"Skill" isn't necessarily your understanding of game theory, whether you defend perfect frequencies, or have grinded 1k+ hours in Pio. Skillfulness can also be your ability to apply a maximally profitable strategy to the live environment. You mightn't know as much as a 500z reg does, but you have to give credit where credit is due. Anyone who can crush LLSNL over a big enough sample has immense skill and it's really not fair to compare it to the immense skill of a 500z crusher - they're completely different games.

Sure, but Mike is the perfect example of somebody who plateaus at a mediocre level. He can beat the weakest 1/2 and 2/5 games in North America for a decent clip but his game has clearly stagnated and he has no hope of ever moving up or crushing higher stakes. I think he's happy just beating really bad low stakes games which is fine, but there are still so few good poker players around. If you check your ego and work on your game you can really climb the ladder quickly.

FYP

I'm also a proponent of not defending blinds much in live low stakes. I also think you can maintain a nice winrate while folding to cbets when you have weakish hands like king high. However, that doesn't mean that folding is necessarily the correct decision. It simply means that there are so many easy spots to make money in live low stakes that a lot of players are willing to pass on tough spots like this and take the path of least resistance instead.

These statements together made me chuckle.


This is a pretty poor statement. There are many differences between live and online and many winning online players have been crushed playing live. I've seen it with my own two eyes. I just read this morning that Dario Minieri is now grinding 2/5 in Vegas. I hope he's profitable.

Very confusing indeed. I thought he was saying the high stakes player was about to start losing.

What lol? He has stated that bigger games hardly ever run where he is and he has played them and won. Why would he alter his existing strategy in an attempt to move up to games that don't exist? Altering your strategy so that it crushes high stakes games and then applying it in a 2/5 is suicide.

I don't see how you think his game has stagnated. If anything, it's just consistency.

Remember this is live poker here mate. There isn't much "laddering up". In my city there is 1 table of 5/10 that runs once a fortnight and is the best regs in town playing each other. 2/5 is the roof for a lot of people. This isn't online where you can keep moving through the stakes...

No one said you had to alter anything. Anyone good can change gears at will. Dude is a retiree who plays a ton of hours with nothing else to do. If he wanted to improve, play higher and/or bigger games occasionally he could obviously do it. I've been reading his posts for ~3 years, I'm happy for the guy that he seems to win and is happy about it, but the posts are all public. Read one from 2014 and one from this year and show me improvement in thought process or lines.

I remember playing 50/100 Limit with Dario back in ~08. Those were fun times, but there are more players than not who won a **** ton back then and haven't had the work ethic the last 5ish years to improve their games to stay relevant at high stakes.

Isn't OP an old man in retirement? Why in this stage of his life would he want to put in the hard work necessary to beat bigger games? What would be the point of that? It's not like he needs the money to survive. Your post pretty much dismissed what he has already accomplished which is still far more than the vast majority of players out there.

Sure, that's what he "says." While mid-stakes have dried up quite a bit, I'd be shocked if the 5/T isn't running much more often than he is letting on. I'm sure the games are often bad but sometimes they will be quite good. Also, I suspect there are probably bigger underground games being run where he's at as well. Regardless, I think it's ok for him to not be interested in playing mid-stakes games.

so meale you don't think that you're beating live because it's easier, only because it's different?

Also those of you who mention that you've seen online players get crushed, are we talking about a relevent sample? I really can't relate to any of that because for me live has always been much softer than online even though I have good results online, so can you guys please elaborate on these online winning players getting crushed live

I'm not recommending he does it, just that he should have logical consistency with being happy apparently grinding decent winrates for LLSNL in retirement while not thinking he can still crush 10/25 or 5/10 online or always dismissing anyone who criticizes him.

Usually when I saw people who crushed online get crushed live it was because the money didn't matter more than anything. They were playing 200/400 against Ivey the night before on FTP, wtf is a 2/5 game to them? If they were playing 200/400 live they'd be switched on.

