Thanks bud, glad theres an audience who enjoys the updates! Awesome U/N and avatar btw

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Miscellanous Hand Histories

Time for a few light-hearted HH's from this weeks £1/£2 action. I've played with the formatting and think I've got it about right this time, without wasting too much time formatting it with coloring etc.

Hand 1

#livepokerisntdead,

• Vs BB who had barely played a hand previously and HJ who is a very loose fish who presses buttons.
• Bad bet sizing OTF.
• The BB is going to fold on the flop to a much smaller sizing if he doesnt have a K or Q i.e. he is inelastic with most of his check-folding range. A 1/3psb probably looks about right.
• The HJ will peel very wide OOP with 4x, ace high, weird backdoor gutshots and the like using the same sizing. This sets up an extremely profitable turn barrel due to how wide he call us on the flop.
• 3! to isolate isn't terrible either because of how wide the PFR is; however I had 3!-folded the HJ earlier in the session so didn't feel like it was a particularly good time to do so.

Live £1/£2.

HJ raises to £10, I call BTN (£350) JT, Presumed nit BB (covers) calls.

Flop KQ4 Pot £31. BB checks, HJ checks, I bet £25, BB raises to £100, I jam £350, he tank calls. BB shows down the ole K8 and scoops the pot.

Hand 2

#rekt

• On a tight table where almost every hand had been folded to LP/the blinds, or had been taken down OTF/checked down
• BTN is a presumed old man nitty type (wears the coat your grandad/dad wears etc)
• I think 3! or flat-calling is perfectly acceptable, but I decided to 3! this time based on the table dynamics as described above.
• Preflop, I think 3! or flat-calling is perfectly acceptable, but I decided to 3! this time based on the table dynamics as described above.
• On the flop with no BDFD or ace or king to represent AK with. I think making a delayed cbet is most profitable as the BTN will probably bet his Jx/KQ hands and check back his small PPs/air.
• As was my plan on the flop, I delay cbet the turn and got owned wp sir

Live £1/£2.

BTN (covers) opens to £10, SB folds, I 3! from the BB with A8 to £35, BTN quickly calls.

Flop JT3 Pot £72. I check, BTN checks.

Turn 4 Pot £72. I bet £30, BTN raises to £100, I fold, BB shows 76

Nice.

I played a few times on Aspers... cheap tournaments. I was very happy to be on the final table on my 2nd try.

Also, I was almost everyday on The Vic on the beginning of the year on £1/£1 cash games. But now I only have time to play online.

subscribed.

What's the reg to fish ratio bro? I would think it would be reg infested just because London is a huge city with a ton of grinders and relatively few casinos that offer quality poker.
But your posts seem to suggest the opposite.

Bunch of degens and rich people in London too!

Nice finish! I'm in a similar situation really, I simply don't have the time to play both online and live. Ultimately the pros of both are:

Live

• Actual social interaction
• High stakes relative to skill level/decent money
• Get to leave the house
• Playing deep-stacked poker

Online

• The actual poker is more enjoyable, more hands, 6max etc >> nitring, 2mins/hand tediousness
• Not being tempted by all the degeneracy i.e. table games, getting drunk while playing etc (I don't really have this problem, although I do have a few drinks now and then)
• Being able to get really good at poker really quickly
• Able to play as many hands/tables as you want/
• Being able to get your cash fix in an hour, rather than 8+ drawn out ones.

Its pretty much just picking the one with the pros you find most important to you really!

Unfortunately this comes down to game selection, which again I'm not willing to discuss due to the public nature of this thread, and the relatively niche london LLSNL community.

I will, however, say that all the hands I post ITT are not a representative proportion of a standard period of live poker as obviously I want to post the entertaining/interesting ones.

Additionally, I think the word "reg" is flown about far too often in live poker, and while you are playing you will see bad regs again and again.

I think the term "bad reg" is a very ambiguous term. By "bad reg" I don't mean the guy who is generally fit-or-fold to you post-flop, or opens a bit on the tighter side, or never gets out of line. By "bad reg" I mean guys who barrel off to the river with ridiculous hands like 77 on QJ3hhd, make ludicrous squeezes with hands like 74dd in EP, stack off with AK/JJ for 200BB, squeeze 44 in the BB over multiple cold callers, those who massively overplay their hands. If you mean those kind of regs, then yes the games are definitely full of them.

