As a live player, I've really enjoyed your thread.
But IMO this sample size is useless statistically, and the similarity to your coaching analysis doesn't mean anything.
When I switched to live there was a huge adjustment before my results leveled out.
Actually my guess is that if your sample size increased your numbers would greatly improve as you get a better feel for the live game.

I have around 461 hours logged... thats logged (I had 250 more but I accidentally erased my db. I have ~8 years of playing, around year 5 I started to get better, and for the past 2.5 years I would say my game got very serious and has elevated due to studying and increased volume... with that said, most of what mpethy has said so far in his observations has been spot on. He has made the proper adjustments and has spotted them quite quickly. I do believe there are some more adjustments you need to make, but you will figure those out as soon as you "run bad" for a longer period of time. If you want the secret ship $5 on tilt... fo real.

Im not sure why there is a disagreement on the bulk of his observations. Could be you guy(s) dont play in Vegas all that often (Im there about 2months of the year)? I dont know, but so far it seems correct. The only thing I dont think he's seen much of yet are the random toss money in the pot for kicks and the guys who are drunk and do the random toss money in the pot for drinks. Those are the nights that are the best. $1500 pots at 1/2 are fun. Ive played some 5/10 and watched a dude spew 8k in 2 hands within 5 minutes at the table and then come back 5 min later with 20k bundled up and just like KGB say, "Lets play some cards." Dude was Russian so it made it that much more epic.

I think this is a good thread with a good outline of what to expect. I went through the same things you are going through when I was out there for ~2 weeks last year. You start to see things differently and truly for what they are.

This is actually not rare - I'm pretty sure I know exactly who your talking about at the Venetian. There are a fair amount of 1/2, 1/3 grinders who play for a living. A lot of them actually grind at casinos like Planet Hollywood, MGM, and the Rio where the 1/2, 1/3 games are LOL.

Mpethy - If you have time, you should really check out the MGM Grand 2/5 game. This is easily the best/softest 2/5 games in town.

Yes, his live sample size is useless if he is only looking at live play... but the correlation between his live db and online db is more than likely similar for all the right reasons. If he is seeing the same things live that he is seeing online then theres probably something to it. Is it 100% correct, no, but its probably close enough. The way he has adjusted to most situations leads me to believe that he has seen such play before... and he had to have gotten that some where.

I know none of us have a trillion hand db's online, I'd be suprised to find anyone on here that considers themselves a "live player" to have a 100K sample size. I believe it is far more incorrect to say there are no similarities between the samples than to say they have similiar aspects because none of us have ever studied any sample that big, nor do any of us know what we would even look for. If we did we would be big ballin online.

Everyone always says the MGM is super soft, and maybe its because I have only recorded 1 winning session there, but IMO its not the softest. I suck there though so w/e. (actually the 1/2 or 1/3, cant remember what it is, is pretty cheesy. A tad bit easier than the V...)

I did play some 2/5 there on the night of the UFC... REG CITY!!! I dropped down to 1/2 and recorded my one winning session.

You want super soft 1/2..... O'SHEAS BABY. When I was playing I spotted Bill Chen in that place stacking a pile of chips at 1/2. He had a student with him playing at the same table. They were also stacking chips. I have pics if someone needs proof.

i think it makes sense.

if you have a huge sample at Activity A and a tiny sample at Activity B, but Activity A and Activity B are fundamentally similar (i.e. the same game, both played by human beings who have similar psychological tendencies albeit in a different setting/format/medium), and your experience with Activity A and Activity B has reinforced their similarity, you can conclude that the large sample of Activity A likely is somewhat applicable to Activity B in terms of conclusions drawn regarding tendencies of players, etc.

ya ya in before http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-on_sentence

I just want to point out that when a random poster goes to Vegas for 2 weeks and posts their (honest) results, even when the results are "normal" (say $10/hr) they are universally laughed at in these forums for their lack of sample size.
But when a well respected poster does the same, we consider their stats relevant.

100K hands played live is not that much, but to have accurate statistics for 100K hands played live is difficult.

1000 hours a year (20 a week) at 30 hands an hour for 3 1/3 years is 100K hands.

Whar exactly are you saying here.

Random posters don't have 1million hand db's to back up what they are learning at live poker. Most of them get laughed at because they make absolutely no sense. You are absolutely correct that I am going to trust someone with a lot more posts more than I will trust someone who signs up for an account after his Vegas trip and says, "O hai guys, just got back from Vegas... btw Im going pro." IMO Mpethy's posts are very concise with what I have experienced and his descriptions of everything have been accurate. Had he been talking complete rubbish and describing things that make no sense I would tell him he's off base.

