Online Poker Versus Live Games

AceKing2This article outlines some of the obvious differences between brick and mortar (B&M) casino or card room play, versus online play. We’ll leave home games aside for another time.

The biggest difference between online and live games has to be that in a live game, you have a greater interaction with your fellow players than online. This includes the fact that they can see you, and you can see them, which leads to an extra source of information in the live game versus the online game – tells. Reading the body language, mannerisms and emotions of your opponent, to try to decipher if they have the goods or not, is often touted as the principle skill of live game players. This, simply put, is not true. Tells are an important source of information in live games, but they do not replace a decent strategy for the vast majority of your decisions.

Nonetheless, if you make the transition to playing live, don’t forget to watch how your opponents react, especially when you are not involved in the pot – in between hands you can accumulate a lot of information. For instance, a player may reveal their strength to you not just by how they bet, but how they place the chips in the pot. This is something you don’t have to rely on when playing online. For a lot of experience live players, its hard to give up this sort of information. For online players making the transition, you need to be aware that the most experienced players in a live game will see everything you do, so you want to minimize what you do.

For online players looking to play live, may I make the following suggestions. First, talk as little as possible during the play of a hand, especially one in which you are involved. A good player can extract lots of information from you by chatting with you. Next, try not to look interested or disinterested, try instead to look blank. This can be achieved by staring off into the distance, or staring directly downward and not reacting when the board cards come. Unfortunately, this reduces your ability to detect the mannerisms of other players because you’re busy protecting your own tells from being discovered. For most online players, however, the best idea is to concentrate on hiding your own reactions before you try to focus on other players. The reason is that tactical play can win even with minimal attention to the mannerisms of your opponents, but wearing your tells like a giant billboard can cost you lots of action from players whose edge comes primarily from watching for tells.

There are tons of resources on tells available in both print media and online sources. I won’t go into commonly discussed tells because I honestly feel that tells are far too specific to the player, and any set of ‘rules’ about tells is doomed to contradiction.

Live poker also involves an intimidation factor which doesn’t affect the online game. Walking into a card room for the first time can be quite intimidating for some people. Although staff tend to be friendly and the dealers fairly patient, your opponents may not be so nice. You will run into many players who will be very unfriendly to any violation of etiquette. This means you have to make sure it is your turn to act before you make any action or declaration, including folding. Folding out of turn disrupts the games for serious players. In addition, you should be careful not to say anything that might reveal what you held (after you have folded) because this will be met with reproach from both the dealer and other players.

When you enter the poker room at a casino, you’ll notice that players have to enter waiting lists, regardless of whether there are open seats at the tables you wish to join. It is not uncommon to have to wait an hour or more to get a seat, especially during peak hours. This may end up being a bad thing for many players who will waste their money on house games (blackjack, craps, roulette, slots etc.) instead of waiting for their poker game, but if one practices restraint and keeps poker money separate from money to use on house games while waiting for a seat, this isn’t much of a problem.

Rake charged for in the flesh poker is more than online poker rakeSpeaking of things that cost, I should let you know that without exception, the rake charged at B&M casinos is greater than at online sites. Although if you are fortunate to find a casino which charges a session fee (a time charge, such as $5 for a half hour), you’ll not pay as much as in games that are rake per pot at the casino (which can be as high as a big bet per pot!). Also, you have to remember that dealers in North American casinos will expect tips, and you should be forthcoming with them usually. Even if it is only $1 a pot, it adds up to a much higher cost of playing than online.

Thankfully, most live games have far more action, and far looser players than online. I know that the last time I played at a live casino the games at the mid stakes range (10/20 and 20/40 were being spread at the time) looked like low stakes online games, with tons and tons of calling, but very little raising and check/raising. These games are a goldmine as long as you are willing to play tight/aggressive, smart poker. You can easily overcome the extra rake if you find a game with lots of action like the ones I expect you’ll find at most casinos.