Part of the reason live is softer is because it's much more difficult to play good solid patient poker in live. Beating online does not make you immune from this, particularly when you are used to playing 10+ tables at a time.

It's much more difficult because you can get impatient?

I'm not commenting on Mike's game or which stakes he should be playing as that's up to him, but there are many 5/T games in the greater Miami / Palm Beach / Ft. Lauderdale area. They may have dried up to some extent at the Isle but right now there are 5/T and 10/25 running at Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood, for instance. SFL is one of the better areas to live if one has aspirations beyond 2/5.

It shouldn't need be said one's results over 100 hours of 5/T are not meaningful.

This entire discussion is cracking me up. Let me count the ways

1) The games I play in are not the "weakest games in North America". I play all over the country and all of you people who have heard that S. Florida is super soft have been badly misled. Everyone gets offended when someone says their games are weak because they take it as an assault on them personally. That maybe they are only doing well because their games are soft. News flash.....Ive played in 29 rooms in 12 states in the last 2 years and there is very little difference in overall skill level in any one place. There are a few specific rooms where there's a difference but I seriously doubt your win rate would change by more than 10% no matter what area of the country you play.

2) I dont want to "climb up the ladder". I dont need to prove to anyone that I know how to play poker. Ive been winning for a very very long time going back to before the Moneymaker days online. Ive had one losing month in my life. Im not 24 years old. Im not looking to increase my income. I dont need the money. I play because I like the game and I like taking peoples money from them using nothing but my mind. I especially like taking money from arrogant rich people who are used to pushing people around in their daily lives because they are rich.

3) AoFrantic.....Its interesting to me that youve been reading my posts for 3 years. Id love for you to quote one of my posts from 2014 and show me how my posts are so stagnant Its going to be tough since I joined 2+2 in 2016.

4) I wouldnt call myself an old man. I guess compared to most of the snot nosed 18-26 year olds here I am, but Im not exactly drawing social security. Not all retirees are 75 years old.

5) There has been ZERO 5/T games at the Isle in Pompano Park where I play at any point when I was there in at least 2 months. This room has something like 46 tables. Its a huge room but there is no 5/T running hardly at all...so yes the big games have dried up. There used to be 10/25 and a 25/50 running almost every day as well. All you have to do is check Bravo if you dont believe me. I have no idea about underground games.

6) Ive beaten 2/5 long term for 9BB / hr. Ive beaten 1/2 for 18 BB/hr. That's better than "decent rates". And that is playing the majority of my hours during the daytime. My weekend and evening win rates when most 2+2ers play are significantly higher. I dismiss a lot of criticism from people playing these same stakes who tell me Im wrong about certain things even thought those things work time and time again for me...and those people making those statements cant come close to these win rates. Most of them wont even state their win rates or show a graph but always fall back on "how much you win doesnt matter". They are 100% certain they are right and they are playing better than me even though they dont win as much. LOL Its ludicrous. Long term results is the greatest indicator of who playing a better strategy in their specific games.

At no point in time have I ever said Im the best poker player in the world but I can say 1 thing for certain. I will absolutely crush any game that I play in over time and I am smart enough to stay out of games that I cant crush.

Of course it's "easier" in that the villains are worse overall players. But that's by no means the only difference.

Also if Mike's posts from 2014 vs now are stagnant, and he's still winning now, how could that be a bad thing?

There aren't many 5/T games around here at all. Could I find a 5/T game now and then if I wanted to? Sure I could. But its not easy and Im not scouring the entire Ft. Lauderdale/ Miami area at all times to find a game to play in. Im not playing for income so I dont need to. Im not going to drive an hour to play in a 5/T game. I not going to go out of my way to find a 5/T game because I dont care that much. I drive to the poker room closest to my house the majority of the time and play the games there.

