Thoughts?

i agree ith venice, i think tis gonna be good then bad then good for us live players.

well it depends on your spot, cause like others have said its going to be a different game once the onlione guys come and it doesnt matter if they are losers, online guys have much better fundamentals usuallu. i mean didnt almost all of us here start off online or still play online?

oh and consider me lucky i got 2 casinos 30 mins, 1 is 10 mins away, and i live in central cali.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. You want 50 and 100NL online winning players coming to play 1/2?? They are millions of time better than the fish and drunk tourists. Man, some of you live guys are so cocky.

Put it this way, I used to play 1/2 and 2/5 live at the casino all the time. It was f***ing easy. I thought I knew how to play and was pretty good. I played 1-2 times a week for years since the 2006 shut down of Party Poker. Then I went to NL10 online and was determined to beat it because I was sick of driving 45 min to the casino all the time. Guess what? I got killed. Then I learned and learned and learned. I got a coach and a staked. I eventually learned and became a winner at 50NL and crushing 25NL.

The only truth in your statement is you may get alot of recreational online fish who will now be more inclined to come to the casino and it may force online tournament players (who don't really know how to play cash games well) play live cash games.

So i played my first session since the ban last night. The room was much busier then normal for that time period, I got there at 3pm. There were 3 online players at my table throughout the night, 1 when i first sat down and after he left another 2 showed up and these 2 were friends. I got to talking to the first guy as soon as I realized he knew what he was doing, he claimed to have been playing 30k hands/month at 100nl HU. After a while I noticed he was just not adjusting to the differences in play. After seeing him open utg to 9x and get 5 callers the look on his face was like a deer in the headlights and he didnt' seem to know what to do postflop multiway. He played too many hands as he was used to HU and he couldnt adjust to the fact that 3bets get called multiway with a varying degree of holdings from premiums to any suited garbage. I noticed he topped up after every hand he played and he obv realized he had a big edge on most of the table but probably wasnt sure how to adapt to the differences in play YET. The next two guys sat down and in the ones first hand he made a great river call with A high which was good so i figured he was either really good or absolutely horrible and after hearing him talk to his buddy i found out they were online players so i got to talking to them. Know thine enemy or something like that, right? Anyway these guys were mainly tourney players according to them anyway and they were also into mixed games online. Both of these guys had also played live before so they were definatly not noobs. After watching them play for a while they both played fairly straightforward ABC poker and didnt really try to make any moves from what i could see anyway. In other words they adjusted well. I would assume that if they were winning at online cash games it would probably be 25nl or 50nl mostly because I think if they were winning at higher levels online I think I would have seen more overall aggression especially preflop.

[ ] understands sarcasm when he sees it

If live 1/2 and 2/5 was so easy why didn't you move up to 5/10 or 10/20. Because your lying. Put it this way anybody can crush online mass tabling. If you told me I crushed 25nl playing one table. Then I would respect what your saying. Try going in news, views and gossip and tell them you crush micros. You will get laughed at bro. Save yourslef the trouble. Big difference between 25nl and 200nl live. Only a true grinder ante's up for cents. That's all the respect I can give a micro grinder.

I still dont see great players playing 1/2 maybe 2/5 but playing 16 tables of 25NL is like playing 2/5 or bigger.

And I still think that online players and strategy needs to figure out how to beat loose passive live games. Its just not easy to show up and run them over.

I didn't move up to 5/10 and 10/20 because they don't really offer it in my area. It'll run maybe Friday nights then shut down after a few hours. And you need a big roll for it to embrace the variance. I even have 11K in the bank, but if you have a bad few days you can lose 4K or whatever. Obvious reasons. Besides, I can make about the same amount playing 50NL and 25NL as 2/5.

It's a math problem. Say you crush 2/5 live for 10bb/100. You see, what 25 hands an hour? That's $12.5 an hour. And you still have to deal w/ all the bs of driving to the casino, seeing very little hands, inhaling smoke etc. If you beat 50NL online for just say 4bb/100 and multitable like 12 tables thats about 750 hands an hour and $15 an hr. When you are playing 12-16 tables of $50 a pop I'm actually playing for more money than a live 500NL table.