Availability of any game other than Texas Holdem in live poker rooms is tricky!Nonetheless, there are yet more downsides to the live game. First, availability is an issue. Fans of games like Omaha, 7 card stud and other non-hold’em games that can be found easily online are harder to find live. Of course, larger venues (such as you’d find in Las Vegas) will still spread these games, but they may not spread them at nearly as low a limit as you’ll find online. The more esoteric the game, the more likely you are to find it only at mid or higher stakes, and you’ll find the games shark infested compared to hold’em. By contrast, online Omaha and 7 card stud are full of players who don’t quite get the differences between these games and hold’em. By comparison, limit hold’em is far more popular than no-limit for cash games at live casinos, which is different than online. Online a no-limit player has no difficulty finding games, but live this can be a problem sometimes. Of course, with no-limit being the game of the internet and the game featured on television, this is changing slowly but surely.

So you like fast hands and at multiple tables - play poker online!The second issue is the speed of games. A lot of online players like fast games, and like to play multiple tables. Live, however, one can only play a single table at a time, and live games tend to get far fewer hands per hour than online. This can lead to boredom, distraction, even loose play and tilt because one wants action. Alcohol is another live game distraction which can hurt one’s game. Once again, these are all things which can be overcome with discipline, but a good online player needs to know how to adapt to these things when playing live. It really is a different game in many ways.

Good luck at the tables!
– Coach

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Never Raising as the Small Blind – Mike Caro

Mike Caro poker tipWhat I’m about to say is both controversial and correct. On the first betting round in Hold’em you can go forever without raising as the small blind and not sacrifice much profit. In fact, most players will increase their earnings by resolving never again to raise before the flop from the small blind position.

Professional poker tip I hear you thinking: You’d obviously need to make an exception for the times when everyone folds and you routinely raise against the big blind, right? No! Not right. It’s true that a few players fold so routinely in the big blind that you’ll make money by raising at every opportunity when you’re the small blind. But even against that type of opponent, you can often make more money by just calling in the half-price small blind position.  When you do that, you get the very best pot odds possible.

For instance, let’s say it’s a No Limit Hold’em game with your $100 small blind and a $200 big blind. If all other players fold, leaving only you and the big blind, you can just call for $100. Assuming you’re not raised by the big blind (who enjoys the “live” raise option if called), you’re getting 3-to-1 pot odds. Often accepting those odds is better than the advantage you gain by raising and hoping your timid opponent folds or calls and loses. You get an advantage either way. Big-blind opponents who make the mistake of folding too frequently also fail to raise frequently enough when you just call. So, you can take advantage of their mistakes either by calling or raising. And just calling is often better.

CONFUSED?

Of course, the concept holds whether the game is Limit or No Limit. Add to that the value of deception when the big blind gets confused and decides unwisely to raise against your superior hand. On those occasions, you can capitalise by just checking and calling until the river – when you finally play the raise.

I once played experimentally for a whole month, resolving to never raise in the small blind. I wanted to see how often I’d really regret being strategically handicapped. It turned out to be an insignificant sacrifice. Sure, there were many times I would have chosen to raise, but in almost all of those situations, calling instead was not a bad alternative. In fact, for that month, I sacrificed almost nothing.

Contrast this to the familiar tactic of routine small-blind raises that many employ. While small-blind mistakes involving just calling are few and inconsequential, mistakes involving raising at the wrong times can cost considerably.

Mike Caro poker adviceAnd what about in tournaments? Well, in proportional payoff tournaments, where the first place wins all the chips but only is paid a portion of the prize pool, it’s more important to survive into the money than to target every extra edge at increased risk. Since raising as the small blind is often a serious mistake in an everyday game, it’s even more egregious and costly in most tournaments.

POWER PLAY

What about the familiar power play when you reraise a late raiser in hopes of chasing away the blinds? Well, that’s a potent poker tactic, but it doesn’t compute when you’re the small blind. You should frequently use this daring reraise when you’re on the button (dealer position) and the player immediately to your right is the first raiser. Then you’re threatening to chase away both blinds and fight for the pot, including the dead money from forfeited blinds, against only the original raiser. Since you’ll act last throughout the betting, you sometimes don’t even need the expectation of the best hand to make this play profitable.

