Hi,

I have been playing poker for 3 years as a winner up to nl50 online with a winrate about 5bb/100.

I have moved to pursue an Bachelor in Business Administration about 30 minutes from Stockholm where the state owned casino Cosmopol is located.

Would it clever of me to put in some live hours at the casino? What would my hourly be at say NL200? Is there a lot i need to adapt? How much softer is NL200 live than the micros online?

Any tips or advice is highly appreciated, best regards!

This is the Swedish Bikini Team:



If I was your age I'd be chasing them instead of hanging out in a poker room.

I believe the conventional wisdom (so take it as seriously as you want) is that online play and live play are sufficiently different that you can't really translate between them. I.e. you can't predict one winrate based on the other. If you are doing well online, I would recommend staying online. Maybe visit the casino once in a while to get the feel and the flavour of it. I wouldn't advise grinding live until you have a solid track record at the casino.

It is not very Balla playing part time only. But if you cannot just ditch the stupid school thing and play full time, like your parents will get mad or whatever, then live is much softer than online.

Online everyone is solid, from the tough LAGs at .01-.02 right up to the Nosebleeds. In fact the Nosebleeds are probably the softest games, because those guys do not respect money. Try prying an extra 12 cents out of some guy who has pulled 8bb-100 over a million hands of NL$2 (with an occasional shot at NL$5) and you will see what I mean.

Whereas live they are all nits, fish or OMCs, except for a few young Ballas like yourself, and you can tell them by their hoodies, shades and headphones, not to mention they are younger than the other guys, so they will be easy to avoid. Everyone else is just there for the high-hand promos and the bad-beat jackpot, so they will usually fold to your pre-flop power, and if they call or raise instead then you can let it go, because you know OMCs always have it. Easy game.

You will make tens of dollars, no problem.

You SHOULD be concentrating on your studies and filling the rest of your time working on things that will grant you useful experience or connections. Poker in any venue will have limited value in this. Few of us spend all our time doing what we should.

If you're asking if live will be more lucrative or enjoyable, the only answer is maybe. There is no way to predict your winrate. Too much depends on how well you adjust, how good the games are, what the rake is, etc. Variance will have a big impact - you simply can't get in as many hands as you do online.

As long as you aren't neglecting your studies and you can afford a few losing sessions, give it a shot and see what happens.

This is very convincing. In fact I would make this priority one and give up on everything else.

The best part is that these good lookers are all over the place in Sweden and if you've got any game at all you can get one. Just let me be that age in Sweden and poker can go to hell.

I think that at 5bb/100 at 50nl your hourly will be about the same as it would be at 1/2 live. The common hourly quoted for live 1/2 "crushers" is $10/hour. And that's in US casinos which generally have much lower rake than the rest of the world. If you're playing 300 hands per hour at 50nl at 5bb/100 with 15% stars chest rakeback (assuming 8bb/100 rake), I calculate about a $10 hourly. And don't forget transportation costs and time spent getting to the casino.

So do whatever you find more fun since especially since you're not relying on it as an income source. Although the idea of sitting down and looking at your opponents face to face in a fancy casino sounds sexy at first, after a few dozen hours of live play you'll probably start to get bored of 1 tabling 30 hands/hour.

If your goal is to get as good as possible at poker so that some day you can play mid/high stakes, definitely stay online. The fact that you're playing 10x the number of hands per hour (at least) against much better opponents will progress your poker game exponentially faster than at the live tables.

Of course the easiest answer is go try out live and see how you like it. Even if you transition most of your play time to live, I'd still recommend a few hours per week of online play just to stay sharp.

And finally, the mandatory "stay in school." The chances of you ever making it full time at poker are slim, and even if you did it is very probable you'd still have been better off just on the normal person career path. Even if you get good enough to make a living for a few years at poker, there's no guarantee you'll be able to beat the games/rake forever and unless you're a true poker wizard, you'll be able to make much more money in a real career. Not to mention a lot of pros fall out of love with the game once their livelihoods start to depend on it.

Live 1/2 should be softer than most online games, but that doesn't mean that you wont get run over.

The one thing that no one is addressing yet ... Bankroll ... What disposable cash do you have to go there with? Most of us will push for at least 3 BI per visit to a live room. If you actually plan on 'grinding' then you will need at least 20 BI, even if you only play on weekends.

Should you go? Yes, ... Go have some FUN. Act like a kid, not a poker bot and get some live experience.
Should you go with any expectations? No, ... Live regs will pick you off, but there should be plenty of 'gamblers' as well. It's up to you to figure out who's what during the play. Ranges will be wide open and coming from any position at the table. GL

You made me choke on my soup

Sorry, was enjoying my own Chicken Pot Pie stew as well ...

As a live reg there's nothing better than having a young online 'expert' or tournament reg sit down at a cash table ... at least initially. Certainly, they 'both' have a good chance at making the proper adjustments. But when they first sit down they are vulnerable for a period of time.

The biggest adjustment is to forget that this is 'real' money and play the spot. Tournament players aren't used to losing an actual BI in one hand. Online players may go through my 'tank of gas' syndrome in some spots instead of looking at it from a BB viewpoint. GL


PS .. Notice I said 'young' ... not 'you' ...