The only way to see is to come down and play yourself : )

You forgot being able to play in your underwear

well.. problem with online is that I can't concentrate with girls on Tinder texting me all the time! Playing live I can't keep sharing nudes all the time... so I'm more focused.



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My challenge thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...monds-1622428/

Must be hard playing live too with all the attention you get from the food/drinks girls.

Any tips you'd like to share about staying focused through that onslaught?

Thanks for all the info you shared man. Really invaluable.
I already asked about rake, and I respect that you don't want to get into details of how profitable live poker is in London, but I was just wondering how hurtful you find
rake + cost of travel + drinks and food at casino
to your win rate? Is it something you don't even think about or do you have to keep track of it a lot?
It's cool if you think answering this would reveal too much about your profits and choose not to comment.

well..The girls are a bit older on the casinos. Maybe I'm going to the wrong room. Plenty of old/retired guys playing during working hours... so the girls are more for them.

Unless the dealer is a girl.. then I can lose my focous, specially when I am on seat 1 or 9 and she keep hitting on me.

This is pretty easy to calculate. If you just take your hourly and then add up what you're spending per day/session when you grind. I would imagine most low stakes and mid stakes NL grinders probably don't track it exclusively. I know personally if I'm playing 1/2 I eat different to if I'm playing 2/5+. Just because I find it hard to say drop £25-30 on a Vic steak if I'm playing a game where my hourly is £25-35 or something.

80% sure one reg I play with doesnt wear underwear.

Haha, I like your style, subbed. Jokes intro post too!

+1

No problem buddy, cheers for understanding. To be honest I don't really think about it very much. At the moment I don't treat it as expenses, as I'm a recreational player and its more of a fun thing for me at the moment. Breaking it down though, I probably iron out:

£35/week for Zone 1-2 TC (I don't live in London).
£50/week on food/drink (reasonable but I probably exceed that number fairly regularly. However I do get points as well
£5/session in random tips etc.

So yeah it does add up! Then again sometimes I'll go out on a Friday instead and smash £150 in London or whatever, so there you go. Currently I play about 24hours/week on average. Using an hourly of £15 for £1/£2 say (this isn't my actual number, nor do I claim it to be a paticularly realistic one, but its one oft-quoted around here and probably not too far off mine):

Average Weekly Profit = (4*3+12)*15 = £360.

So not bad, but as you said (and I realized just now yeah it can and does add up!).

Haha cheers

I notice you smoke, not sure how heavy a smoker you are but do you ever find it affects you when playing? i.e cravings/taking too many breaks?
Might sound a strange question to non-smokers but some people light up every half hour.
If it does affect you then my next question was going to ask if you vape at the table to counter this

Hey man, enjoying the thread

I primarily play online MTTs (I'm a semi-serious recreational player like yourself) but I'm trying to make an effort to travel to 1 or 2 £200-500 tournaments a month and then have a cash session if I bust early. I was wondering if you have any thoughts on a couple of questions:

1) Do you find there's much of a difference between the physical tells in cash games v tournaments. From my limited experience it seems like the looser, more relaxed feel at the cash table causes some tells to be exaggerated, e.g. bad recreational players making it clear they're finished with the hand by shuffling their cards about.

2) When events like the UKIPT are on, do they make the cash games better or worse overall? (no worries if you'd rather not answer this)

Yeah, I do find smoking affects me while playing. I often smoke as an emotional response to some event thats taken place in live poker, ranging from winning a pot, boredom setting in from not playing a hand in forever, tilting from playing a hand badly etc. As a general rule, I tend to smoke more frequently when playing live poker than when I'm not.

Like half of everyone else who smokes, I've been meaning to give up and transition to vaping for a while. From a live poker perspective, smoking can really dent into your hourly especially if you're playing in a very good game. Nevertheless if I were to vape, I'd still probably go outside as I find vaping at the table a bit obnoxious.

