I've been playing online micros about a year (.10/.25 for the past few months). From what I've read, live small stakes games ($1/$2) should bring roughly equivalent players to what I'm used to. I've also read many places that live games at this level tend to be very passive. So I went out to the Spielbank Casino at Potsdamerplatz in Berlin on a Saturday night thinking I'd be up against some limping tourists. But, man, that was not the case at all.

I sat at a 2/2 euro table (the lowest stake in the house) and brought a full stack of 200. But the raises and reraises were so aggressive that 200 basically gave me the chance to play only a couple of reasonably good hands beyond the turn. I'd have pretty much been forced to shove any hand playing passed the turn! Having a "full stack" was basically like playing short stacked, as everyone else had at least 5, but most players had more.

Whereas online I feel like a standard opening raise will be between 3 and 5 bb, here they were minimum 8. Is this normal? Is the passive live play I've read about an American phenomenon only? Does anyone know casinos here where there is an opening stack limit or something? I'm not interested in loosing a bankroll in a night of playing. Seems insane. Why wouldn't players with that much cash just play higher stakes? The players were not even that good and seemed like the majority were merely gamblers with lots of cash to waste.

Variance could easily knock a very solid player out of a table like the one I saw.

Hi and welcome to the forums. I personally have found 1/1 and 1/2 games in Vienna, Austria to be just as passive as in the US, but games in Budapest to be more aggressive than in Austria or the US.

However, the 2/2 PLO in Vienna I've played mostly has been as you described the 2/2 game at Spielbank. So I guess much like anything else with poker, it depends.

If you were playing NLHE, then you'll probably want to check out the LLNLHE forum here...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...low-stakes-nl/

...to discuss live poker strategy. If you have any questions or need any help regarding how to use the forums, please send me a private message if you'd like. Good luck on the felt!

ich hatte Recht mituns

ich hatte Recht mituns