Sound strat and observation. This is where game selection really comes into play. Assuming you make the move to LV, I would suggest you get friendly with the staff, dealers, brush, runner, etc, etc. Make sure they know if they call/text you when a good game is happening that they will be rewarded. Print some business cards with your contact information on it, pass it around after you make friends.

A couple of things here...

What you ended up sitting in was a "home team" game. I will venture to say that the majority of the players in that game are regulars in the 1/2-3 games, know each other and more or less have decided to not take each others money. Still exploitable, but you are losing value if you sit these games on a regular basis, see above comment.

Next, do not judge players by any single element they exhibit. You really need to take a wide view of there players to form your plans and tactics versus them.

Yeah - I was just making MP aware that there is information out there from people with excellent experience that you can listen or read for free - that you can take to the bank is straight up good advice.
Limon would clearly fit in that category.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this has to be one of the top three threads I have ever read on 2+2. Seriously.

/just wanted to say that for now, will try to contribute a bit tomorrow after I shake off last night's A/Qo brickfest.

I'm about to get started on another post for this thread, but I wanted to say this before i forgot:

Last night/this morning, after I posted, I signed onto Full Tilt and played a session of NL $100. I won back the $300 I dumped at the Aria. So if we go by a sample size of yesterday, $100 online is clearly softer than $1/3 live.

It felt good to put in some online hands; I basically haven't played online since my trip started. While I do prefer the live games, I played almost as many hands this morning online as I have since I got to Vegas. heh.

OK, getting to work on the longer post now.

I think you are missing some value in your preflop & post flop betting sizes.

I think preflop here 4-5xBB would make more sense with QQ.

On the flop you bet ~ 24. I have found that a typical loose live player will easily call bets of around 125% of the pot (if they have a hand they would call a 3/4 pot bet) - so $30 would have worked here too.

This post is going to be my update on some significant hands I have played with overpairs. I think this is shaping up to be the crucial adjustment in thinking you have to make when you move back and forth between live and online play.

Hand 1: I have AA effective stacks are 100+bb
Villain: Loose passive

Board runs off Flop: J T 4 x x

I am out of position, and I take a line bet/bet/bet. Villain calls me down with KJ

This is more or less what I had him on; I figured him for KJ, AJ, JT, KQ and maybe some club flush draws.

My river bet was smallish, maybe only 50 or 60% of the pot.

Hand 2: I have AK effective stacks are 100bbb
Villain: Tight/very aggro

This is the hand against the young woman who asked for her chips back. I was out of position.

The flop was K x xoffsuit.

I took a long time to make my flop bet. I was thinking, "argh, I don't want to c-bet into her, she is just going to fold, my hand is face up, but the board has a heart flush draw that will kill my action if it comes in (or it'll beat me), FML can't I ever get a dry board, hmm, maybe I should check here because it's not a good board to check on, shut up and bet, stupid, you know you're going to anyway, hey, wait a minute, all this delay has probably convinced her I don't have the King, heh, ok, that works, lets go $25."

Evidently this delay convinced her because she raised my c-bet. Consistent with my delay, I just flatted the raise and then check/called her turn shove on a brick. When I showed down AK and she showed down 99, she said, "uh, AK, OK. I didn't put you on that hand." (Obviously, heh).

Hand 3: I have JJ on the button. Effective stacks are 70bb

Loose passive table preflop, neutral, neither strongly aggro nor passive post flop.

Two limpers preflop, I raise to 7bb or so, SB (very loose passive preflop, somewhat passive post, weakest player and shortest stack at the table) calls, BB folds, one limper calls and one folds. 3 way on the flop:

Flop: 542

Small blind leads for half pot, limper calls, I shove SB calls, limper tank/folds.

SB tables 66, JJ holds.

Hand 4: I have QQ effective stacks are 75bb or so.

This is the QQ hand from my previous post where the flop came 422 and I bet the flop and bet/called the turn. I must have had multiple callers preflop that I don't recall, because when the guy shoved it was only a few more BB to me to call. This can only happen if my flop bet was pretty damn big.

Hand 6: I have KK on the button, effective stacks are 100bb

folded to me preflop, I raise 3bb, small blind, loose/very aggro pre and post flop calls.

Flop: ragged and low, something like 8 4 2

Villain pots the flop, I raise, he gives me a dirty look and folds.

Hand 7: I have AA, effective stacks are 90bb.

Villain is the table fish: very loose passive preflop, huge calling station postflop, grossly over values middle and bottom pair, absolutely 0 level thinker, and not even very good at 0 level thinking.

This is the hand where I bet/shoved AA on a KT9 flop and his bottom two pair held.

Hand 8: I have AKs UTG, effective stacks are 100bb.

