Aggression in Live Small Stakes NLHE in Europe (Berlin)

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ThoughtsOuttaSeason

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I've been playing online micros about a year (.10/.25 for the past few months). From what I've read, live small stakes games ($1/$2) should bring roughly equivalent players to what I'm used to. I've also read many places that live games at this level tend to be very passive. So I went out to the Spielbank Casino at Potsdamerplatz in Berlin on a Saturday night thinking I'd be up against some limping tourists. But, man, that was not the case at all. I sat at a 2/2 euro table (the lowest stake in the house) and brought a full stack of 200. But the raises and reraises were so aggressive that 200 basically gave me the chance to play only a couple of reasonably good hands beyond the turn. I'd have pretty much been forced to shove any hand playing passed the turn! Whereas online I feel like a standard opening raise will be between 3 and 5 bb, here they were minimum 8. Is this normal? Is the passive live play I've read about an American phenomenon only?
 
Jillychemung

Jillychemung

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Live games run the gamet from nitty passive to wild loose. There is no one generality that fits. The game you described is one that you have to have a 10-12 BI bankroll and be prepared for the variance. If you haven't played in a $1/$2/$25/$200 live game (what my local game is like sometimes) before it can be very intimidating.
 
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ThoughtsOuttaSeason

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Thanks for the informaiton @Jillychemung. Does anyone else have experience with this? And does anyone know of a place to play poker in Berlin (or Europe for that matter) where there is a BI limit? I'm definitely not interested in loosing my whole bank roll in a few hands.
 
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jsh169

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I'm guessing you haven't played much live, the more you play the more you will see. You will run across crazy games, nit/chop fold games, and ok games, just know it only takes one person to change a table dynamic. If it is to volatile for your bankroll I would get a table change. The most important feature of a table are the players, of course cards are important, but you should want to win as much as possible.
 
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ThoughtsOuttaSeason

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I was wondering if short stacking a table like this wouldn't be a good strategy.I mean generally I'm opposed to short stacking. But I also feel like its kind of dirty to play a low stakes tables with massively deep stacks. So if people wanna play that way, well I could get just as dirty in the other direction, folding everything except 7% of hands from cutoff or button and always shoving.
 
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ThoughtsOuttaSeason

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I mean I'd much prefer to play at a standardly stacked table, but not sure that exists in Berlin casinos
 
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