ITH Poker Forum

[Fenris78]

Ok, this one is about me looking for all kinds of general advice when playing live cash games. Really any advice is appreciated, so just ramble on.

I have only been playing live poker for 'real' money once before, so I have almost no experience. The Czech casino we are going to visit on friday usually spready NL200 and rarely higher games. Anyways I will sit in the NL200 game no matter what higher games are available, because I want to get used to live play before risking any serious money. From the first time I played there, I noticed that actually having to take money from your pocket and hand over 4 50€ bills to buy in or even rebuy feels a lot more real than just clicking some buttons and putting $1k on a virtual table. I definitely enjoyed playing live a lot, but I feel like there is a lot of room for me to improve my live game.

The game is usually 9 handed with standard blinds and rarely straddled. The players seem to be a mixed bunch with at least some guys who play online a bit from what I overheard, but no one seems to play higher than NL200 online, or higher than the standard sunday donkaments. These players are definitely solid but nothing great. Then we have some recreational players who seem to have seen a starting hand chart somewhere once but who play horribly post flop. Last there is always the odd drunken gambler or total fish who plays 100% of his hands preflop. All in all the competition seemed like a NL25-NL50 online game. The rake is brutal, 10% capped at $20, which is just ridiculous. But maybe we will go to another casino this time which offers better rake structure, gotta shop around the web a bit. Anyways I don't think this game will be hugely +EV, which is ok, because I am mostly going there to have fun (and free drinks and food). Because of the rake and the game being 9 handed I am playing pretty tight preflop, because I don't want to get involved with all the marginal stuff.

But since I still want to maximize my EV and maybe even grind out a small edge, I am happy about any advice from you B&M gamblers.

[nsidestrate]

I almost always find live poker to be more +EV than I think it will. I really enjoy the process of watching other players and find that I am much better able to make lay downs that I would never, ever make online.

[blah730235]

One thing you might have a problem with because I know I do is the difference between gathering information via reads v.s. a HUD. When I play online I take notes on off the wall hands. Something like a huge re-raise on the river type stuff. I don't particularly watch to see if some guy is playing ~10% VP$IP or 20% VP$IP my hud does that part of things. When you step onto the actual felt you need to do both.

The other night I'm sitting there with Q3o in the SB ~50bb effective stacks. Folds around to the button a tight-passive player that i've seen lay down TPLK to continued pressure. He limps. BB is tight as well. I raise it 4bbs. BB folds Button calls. Flop comes out AK2. At this point I realize I have no clue what to do. I know he's tighter (in the sense he doesn't play any two sooted) anywhere's from 10% - 30% VPIP. I have no idea what his Fold to Cbet % is. I know he might lay down A4 here to a 3 barrel but that's it.

What happened was I was in a spot I'd play fine online. I had my read that I could 3 barrel a lot so I had the turn/river play figured out. And would adjust my PFR range and cbet % around his VP, limp/fold pre, & FTC%. I know certain players I exploit online even oop because they limp/fold to much.

However live I have no clue what his VP and FTC is so I just went ahead and raised complete trash and cbet the flop. Then decided I was stupid for playing the hand and checked down the turn/river after the turn came up a K. Villain showed Q10 and took the pot.

Moral of the story watch your play when you go hudless.

[Fenris78]

Thanks, blah, but that's no problem, because I have never played with a HUD anyways

[mconstab]

Thanks, blah, but that's no problem, because I have never played with a HUD anyways

Really? I only use it for pre flop but still it comes in handy for that.

[Fenris78]

Thanks, blah, but that's no problem, because I have never played with a HUD anyways

Really? I only use it for pre flop but still it comes in handy for that.

Yeah it sure is handy for preflop stats, especially PF 3bet%. But playing without a HUD makes me feel like Luke Skywalker firing the torpedo without his aim computer

[blah730235]

But playing without a HUD makes me feel like Luke Skywalker firing the torpedo without his aim computer

I actually loled

[Fenris78]

Alright, so we went to the Czech republic on friday. I was designated driver, since I don't drink and play poker anyways (at least I try to avoid it). We arrived around half past 8 and found that the friday evening MTT just had started, which was cool, cause I wanted to play cash anyways. Unfortunately there weren't any cash game tables atm. Two of the others wanted to play poker too, while the others just wanted to gamble away at the roulette tables.

I approached the floorman, tipped him 5€ and said we were 3 guys looking for a cash game and he said, once we have 2 or 3 other guys he will start a table which will then be filled up with guys who bust from the tournament. We had to wait maybe 30min or so. After 1 hour there still wasn't anything going on and the floor manager wasn't to be found anymore. Meanwhile I talked to 3 other guys who were lurking around near the cash game tables and they too said, that the floorman wanted to open up a cash table as soon as possible. After having disappeared for an hour the floorman finally came back and said, he is so sorry, but they don't have a poker dealer available, because all 4 poker dealers where busy at the MTT (it's not a huge casino). But the rebuy phase ended some time ago and it can only be a matter of minutes until the first table breaks.