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Weekend Grind Write-up

As promised, I intend to make The Empire the subject of my next trip report. However, I found the games to be on the meh side (granted, I only very briefly looked inside by moving out, and the £2/£5 had broken). I'll probably either fit in my report on a weekday, or the upcoming Friday.

Instead, I split my session over The Hippodrome and The Vic (Friday Evening and Saturday Morning respectively). The games at The Hippo I'd say were about a 6.5/10; in general the games there just haven't been that great for a while, although it was better than average for a Friday.

Hippodrome

The main table was inhabited by a manaiac who's somewhat of a celebrity there who I get on well with, who was shoving all-in very frequently/making very large overbets OTT (£300 into £50 etc). Unfortunately I managed to get none of it; the game was also infested by several utterly miserable nits who apparently refused to at least pretend they were having somewhat of a good time.

Hand 1

• BTN is a good player, although not a reg (i.e. not a fish)
• This was my first hand at the table. I raised blind UTG for obious reasons
• I don't think theres a nuttier board (especially rainbow) to check-raise than this one
• Stacks are shallow enough due to the straddle/blind raise where I think 77+ 87 is just going to get it in on the flop, leaving only hands like 65s which might play it more cautiously in position (which I also block)
• If you don't think you bluff enough, these boards are the ones to start with. Its extremely difficult for decent players to put you on a bluff because of the rainbow texture, and 2-gapper (i.e. people don't think you bluff with pairs)
• If I had topped up to £1k+ I think I would have bet equal fraction of the pots on each street instead of making a slight overbet on the turn.

Live £1/£2 with £5 straddle and £10 blind UTG raise.

I raise blind UTG to £10 (£650) with 76, Maniac in the HJ (£1100) raises to £22, CO (£2000) calls, Straddle calls.

Flop 965 Pot £88, Checks around, CO bets £40, I raise to £150, CO calls.

Turn 3 Pot £388 I jam £5000, CO folds.

Hand 2

Remind me to never again "loosen up pre"...

Live £1/£2

MP limps, CO limps, I raise to £15 with K4 OTB, BB calls, MP calls, CO calls.

Flop Q62 Pot £60 check, check, CO donks £30, I raise all-in £112 (relative to the CO), folds, CO calls. CO shows down Q9 which wins at showdown.

Yeah there's nothing worse than having the God seat on a whale and having to take these breaks!
I get what you're saying about it being obnoxious but I usually just take one or two draws every 15 minutes and either stealth vape it or blow it under the table/behind me if there's nobody there, just as long as you aren't blowing it across the table etc then I doubt anybody would mind. This massively limits the amount of breaks needed and I'll go outside for a good 5 minute puff every couple of hours (or can last longer if table is too good). Drop me a PM if you decide to start vaping and need any advice

The Vic

After all of that, I decided to head to check out The Vic which had a £2/£5 running. The game looked promising, as several high-stakes PLO games were also running concurrently (i.e. the games might break, and transfer to the NLH game).

Unfortunately, the game was a solid 3/10, filled with 2-3 fish and £5/£10 regs/tight-passive fish. The game effectively played like a £5/10 with straddles from every position.To tell the truth I should have just bought in for £1k, but at the time I felt that sitting in for only £500 or so leverages me the advantage of being able to aggressively squeeze with strong suited broadways and medium-high pocket-pairs. I am also still trying to figure out the many subtle differences that exist between bingo £1/£2 games and the tougher £2/£5 games.

I was basically card-dead for the entirety of the session; this was exacerbated by the fact I play particularly snug in these deep-stacked £2/£5 games anyway. I had basically only played 4 hands for the whole game, which were very standard spots (double up with top set, get stacked with AK vs QQ as the cold-4better when the 3better is in a dream squeezing spot). I thought this hand however was particularly interesting. I won't post my river analysis and decision here, but welcome anyone ITT to post their own thoughts.

Hand 1

• Preflop I think my sizing is OK, given that we're deep-stacked, oop and I have a nitty image. However I think I could get awat with making it £135/£140 despite my nitty image
• This is a flop that hits the BTN's range well. I think if the dangler were an 8 or 7 say, we could check, but theres plenty of hands we can get value from like KQ,QJ, flush draws and probably any gutshot will peel us.
• We hit gin on the turn (except KJ). However, I don't see any reason to check as it is a card that hits us well with AK, Ad5d, AJ all being part of our flop continuation betting range. Whether or not the BTN is actively thinking this, it is card that he will be strongly incentivised to realise his equity with by checking back. I also don't want flopped pairs which pick up a gutshot to see any free rivers.

