live is so much harder

So recently I started playing live sit and go's, and compared to online, I do so much worse!
Basically, online I cash 73% of the time
Live, I cash 48% of the time
Does anyone find live so much harder also?
Why live its harder:
So much harder to observe tells, I socialize too much
Online I feel less intimidated to bluff, and play more fearless
Easier to calculate odds online
Easier to concentrate
How do I adapt to live and become a winning live player?

since i am the other way, better live than online. i think the main difference is online you are taking advantage of others mistakes where live you have to be a little more aggressive and try to force errors

I enjoy live more, especially if u get lucky enough to have a guy who's played online for a week and now thinks he's Daniel Negreanu at the table.

He'll tell you how you misplayed your hand and discuss ways u can better your play :banghead: Your only defense is to smash your fingers into your ears and scream. Hopefully he'll take the subtle hint to be quiet.

Live poker is summed up by the smell of the Casino I'm playing in, which is mostly Aspers in London, which is obviously totally different from online. If my house smelled like a Casino, I'd be majorly worried

A. online poker: My house smells like a mix of vanilla, lavender, bananas, the yellow lemon stuff I spray to make me think I'm in a Spanish lemon grove and not pollution filled London, along with a dash of smug satisfaction.

B. Live poker: Smells like BO, weird Venetian perfume stuff, cigarette drenched jackets, and fear

Although I really enjoy winning money then taking the 3 second trip from my chair to my bed rather than the 20 minute drive through parts of London I wouldn't feel safe in even with Tony Soprano beside me

I think live is much easier than online because you get a lot of "people off the street" that don't really know what the hell they are doing, whether in a SnG or cash games. There are a couple big reasons why many people will lose when switching from online to live though:

1. Boredom, you're not playing as many hands an hour, so you're rushing and overplaying hands that should have never made any further than looking at them once before they were in the muck. Use all of the other sensory information around you to keep you occupied while you wait for the hands you would play online.

2. Your tells - if you are still relatively new to live poker, you are probably giving some things off too. I am one of the people that is of the mindset that thinks that many people's talks about live tells is a bunch of bs, but what I look for is things like shaking hands, splashing the pot vs. putting them in nice, covering their face vs. not, etc. I don't really watch eyes or facial ticks and such.


Odds live imo are much easier because you have so much more time. Granted this is coming from a multi-tabler, but still, how much MORE time do you need than you get live?

ITM 48% of the time in a SNG is crushing! 78% ITM < I've never heard of!

Poker Orifice said:

ITM 48% of the time in a SNG is crushing! 78% ITM < I've never heard of!

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this lol
you are not a losing player live if you are ITM 48% of the time.

78% online?

A couple of differences are that its a lot more difficult pushing all you chips in rather than pressing a button. Also when playing online its easy just to re register to another tourney you cant always do that playing live, you only have one shot.

I've only played live 4 times in cash games what I struggle with the most is

1.) Keeping track of the POT since online its right there making it easier,

2.) I have bad eye sight and I don't have glasses or contacts I honestly would love to have LASIKS eye surgery but can't afford it, haivng bad eye sight makes it hard to see the community cards and read the others players not that I can't see them but I'm sure with better eye sight I'd be able to observe more IDK

3.) My opponents and my own chip stack!!! Online you can see the size of everyones chip stack easily but live its harder for me (again they eyes don't make it ne easier for me) Also my own stack its right there and would be easy for me to count but im inexperienced live so make the mistake often of not doing so

4.) Scared of looking dumb, online you make a mistake oh well they only know your screen name do it live and its much more embarrassing

5.) Live players tend to be much more (LAG) = (Loose and Aggressive) and won't fold a hand if their life depended on it... so if you play lloose try tighting up a bit to adjust to the tables playing style

6. you said it was an SNG online the blinds go up quickly since you get more hands more often and most the time SNGS are turbo timers making them go up even faster, so maybe your making a move earlier then you should thinking a good ammount of time has passed but since live the Blinds are slower your actually making the moves to fast...

I need contacts lol GL @ the tables

Poker Orifice said:

78% ITM < I've never heard of!

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I'm thinking DoN's maybe

It's still absurd even in DONs tbf.

