Ended up min cashing. Ran really hot for the second half of Day 1 and the first half of Day 2 (was 2nd in chips with ~200 remaining) but got card dead/ran badly after that and dwindled.
Live really is a different game entirely. For the entire first day I don't think I saw a single true bluff (except one, where someone tripled with some random combo of QJ that had no blocking properties or reason to triple). It was just different people trying to make value better than the other person's value. I saw KK run into AA where the KK didn't go broke because 1. he flatted the 3b pre (off 60bb?) and 2. the AA took the most insanely passive route postflop imaginable.
Old guys. Everything they say is true it seems. These are the weakest NL players imaginable. I opened AQo BTN and old guy BB jammed 17bb all-in and I legitimately tanked for a bit before calling, to have him table AKo. I'm vaguely surprised he didn't just flat pre given how this man played.
Everyone plays super quickly. I don't think they're usually aware of the pot size or of effective stack size. It's kind of insane to me. I get the sense that most players were doing things based on "feel" (whatever that is), and not much else.
It's slow. Though not as boring as I would have imagined since it's just kind of fun playing with chips and watching professional dealers deal. But single tabling is painful, on a fundamental level.
I can't imagine it's more profitable than me staying home and playing online though. Rake is very high, prize pool is reduced 3% for dealer tip (ha...ha...), there's room costs (and I payed drastically less b/c I was with a friend who had comps), food costs, etc...I see this as something I can do to break up any boredom from the online grind, but never something I would focus on full time. I would never even consider making the trip for anything below $2000 or so.
I can't imagine more than ~5% or so of players in the field are profitable post extra live poker costs (many, I'm sure, are not profitable even if rooms/food were free).
And final note--casinos. I don't like being inside casinos nor do I like the majority of people inside of them. It depresses me to see the zombies at the slot machines, many of them old, obese, or in other forms of physical deterioration. Online poker is a video game to me, and I don't think of my opponents as being alive, so this was very different to me. I busted one rec player with AK>JJ AIPF and he was visibly upset at having busted/his "luck." To be clear, I'm not particularly concerned with his feelings (I just said "Good game sir"), but I'm not crazy about seeing the face of someone I bust right after I bust them. I will say that toward the end my tables were awesome--very friendly and casual, with lots of banter from everyone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TomRBoyden
Great thread btw mate, what's your average buyin?
Thx--Shark says it's $183 but that's skewed a bit downward since I played 150 or so $30 BLASTs. I generally play everything $50 and above and rebuy infinitely until I can't anymore