Hi Everybody,

Because of Black Friday, countless players are asking that question. The answers can be divided into four categories:
1. Some online players believe that they are so superior that they will easily crush B&M games.
2. Some B&M players think that online players are donkeys.
3. Online players’ abilities vary immensely
4. Good online players will beat B&M games if they adjust well to the huge differences between the games.

Let’s look briefly at all four positions.

1. Online Players Will Easily Crush B&M games.
Online games are certainly tougher than B&M ones. I asked many guests on my radio show, “How much tougher are online games?” A few replied that they were ten times tougher. That is, a $0.50/$0.1.00 NL game was about as tough as a $5/$10 NL game. Other estimates averaged about five times.

However, just because B&M games are softer doesn’t mean that you can easily beat them. Several people have said they are so superior that they will just walk in, sit down, and crush the games.

They’re in for a nasty surprise.

2. Online Players Are Donkeys
Since online games are tougher, this position is silly, but some people have taken it. They report seeing online players – who may or may not be winners – act stupidly in live games: trying to bluff calling stations, calling all in with the worst of it, misreading betting patterns because they don’t have software, giving away information with careless body language, not reading body language, etc.

Of course, some online players make those mistakes, but a few anecdotes are not remotely enough evidence to draw general conclusions about online players.

3. Online players have widely varying abilities.
The fact that this position is rarely taken indicates how badly Black Friday has affected players’ thinking. People vary immensely on every skill. How could anyone ignore the fact that online players must have widely varying abilities?

The average online player is superior to the average B&M player, but online players range from huge winners to huge losers. It’s silly to expect online losers to crush B&M games, or to expect online winners to be donkeys. The skills, habits, and attitudes that make players winners and losers online will have the same effects in B&M games.

4. Good Online Players Will Beat B&M Games If They Adjust Well.
Because online games are tougher, players who can beat them will almost certainly beat B&M games if they adjust well.

In fact, many breakeven online players can beat B&M games if they adjust well.

No matter how well they have done online, if they don’t adjust well, online players will certainly lose.

It’s just another example of poker’s most important principle: You must adjust to THIS set of circumstances.

You shouldn’t play the same way in a loose-aggressive game that you play in a tight-passive one. You must obviously adjust to the much larger differences between online and B&M games. Compared to websites, B&M:
1. Are much more expensive because of higher rake, tips, jackpot drops, food, parking, and gas.
2. Have such high charges for many small tournaments that nobody can beat them.
3. Rarely have six-max or heads-up tables.
4. Have extreme distractions such as conversations, casino noises, and TV.
5. Don’t offer as many games.
6. May not offer your preferred game when you want to play.
7. Can’t let you use software to evaluate games and players or to help you to read opponents’ cards.
8. Require protecting your cards.
9. Don’t count the pot or opponents’ stacks for you.
10. Require controlling your body language so that you don’t give away information.
11. Require reading your opponents’ body language.
12. Deal far fewer hands per hour.
13. Require you to play for much higher stakes to get the same hourly income from far fewer hands.
14. Those higher stakes cause much larger swings, creating financial and psychological pressures.

That’s a lot of differences, and I probably missed a couple. You can’t beat B&M games without adjusting to these differences.

If you’re smart and self-critical, you can probably adjust without much help. But you participate in forums to get help. You’ve gained by discussing how to play hands and other strategic issues. Why not get help about these adjustments?

*

Edit/MH: Part two.

4. Don't forget alcohol.
7. I agree that the lack of hole-card reading software will be the biggest challenge for big online winners.

That's only if you are transitioning from AP/UB to live play though

Hanging at the BM all day is a massive beat. Seeing the same drunk degenerate faces all day and hearing them talk about the bad beat jackpot at least a couple of times per day gets annoying no wonder so many people wear headphones at the table.

13. Require you to play for much higher stakes to get the same hourly income from far fewer hands.
14. Those higher stakes cause much larger swings, creating financial and psychological pressures.

thats the biggest downside imo. well, that and u have to put more time in at ****ty ass cardrooms with smelly douche bags

time bank 7 minutes GTFO!

