Live poker is easy
Took a day off the online grind yesterday and went down to Niagara Falls for the day with my friend Wpalango for an afternoon/evening/early morning of live action. I hadn't played live in about a year so I was actually pretty excited even though the last time I played live I went busto and wanted to murder every live player in existence.
As soon as I sat down, I immediately felt much more comfortable with my game than I did before. When I went before, the majority of my poker experience was in SNG's and MTT's and I realize now how much that affected my cash game. I was the walking (sitting?) definition of a tourney donk and was probably only a break even player even against the terrible competition that is live poker.
My plan was to just play super solid and tight for an hour or so, get a read on the table and then start opening up. I pretty much stuck to this plan to my surprise, and didn't get bored or restless at all. It's a pretty strange thing. When playing online, if I don't play the maximum number of tables that I can process I start getting bored and all fancy play syndromey, trying to make too many moves on people and ultimately tilting because they never work. But live, for some reason I was able to curb my boredom and not start playing every hand and trying to win every pot even though we are playing about 10 hands per hour.
I was basically very surprised that I remained patient. Take this hand for example. I had folded probably every hand preflop for over an hour, after getting dealt J5 and T3 repeatedly. I finally get AK, raise it up with a few limpers, obviously get 4 callers despite my obvious tightness, hit an ace on the flop and bet / fold to a check raise. Obviously I "had a read" but I honestly couldn't believe I went with it. I mean, here I am having not won a pot in 1.5 hours and I finally hit a huge hand and I fold.
But the thing is, live players, especially the shitty ones at my table, are so fucking passive that any sign of strength like this can be taken to the bank as the nuts. If any man over 50 check raises you, and you don't have the nuts, you fold. Its quite simple - old men suck at poker. They have no aggression left in their body and probably don't feel that semi-bluffing and the like are the "right" way to play poker. This theory is supported by the fact that every time a "stupid young kid" takes down a pot showing a marginal hand and a lot of strength, old men at the table let out a collective eye-rolling and sighing to show their disdain for their lack of respect for the game. So they continue to wait for the nuts, "knowing" that when they hit they will get paid off by these over-aggressive young kids, disregarding the fact that anyone paying attention will insta fold to any bet they make.
Anyways, my table was about 80% of this type yesterday. So it was pretty easy for me to lag it up a bit and take a lot of pots off them. And even despite my aggression they would still make ridiculous laydowns to me and show. For example, I raise a few limpers with T8s and get 2 callers. Flop comes T high and its checked to me, and I obviously bet. Old passive dude is last to act and folds his QQ face up, saying "well you either have tens, jacks, queens, kings or aces, and I only beat one of those". I mean get a fucking clue dude. I've raised every limped pot in position for the past 5 hours and you are still putting me on a monster? He even made a comment to me on one J high flop that the only way I hit that flop is if I had JJ because otherwise I would *never* raise preflop with any hand that had a jack in it. Uh, ok. Keep giving me that respect plz.
I would later bust him.
Nothing super spectacular happened in the 12~ hours I was there. I didn't really bother to make any crazy bluffs, since it was hard to put these passive dudes on hands that they would fold once they've check/called the flop, so usually I would just give up and take the free cards they offered.
My first big hand came when I had doubled my stack to around $1000 (oh btw I was playing 5/5 NL with $500 buyin). I had JJ on the button and raised a few limpers up to $50 preflop (lol 10xbb raises). 2 players obviously call and the flop comes 747 with 2 spades. It's checked to me and I have to bet, so I $110 into the middle. A young kid, younger than me in the blinds calls me fairly quickly as does the old passive dude. At this point I'm already done with the hand. Before the turn is dealt I'm thinking in my head, "without a jack hitting I'm not putting another $1 into the pot". Well who do you think stops by on the turn? Oh yes, a fucking beautiful jack. Again they check to me and I bet $200 because no one can read bet sizes live and the young kid in the blinds goes all in for $800 more and then the passive dude calls. I obviously call. The kid shows 67 and the other guy has the ace high flush draw. No 7 on the river and I take down a sick pot over $2k. Definitely my biggest pot ever since I don't even play 2/4 online.
