i'm 19 years old, and i'm a winning online 1/2 cash and heads-up sng player. i've adapted to and play a very aggressive pre and post flop style that i'm comfortable with.

my problem is with playing 2/5 and 5/10 live. i'm an overall winning live player (like pretty much any remotely competent online player) buttttttt i feel like constant crucial mistakes are costing me way too much money. i can't seem to adapt to the average person's unwillingness to fold a mediocre hand to serious aggression. are you guys generally better off just playing ABC poker against these monkeys? or possibly limit yourself to how much of your stack your willing to commit to a bluff? i can't figure it out.

here are a couple of hands from last night, i'd like to hear some thoughts.

hand 1 : somewhat new 5/10 table, only one other person bought in for 1k, average stack was about 500. table was pretty tame and limpy, the only people showing any aggression were myself and the other young kid that bought in full. onto the hand-
utg +1 limps, utg +3 limps, CO limps, button limps, i make it 75 from the SB with Ac10c. (stack down to 700) fold, utg +3 calls (stack of about 700), folds to the button who calls (stack of 1k, this is the competent player i mentioned earlier)

flop: 2h 3h 6c. i check. utg +3 fires out like 60 (lol) and then the competent player from the button raises it to 250. i thought about what just happened and what i took from this situation is that the button decided it was a good spot to take the pot down after i checked and and UTG +3 made such a weak bet. i put him on either a flush draw, air, or mid overpair. i decided to check raise shove my 700 and represent an overpair. utg +3 folds, and now it's on villain.

thoughts? is this spew?

hand 2:

extremely nitty 2/5 table, average chip stack is like 250 lmao. the only other two normal sized stacks were a young internet player with about 600 in front and some middle aged black guy with about 1100 in front of him. i had about 650. prior to this hand i was dead dealt for about two hours so my image is probably pretty nitty, nothing really splashy happened.

utg limps, utg +2 limps, hj limps, co limps, i get AQhh in the sb and make it 35. (stack of 650) everyone folds to the co (the internet player, about 600 in front) and he reraises it to 110. at this point, i don't have a clue what to put him on. it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for him to overlimp from the CO with a bigger hand. i decide to flat and re evaluate and possibly put him on a hand on the flop.

flop: 5h 6c 8s. i check. he bets 90.. lol. he has about 450 left after this bet. at this point i feel he either was not expecting me to flat his preflop raise and had no idea what to do and threw out a dumb weak bet, or flopped a monster. i leaned towards the first choice. i shove my stack of about 500. now it's on villain.

am i a spew monkey? do i need to just stop playing ike this when playing live? or do i just suck?

lay it on me.

Sorry, on these 2 hands you're spewing.

You're playing out of control here and it smells of desperation, to be honest with you. Don't fall into the habit of making a (big) move just because somewhere in the back of your mind you can think of a justification for it. Instead try to make the best move for the individual players you're up against.

Get back to the basics. PLAY BIG POTS WITH BIG HANDS. This isn't HSP. Instead of playing at the edge(or over the edge) and finding you have to back down to more ABC poker, START with a more ABC level and gradually turn it up til you reach a nice medium. This is live poker, you need way more patience.

Basic advice: Play big pots w/big hands. Play in position more. Feed off of the mistakes of others, don't offer up mistakes others can take advantage of. Be aggressive but have it be controlled aggression. Don't overthink your competition. Be more patient. Gain more confidence in what you're doing.

If you can beat 1/2 internet you can win here easy, just slow down and get used to the live game/GL

Well you are probably a better player than me, but 2/5 and 5/10 live are the games i play the most. Here is the basic thing, we all agree that poker is a game of adjustments, not a particular set of rules. As a general rule when playing live, your fold equity is greatly reduced, people tend not to fold, yet since the game is a balance, this is made up for somewhere else

1. Fold equity decreased (reduce bluffing) ----- This also means you can bet more hands for value without needing to balance your ranges. Basically just hit your flushdraw and bet 1/2 pot, they say "dam i think you got the flush draw... call" So just value bet more and buff less

2. Bluff raising is rare ---- No need to Hero call almost ever, they are not balancing their range, and they rarely even semi bluff. Raise = strength ALWAYS

MAke those small adjustments, bet for value, bluff less, dont hero call, and you will win. The majority of your profit will come from getting value from what they think are "coolers" (i.e two pair vs made flush on river lol) that you would get away from in a reverse situation.

lol at myself

Those are all terrible spots since they're the kind of boards where you're going to have a pretty wide range since they're draw-heavy and thus get snapped off by way more one-pair hands than on other flops since they figure you'll be semi-bluffing more often than having the goods. Just kind of makes me suspect you don't seem to really be thinking on the right level.

Who knows, maybe you really do crush online, and maybe all the live players you play against really are just terrible stations. But there's a lot more to it than "I think he's weak, let's bluff-raise!"

im also a 1-2 online player and 2-5 player at my casino, as my casino very rarely offers anything bigger, both these plays seems like you are reaching to me, in my experience, live poker is just about making hands and collecting the money, becuase people never fold anything and at least at my game, are way willing to try and outplay you everyhand....however it does seem like your game is a bit different, the 2-5 here has a 1k max buyin, and almost everyone always buys in for hte full amount, except for 2 or 3 guys who are there to have fun. Its really really boring,so i bought headphones, but right now, thats how i think the best way to beat the games live are, just make hands, semi bluff alot, have a tight image and exploit it. however being really aggressive like you clearly are being does allow you to get paid off bigger in the long run, but you have to risk alot more money in order to do it.....im just thinking outloud at this point, GL

Do you know where the word spew came from or rather, how it became associated with poker? It originates from premature ejaculation of the sexually immature. Over excited, eager for validation, and out of control.