My brother was telling me the yesterday about an on-line player at his table that was complaining about 'black friday' but in certain hands the online player would be quiet and watch the action. Almost everytime the online player had a 'big time hand' and would win the pot. My brother said he saved quite a few bucks from this tell. He thinks that this will be the hardest thing for an online player, to make the adjustment by not showing tells. And, he does not think online players will be b&m fishes except for tells that they inadvertently show. He thinks his win percentage will increase for the next few months until they get confortable with b&m play, like one table at a time, giving tells and just betting because they are bored.

I was a live cash professional for awhile and then switched to an online cash professional for awhile. I have no respect whatsoever for live players. None. Live players for the most part are passive, pathetic weaklings who never bluff or make any sort of daring move in their poker life. Yes, a large majority of live players will go hundreds of hours without making any agressive move with a weak hand, and in fact will have never made a multi street bluff in their life even in a game like no limit holdem where bluffing is a relatively important part of playing well. I'm talking up to games as high as 5/10 no limit. Many of them are so weak tight they'll fold top pair to a pot sized continuation bet on the flop in a heads up pot. And I honestly think as a group they are not nearly as intelligent as online players either.

Much of the adjustments to live play can be made by just understanding it's a different feel to the environment. You can't get impatient playing 30 hands an hour. You have to add up the chip counts in your head. These differences are simple enough that the act of merely noticing them goes a long way toward adjusting to them.

preface - I am using the lower stakes as an example because the majority of the poker world(both ways) plays lower stakes.

A winning/breakeven player online over a large sample will be able to win in a B&M enviornment with great certainty.

A previous winning player that was breaking even over a large sample by choice(hourly, rakeback) due to multi-tabling will will with near certainty.

If you flip the script, I'm quite sure many people beating 200NL(who are new to online) would have a difficult if not improbable chance of beating the upper echelon of micro stakes online(50, 25NL) and would have no chance of beating the same limit.

In every walk of life you will justify your own actions because of the time investment. a player crushing 1-2 live is going to think a player playing for quarters online is inferior. Just how it works.

It really shouldn't matter. In my eyes you never know who you are playing so we make assumptions. Too much energy is spent on trying to determine you are better than someone before you play them when it doesnt matter. Everyone is better than someone else at one attribute and weaker at another.

Point being, you play. If you are a winning player online, you will quickly adjust if needed; if the game seems difficult. If you are unable to do so, you were lying to yourself to begin with. If you are a winning player live, you will quickly adjust but also already be aware that 1-2 is the lowest stake offered at the casino as opposed to .01/.02 online.

My personal opinion 500NL live, 1000NL live is usually the next step from 200NL. This is where the game starts to show enept players(much like 50NL, 100NL live).

cliffs: As long as you are playing the same game but open for slight adjustments you will be fine both ways. If you are trying to replicate Dwan, you might as well put all your money on black.

As both an on line and B&M player I think the whole thing is patience and paying attention. As a former FT rush addict the slowness of B&M is the hardest thing to adjust to. The big plus in B&M is you actually see the players and can make assumptions on appearances. Although these are not always right they are more often than not. Common stereotypes are: Old farts don't often bluff, and play tight. Young guns often play position poker and bluff. Woman are usually tight. Asians are usually loose, except old Asian women who are extremely tight. Black dudes with lots of bling are loose and bluff frequently. Hispanics are usually very loose and often try for runner, runner. Young guys dressed in Online Bling are usually position bluff fanatics. I usually treat middle age white guys dressed like engineers with respect. I'm sure there are more, but that's a start.

B&M is ****in easy. I just hate waiting four hours to stack some douche(tree fiddy) to my right who limps 69o utg

So the barriers of going from a winning online player to a live online player are mainly psychological?!

Somebody should write a book about that.

Just got done wrapping up a 12 hour session of live 1/2, made $2000. B&M players can say what they want, but no one in online poker is stacking off 600bb on the turn with a pair and a gutshot, ,and there's a reason for that.

Countless players are asking this question? You mean some disgruntled live players that get repeatedly crushed at NL25 online and have joined the forum within the last two weeks are asking this question. No winning player thinks live casino games with bingo grandmas is tougher obviously. Also, A+ on the notion that good online players cant adjust to playing against horrible players that you can value bet to death every hand or that there is even an adjustment to be made other than bet and print money.