Well, if your gonna quote me, quote the whole thing. Point is none of us have such an extensive online db, such as Mpethy does, to tell him that, "No, Mpethy that is not correct, according to my db there are no similarities." You are assuming, more than likely to protect your live poker title and livelyhood against the likes of online "kids," that there can be no similarities between his small sample of live compared to his huge sample of online. You are saying so because obv his live sample<<<<<online sample. The problem with that is, like 8o8 stated, they are fundamentally the same game, played by human beings (at least we hope so), that all have emotions, and share similar tendancies. We should be focusing more on the adjustments that need to be made because thats where the real difference between online and live begin.

The important thing about this thread is not to focus on my results. That's not what I have (mainly) been posting about.

What I am doing is analyzing the play of the people I am playing against, and pointing out the similarities and differences between the way my live tables have been playing and my experience online, both as a player and as someone who has analyzed player databases consisting of millions and millions of hands.

One of the similarities I have seen is that stack off ranges at 1/2 live seem to be very comparable to stack off ranges at micro full ring online; perhaps a bit lighter.

I've noted other similarities and differences.

_______________________

On another subject, this is a pretty funny story from last night:

I was sitting in the 2 seat. The guy in the one seat was very solid--I'd happily stake him at NL .25/.50 online, for instance, or at 1/2 live (if I were rolled for staking people there, lol).

We played this hand with both of us having about 200bb:

I am in the BB with QQ. UTG limps, two more limpers, seat 1 completes the SB, I raise to $20. UTG calls two folds, and seat one calls.

Flop (~$60): 76 3

Seat 1, the SB checks, I bet $35, UTG folds, SB raises to $70, I tank and call.

Turn (~$200): K

SB checks, I check back.

River (~$200): 8 SB leads for $90, I tank and fold.

SB says, "I had a set of 3s. Good fold. I have a question for you about the hand."

I say, "what's that?"

He says, "I don't get how you don't pay me off there. What did you have?"

I liked the guy, he had been friendly and good to play against, and he seemed like he genuinely wanted to learn. So i said, "Come outside with me after I play my button and I will run you through my thinking in the hand."

We go outside the poker room and he says: "What did you have? I can't see any way that you get away from a big pair, which I put you on. How do you fold?"

So I ran it down for him, beginning with the transparency of the limp/call and check/raise on a board that basically smashes his limp/calling range.

We talk about the hand for five minutes or so, and he is very complimentary: "I was learning a lot watching you play, but listening to you talk about that hand has taught me a lot."

I said, "well, that's my job."

He turned to leave and then said, "wait, what do you mean?" So I told him I coach, and gave him my contact info. He said, thanks, then went back into the poker room, and then immediately changed seats so he had position on me.

Kid has potential, imo.

When they pull that on me I always tell them, "It won't matter, I play just as well OOP"...

AcePlayerDeluxe
I condensed your words to focus on that one point and was asking a question, which was, are you saying:

It is unusual for a live player to have played 100K hands?

Or for someone to have hard data on 100K live hands?

I would think no to the first, yes to the second.

I was not trying to twist your words or take them out of context.

LOL! No doubt. Keep up the posts, very interesting/informative/entertaining.

Uh oh, I got a trip planned for early next week.

why did you choose this bet size?

Probably not to bloat the pot on a draw heavy board. These kind of boards smash live ranges IMO. Another thing, and maybe not with this particular villain, most players live are so fit or fold that any kind of "biggish" bet is going to do the job (in this case I am guessing value, but, also, we dont hate if we pick up the pot right there). If we assess their tolerance for money correctly we can find the right $ amount to do the job.

LA and LV ar both fine. you could do ok in NY, south Fla., San Fran or San Diego as well.

Im in l.a. because my wife and i like it here and i have many other investments outside poker.

yeah the recession has hurt everyone, casinos, online and private games. i know of one private game that shut down and two others that had to combine even though the hosts dont like each other.

totally skipped the WSOP this year but i know vegas traffic is down. the Wynn doesnt even have a game above 2-5 half the time.

Because when I saw the flop, I knew that it smashed people's limp calling range. My plan was to bet/fold

$35 seemed like a bet that was big enough to elicit honest play--folds from people who missed, calls from people who caught a piece and raises from people who out flopped me.

In retrospect, $35 was probably a mistake because it contributed to me calling the check/min raise when my plan was to bet/fold.

I had two similar spots come up last night. In the first one, I had AA, raised in early position, got 5 callers and bet/folded for 2/3 of the pot on a flop KQ3. In that hand, the SB checked then pounded it for a big raise when I bet, and was really confused when my cards went into the muck at the exact moment his chips crossed the line.

In the second hand I had KK, raised in EP, got 2 callers, saw a flop of 664, bet $25 at $30 for the same reason as stated above, got min-raised by the first caller who was in turn min-raised by the second caller, so turbo-mucked the KKs (they got all in and showed down Q6 and 64)

So when I am planning to bet/fold, I go with the smallest number that I think will result in honest play from the villains in the hand. If the pot is bloated, that tends to be a smaller fraction of the pot because any bet sort of looks like you are committing, and they want to raise if they have you beat. If the pot is still pretty small, my bet is usually a higher fraction of the pot. If the board is really wet, you can often bet a blocking amount, expecting sets to go "oh no you don't," and raise.