Live £2/£5 with £10 straddle, 4-handed. BTN is a spanyaaaaaard reg.

BTN (covers) raises to £35, SB folds, I raise to £125 with AA (£1100), BTN calls.

Flop QT4 Pot £250. I bet £150, BTN calls.

Turn A Pot £400, I bet £250, BTN calls.

River J Pot £900, I check, BTN jams £600 effective, hero?

I also sat on a good £1/£2 game for a while which I donated some of my profits back into, but I don't think I'll cover that here. Overall, cashed out about +£600 after taking some damage on the £1/£2 so not a bad weekend!

gl

Missed this post, sorry!

1) At most, live tells make up 1-2% of my game, so unfortunately I don't feel qualified enough to answer this question. Regarding shuffling cards about if they're done with the hand, I think its a universal tell even amongst good regulars due to the long, drawn out process of playing £1/£2 hands which go multiway post-flop or tight opening ranges preflop.#

2) In general I would say they are worse for normal £1/£2 and £1/£3 games. However, they do tend to create bigger NLH and PLO games such as £2/£5 and £5/£10.

Good luck on the tourney and cash grind!

Cheers! Yeh, I've never paid much attention to live tells, but last couple of tournaments I've tried to concentrate on them more rather than fiddling with my phone and it's definitely worthwhile. I guess the key difference is the multi-way nature of most pots, as players generally play and act more straightforwardly.


Re: your AA hand. I might be a bit out of my depth commenting on a deepstacked 2/5 game, but I think with 2.5 to 1 you just have to call unless you have a specific reason not to. Most players, good and bad, are jamming the river with all their range apart from sets and 2 pairs (some astute players might turn a hand like JT into a bluff realising they're likely behind)

Hands you beat – 22 combos
7 combos of Axdd that are one pair hands by the river that he’s turning into a bluff.
Maybe 1 combo of Jxdd. JT probably checking back river, J9 or J8 unlikely to flat 2 streets with the straight flush draw/no show down value. Maybe calling J7dd pre?
11 combos of J9 (discounting J9dd)
Maybe 3 combos of 97dd, 87dd and 76dd

Hands you lose to - 18 or 30 combos
12 combos of KJ
4 combos of AK
Maybe 2 combos of Kxdd (K9dd Is probably raising before the river)
12 combos of KQ (if he's made it to the river with this?)

Would fold river, I don't think most people realise that they need to bluff Ax here and think 'woooo sdv' instead. Then, there's the pussying out effect. Super-exploitative obviously and never fold and show here.

You may be right about Ax hands, but do you not think that the pussy factor is offset by the 'I'm an alpha male and a glaring bluff opportunity has presented itself' factor?

As I say, I'm pretty inexperienced at live cash and have never played these stakes, so not as familiar with the dynamics.

Thanks for the input guys. Interesting how you both bring up the issue of "turning mediocre SDV into a bluff" on the river, although you both differ in whether it is a consideration in a call or not.

At the time, obviously I was trying to identify any hands that the BTN had which contained a king in them. The obvious candidates are AK, KQ, KJ, KT, K9dd. Once I can identify a realistic number of Kx I can then weigh up the pot odds and determine how many bluffs villain needs to have to determine whether or not this is a profitable call. My thoughts were:

AK = (1)(4) = 4 combos. I practically eliminated this combination due to how aggressively £2/£5 players get in AK preflop, especially with the straddle. I had a nitty image, however I see people routinely stack off with AK regardless of the actual spot enough to basically discount this combo.

KQ = (4)(3) = 12 combos. The board blocks flopped TP with a FD which is really nice. To be honest I really didn't see him continuing with much Kx OTT because of how nitty I had played, and expect this combo to fold a significant amount of the time OTT.

KJ = (4)(3) = 12 combos. tl;dr I really expect him to just GII with the nut straight OTT on a highly coordinated board in which I'll easily stack off in a "cooler" scenario with a set, top two etc.