Villains: Button is loose aggro and aggro post flop, SB is a huge loose passive fish who is almost 100% completely clueless.

I raise to $10 preflop, button 3 bets to $35, SB flat calls. UGH! I hate calling here, but 4 betting probably means getting two folds or getting all in with the button against a JJ+ range, and I have AK with a giant fish in the hand. I was really, really torn, but flatted OOP. I still don't know what I should have done here.

Flop: AJ5

SB leads for 1/2 pot, I call, button frowns a sad face and folds.

Turn: 8

SB leads for half pot, I call.

River: A

SB ships, I call, and SB tables A4 and MHIG.

I probably have a few more hands, but I think this is enough to make the point:

If you look at all of these hands, my overpairs were always good when I was getting called on multiple streets.

I have been raised twice on the flop and gotten to showdown. The passive guy had me beat, the aggro young woman misread the situation and was way behind.

People leading into me are leading on low boards. This is indicative of at least a certain low quality level 1 thinking--"I put you on AK and the board missed AK, so I'll bet to take it down."

People who have gotten all in against me post flop at 2/5 have had:

two pair
trips

People who have gotten all in against me at 1/2 and 1/3 have had:

an underpair
a low overpair to the board + a gutshot
a low over pair to the board
Trips, but committed with top pair no kicker

yeah, I know, sample size. But what I am seeing is matching up very well with the online coaching that I do.

The play of the loose passive fish at 1/2 and 1/3 seems to be on par with that of the average loose passive fish at NL $10 or maybe NL $25. The players in these games who are clearly there for the purpose of exploiting the fish are playing, on average, at the level of a NL $50 online reg. They are actually pretty solid.

My sample at 2/5 is much smaller, but again, it is matching up very well with what I see online. The fish at 2/5 are usually loose passive as well, and they are not playing significantly better than the fish at 1/2 and 1/3 for the most part. But the solid players are playing, on average, better than the solid players at 1/2 and 1/3. They look like a mix of NL $50 and $100 players, and I have seen one or two that I thought could probably beat NL $200.

This division is not that neat, though, as the best players I have seen so far are some guys at a 1/2 table at the V (the guys KurtSF suspected of being 5/10 regs slumming) and a guy at the Aria last night playing 1/3.

The bottom line is that a lot of the rules we live by online apply equally well at live play:

If you are betting the money in against a loose passive, you are usually good.

If you get raised holding top pair or an overpair, you need to reevaluate. It is not a clear fold, but you need to start thinking that you are in a marginal spot. This is especially true if the person raising you has passive tendencies.

As i said in an earlier post, the typical loose passive fish playing live is waaaay over valuing small overpairs, like the guy with TT on the board that was 4228 or something when he shoved the turn.

New to this post: They are waaaaay overvaluing bad draws, too.

Not to generalize too much, but once you have identified a villain as one of these players with loose passive tendencies, you basically just have to value bet the crap out of your made hands.

Against the better players, you are going to have to be a bit creative in trying to find ways to get the money in good; but you will only have to be a bit creative. No reg at $100 or $200 online would have committed his or her stack with 99 on a K high board simply on a timing tell like the woman at the 1/3 game at Aria did. So you can exploit aggro tendencies, too, because the aggro players tend to be too unthinkingly aggro.

meh. table dependent. i do tend to raise more than 3bb with QQ UTG, since less than 5 usually accomplishes little in the games i play. however post-flop bet sizing is much more complex i think in these games and obviously villain dependent as well. i'm not sure if your theory is right re. the 125% and all

mpethy that was a very informative post.

Friend sent me this article about Vegas economy http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010...s-not-anymore/

i was just checking my poker journal app and about half my HOLDEM time this year has been 5-10, 35% 10-20 and 15% 20-40+ (although almost 50% of my earn has been 20-40+ Game Selection FTW!!!). Im not exactly sure what this thread is about but yes, one can make 6 figures a year playing 5-10 if they are either a very very good full time player or a decent/disciplined player who lives at the casino. i dont think 6 figures is possible below 5-10 because of the rake and generally short stacks. I dont think any sort of living can be made below 2-5 even if youre phil ivey.

in the recent past i didnt play 5-10 at all but i play days and many days there is no worthwhile 10-20+ game available in l.a. the recession is a bitch.

Limon: Thanks for taking the time to respond ITT.

Your comment RE: 2-5 is the impression I got from the previous things I heard from you on the subject of the economics of Live poker.

Is there any meaningful difference in rake between L.V. and L.A. for below 5-10?
Is there any meaningful difference in game strength between L.V. and L.A. for below 5-10?

Do you think your view - is the consensus opinion?