After that I go on a crazy rush. I have jacks again in early position facing an UTG limper. I raise it to $35 and everyone folds to the limper who then mini raises me to $80. He has like $700 behind so I call because he is old and obviously has aces. I obviously hit a jack on the flop and I insta push over his continuation bet. He actually thinks for a good 2-3 minutes before calling, flips over kings and I win. The best thing about live poker is people don't seem to consider bet sizes at all. They just decide if they have the best hand or not and call any bet. After the hand hes all, "OFMG how do u call my raise preflop??". I can't help but laugh at his ignorance, but I don't say anything but sorry. I did feel kind of bad for the guy because he had obviously waited all night to "trap" me and then that happens. But hey, try not sucking at poker?
2 hands later I'm UTG with 54s and I figure since my image right now is pretty sick after showing down the nuts 2 hands for massive pots I decide to raise for fun. 4 callers see the flop which is obviously 236 rainbow. I can't help but laugh at this point. The same guy I stacked with the kings 2 hands ago had rebought and leads out into me for $125. I smooth call his bet, not wanting to raise yet because there are 3 players yet to act. One other player calls and the turn brings a T. Old passive dude checks, I bet $300 and both fold, with the old passive guy showing 36. I'm like WTF?? I ask him what he put me on and he says "Aces, but I know you'll draw out". I LOL again and scoop another sizable pot.
It was getting fairly late at this point and I tired and hungry so I decided to cash out and leave. The total damage was +$2500 which was a nice end to a mediocre August for me. As I was cashing out one of the old dudes takes me aside and says to me "now don't do what most young guys do after their first big win and blow it thinking that its always this easy". Yes sir I will keep your advice in my heart for all my future poker playing days. Good thing he was there to keep me grounded.
The funny thing is I probably played maybe like 300 hands in my 12 hours live, which is just a ridiculous winrate. If I had stayed home and played for 12 hours I would have probably played about 5k hands, maybe more. So while live is fun and a nice change of pace to the online grind, its still way way below the expectation of income that online poker provides, even considering the ridiculously horrible players that play live. So I will probably go back eventually but it won't be a regular occurrence.
As soon as I sat down, I immediately felt much more comfortable with my game than I did before. When I went before, the majority of my poker experience was in SNG's and MTT's and I realize now how much that affected my cash game. I was the walking (sitting?) definition of a tourney donk and was probably only a break even player even against the terrible competition that is live poker.
My plan was to just play super solid and tight for an hour or so, get a read on the table and then start opening up. I pretty much stuck to this plan to my surprise, and didn't get bored or restless at all. It's a pretty strange thing. When playing online, if I don't play the maximum number of tables that I can process I start getting bored and all fancy play syndromey, trying to make too many moves on people and ultimately tilting because they never work. But live, for some reason I was able to curb my boredom and not start playing every hand and trying to win every pot even though we are playing about 10 hands per hour.
I was basically very surprised that I remained patient. Take this hand for example. I had folded probably every hand preflop for over an hour, after getting dealt J5 and T3 repeatedly. I finally get AK, raise it up with a few limpers, obviously get 4 callers despite my obvious tightness, hit an ace on the flop and bet / fold to a check raise. Obviously I "had a read" but I honestly couldn't believe I went with it. I mean, here I am having not won a pot in 1.5 hours and I finally hit a huge hand and I fold.
But the thing is, live players, especially the shitty ones at my table, are so fucking passive that any sign of strength like this can be taken to the bank as the nuts. If any man over 50 check raises you, and you don't have the nuts, you fold. Its quite simple - old men suck at poker. They have no aggression left in their body and probably don't feel that semi-bluffing and the like are the "right" way to play poker. This theory is supported by the fact that every time a "stupid young kid" takes down a pot showing a marginal hand and a lot of strength, old men at the table let out a collective eye-rolling and sighing to show their disdain for their lack of respect for the game. So they continue to wait for the nuts, "knowing" that when they hit they will get paid off by these over-aggressive young kids, disregarding the fact that anyone paying attention will insta fold to any bet they make.