Fine. That power reraise works. But is doesn’t work when the button raises and you’re the small blind – a situation where the tactic is used equally often. You’re only trying to chase away the big blind, not the big and small blinds. So that’s less free money to fight over if you do succeed in getting heads up against the raiser. But more importantly, you’ll have the poorer position throughout all future rounds of betting, always acting first. This is just another example of when calling in the small blind is usually superior to raising.

My point isn’t that you should make it a strict rule never to raise as the small blind. Mt point is that if you did make it as a strict rule, you’d probably earn more money at Hold’em that typical players who blunder often by raising as the small blind. If you stubbornly decide never to raise, you’ll very seldom be making a big error.

The rare times you might regret not having raised are:
1. when the opponent in the big blind folds ridiculously too often, and
2. when you hold Aces or Kings and several opponents are already in the pot.
When the latter is the case, you should raise two or more players who have just called the big blind. And with those one-chance-in-110.5 pair of Aces or Kings, you should reraise whenever the first player to voluntarily enter the pot has raised and been called by one or more players. Note that it isn’t necessary to raise if the first voluntary player just called and someone else raises. If you reraise then, you’ll risk chasing away the original caller, in addition to the big blind. And you’ll lose the element of deception.

In all cases excluding 1 and 2 above, raising as the small blind is either unprofitable or about break even. That even includes any time you hold a pair of Queens or Ace-King suited. In fact, it isn’t always better to raise with Kings. You simply don’t need to raise with most hands, even big ones. Just calling and seeing what develops on the flop will often add extra deceptive value to your hand on future betting rounds. And, except when you hold Aces, it makes it easier to escape when you hate the flop.

PROOF

Whether it’s Limit or No Limit Hold’em, if you could monitor every small blind call ever made and every small blind raise ever made with identical hands, you could prove that the average call is more profitable. Of course you can’t do that, so you have no proof. But you have my word on it, which is almost the same as proof, anyway!

Mike Caro (The Mad Genius of Poker) 

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Recalculating the Average Stack

Phil Gordon Full Tilt Poker Pro

In a recent World Series of Poker circuit event that I played in, the nine-handed final table started with blinds of $10K – $20K, and there were roughly 3.5 million chips in play. Some quick division would tell you that the average stack was more than 350K, or about 18 big blinds. This simple calculation could lead you to some bad conclusions, however, because in fact most stacks were much shorter.

Phil Gordon professional poker playerWhen the final table started I had a chip stack of about 1.2 million or almost one-third of the chips in play. So the average among the rest of the table was a little over 250K, or approximately 13 big blinds.

As the chip leader, I would have played aggressively if most of the stacks had 18 or 20 big blinds. Players with those sort of stacks can afford to fold and wait for a decent spot, so I’d do well to raise frequently pre-flop while attempting to steal the blinds and antes. Against players who have 13 or fewer big blinds, however, that strategy won’t work.

Players with short stacks need to gamble and, if they pick up any kind of decent hand, they’re going to shove all in and hope to double up. Playing aggressively, I could find myself in some tough spots. For example, if I were to raise to 70K with some marginal stealing hand like A-10 or K-J, and then a short stack came over the top for 210K, I’d be getting two-to-one on my money to make the call. It would be tough to fold and I could end up doubling up a short stack with a hand I didn’t love.

At this final table, where the average stack among the other eight players was so short, my best strategy was to play extremely tight. I decided to play only top-quality starting hands while I waited for the short stacks to gamble with one another. Eventually the stacks would consolidate and we’d be left with five or six players who had decent stacks. At that point, I could get more aggressive and begin stealing from players who could afford to fold.

In the end, I got some big hands that didn’t hold up and I didn’t win the event. Still, by understanding that the true average stack was shorter than a quick calculation would initially have me believe, I was able to apply a strategy that gave me the best chance of coming out on top.

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