We all go through this and then we get to the point that we can put our hand on it and go to sleep without hitting it. At that point, you have mastery, and can make that thing sing at will.

In the meantime you make the games profitable and amusing for us "old" guys. Carry on.

curious to hear what you think if you read these hands from an outsider's perspective. Do these bluffs actually work in online play when stacks are short? I know that online opponents have a wider 3-bet and flop raise range, so maybe this is justified. But since you are no stranger to ranging, surely you have encountered opponents with tight ranges and you adjust accordingly, no?

yes sir, online you absolutely have to deeply adjust your play against short stackers because short stackers online actually exploit there edge. in live games however, they don't buy in short to shove into dead money, put deep stacks in tough spots, etc. they just do it because they can. it doesn't matter if they have 40 bb or 150 bb in front of them, they will still generally play the same way.

i'm by no means an expert but i have played live long enough to know that in that environment, a big reraise or an all in shove generally means they have the goods. i guess i try too hard to represent big hands because in the long run most live players will still pay you off even when they think they're beat.

and to the comment saying people like me are what makes the game better for the "old guys", i can't say i disagree. but tell me this, in either of those spots, assuming you don't know what you know now, are you gonna make that hero stack-off call with a random mid PP in either of those spots against some random guy that check-raised all in at a live game?

I don't have a lot of time today, so I will make it fairly quick and try to touch back later...

I like this hand and line IF you have a tight image. If I posted this hand in reverse here with you as a young TAG, I can almost assure you that the only hands I get approval for stacking off with is a set, and I would take a load of crap for limp/calling OTB with 22/33/66.

But if I posted it with 88 and you as a borderline maniac I would get several people saying "ya snap him off", some will say fold to the shove, but it will all boil down to how I describe you, the more towards a total maniac the more the opinions will swing to calling off with a middle over pair.

Bottom line you can bluff in these games, especially at 5/10+, but you at the very least have to have a credible image to back up your plays, or if not your image does not argue against your plays.

Are these standard plays for you online? If so screenname pls. First=spew, 2nd if you put him on a wide range then you should shove pre (over the rr obv not over a limp) not call and decide. Flop=spew.

hand 1-making it 75 from the Sb with ATs. Whats wrong with just seeing a flop for cheap?

TBH - these aren't really good plays for 200NL either.

But to be constructive

Hand 1 - You don't have much fold equity and villain's range is too strong. On a low board like that - it's likely that he isn't folding after making such a big raise - even with a flush draw.

Hand 2 - 4-bet/call. If villain plays on the internet - this line is almost always BS imo. He is most likely always isolating with QQ+. By 4-betting - you can pretty much fold out his pairs that he is doing this with and take down the pot with initiative. When you call - your losing initiative and playing fit-or fold. I don't think this is a good flop to do this on. Your not really representing much other than maybe TT or JJ or a set. I think you can represent a stronger range by 4-betting pre.

Grunch

H1: Your hand is completely face up here. And your shove is only ever getting calls from hands that are way ahead of you. When he limp/calls pre in LP, you have to believe he's got a legit hand to warrant Check/Raising, and you don't have a good enough hand to do that here. That's not in his range here (unless he's got a set, and then you're completely fuxed). Complete spew IMO. You're giving him perfect odds to draw to his flush now, you're still a 3:1 dog against his mid overpairs, and you're folding out all his bluffs (which is all you beat at this point).

H2: I hate the Check/Shove on the flop. You should have just shoved pre. If you have 2 overs + NFD this would be fine, but right here, I don't think you've got enough equity to semibluff c/rAI. Shove pre, and if you're flipping, gl. Otherwise gg.

Would you play (for example) JJ like this with two hearts on the board?

Would you check and give people a free card?

I see from you in FL, I did not know those were 18+ casinos...

Anyway, I have not played in FL, but I have played where they radically changed the betting limits, so I can imagine how wild the games can be there right now.

That being said, you are going to make your money in these games by hitting better hands and getting weaker hands to pay you off. Those games are going to have a lot of showdowns, so you better have a hand more times than not.

Change from a "let me create a situation where I can steal a pot" to "how can I exploit the current set of players". Live full ring just does not allow for a lot of the things that a short handed/HU player is going to use to make money between coolers.

Something to start thinking about, is how you are perceived by the other players, aka image. From what you are posting in #1, you have a LAG image, which is going to result in more calls per hour. Switch from LAG to TAG, keep the aggression up, but tighten up.

aggression is good in these games, but you gotta be selectively aggressive. you'll get the hang of it. tight is right, most of the time in these games.

.

Maybe he was like ... ok I have a set of 88, I'm gonna gay-bet it so that this 19yo internet aggrospewmonkey will shove in my face lol lmao. live poker is easy.

haahahahhaha ^^^^

seriously though OP, you are obviously a good enough player to beat live poker. i think you just have to tighten up and not try to outplay everyone. your overthinking everything, these people are not the same skill set as the ones you play with online. they have no sense of hand ranges, pot odds, etc.

yea people think there is no transition between the 2 games but there is.

OP im sure you can crush live but patience is key my man. Be patient and image and reads play a much more important role. People wont fold to you cuz u are young and think ur some young punk kid or something, especially if you have been raising quite a bit.

slow it down and let the spots come to you.

spew and poor judgement IMO

1- i would cbet HP and barrel any pair or club on turn. Prolly shove river with PSB or better if i think i can get villain off of midpair.
As played is just swinging our stack in with no idea of whats going on. And he is not folding a flush draw (which he is significant favorite if he has one)

2- young internet player----good? bad?
if decent, then i would prolly 4 bet to 325 and send the rest in on flop.
Its a crummy betsize, but i want villain to think i want to raise big, but still want a call ---instead of shove which looks like AK and wants folds.

all the thoughts are appreciated guys, tyvm.

results:

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