I don't understand your hatred for online players, I really don't. You seem to think beating 2/5 and 1/2 is hard or something? People go to the casino to "gamble". They want to have fun. They also play more scared and are more afraid to raise. The majority of players don't read about poker theory and have the information accessible to improve their game. Sure I'm speaking in generalities but assuming an online 50NL player can adjust to the lack of FE and how passive the game is they will do just fine.

Actually, I did the reverse. I played live before moving on-line, then went back to live.

There will be some live players who are going to look in desperation for games that they can still limp pf and get to see cheap flops whenever they want. There are going to be on-line players who will leave in frustration because nobody is ever folding to their 3BB pfr.

It will be as it always is in poker. Those that can adapt to table conditions and work on their game will thrive. Those that can't, won't.

I don't think this is ban is bad for live games after the sites refund the monies:

Until an online pro (making a decent living/monies) off poker can get his roll of the sites, he will not consider relocating (outside of the US). Until then he will attend the donkfest cash games at his local casino. Soon enough will realize that even though the games are weak, they can drive you insane due to the slow speed and inherent limitations to making big moves constantly (ie 3 betting light and getting called 9 way). So when he receives his roll from the sites (if ever) then he considers very strongly relocating to Canada or Mexico. Reminding himself that the live games are slow as **** and it will take him 3 generations to breakeven on a +EV play, he relocates and grinds online with the rest of the world.

The fish on the other hand have lives. They will not relocate to play card game. So they play card game at local casino, make new friends, lots more enemies and donk off cash every weekend.

This is the best thing that could've happened to live poker. I share Lemon's optimistic too on this matter.

How do you think I learned poker from online. Difference is I used it to copy people, which basically means fundamentals. I have studied all the top guys at every level online. Trust me I have the most respect for online players.

There is a big difference at every level. Micros those guys can play. But the only way to beat the game is use a hud.

Ill tell you a little story, I signed up online poker stars. Downloaded one of those super huds. And it was lolaughable my dude. The hud told me when to steal, I'm like wtf, so I go into the settings. I see that you can program your hud to warn you of all the plays when those situations come up. So basically what I'm saying is when you mass table and have programs to help you in every situation. Micros become easy because you really can just play tight and a little loose in position. Then you just print money.

After I found out about HUDs I told myself anybody can be good online with a HUD. But it takes a really different type of player to play live. The pressure when situations are in your face are much harder to deal with. Especially when you make bad calls or plays.

All I'm saying is there are more cocky online players then there are live players. Its all poker but it takes a player with great skill to be good live and online at the same time.

Who do you think is the best online player? Ill save you the trouble, its ivey best everything. That's a real player, have the passion to be good online and offline. Instead of these nerds I see from online who say I hate live poker when they bought into a 10k event.

Ok rant over,

I disagree with your assessment about the HUD that online players basically won't function without it. It's not hard to quantify what a given live player's play would look like especially after a few orbits.

If this was a on-line forum, everyone would know you don't know what you're talking about when discussing a HUD. However as a live forum, people might not be aware that HUDs allowed by the major poker sites don't do this.

I will say this. If I had prop bet on how fast I could take a 25nl player who has been playing for a year on how to crush 1/2 vs. taking a 1/2 player with the same length of time on how to crush 25nl, it isn't even close. I could get the 25nl player up to speed in about 1/10 to 1/20 the time it would take me to get the 1/2 player at the same place.

Just put him on ignore like most of the regulars in this forum. He has all kinds of unsupported and crazy posts and basically if you don't agree with him, he hates on it.

Since when does a blackberry support PS and a HUD? Remember you don't have a computer or Internet beyond you phone. I think that was relieved about the time someone wanted to play you OL... So which is it, you do or do not have a PC and Internet access?

I never said a online player can't function without thousands of hands on their HUDs. I said it takes a special person to beat live with minimal reads on players.

With 25 to 30 hands an hour live is based more off feel. Rather then looking at numbers then play accordingly.

See you didn't see the keyword. I said a super HUD. What's the difference between a super Hud and a regular PTR or Hem with bought hand histories?