The only thing I think that would prevent online players from being sucessful is them /wrists waiting to stack some poor Joe Shmoe, that or they go play house games.

If u can valuebet, u can beat 1/2-2/5 NL, duck dodge dip dive and dodge

Sure we can beat live poker , but what about the awful rake ,tips, travel expense and fact that you can only play 25 hands a hour ? It's just not worth it unless you have skill and big enuff roll to play something like 2000nl

Any online pro can beat B&M games, as long as they are high enough. $1/$2 has horrible rake so you win a bunch, get sucked out a few times and you're back to even because they raked like most of your expected profit.

First, after playing a moderate amount of limit both live and online recently, my gut feeling is that the difficulty multiplier is not linear (at least in Limit). 10x might be applicable to lower limit games where 5x might be better applied to higher limit games.

Online games allow player to leverage smaller bankrolls over a larger number of hands. This can lead to online players not having a large enough bankroll to play in a live game where they can earn their target rate, or make use of their higher level skills. If they have saved a large enough bankroll to be able to play live at a reasonable level, they might have a psychological problem with the hand to hand swings of the larger game, especially while seeing so many fewer hands. And, of course, many online players complain about the pace of the game.

John Tollison

IMO, one of the biggest transitions is the human interaction. Beyond the obvious chit chat and facial tells.

-The moment you scoop the pot, and the 250 lb thug across the table from you wants to take your head off. Feeling obligated to apologize for winning even though you did nothing wrong.
-Always having one douchebag take an excessive amount of time (1 min+) to make a 10bb call all while staring you down.
-Having to listen to people share their stories about bad beats, their last vegas trip, and countless other things you don't care about.
-Watching some broke middle aged guy with stains on his shirt and old dirty sneakers reach into his pocket for his last $100.00 (comprised of several bills) to rebuy.
-Dealing with old farts in a $60.00 tournament play as if they were in the world series of poker.

The above are just the tip of the iceberg. Some of you may initially enjoy that kind of interaction. For me it's still both annoying and depressing.

Meh. If those kinds of things bother you, it's kind of a life fail imo. What kind of sheltered life do you live that you don't deal with annoying crap like this at work, school, on the bus, etc.?

A fair number of people are annoying and disgusting anywhere, just open your eyes when you walk down the grocery store aisle or sit in a McDonalds sometime. The only difference is that in a casino those people are shoveling you money instead of preparing your food.

Remember that playing live, in itself, is part performance art. No one is asking you to be stand up comedy gold, you basically just have to not be a douche. If someone said you could triple your online winrate in exchange for hearing a stupid story you don't care about once an hour, I can't imagine who wouldn't take that.

Why then is it such an issue live?

Because it's more like half the winrate?

From my own admittedly small sample size of playing live and observing primarily internet players playing live (at low stakes only)....

Of course a good internet player can beat the live games. One of the things that makes a poker player "good" is their ability to adapt to specific tables/players/situations, and at the lower levels at least, the vast majority of live players play their hands face up. The calling station always calls. The bluffer always bluffs (and usually has a size tell for bluff vs. monster).

If a low stakes, recreational player like me can correctly identify and adapt my play to 1/2+ villains at the table, then surely a good online player can.

I'd say the biggest challenge, other than awareness of their own tells, is realizing they are trying to beat level one players almost exclusively (at least at the low limits), so don't get too fancy.

For those interested, you can get more information at http://propokerseminars.com/free-webinar/.

This is the only post where we will allow this link to appear. So please don't copy it.

Mason

When I play live theres players at 200NL and 500NL, and play $100 tourneys who are just plain terrible/ loose passive/ calling station etc throwing away money, but online at these stakes the play is excellent by comparison.

It makes me wonder why you don't get more total morons playing at stakes like 100NL and 200NL online. I know the regs playing 20ish tables really make the shark to fish ratio less desirable but even so.

Do you think there is a huge fish tank that the UIGEA prevented playing, due to the effort of depositing?

yes. the common people think its illegal.