Haven't played sit n gos live but cash games live are a lot easier. $1/2 live is so much easier if you are a decent micro stakes player online. There are so many people with some extra cash that don't play a lot of poker which makes live very profitable. You really just have to find the right people to play against. Playing on weekends is also a plus to get the rec players' money.

I find live games to be easier because of the amount of true fish that play. I live in south Florida and a lot of times people are on vacation and have never played anywhere but they've seen it on tv. God bless those people! True, there will be live sng pros but it evens out at least down here. My advice for live play would be to take your time, if it takes you a minute or two to add up the pot so what? Also, DO NOT watch the cards as they are turned over, instead watch others reactions to them. Other basic tells...lots of people actually stop breathing when they bluff. Look at the vein in peoples neck, if it suddenly starts pumping like crazy when they look at their cards or when the flop comes be wary. Last freebie, ask someone if they hit that flop, people usually look up and left when they lie. Ok, no more free tells! Good luck.

I have a question when I play live almost everyone there looks at their cards as soon as they get them which makes it difficult to observe them as they all look at their cards since I can't watch them all at the same time... What do you do in that situation?

I usually follow the cards as they're dealt.

Live play where I live is pretty much ridiculous. The level of play here would make a pokerstars 'Hubbles' (freeroll) seem like wsop $25k buyin.

S3mper said:

I have a question when I play live almost everyone there looks at their cards as soon as they get them which makes it difficult to observe them as they all look at their cards since I can't watch them all at the same time... What do you do in that situation?

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Watch the players who are your biggest targets and/or your biggest threat. If you're in the CO with an aggressive regular on the BTN, you should give priority to watching him as opposed to Passive Joe Clueless who is two seats to your right.

Obviously, the more players you observe, the better. But, if you have to miss some of them then make sure it's the ones that matter least.

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I originally started playing poker at live tables and just recently started playing online. I feel that online is much harder. I feel that you can pick on tells and subtle hints by being able to see them. Although I also think my live game play has improved with my more attention to betting patterns.

The sample size live will not compare to the volume you can attain playing online therefore live play will seem "harder". It's still the same game imo, just have to be lucky enough to catch some real bad players since you won't see no $5 sngs.

78% winrate. hmmmmm. how did you manage to do that?

vinylspiros said:

78% winrate. hmmmmm. how did you manage to do that?

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prob by playing the game of survivor, being super tight. or...depending on the players. alot of SNG's i play in, i can only play two hands with winning pots and sit out (not pushing the sit out button mind you) and let everyone else eliminate each other if its full of ALL IN donks.

as for the OP, i will agree with the one poster that said you're probably giving off tells. is this at a casino or home games. Home games there's no point in bluffing because everyone will call and play 90 percent of their hands.
I prefer live over online but since we have no casinos and not many low stake home tourneys around me i'm forced to go online..but i play those for fun. if i want to make money i prefer live because you can get so much more information but if it can be intimidating.

I always thought the whole nitty to start off with in a sit n go... then open up and bully once you have the advantage iz good enuff to get you in the money.

Depends if it's a single table or not.

studaddy420 said:

prob by playing the game of survivor, being super tight. or...depending on the players. alot of SNG's i play in, i can only play two hands with winning pots and sit out (not pushing the sit out button mind you) and let everyone else eliminate each other if its full of ALL IN donks.

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So you don't like winning, just making a min-cash? I love stealing constantly from people like you.

I think they're different in their own respect. Some people play better live, where some people play better online. I wouldn't necessarily say live is alot hard, more that you're better at online then live.

I started doing live tourney's this year, and once I got past the awkward first few games, where I did not know the game flow and live table etiquette, I realized that the games are mostly the same. It's just that I can now put a face to the fish, or the agro guy.

Trying to interpret faces , and get reads is fun. What they think they read on my face is also fun as I learn to try to confuse them.

From my perspective there is little difference in the game or gameplay. But a huge difference in the experience.

live poker is actually way easier to beat than online, but it is just different. If you play exactly how you do online and are a winning 25nl or 50nl then you will likely lose at first at live poker because you will give people much more credit than they deserve and also will have to adjust to the many multiway pots. But once some minor adjustments are made it is totally worth it and way more fun trying to pick up tells and such.