Not too much of a difference. See venice I didn't want to go into depth about huds and programs too see folded hands. We really don't have to go there with all the loop holes with site regulated HUDs.


As far as taking a prop bet. It really is clueless since both players won't be playing the same game with the same type of villains or get the same hands.

Like I said go to a 2/5 table. Tell everyone your an online micro grinder and see how much respect you get.

Well I know a few guys only on 2+2 who respect micro grinders.

Whatever. Let us know who you bought the "super HUD" from.

Poker edge, which I found later to be illegal on poker stars. I fell in love with it. It looks better the ptr3 or hem. Has little icons very good program. I downloaded hem and ptr, but I had no hands on players sure was not going pay for HH doing search here on 2+2 a long time ago. When I found poker edge I had 10s of thousands of hands on all of my opponents.

Why so harsh, your on your cpu, my expensive laptop is broke over here. Baby moms broke it.

Be nice to me man I been playing for 3 years. Only really got all the fundamentals of poker only about a year ago.

So take it easy I love online poker and the players. Without them I would not have the passion.

I know all of you are sad because of black friday. But I'm happy. This is big news for me, because I now know I made the right choice not to play online poker. I'm slightly ahead of the learning curve.

Hopefully I meet some really cool online poker dudes so we become friends.

Also the games will get better fundamentally. I like playing with people who know the fundamentals at least. Makes the game more strategic. We all are going to get better since we all are live players now, like the cowboy days.

No, it's not. The variance is a much bigger factor playing 2/5 than 16 tables of 25NL.


Playing live in a hugely +ev way is not difficult. Dealing with the variance of live play is, however, something I think many online players (especially those used to playing 10+ tables at a time) are unprepared for.

You expose your complete ignorance of live play winrates when you say silly things like this.

First of all, live poker winrates are generally measured in bb/hr, not bb/100. Terminology aside, the top players (those who are crushing the game) can beat 2/5 for 8-10bb/hr, which comes out to 30+bb/100, which isn't even close to the 10bb/100 figure you mentioned as "crushing" the game.

As I see it, the problem online players face has less to do with the style/pace of play (I personally think a top online pro should be able adjust to the differences in style/pace relatively easily), and more to do with the massive increase in variance that is impossible to avoid. This is, of course, only true if most online pros multi-tabled, which I assume they did, although I could be wrong on this assumption.

For example: if you are rolled for 5/10, you can't say "oh geez, I am running bad, I'll move down and play 10 tables of 1/2 for a few weeks to replenish my roll." In short, I think the fact that you can't multi-table live to avoid variance is going to be the hardest thing for online pros to adjust to (more psychologically than strategically), and I think it will push many former online pros out of the game forever. How many it will push out remains to be seen. Of course, if you're properly rolled, you'll be fine (live or online), it's just that it takes A LOT more money to be properly rolled for live 5/10 than 16 tabling 1/2 online.

In other words, just because you have the same amount of money in play 10-tabling 1/2 as you do playing one table of 5/10 live doesn't mean the bankroll requirements and variance are the same.

Just my 2 cents.

i like cali donks, is just scared imo. just play poker.

it's not just your opinion. The math backs you up.

Good post. You make valid points. I did not bring up variance. I think when you play live you need to KNOW that you are playing correctly and well and that the money doesn't matter (in the shortterm). Sure after 50K hands and you are still losing you need to certainly re-evaluate. I've talked to some great online players who have went thru 50K or more BE streaks and if you played 40 hrs a week live, that would equate to a little over 50K hands a year so it would be possible to make NO MONEY in a year. However, this assumption is based off of the typical online "crushing" win rate of 5-6bb/100. If you are 30bb/100 then you should have BE streaks that are much shorter.

I don't quite understand though how you could beat it at such high levels like 30bb/100. I don't know ANYBODY online at any level, that can beat the game for even more than 1/2 to 1/3 of that over the long run. And there is even higher rake live. It just seems like that if you were beating the game that much, you would move up. But then again, the bankroll issue still presents itself. I know that if I could beat 500NL live for 30bb/100 I would move to vegas right now. 100K a year to play 2/5 or 60K playing 1/2 sounds good. Maybe I should look into that