Online v. B&M Poker
Hey all,
I'm curious to see if there's a preference for online or B&M Casino play. I was talking to a friend of mine at my nephew's birthday party who used to play online poker but stopped. He didn't like how he can easily run into a hot streak and then just as easy run REALLY BAD. I tended to agree with him, citing that the variance is too high and you need to be disciplined and have a sustainable bankroll to fight through both extremes. I don't play too much online poker as of late, I only play nowadays to clear my bonus for Canadian players @ PokerRoom since its time limited. I use that extra bonus to work on why I can't seem to do translate success that I have in a B&M Casino, which is pretty consistent in Niagara, Rama or Blue Heron if I want to play FLHE. I usually play pretty solid, patient and TAG poker and can find people to prey when I sit in a casino, but then I just can't seem to find my stride when I sit in front of my laptop.
Any thoughts about the difference b/w online and live play or insight on how to improve my online play would be greatly appreciated!
I'm curious to see if there's a preference for online or B&M Casino play. I was talking to a friend of mine at my nephew's birthday party who used to play online poker but stopped. He didn't like how he can easily run into a hot streak and then just as easy run REALLY BAD. I tended to agree with him, citing that the variance is too high and you need to be disciplined and have a sustainable bankroll to fight through both extremes. I don't play too much online poker as of late, I only play nowadays to clear my bonus for Canadian players @ PokerRoom since its time limited. I use that extra bonus to work on why I can't seem to do translate success that I have in a B&M Casino, which is pretty consistent in Niagara, Rama or Blue Heron if I want to play FLHE. I usually play pretty solid, patient and TAG poker and can find people to prey when I sit in a casino, but then I just can't seem to find my stride when I sit in front of my laptop.
Any thoughts about the difference b/w online and live play or insight on how to improve my online play would be greatly appreciated!
Comments
But at my heart I'm a people person, I like the interaction with other players, the feel of the chips and the sounds of the poker room.
So my preference is to play live, however I'm often forced to play online for convenience reasons.
My thoughts regarding variance are almost the exact opposite of yours and here is why:
I played about 2500 hands of cash this weekend (4 tabling online). The first 1800 hands I dropped about 4 buy-ins, I lost a ton of medium sized pots and 2 big ones.
2 big pots I lost were AA vs KK and set over set.
So many medium sized pots where I had TPTK type hands that I bet for value on 2 or 3 streets only to have some station river a set with his under pair or hit 2 pair after calling the whole way with his weaker kicker.
I did tilt off one stack during this period but in reviewing my play it was mostly solid. Just a run of variance.
Now convert this to live play. If you have this same run at the B&M at 1 table and 30 hands per hour. You need to play 60 hours to get through it. 60 HOURS!!!! Having patience through a bad run at the B&M is more than most can handle.
P.S. – This is just an example. You could run bad for a stretch 20 times longer than this.
Tournament wise if I could only play 1 tourney at a time, it would definately be live.
Online for me is more like a video game, since I don't play for big money. It's something to do to kill some time when the wife is away, or I want some time to myself.
I prefer live games.
I can play live well but suck on-line.
I find I can pick up a lot of information live that I can not get on-line or get people to do what I want in person that I can't have them do in on-line.
- In any game with a rake, the majority will be net losers. Net losers will have a breaking point, where they are no longer willing to continue to lose or cannot get any more money. Many net losers can play for a very long time at clubs and casinos before reaching this breaking point. Online, due to faster hands and non-stop tournaments, these players reach their threshold and often quit much faster.
- It has become much more inconvenient to deposit and withdraw money at online sites. While most poker players overestimate how well they're doing since they don't keep complete records, it is harder to maintain this illusion online. A bad player cannot escape the fact that his $1,000 bankroll is all gone from his online account and he may not be willing to deposit any more money.
-There are proportionally less -EV "whales" or ATMs online than in a comparable B&M setting. Online, net losers are bankrupted or pushed back down to lower limits much faster because they reach the "long run" more quickly.
I have been told that there are now a lot less American fish :fish: online, so there is a higher proportion of professionals and cheaters. Players that used to be net winners online have now joined the majority of net losers. While I have been trained on how to look for the numerous ways people can try to cheat at B&M casinos, I will be at a big disadvantage against Absolute Poker, TheVoid and thousands of other cheaters online, where the numerous cheating methods are harder to detect.
For the small minority of highest-skilled sharks, they can have a higher win rate at B&M, but since they can win by playing up to 10 times as many hands for the same number of hours by multi-tabling, they will make more money playing online. Making money at poker is essentially a volume business, and the top of the poker food chain can get the most volume online. Similar to the rake vs. session fee choice, the very best players can maximize their profit by playing online or with a session fee, while the rest of us would be better off with a rake at a B&M.
In summary, online play is generally tougher than corresponding play in a B&M. For most recreational players, they are better off playing at B&M and will lose less money.
Your looking on the wrong sites
Sorry couldn't resist.
Online I consider myself to be more of a positional player, picking my battles....trying to pick off short stacks things like that, thats why I like MTT, instead of 1 table SNG's.