Very good post yesterday mpethy, both on some specifics and some general differences you've seen between live v. online. I believe you have about a week left in your LV trip, so looking forward to more daily experiences as well as summary observations and analysis at the end. Nice job.

i really dont know the answers to your questions but thats never stopped me before so here goes...

lv rake is lower in the bigger games and there is no jackpot drop so id guess its the same for the smaller games.

because it is so much cheaper to live in LV im guessing there are decent pros that stop at 2-5, in los angeles living off a 2-5 income would be meager so you will never find a decent working pro in a game smaller than 5-10.

its the consensus among HS pros in los angeles that have been around a decade and won online an live playing predominantly big bet holdem (thats about 8 people )

Rake is "cheaper" in LV for 2/5 and lower. It's 10% to a max of $4 at the most popular rooms. In LA the full drop is taken on the flop, afaik.

OP has indicated he could live quite comfortably in LV for under $40k a year, so I don't know where this "6 figure" threshold came from.

Sample size is WAY too small.

You have yet to have QQ run into KK.
The low board give some a set.
The low board give someone a straight.

You could give us 8 hands just like this that you lost and I of course could say the opposite.

I some observant people saw you betting AK or QQ like this (which is fine) you would a few callers to let you bet into them with two pair and sets.

Nice run but as you say, WAY too early to make conclusive statements.

nice haiku

I get more laughs reading 2+2 than I do watching TV.

What are the reasons for you living and playing in L.A. rather than L.V.?

Has the recession equally effected your Home game circuit vs casino traffic?

Did you goto WSOP? Did you notice the recession for those cash games?

You may be confused as to what I was saying--those were all the hands I had gotten all in with, regardless of whether I won or lost. I know I lost at least one of them, but didn't go back to count up my losses. (Edit: Now I have; I lost two of those hands).

I have gotten way more willing these days to generalize from small samples. the reason for this is because the sample of hands that I have analyzed in my work as a database analyst has got to be well north of 10 million hands. So, for example, I have seen 10 million hands where the average c-bet success rate is 47% If someone comes to me with a small sample of hands, say, 20k hands, and his c-bet success rate is 47%, I can assume:

a. that this number is meaningless because the sample size is small-- thereby allowing for the theoretical possibility that this player will be the first one ever whose c-bet success rate varies significantly from the 47% figure in a big sample; or

b. I can assume that the player's c-bet success rate is completely standard, and in regard to c-bet success, this player's sample is reasonably variance-free and is very close to his long term success rate.

The latter assumption makes more sense when you are working from a huge sample as I am.

The reason for that long example is because I draw a fairly firm conclusion from the sample size above regarding stack off ranges at low stakes live play. I don't consider those stack off ranges as "proven," based on the sample size I have seen, but I do put a lot of weight on those stack off ranges as being close to accurate. The reason is because those stack off ranges match up very well with the micro stakes stack off ranges that i see over and over in my database analysis.

I don't want people dismissing the list of stack offs as irrelevant; I think it is a pretty good approximation of what people who are new to poker will stack off with given the boards and the action described.

Another useful way to look at people's range to stack off is to break it down according to how they put their money in. That analysis results in this break down:

2/5:

two pair: Flop raise/call
trips: Flop bet/call

People who have gotten all in against me at 1/2 and 1/3 have had:

an underpair: Flop raise, turn shove
a low overpair to the board + a gutshot: Flop bet/call
a low over pair to the board flop call/turn raise all in for 10bb more than my turn bet--basically a call.
Trips, but committed with top pair no kicker: bet/bet/shove

What immediately jumps out at you in this sample is that the people at 1/2 and 1/3 have been way more aggressive with weaker hands. Now, you can write this off to variance and say it means nothing, or you an say, "yeah, that makes sense, the players playing lower are more likely to get it in lighter through a combination of worse play and less concern for the amount of money going in."

Oh, and I ran QQ into KK on a low board my first day here within an hour of sitting in, lol. It was a completely standard hand that did not warrant mention ITT.

______________________

I've played three sessions since I posted last. Swingy, but netting out to a 30bb loss, so, meh.

My most recent session was Saturday, where I ran into cooler after cooler. This is bad for me, because it is the situation that tilts me more than any other, and, sure enough, I started losing an increasing amount each time I got coolered. On the last two of the coolers, I pulled a Daniel Negreanu: I put the guy on the exact two cards that beat me and called big bets anyway.

It was a 7 hour session, so maybe 200 hands, and I lost with:

FH < Straight Flush
2nd Nut straight < nut straight
3rd nut FH < 2nd nut FH
2nd nut flush < nut flush

I'm pretty sure there was at least one more; I lost 150bb on a hand that is not on this list, but, for the life of me, I can't recall even what I held. i just remember shipping a deep stack to the other guy.