Bet/folding is a balancing act. You want to get value from any worse hands but you want to lose the minimum to a raise. But if you bet too little, you risk inducing bluff raises that, if you follow your plan, you will then fold to. So on a bet/fold, you have to sacrifice enough money that YOU believe that the raise, if and when it comes, is an honest reflection of the raiser's hand strength, so that you can then confidently fold your top pair/over pair type hand.

mpethy, you mentioned that twice the villian was surprised to see you fold your overpair to their raise. Was that because most weaker players at this level will overplay their big PPs and stack off there? Do you think they were playing their sets perfectly or too fast? Did you pre-flop raise from EP narrow your range so much that they had a pretty good read on what you had?

I know that I often get trapped by people who limp-call their big pairs because you normally expect someone to raise with them. I know they can get in to lot of trouble by doing that and I don't think it's the optimal way to play big pairs, but I can't deny that I get trapped that way.

I would prefer to never play with anyone who is capable of properly planning a bet fold ahead of time. Give me the check/callers please

They get away with this at 1/2 games because a lot of players overvalue their one pair hands and get sticky with him. I would plan out a pot size you want to stick to when you have a one pair hand and stick with it. If you start playing a bit more snug with your one pair hands they will start losing a lot of value by limp/calling with the big pairs, and will have to adjust.

doesn't this also give attractive odds for calling on a draw?

Only versus competent players that can actually understand the real situation.

how so? incompetent players may not be aware that they are getting good odds to chase their draw, and they may call regardless of which (reasonable) bet size we choose, but then that's what we want. we want them to call when they don't have odds.

if we size our bets with overpairs to wet flops like blocker bets when we're looking to b/f, we find out where we are at multi-way more cheaply (i.e. if someone raises, our b/f is less costly) like mpethy said, but we also give players who are drawing the right odds to call. so i'm confused as to how this is really a good play.

i know mpethy said *often* we can get away with doing this, so it's not necessarily the standard play for this situation, but seems to me we never want to be doing this..

Think about it this way... The vast majority of sslnl players do not understand pot odds. They think along the lines of "Hey I have to call I am getting 4:1" but they never think beyond their own hand. They don't consider that their hand could be a 8:1 dog or even drawing dead. So they are making a mistake calling for pot odds.

Anytime someone is calling when they should be folding if they were playing perfect poker (everyone knows everyone else's cards) we win.

In some situations, especially multiway pots on wet boards we have to truly consider the strength of our hand. When we are HU in a raised pot, even on very wet boards we will tend to dominate our opponents, i.e. AA vs AK or JJ vs 88. But on those multiway pots our dominance can be significantly reduced, we can often find ourselves in situations where we are more or less a coin flip.

So when we plan to b/f OTF when we are way ahead versus some holdings, about even versus some holdings, and way behind some holdings we are weighting our choices. We have to somewhat ignore the middle and considerate on the extremes, those hands we beat and those that beat us. So when we bet small(er) we get folds from hands that completely missed but might improve OTT or OTR, and we will often get raised by hands that we lose to, and we nearly always we called by drawing hands in the middle. So if the expectation is to bet and fold to a raise, we risk the least and make the most. Rather the middle group that is drawing calls or not, doesn't matter, because we are not planning to continue past the flop if we are raised, and we can reevaluate and deal with draws OTT.

This is where having the discipline to play the b/f comes in, and why it is so hard for many to pull off. Just think about the situation where you are IP in a 5-way pot and it checks to you and you make a small'ish bet intending to fold to a raise. Now the first to act on your bet min raises and everyone else calls too. Now you are getting some pretty good odds with your over-pair. Now gawd forbid you also have a backdoor FD/Str8 draw, as you will want to talk yourself into calling.

If we end up in the situation where no one raises us and all the hands are drawing call, we need to reevaluate the situation on the turn, not only because of the action OTF, but because of the change in odds with only one more card to come, i.e. we have gone from more or less even to having a significant edge. Think of a situtation where we have AA on a XXXX board where X is < A versus Ax. OTT we can make those drawing hands pay the price for drawing or check/fold depending on the texture and actions.

IMO the b/f OTF is a pretty advanced play. It takes a lot of experience and a great feel for the players involved in the hand. Bet too small and you induce bluffs. Bet too big and hands that beat you call instead of raising. Bet too much and fold and you start bleeding to death over time. Trying to pull off a b/f without the discipline and end up calling raises and you bleed to death immediately. Players that can play the b/f correctly are down right scary to play against.