I try to stick to my game regardless of what I'm playing. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard not to turn into a donkey.
I haven't gone to a casino in about 8mths but do play an informal home game with buddies. The last few times I've sat at my friends house and constantly thought to myself "omfg, this is so slow...I'd much rather multi table online". If it weren't for the social aspect of getting out for a boys night out, I would entirely skip the game.
I'll make a trip to Fallsview this holiday season but my guess is the hands per hour will be so low that most get impatient when going thru a cold deck and that makes live cash play more profitable.
1. First, there are the myriad of online deposit and playing bonuses, made possible by lower operating costs and greater competition. For example, lets say you deposit 200.00 through Poker Source Online and NO I'm not promoting anything, just explaining that they will pay you 100.00 just to play. Then there's the 200.00 first deposit bonus. Then there are freerolls generated for singing up to both PSO and the site to win more money. Then there are the bonus points of the site. Thats a lot of Bonuses! On Bonuses alone, I've made about 2000 this year and I don't really play that high stakes.
2. Online, you have more table selection. Period. Usually you get seated at a live casino and have no choice where you sit. Online I can wait for a good time to get into a game. Maybe I'll find a Maniac playing. I have waited online. There are fewer Maniacs now than there used to be, but there are still some.
3. Tells. Most players, especially newer ones give off more tells than they can catch. Sure there are online tells regarding betting speed. But I say that, eventually, physical tells and mannerisms are simply more reliable than betting amounts and betting speed.
Despite all of this I do play live sometimes and I do think there is a higher % of poorly skilled live players. Not that there aren't some bad online players but as a % there are fewer. I also like to meet people live.
I'm a little confused why #3 is a benefit to playing online, if tells are easier to catch live.
In terms of #1, I guess with the hampering of depositing, I had more or less assumed that bonuses had dried up a lot. Maybe not for the lowest limits I guess, but the hassle of depositing for a $25 bonus doesn't interest me in the slightest. It certainly isn't the days where you could kill the monthly Party bonus for like $200-300 in a few hourse at $1-2 as a new player and pad the BR considerably (win or lose).
#2 is true. There is better table selection online. However, the fact that there are more tables doesn't necessarily mean they're better games. You can wait 10-15 min for tables online and get seated in a selection of games that is terrible, bad, not terrible and mediocre (and by mediocre, I mean 8 tags 2-3 of which aren't great, and one semi-loose passive).
Live I have no problem waiting 1-2 hours for a game because it will range (generally) anywhere from easily beatable to downright awful. The fact you have little selection is irrelevant, because just about any live game you find will be so much weaker than any "good" online game, you can't really go wrong.
At least that's my perspective.
It was because he said that most players *give out* more tells than they can read from other players.
Echinos
That makes live poker better for some of us.
and makes online better for those that give rather than receive
In regards to bonus even if they aren't as lucrative as they were before, they still outweight live comp points big time.
In regards to table selection even if all the tables on that network are dry, you can close and open up a new program within secs. In live games, even in vegas, its at least a 15min walk to the next stop.
But only 5 min to the next hooker.
Where do you go with games that weak? I admit I don't go to Niagara falls too often but I have definitely sat down at some solid tables in Niagara. Not that good but not worth the extra 1 hour drive just to play. Plus you experience the main problem of live poker -drag. It takes longer to win because hands are dealt slower.
You seem like a good player..stay away from the online tables:)
#1. The ambiance of a b&m cannot be replicated online. I love playing with my poker chips whereas online I can only scratch my balls.
#2. Social interaction at a b&m is usually quite civil compared to some of the crap that I have read online. In October I was at the Borgata and was able to talk baseball, football and hockey with a bunch of guys from Philly over an 8hr session. Online the best you can hope for is reading pickup lines from Roscoe in Tuscaloosa as he tries to woo Daisy Mae from Mobile, Alabama.
#3. I love playing an 8hr session at a casino. With 3 kids at home there is no way that I will ever play even a 4hr session online.
#4. With the game being played at a slower pace at a b&m I find it easier to pick up on the betting patterns of the other players. Online players seem to come and go so quickly that I pretty much am only able to pick up these patterns in 2-3 players.
Brantford. I'm a limit guy, so I can't really comment on NL.
True dat.
If your fundamentals are that strong and your reads are in the top 5-10% of B&M players than you must make quite a profit playing live. Am I correct in this assumption?
1st, I used those #s as an example as I said. They were for me to show that my reads give me a bigger edge at the B&M than online. There is no way for me to know if my fundamentals are better than 75% & my reads are better than 90-95%.
You would be correct in saying I make quite a profit live, however my sample size is only 75 casino sessions x 5 hrs on avg, $500 buy-in (2/5 NL @ Rama, 5/5 NL @ FV). Before that I was playing a rake-free home game of $1/2 NL which has since died down. Most would say 75 sessions x 5 hr isn't enough data, I agree with them.
I don't think my success has to do with playing well, but that the casino has a very soft game. 4 out of the 5 home game players I used to play with are long-term winners @ the casino (but again, limited in sample size).