Anyways, my table was about 80% of this type yesterday. So it was pretty easy for me to lag it up a bit and take a lot of pots off them. And even despite my aggression they would still make ridiculous laydowns to me and show. For example, I raise a few limpers with T8s and get 2 callers. Flop comes T high and its checked to me, and I obviously bet. Old passive dude is last to act and folds his QQ face up, saying "well you either have tens, jacks, queens, kings or aces, and I only beat one of those". I mean get a fucking clue dude. I've raised every limped pot in position for the past 5 hours and you are still putting me on a monster? He even made a comment to me on one J high flop that the only way I hit that flop is if I had JJ because otherwise I would *never* raise preflop with any hand that had a jack in it. Uh, ok. Keep giving me that respect plz.
I would later bust him.
Nothing super spectacular happened in the 12~ hours I was there. I didn't really bother to make any crazy bluffs, since it was hard to put these passive dudes on hands that they would fold once they've check/called the flop, so usually I would just give up and take the free cards they offered.
My first big hand came when I had doubled my stack to around $1000 (oh btw I was playing 5/5 NL with $500 buyin). I had JJ on the button and raised a few limpers up to $50 preflop (lol 10xbb raises). 2 players obviously call and the flop comes 747 with 2 spades. It's checked to me and I have to bet, so I $110 into the middle. A young kid, younger than me in the blinds calls me fairly quickly as does the old passive dude. At this point I'm already done with the hand. Before the turn is dealt I'm thinking in my head, "without a jack hitting I'm not putting another $1 into the pot". Well who do you think stops by on the turn? Oh yes, a fucking beautiful jack. Again they check to me and I bet $200 because no one can read bet sizes live and the young kid in the blinds goes all in for $800 more and then the passive dude calls. I obviously call. The kid shows 67 and the other guy has the ace high flush draw. No 7 on the river and I take down a sick pot over $2k. Definitely my biggest pot ever since I don't even play 2/4 online.
After that I go on a crazy rush. I have jacks again in early position facing an UTG limper. I raise it to $35 and everyone folds to the limper who then mini raises me to $80. He has like $700 behind so I call because he is old and obviously has aces. I obviously hit a jack on the flop and I insta push over his continuation bet. He actually thinks for a good 2-3 minutes before calling, flips over kings and I win. The best thing about live poker is people don't seem to consider bet sizes at all. They just decide if they have the best hand or not and call any bet. After the hand hes all, "OFMG how do u call my raise preflop??". I can't help but laugh at his ignorance, but I don't say anything but sorry. I did feel kind of bad for the guy because he had obviously waited all night to "trap" me and then that happens. But hey, try not sucking at poker?
2 hands later I'm UTG with 54s and I figure since my image right now is pretty sick after showing down the nuts 2 hands for massive pots I decide to raise for fun. 4 callers see the flop which is obviously 236 rainbow. I can't help but laugh at this point. The same guy I stacked with the kings 2 hands ago had rebought and leads out into me for $125. I smooth call his bet, not wanting to raise yet because there are 3 players yet to act. One other player calls and the turn brings a T. Old passive dude checks, I bet $300 and both fold, with the old passive guy showing 36. I'm like WTF?? I ask him what he put me on and he says "Aces, but I know you'll draw out". I LOL again and scoop another sizable pot.
It was getting fairly late at this point and I tired and hungry so I decided to cash out and leave. The total damage was +$2500 which was a nice end to a mediocre August for me. As I was cashing out one of the old dudes takes me aside and says to me "now don't do what most young guys do after their first big win and blow it thinking that its always this easy". Yes sir I will keep your advice in my heart for all my future poker playing days. Good thing he was there to keep me grounded.
The funny thing is I probably played maybe like 300 hands in my 12 hours live, which is just a ridiculous winrate. If I had stayed home and played for 12 hours I would have probably played about 5k hands, maybe more. So while live is fun and a nice change of pace to the online grind, its still way way below the expectation of income that online poker provides, even considering the ridiculously horrible players that play live. So I will probably go back eventually but it won't be a regular occurrence.
posted by RikkiDee at 8:25 AM
2 Comments:
yeah man it has to be a regular occurrence! we gotta go a hell of a lot more!
wp
so fuckin awesome
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