Oh, that is the other thing: I have started buying in deep in the games where it is permitted. I think with a skill edge against the field, it is the only thing that makes sense--to buy in to cover everybody you can buy in to cover.

At one point on the session I was down 3 buy ins. I finished down about $150. It was a frustrating session, because if I had played all of the cooler hands correctly, I would have finished up on the session despite the run bad.

Sunday and Monday were scheduled days off.

My current plan is to leave here on the 11th, so I only have 4 more sessions to play.

If for example you have 2nd flush and you are coolered by nut flush, and you don't it lay it down, are you saying you played it incorrectly? Even if you put the guy on A,xs how CERTAIN is your read? I submit 80-90% of time you have to make that call

So have you made up your mind on moving or not?

I think they (we) tend to do this because everyone else does. When you see people shoving (or calling) with TP mediocre kicker often enough, it's pretty hard to lay down TPTK. The bad play becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.

Try the Wynn yet? I think they have the biggest buy-ins on the strip, even with the caps they now have.

how big?

Yeah, I agree with this, for the most part. On several of the hands, though, I lost more than I should have. On the FH < FH, for example, I led for pot on the river, the guy raised me small (the river had completed a flush draw) so I re-raised him smallish, and he re-re-raised me. At that point, I said, "**** my life, you flopped it," and then called.

I think I should have folded to his last bet. It was pretty big, I wasn't getting great odds, and there was no way he was making a big re-re-raise like that on the river with just a flush. So he either had the better full house or the worse full house that came in on the turn, and, given the action, i should have weighted his range toward the nut FH and folded.

No, we won't do this for quite some time. I have learned what i came here to learn--that I have an edge in all the games up to 2/5. Now I need to sit down with my wife and crunch some numbers and talk about our family situation.

Of course, if you are getting it in with TPTK against TPGK, you are not making a mistake. Pretty sure I have won 3 stacks so far with TPTK. There is a time and a place for getting all in with TPTK; you just have to be careful how the money goes in, and you have to be careful about who it goes in against.

Playing 1/2 is really like playing two different games. Against the fish you play TPTK like the nuts, because it usually is as long as they aren't raising you, but against the other regs you'll be lucky to get one or two streets of value.



Haven't tried it yet.

_________________________

Well, my plans have changed. I'm extending my Vegas stay by 5 days. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, though, because I am still running like ass.

It's definitely a bad thing for the reason I am staying--I had those 5 days set aside to visit a friend in Chicago with cancer, and she just told me today that she is too sick for company.

Anyway, I'll be here a few extra days trying to turn this run bad around.

You may be correct in your first sentence.

I would not equate MOST people playing $1/$2 or $1/$3 as new to poker. New people start there or at low LIMIT level games. I would not say 6 out of 10 people at 500 low NO LIMIT games are new to poker.

Although you have reported your facts from the 2 week experience I am still not sure that you can statistically generalize that what you will report will happen in 25 other casinos today, next week, next month, etc.

You will run into sets, and better two pairs and better hands the more tables you might observe.

I am not trying to be argumentative but there is a difference between what you are seeing and what happens day in and day out at these games.

I am not sure you could say what people were getting all in with you over this stretch will happen to me or 500 other people over the next 4 weeks.

You see people advocating folding AK with TPTK many times in the last week on this forum with only $150 stacks. One poster has three posts about AK.

Be as argumentative as you like. I don't claim to have all the answers, and one reason for this thread is to get advice and discuss live hands with people who have way more experience playing live than I do.

The point I was making is that I have a small sample that, in and of itself, could be dismissed out of hand as unreliable due to its size.

One reason to NOT dismiss the small sample out of hand is because it looks very similar to the fairly enormous sample of hands that I have analyzed in my coaching--the sample of all the players I have done DB analyses for at .25/.50 and below.

Those games are very similar to 1/2, 1/3 and 2/5 in this way: You will find yourself at a table comprised of people who either know what they are doing and play solid poker, or people who, either through inexperience or lack of poker education, play very poorly.

So, yeah, like I said, my sample from the trip is small, but it looks like the giant sample. So you can say that it is a coincidence that my small sample looks like the big sample, or you can say that my sample is a roughly average sample. I think it is more likely that it is an average sample rather than a coincidence.

I understand you are reluctant to draw the same conclusion, because you have not seen the multi-million hand sample I am using as my frame of reference.

__________________________

On another subject: Last night at the Venetian, there were two players at my 1/2 table who said that they play for a living. Both played well enough for their claims to be believable; they both carved up the table pretty well.

One guy had a wife and kids, so my guess is that his wife works too, and together they do ok. The other guy was young enough that he easily could be sharing an apartment or house with some other people his age, have low expenses, and be able to make it work grinding 1/2 for a living.