Live VS. Online

"poker is a game of skill" - that is true, but mostly for live poker, and hardly for online poker.

online poker is, at best, a game "with" skill, because total donks can, and do, win a lot of money online. therefore skill is helpful but not a requirement for winning poker.

sure a donk can win live games also, but he will naturally provide easy, even subtle reads to more experienced opponents.

i recommend to anyone struggling online to give a shot at live games.
i say this because a week or 2 ago i got fed up with online crap and went to AC over the weekend. i sort of donked my first day but the next day i tripled my total bankroll. some guy shoved on me when i had middle 2 pair. online i probably would have folded easy. but when i stared him down i saw a bit of nervousness, i called and took down the pot.

I came back home and made a deposit online, feeling good, and the online BS isnt over. its not rigged, but online there are donks-a-plenty, and its harder to read them for the donks they are. for every good hand you have, there is always a donk to call and deliver a bad beat.
they say online you see more bad beats because you play more hands more quickly. yea, thats true, but online it seems people are more willing to shove hoping for a suck out, or maybe they misread you. either way, it seems there are too many donks online(at least at low levels).

if your struggling, try live. i havent played much but it didnt take too long to get a good grasp on it, and i played extremely well once i did. i wasnt even hot, i played smart and patient and it was very enjoyable, even when i didnt win hands.

Blikbleek,

one trip to AC and a weekend of playing online is not enough time to make assumptions about poker venues.

To properly evaluate you have to look at 100K's of hands at a minimum

"Generally" I believe it is accepted that Live play is much looser than online but it depends on where you are playing and the stakes you play at. Either way you really dont have the # of hands required in this post to state these arguments.

Also, if there are more donks online then that is a good thing. My recommendation is figure out how to adjust your play to these online "donks" and exploit them for trying to draw out on you.

Good luck

i am very well aware of that. and im not making assumptions about the venue. i still suck at poker but the point im trying to make is that i see skill being more valuable in live poker. a much wider range of skills can be used live rather than online.

and about exploiting donkey moves..... its really a double edged sword... at least from my experience.
for example when you flop a set and you know your opponent is a donk... you wanna extract the most chips right? so why not go all in or make an enormous raise? i do that and then i lose... A LOT. skills can be used in poker but there is still enough variance that bad runs can last quite a while.

i once flopped a full house queens full of tens. i went all in immediately. my opponent calls with queen-ace and river ace. I was mad as hell but of course this is normal poker. bad beats happen. and thats my point. from my experience, trying to get the most out of my monsters has completely backfired.
from bad beats to dumb mistakes, i find that i would rather build up skills where it is more valuable. LIVE

online play is much much tougher than live play. NL5 is equivalent or better than NL200 live.

I have to agree that live poker probably rewards a skilled (conservative) player more handsomely than online, but the key is to note the differences in play and adjust to the environment. Online also gives you the means to be more creative without the increased risk of being read.

IMO it is a hard comparison to make although you are not the first to suggest a difference in skill. However, I believe the difference in skill to be in list not in easy/hardness. There are some skills which can assist a player in being proficient at both (knowing odds/pot odds, fast calculations, knowing positional strengths... etc) however there are other skills to master when becoming a truly great live player. The aforementioned skill of reading an opponent's body language being one such example. So here is your out... quit arguing of which is harder and agree that they are in fact different games altogether. Just as table tennis and outdoor tennis are different games of the same nature.

Stix

[quote=LombardiStix;1776657]IMO it is a hard comparison to make although you are not the first to suggest a difference in skill. However, I believe the difference in skill to be in list not in easy/hardness. There are some skills which can assist a player in being proficient at both (knowing odds/pot odds, fast calculations, knowing positional strengths... etc) however there are other skills to master when becoming a truly great live player. The aforementioned skill of reading an opponent's body language being one such example. So here is your out... quit arguing of which is harder and agree that they are in fact different games altogether. Just as table tennis and outdoor tennis are different games of the same nature.


I believe you are correct in saying a different type of skill is needed playing live as there is so many different reads you can get, and when playing on-line, you only have betting patterns to make your decisions on

Yes I think most people can agree that they are different games and as such different skill sets help influence success and failure but there is a lot of cross over. The aggressiveness is very different, along with the stack and Bank Roll needed, and also the variance live vs online is huge.


So far for me I have had a lot more success online than live. I believe the cause of this is mostly due to variance and the dollar amounts that are needed to play live.


Online I actually made a nice few thousand profit last year (in 2010 about 500k hands or so) and was on my way again this year (over 300K before black Friday)... Live I have only been able to play maybe 70+hrs for a total of under 5k hands.... But my buy-in is more as online it was only $20 max, live it is $100 min. So my buy in has gone up while my ability to see hands as gone down (5K hands was done during a weekend for me online). For me Live I have had some good sessions but I had one bad week of coolers which led to tilt and am down 5 buy-ins. because of the few # of hands I see live it makes it so I have to invest more time to make up those buy-ins than I did online and I have more money available live.


So I guess my point is that Live play I think there is a lot more room for variance and tilt due to your # of hands and Bank roll vs online. This is simply because of how the two games are designed. So before you go running to a casino because you have not played well online and live games are softer realize this about the different game.


I generally agree that live is a softer game than online and that they put emphasis on different skillsets while having a set of common skills as well. Just feel that because of the few # of hands you see and the higher rake and higher buy-in, it is much easier to run hot or cold than it is online (compounded when you multi-table online).

If you cant beat donks online then what makes you think you can beat them live? Im not sure what stakes your playing online but you should be seeking out donks, not complaining about them.

Live play is very weak compared to the same stake online. Its £200NL in my local casinos and they play more like 5NL online..but varience will sting.

When I drop a buy in playing 25NL online while multitabling its no big deal (because im well rolled for it). But to get unlucky and lose £200 would be oucha.

Live pros - Very weak games for the stake (200NL)
- Social experience

Live cons - Varience will hurt
- Additional costs. Travel, drinks, tips for dealer etc
- Boredom (when your used to multitabling)