Live poker

[lunarphase]

It might be a very limited sample but I'm 0 for 4 in live mtts and I just feel their very frustrating.They take many times longer than any online tourney and it drives me absolutely crazy waiting for a hand when I get short. My last 2 bustouts at the foxwoods june megastack I think were a bit impatient but without anything else to occupy my mind I take those marginal spots and hope for the best. In the $300 100K on monday I lost a 40 bb flip when opened AK in cutoff btn flatted and the sb who was an older gentleman I'd guess in his early 50's jammed JJ I iso and the btn folded. I know its hard to fathom ever folding AK in that spot and my call was fairly std but its hard to imagine him ever showing up with worst. Thanks to that hit and short stack torture I found myself in the cutoff again with around 19 bbs and raised to somewhere around 2.2x with 1010 again the same guy 3b but this time he made it look very strong making it around 3x my open again another spot where online this is a very clear jam but knowing who I'm up against I think I can find a fold as played he flipped KK and I wound up bricking a massive draw on turn to bust. I think this is where my impatience really got the best of me since I'm used to playing 6 tables on merge atm and am used to playing with fairly agg players online I try to use the same rational I would online. What really kills me is seeing so few hands an hour live. Today I was in a $120 10K mega stack with a much faster structure I got moved to a new table and was getting completely raped by rags I found myself with 12 bbs in mp with again an older man in his early 50's opening I decided to 3b jam my KQ and ran into QQ again online this is a std shove against a fast player but this guy opening in mp is obv not going to be lght.
I decided that in the future I'm going to play live again but its only going to be on occasion like every 2 months and not more than 3 in a week. Also I will play with a very patient and thought out approach where I'm going to properly identify older men as nits b/c lets face it 95% of the time they are and I need to make sure to treat them that way. Another thought I have as silly as it sounds especially when I'm short is to pop out a 3ds or psp and play some other games to help take my mind off my frustration.
My next live play will probably be in august either at the foxwoods mega stack again or out west for legends of poker prelims. I'm torn b/c I'm not sure what my financial situation will look like and the 11a est for the better mega stack events is so dirt early its a big turn off but with if the november 9 is going to be there like last yr that might be a motivating factor.
One last note I doubt I will ever play any live cash games there's just too many perk's to playing online with more tables,rakeback and the vip system. It sucks not playing fully rolled on merge but it sure in hell beats attempting to play live cash.

[lunarphase]

Sorry about the big wall of text did a copy and paste out of my blog feel free to reply with any thoughts

[BAGELBEAR]

I've never been known to sugar coat how I feel.
Those "older men" sure got your number pretty quick.

AND YOU MOST CERTAINLY HAVE COME ACROSS AS THE NIT

Debby

[lunarphase]

wat ?????????

[JoeShowdown]

I can't really comment on the live mtt scene as the only one I played this year was a 1k satty at bay 101 to the wpt shooting stars 10k buyin. Still remember the hand that busted me as I flopped a set of 444 on 4kt board. I called their preflop raise and flop bet. Turn was an ace. They bet again. I figure him for aceking or a cbet with aq or aj that is happy to bet with top pair. I just call the turn bet. River is a 3 and the board has no flushes and only someone with 25 makes a straight. They bet and I jam and run into their AA which turned the top set. If I raised the flop they would most likely have stacked off and I'd have gotten the money in good only to have my hopes deflated on the turn.

You should start playing live cash games. The games are good and the cashouts are easy lol. I been playing about 3 times a week since early May just no limit 123 buyin 300 max and doing very well. I won 2500 in May and 1800 this month. Meanwhile I lost my 500 bux on carbon, 80 bux on gr88, 35 bux on pokerhost, and 300 on feltstars playing their jackpot tables. I'm fed up with online poker and disgusted with the amount of money I have on fulltilt. I was stupid not to withdraw since last summer. Built up to 15k thanks to rush poker, private mtts, a couple 2k scores, rakeback, bonuses, etc.

[kardmania]

There are benefits that are granted to live players as well; you are not going to earn them by showing up and busting out.

I am quite certain that you will do fine playing live. Watch your tells and be patient.