As we speak, there is exactly one 5/T table running in the entire Ft.Lauderdale/Miami area. In a metroplex of this size, if there is only one 5/T table, how good do you think that game is? Its most likely going to be horrible. How many people in that 9 handed game do you think can beat that game for $35/hr+? My guess is about 3.

I can make $35/hr+ playing 1/2 with virtually no stress and no risk whatsoever. Why would I drive 45 mins or more to play in that 5/T game?

I have no posts from 2014. AoFrantic is smoking some wacky weed.

Well all the other differences you guys are thinking of are just the results of these villains being worse overall, playing more multi-way pots, cold calling more because you generally get squeezed less often etc.

There are more multi way pots playing live.
There is a lot more limping playing live
There is less lite squeezing playing live (virtually none below 5/T)
There is more slowplaying monsters playing live
Shown down hands tend to be stronger playing live due to there being more players
There are more coolers playing live due to same factors
People are looser playing live because they can only play one table and didnt come to fold.

In other words, its a different game.

yes pretty much everything you mentionned are traits of most weaker players

Nobody is arguing that live games are weaker than online games. They absolutely are. The point is that they are different and you cant play them the same. If you go into a live game thinking you can play 28/22 you will get crushed by multiple guys slowplaying you into value owning yourself.

28/22 are just the preflop stats though? I mean you can certainly crush live playing 28/22, although you are probably better off playing looser given you can probably show profit with worse holdings by playing better postflop

really the only thing I could see online players struggle with is having to play a lot of multiway pots, but any GOOD online player already knows how it's done, it's pretty damn intuitive to say the least

How much money is being made playing online these days? Is it still that much more profitable to play online? If not, why are good players still grinding online?

Your games do appear super soft from reading this thread. Maybe it's just the way you describe them, or a result of your hand history selection being heavily weighted towards hand histories of you mashing up fish making bizarre plays even at these stakes, with a dearth of hands where you face difficult choices against challening opponents.

I read your HHs where you're frequently stacking off against clueless fish who somehow keep paying you off with weak hands and I wonder, where are these guys in my games? The only clueless people I regularly encounter at 1/2 are playing super short stacks. Just amazes me how you always seem to get paid with your good hands, where I would get paid maybe a third of the time. But maybe you just don't post the hands where you hit a set, continuation bet and watch everyone fold.

I figure your games are tougher than they seem, but your descriptions do make them look very soft, and on top of that your winrate at 1/2 is ridiculous. Maybe it's easier to conclude your games are soft than you're that good mashing up fish.

Also the fact you encounter arrogant rich people in 1/2 games makes them sound soft. I rarely encounter obviously wealthy players at this level.

I don't think anyone is saying how much you win doesn't matter, but it's a weak argument to fall back on to defend some position. Objective analysis is always more convincing than arguments from authority.

There are many problems comparing live winrates. Small sample sizes, different player population characteristics, different game characteristics (buy in min/max, average stack size, rake), and so forth.

Online it's easy to tell who the best players are because their sample sizes are millions of hands and they play the same games and player pool. Live it's just not so easy.

More than that, it seems pointless to focus too much on one's own winrate. Personally I don't really care what my results are over a span of less than several thousand hours, and see no need to share them. And I certainly don't care if I'm playing better than you or anyone else. I just track my bankroll and whether I think I'm ready to move up. Meanwhile I make the best decisions I can.

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I'd disagree. I tend to avoid these discussions because each side is blinded, stemming from their own experience.

Even solvers / AI dont know what to do vs 4 limps. It sounds silly, but realize that the game tree is immense.

The general approach to live poker is to play face up tag unbalanced towards value, which will certainly net you 4-6bb/hr. But there are players with very interesting styles in this game that have much higher winrates.

As an example, there are situations where open limping or over limping are the most EV plays. Most from an online background cant bear to accept that. This is because 99% of us learn the mechanics of the game, not the theory.

And the theory of multiway poker has not been explored by anyone.