Eventually we had to wait for over 2 hours until we had a dealer available which really pissed me off a bit. Even worse was the fact that the dealer was an obnoxious jerk. He wasn't a regular casino employee I think, cause he was dressed more casual. Think he is one of those Germans who run the MTTs in the Czech casinos and then make money as cash game dealers when not needed anymore in the tournies. In fact it looks like they don't have any regular cash game dealers at the casino. The Czech dealers only know how to deal the casino types of poker like "Ultimate Holdem", which are annyoing as hell, and unbeatable anyways. So our dealer at least spoke perfect German, which was nice, but he didn't stop talking, which was unnerving. Even more annyoing were his comments on the game itself. He said things like "Yeah, I knew you'd check, you always check" or when my friend raised after playing really tight he said "Attention everybody, raise to 7€". He also made fun of my friend who never played live before and because of sitting left of the dealer (who was pretty broad shouldered) often missed his action, because he couldn't see the guy at his right. My friend didn't mind, but I found this untolerable. A dealer should be much more helpful when he has a new player on the table instead of ridiculing him, and he should never ever comment on the playing habits/style of any player at the table, let alone give away hints to certain players general tightness or passiveness or whatever. Not that it mattered much, but it's just terribly unprofessional. And when I didn't tip him after winning a small pot he made a couple of snippy remarks in my general direction. Luckily he was replaced by a very nice young lady after 2 hours. She wasn't as proficient, sometimes missing to return uncalled bets or not moving the button, but at least she was nice and made small talk with the table isntead of commenting on the game. The fact that the waitress didn't visit our room for over 1 hour also added to my general unhappiness with the casino. We left at 3am in the morning after 4 hours of play, which isn't really much, but at least I managed to grind out about 1 buy-in from one of the tables biggest fish.

Play in general was atrocious. The two worst players on the table who played about 80% of their hands talked most of the time, with one of them being particularly annoying. He announced the hands of all the other players all the time and generally thought he is the poker king. But he was by far the table fish. Of course, he sometimes was right, like when a limper bet into 4 players on a Q66r flop he correctly announced he had a pair of Qs. Thanks Captain Obivous, you truly got mad reading skillz. At least most players on the table obliged to show everyone their hands instead of mucking them to either prove Captain Obvious wrong or right. Obviously I never showed and he never even once got close to right when guessing my hands. Of course I nodded impressed as I mucked and said without any irony "Yeah, was it that obvious? Incredible, that's just what I had". The rest of the players were pretty bad too, playing too many hands, playing too passively and overplaying their hands in general. Going broke 100BB deep with AQo on A62r is just terrible. Since their always were many limpers, bluffing was completely pointless post flop and isolating preflop took a larger than normal raise. In the end, most of my profit came from a setup hand where I stacked the other fish with a rivered full house vs his turned flush. Maybe he could even have folded to my river raise as it was painfully obvious what I had, but luckily he didn't.

Most of the time I tried to pick up tells from the other players. I watched their eyes and hands, tried to pick up as much as possible from their table talk, only answering with more than one word to questions not about poker or strategy. But mostly I got the hand reading extremely correct by the betting patterns, because they were all really bad. One example where my friend got stacked: UTG raised and my friend and another guy cold-called. UTG checked a T76hh board and my friend bet about pot with his KK. UTG called relatively quickly and the 3rd guy folded. The turn was a non-heart 4. UTG now check-raised huge and my friend called, which was basically allin, because there was almost nothing left to bet anyways. At showdown UTG turned up AA unsurprisingly. I thought that he either flopped a set or had AA to begin with. People completely overvalue one pair hands as I said and everyone thinks AA is the nuts anyways. I told my friend that he probably should have folded to the turn check-raise because I don't see UTG doing this with a weak top pair or JJ. There were 1 or 2 players who can probably beat NL100 online, but the rest was just bad. So even with the brutal rake (10% capped at $15) the game looks very beatable. You can play super tight and nitty and just wait for that one big hand to double up. No one will notice you're a nit.

All in all, I enjoyed live poker, but it's not something I need to do every week. I get annoyed by stupid people far too easily and in live poker you can't mute the table chat. And there will always be an annoying guy at the table. Also, you can't watch porn while playing, which is another minus

[Scully]

I find the secret to playing live is to go out for more beers than your average elephant could stand up after, then decide it's a marvellous idea to pay about £25 in a taxi to get to the casino that is far enough away from home that I usually really can't be bothered making the journey.

Arrive, max out at the atm - continue drinking beers until well after the sun comes up and leave a couple of buyins richer. Even in an obscenely pissed state the games are easily beatable.

Order taxi home, tell driver you had a nightmare to stop him jacking up the fare on the way home. Ignore funny looks when you take out a wallet so jam full of notes it won't close. Arrive home and try to get in without waking Mrs Scully (a big ask at 9.30am).

I recall one Friday morning staggering through central Manchester around 8.30am with around £600 in my pocket (having arrived at the casino with about £200), trying to weave my way through all the people sipping their Starbucks on their way to the office and generally feeling pretty smug. I probably (and quite rightly) appeared to be a total degenerate bum

[simmo5050]

I love live poker. I've only played a couple of times, once ina game where I was a very short stacker with scared money and once in a £50 max buyin 25p/50p game that I loved.

The dealer then was shit, too and commenting on my tight play butI have a pretty thick skin and I stopped tipping him.

[Taardvark]

One thing you will generally find is that at the lower stakes live there is almost always 2-3 really soft spots. Anyone who is a halfway decent player should find these games +EV.

Most of the poorer players do little to disguise their hands so you should be able to figure out soon enough what bet sizes mean for big hands and what bet sizes mean for weaker hands.

You generally do not want to do a lot of bluffing. You really don't need to. The biggest key is figuring out bet sizing for value betting after the flop once you have them on the line.