[lunarphase]

The closest casino to my home is a 2 hour drive I'm just going to stick to playing live tournies on occasion. Sure its nice to be able to get your money right away when you win the problem is to crack a live score it can take many attempts and since live tournies are much more expensive that online it can get costly in a hurry. As an example there have been a few occasions where I've gone 25 online mtts in a row without a cash with an avg buy in of around $25 which adds up to $625 now say u were on this kind of cold streak live where your spending $200 abi now your spending 5K spending 3 times longer and only single tabling in the process. This is a huge reason why I'm only going to view live tournies as shots with a hope for a big score. Joe I mentioned in my first post that with rakeback multi tabling and vip points its just not worth playing live cash if your any good online. I'm not saying your not good at all since big downswings do happen to the best of us. My next live events will be in august and I don't plan on playing more than 2 events that week that way I keep my potential loss small and hopefully will lead to me playing more patiently.

[jsawe]

understand having gone from multiple MMT's online to a single live game - the "action" is not the same. You have invested time and money and if knocked out can not just scroll down and select the next tourney. This is part of the adjustment to live games. Patience is a critical component of good live games, but so is understanding how to use the time. You seem to be watching betting patterns, but are you picking up tells. Caro and Navarro's books are good starts but it takes hours sometimes to pick up a clear tell - for example - I had to watch Chris Ferguson in about six tourneys to pick up his massive tell when he has a premium hand. Here is a simple means test for live games - cash or tourneys - if you are not mentally exhausted at the end of the day you aren't playing your A game. It takes determined concentration to notice small peculiarities in a given player's movements (tells) - it may be as subtle as how the player places his or her fingers in relation to cards, a slight shift of a shoulder, or an automatic gesture, but we all have them. Lunar - you have repeatedly shown all your other fundamentals are sound - this is just other skill set to master. As a final note - you can still do it all perfectly and lose to a donk playing crap and getting lucky.

[UIIIU]

ya live tournies in the casino are interesting to say the least. The play for one is a lot worse in the lower buy ins of between like 50 and 100 which are usually the lowest mtts you will find. So with this said all the amateurs who dont regularly attend the casino will be playing these games simply because there are no lower stakes. Online there are much lower game levels so beginners are usually all spread out on the micro stakes. So you are getting all different types of people playing these tournies. You have the people who are on vacation who can afford to play these games for a couple of days, then you have the regs who are playing everyday, but do not have the skill to build up to higher levels or are just praying on the tourist type people. Then you have the young guns usually pretty familiar with the game whether they have played online or just a lot of home games. These three groups of players all are capable of producing solid players, but profiling early seems to be your best bet. Untill proven otherwise I fit the tourist group in the passive category, regs in the rock category, and young guns agressive (unless they are new), if it's there first day playing poker they probably will be just firing random chips around, if it's there first week they will probably blind away in the corner. Categorizing can be difficult, you have to look for the small things such as people having to be asked for there player cards, confused on seating, etc. are the people who usually are new to the casino or possibly there on vacation. The comfortable people who usually know people whether it's the dealers or other players are dead give aways for regs. Then the young guns I find a lot of the times come with groups of people. Younger looking people alone and comfortable I would take caution.

I am not saying younger people are naturally better than older people, but you have to realize a lot of the older regs are retired and have found poker as a source of entertainment. If you find a young looking reg you have to ask yourself what is he doing for work? If he's here everyday wouldn't this have to be the main source of his income. Well that's all the insight I have and watch out for those dam passive tourists they seem to be the ones to always get me The ability to limp JJ 20 minutes into a tourny from UTG and check every community card when the board is all unders including the river is baffling to me

I have to stress one more time I would only use this for profiling before even a hand is dealt. Once the hands start building up the information should start flowing and you can confirm or alter your initial perceptions of the players at the table. Obviously physically observing players tendencies is important, but your main focus should be betting patterns.

I might add 0 for 4 is nothing to worry about even for live standards, it's simply frustrating because your driving 2 hrs for a single game which is more than likely taking up your entire day. Gives you too much time to think about it on your way home, take it for what it is 4 tournies, variation with 4 tournies is through the roof. I would say when you go to foxwoods or mohegan stay the entire day. If you bust out of a tourny just play some 1/2nl cash or like a 60 buck sng half the people dont know there ass from their elbow playing those stakes. Or just switch casinos they are literally like 10 mins from eachother. Bust out of a tourny in one go to the other one. Mohegan much smaller but its still worth it to check it out to see if they have any decent games going