Winning live but not online...

C

chrisash

Rising Star
Bronze Level
Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Total posts
23
Chips
0
Looking for some general advice here, folks. Basically I've been playing online and with friends for a few years - I was pretty much breaking even, but tended to win more against friends than I did online. Fair enough, I must have been getting to know my friends and how they play.

About 6 months ago I started playing live in local casinos around here. I've consistently been placing final table, winning cash prizes, and making a pretty substantial profit. However my online record is still as poor as ever. Example: Out of about 40 online MTTs, I've only won 2 cash prizes. Conversely, out of about 20 live MTT games, I've placed final table around 10 times. The live tournaments tend to have much higher buy ins (£20-100/$40-200 as opposed to $5-30 for online), and less players (30-80 live, 200+ online).

I would have thought I'd be a pretty poor live player - I don't join in the table banter, don't really read people - heck, I'm even too nervous to make eye contact when pushing against someone or calling a perceived bluff... I just play a mathematical game both online and off.

Is it just the case that players are better online? More players in tournaments making it harder? What kind of skills do I need to be honing to improve my online game? At this rate I might have to give up my online playing...
 
heatfan03

heatfan03

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Feb 22, 2007
Total posts
646
Chips
0
well one thing that may be the problem is the lower buy in. With a lower buy in you will see more donks and get rivered more often. i can only suggest that you play tighter online than live as this will lower your chances of bad beats. ie raise more with less hands than less with more hands)
 
aliengenius

aliengenius

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jul 7, 2006
Total posts
4,596
Chips
0
Alan Schoonmaker has an entire chapter dedicated to this very topic in his book "Your Worst Poker Enemy" (see my review in "General").
 
amygrantfan

amygrantfan

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Total posts
301
Chips
0
i think it's a totally different game online and live. when i play with friends, i also do much better than online. i don't htink it's the buyin. because i play quarter limit usually or a $5 no limit buy in live. small dollars. but i htink online you get the crazies who will call anything, or go all in on nothing, or hang in til the river even with really bad pot odds. i've tried to adjust my style and notice that i play much differently online, and then i do better. but the weird thing is, whenever i win an online tournament, or play online often, i notice that when i go back to live playing, i do much worse than my average.
 
U

unlucky79

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Sep 22, 2007
Total posts
208
Chips
0
i agree more donks online with lower buy ins. Sometimes its hard to take online games serious due to the whole real factor. Playing live and getting good reads is priceless compared to hearing the same chip raise noise coming at you over and over again along with some crazy all in maniacs.
 
D

DP_Machine

Enthusiast
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 14, 2007
Total posts
74
Chips
0
Re: Winning Live but not online

I've been encountering a very similar problem myself. I find myself more comfortable when I'm at a casino or even just playing with friends. I've been trying to isolate factors that could be a cause. I do agree that I play much lower limits than I do online (5/10 FLHE or 1/2 NL in a casino but .10/.25 NL online or $5 / $10 SnG). Yet, I don't think the lower limit and higher chances of running into donks is the major factor.

For me, I think it's also being impatient when I'm at an online table. I'm much more used to being at a live table and chatting it up. I'm also a part-time dealer on the side for corporate and private functions so I spend more time at a real table as well and enjoy that setting more. So, possibly it could also be a concentration thing and trying to go for too much too fast and not waiting for the right moments. It could also be that I lose concentration since there are a lot of distractions for me at home.

Or it could be some other factor that I haven't clued into yet. It doesn't really matter which site I'm on. I spend the vast majority of my time on PokerRoom but do go to other sites including UB. Yet, my results are still less than ideal and obviously worse than my online game.
 
aliengenius

aliengenius

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jul 7, 2006
Total posts
4,596
Chips
0
First things first: more donks do not make you lose. It might increase your variance, but playing against poor player is not going to turn you from a winning player to a losing player.

Let's look at some reasons why you might win live, but not online:

1. You are not really a winning player live. Yes, it's very possible that you misremember the amount of your wins live, unless you are disciplined enough to keep a detailed log of your live play. Pretty basic human psychology to tend to forget your loses and remember your wins. You "forget" your trips to the ATM and all those tournament sessions where you didn't cash live. Online, you can't lie to yourself: your account balance is right there in black and white, and making another deposit often involves a bit of effort that isn't easily forgotten.

Also, your live game sample may not be big enough to determine if you are a winning player yet. Statements like "I usually cash in 2 out of 3 tournaments I play live" are clearly ridiculous. This is a short term run of good luck, as not even the best players in the world can make a claim like this. But if you have only played about ten tournaments it's not out of the question that a positive variance like this could occur.

2. Live players are actually worse than online players. This has been my experience at least: $1/$2 NL live plays like one cent/two cent online. As for tournaments, if you are not doing research and seeking out a good structure, most live tournaments are much more luck contingent do to small starting stacks and fast blind levels. Without a doubt there is a higher percentage of good players online that you are likely to encounter as opposed to playing live. Your local cardroom might have a few expert players, but it's likely that you don't cross paths that often due to shear numbers, or simply them playing at different stakes than you. Not so online: there are a lot more players who know what they are doing, and that you are likely to encounter, even at the lowest stakes.

3. Less "distraction" live. You are pretty much constantly reminded that you are playing poker, where as on the computer you have different distractions like e-mail, cardschat (!), etc. Live has it's own distractions, sure (Venetian cocktail waitresses anyone :D?) but the point is that you are not going to lose your main focus of actually playing poker. There is a very clear line about "what you are doing" when you are at a cardroom: playing poker. Online, this isn't the case, as you can be multitasking to your detriment. While doing several things at once can help some people and prevent them from playing too loosely due to boredom, it can have a negative effect on others.

4. Lower stakes online. You might not take the game as seriously, or play to your "A" level if you are only playing a $5 tournament as opposed to buying in live for $120.

5. Extra removal from the actual money. It's been said that the guy who invented gambling was smart, but the guy who invented chips was a genius (or something similar to that effect). Betting is a lot easier for most people if you are putting in little pieces of round plastic as opposed to hundred dollar bills. It's similar to it being easier to overspend with a credit card as opposed to forking over cash. Online has an even further removal for the reality of it being money. This can be a positive aspect with regard to poker and making +EV decisions of course, but it can go the other way as well for some people.

6. Different skills are needed playing online. It's beyond the scope of this topic to innumerate them all here, but clearly ou have to give up things like physical "tells" skills (overrated anyway, imo), and have better statistical analysis ability when playing online. I think that most people will make a lot bigger deal of this than they should. Patter recognition (in opponents betting), both live and online, is going to give you more information more often about the strength of someones hand than seeing them twist their oreo a certain way.

7. Failure to make the strategic adjustments necessary. Your opponents play differently online than they do live. Again, it's probably beyond the scope of this topic to get into all the specific ways this occurs, suffice to say that you need adjust your game to compensate for this.

And finally:
8. You're not a winning player period. Play is much faster online, and you are able to see so many more hands or play so many more tournaments in a short period of time, that it becomes clear a lot more quickly if you are a winning player of not. Your mistakes are magnified since you will be making them far more often. In other words, playing online gets you into the long run faster, where a more accurate assessment of your skill can be seen. It takes a lot of different skill sets to win at poker, including patter recognition, logical/analytic mind, willingness to continue to study/learn/improve, discipline, etc., etc., etc., and a lot of people just are not going to have the ability or time to be winning players.
 
Organize a Home Poker Game
Top