KT = (4)(3) = 12 combos. The same reasons as KQ.

K9. Maybe K9dd but maybe sometimes he raises it OTF etc to get me off AK etc with a combo draw.

Misc. Kxdd hands. Maybe a couple of combos? Ultimately I decided to call; I don't think he has many naked flush draws that jam river but I thought based on the above he has few enough Kx to justify the call getting 3:1. Another swing factor is how aggy these games can sometimes play.

Regardless of whether or not the analysis I ran in my head was sound, he ended up having 75 and I scooped a nice pot!

"I reckon he has about X combos of value, and I can't really think of that many bluffs but he probably just doesn't have it, cawl *rubs money on tits*"

Poker - Guide for Newbies - Part 1

I figured that some kind of newbie guide to London Live Poker would be of interest to some in this thread. A lot of this will be rather ldo but I'm hoping some will find it useful.

In writing this, I'm generally writing for the following type of person:

*-Has acquired a lot of experience online through playing, reading twoplustwo, and watching training videos. Essentially you're at least a breakeven online player, who's looking to try out Live Poker for the first time.

*-You're really starting out as a distraction/hobby if anything. You may just have some extra capital lying about that youre cool with losing at worst, and maybe making a modest profit to spend on a night out at best.

- Not used to playing poker with real cards, like you would in a homegame.

So first of all to play any poker at all you're obviously going to need some money to play with. How you actually get this money is beyond the scope of this article, but I'd recommend bringing down £300 or so (ie 3 100BB buy ins). This allows you to at least top up to one buyin if it all goes south you can at least play for a bit longer after the inevitable disappointment.

Then you need to pick a casino and stake. Personally I'd start with £1/£1 despite the really bad rake (10% or capped at £15), as the general nature of the game means £100 in a £1/£1 plays deeper than £200 in a £1/£2. The G casino and The Vic offers £1/£1 games.

Make sure you bring some form of ID like a drivers license as some doorstaff can be particularly fussy coughcantscough.

If you have brought cash with you, you can inmediately head to the poker desk, else you will have to buy chips at the main casino cash desk using a debit card etc. In case it isn't obvious as to why, never buy chips from another random person queuing up, or swap then for any type of bet slip which they claim to be of "equivelant cash value".

Its then proabably a good idea to get your bearings and walk around a bit before heading to the poker bit. Notice the lack of windows or clocks anywhere, watch some punter put the lot on red etc. Casinos are pretty weird aren't pthey? Depending on how introverted/extroverted you are, sitting down to battle face to face a bunch of punters at cards can be a bit nerve-wracking, if as an online player you havent had to deal with this aspect before. Make sure you're feeling semi-relaxed and had a good drink of water before going in.

At the cash desk you will get offered what type of chips you want your buyin in, i.e. stacks of £5 reds, stack of £5 reds and a couple of £25s etc. I recommend just getting reds as this avoids you messing up the "one chip rule" (I'll get onto this in a bit). I also recommend changing everything into chips while at the cash desk, as its nicer to just be able to pull out some more chips from your pocket than call for a chip runner. It also really sucks if youre in the middle of a hand and have no idea how much you have behind.

Its really something else to play poker with real cards and opponents, rather than skip from hand to hand in a game like Zoom. The atmosphere inside of a cardroom can have a really sterile feeling to it especially when the games are dead. You may find that it sucks even more losing a pot to a real person rather than an online avatar, or getting verbally harrassed by some guy who you took a massive pot off. You may feel under pressure, or eyed up whenever youre the one to raise preflop. These changes in environment will all become second nature as you play more and more live poker, and you can bet everyone else experienced these feelings when they first started playing.

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I'll probably make this a two or three parter when I can be bothered. A lot of this may seem slightly obvious or not a big deal, but hopefully it proves helpful to some. In the next part I'll address other things like:

Gameplay mechanics particular to live poker
Rules that can cost you large pots if not aware of.
Simple adjustments to your game to make when playing live poker (obviously this will be a very basic introduction).

gl!

I wouldnt advise playing 1/1 with 10 percent rake the extra 5 percent means you would need to have a higher win rate than playing 1/2.