Live tournaments

[Checkshove16]

I perform really well in online mtt’s made 105k in 2-3 years of grinding micro-mid stakes and itm in most tourneys I play. But in live I seem to have a hard time cashing, the only tourneys I crush is the soft $20-$30 where the field is insanely easy, but on the weekends they have $115 tourneys with much bigger field and bigger prize pools, it seems to me I have a hard time building a big stack in live and making deep runs compared to online tournaments. What adjustment should I be making to start making deep runs in live tourneys also?

 

[bethqueen]

Live the trend is to be easier than online.
The point of live is to have the feeling of the game and pay attention to the tell's, as this is very easy to identify, whereas online is much more difficult.
The adaptation I do is to play very hard in the live, because precisely because it is a very recreational field in this range, people don't know very well what they are doing so I take advantage of the small opportunities.

 

[Niykk]

bluff and try to steal pots more often than online

 

[BetterThanAvgButNotByMuch]

There isn't any help playing live to help you identify opponents so you have to come up with ways to identify who you're playing. Online you have things that can look up someone's tourn history, HUDS to identify what they're doing right there in front of you and odds calculators and a list of aids to help you make decisions but not live. You would have to learn how to identify opponents without all that stuff and learn to play them accordingly. If you play live then you will have to gain experience playing folks to learn their tendencies. You can try to turn the game into a mathematical equation like some folks try to do but that might not work for some especially for folks that can't recognize "calling station" Nancy and "only bets the nuts" nick.

I can watch one orbit whether its online or live and have a good idea of what type of player you are (usually less), what strategy you're trying, a range, what your poker bankroll roll is by the buyin and how you play (unless you're coming down from where you normally play). I mean there is so much information out there that you can learn by watching people but a lot of folks let all those online aids do it for them, which is silly.

But if you can do something well then maybe you shouldn't waste your time trying to do something else and just focus on something you're already good at. That's what a lot of successful poker players do anyway. They'll specialize in heads up, MTTs, SNGs, cash games, non holdem games etc. The payouts live aren't generally as good as online and many folks have said before on this site, depending on the live tourn, registration could last A LOT LONGER than a normal online tourns so you would be spending a lot of time in a casino playing a game you don't normally play and for a harder payout structure and it could prevent you from playing something you already have an edge in, lol.

So continue working on your online MTTs and become better at those. If you can make living or close to it online and you're consistent winner then try to improve your game so you can move up in limits and focus on doing that over multiple YEARS, like more than a decade or more.

If you still want to go the live way I would again, tell you work on your observation skills. If you're not in a hand then watch the players for their tendencies and ask simple non specific questions like "I missed that last hand, what did you have?" And if they use specific poker terminology like "oh i had Queens up and they had top pair/middle pair" or I hit my wheel draw etc then that might tell you that they've been around the game instead of someone that's just walking into a casino for the first time. So listen to how they talk about hands is my point. There is a whole list of stuff you can get to know from experience but you're going to sacrifice time and profits doing something you have an edge at to mess around with that stuff.

GL

 

[Checkshove16]

There isn't any help playing live to help you identify opponents so you have to come up with ways to identify who you're playing. Online you have things that can look up someone's tourn history, HUDS to identify what they're doing right there in front of you and odds calculators and a list of aids to help you make decisions but not live. You would have to learn how to identify opponents without all that stuff and learn to play them accordingly. If you play live then you will have to gain experience playing folks to learn their tendencies. You can try to turn the game into a mathematical equation like some folks try to do but that might not work for some especially for folks that can't recognize "calling station" Nancy and "only bets the nuts" nick.

I can watch one orbit whether its online or live and have a good idea of what type of player you are (usually less), what strategy you're trying, a range, what your poker bankroll roll is by the buyin and how you play (unless you're coming down from where you normally play). I mean there is so much information out there that you can learn by watching people but a lot of folks let all those online aids do it for them, which is silly.

But if you can do something well then maybe you shouldn't waste your time trying to do something else and just focus on something you're already good at. That's what a lot of successful poker players do anyway. They'll specialize in heads up, MTTs, SNGs, cash games, non holdem games etc. The payouts live aren't generally as good as online and many folks have said before on this site, depending on the live tourn, registration could last A LOT LONGER than a normal online tourns so you would be spending a lot of time in a casino playing a game you don't normally play and for a harder payout structure and it could prevent you from playing something you already have an edge in, lol.

So continue working on your online MTTs and become better at those. If you can make living or close to it online and you're consistent winner then try to improve your game so you can move up in limits and focus on doing that over multiple YEARS, like more than a decade or more.

If you still want to go the live way I would again, tell you work on your observation skills. If you're not in a hand then watch the players for their tendencies and ask simple non specific questions like "I missed that last hand, what did you have?" And if they use specific poker terminology like "oh i had Queens up and they had top pair/middle pair" or I hit my wheel draw etc then that might tell you that they've been around the game instead of someone that's just walking into a casino for the first time. So listen to how they talk about hands is my point. There is a whole list of stuff you can get to know from experience but you're going to sacrifice time and profits doing something you have an edge at to mess around with that stuff.

GL

Thank you so much for this! I know it’s good to stick to either online or live, but there are so many bad recs where I play and it just reopened and I played 3 big tournaments (every Saturday) and came just short from final table every time, and funny enough I just finished 5th of 1k in a 33 bounty tourney online. I’m able to pick up on player tendencies and I play with the same players a lot so I know how most play. The thing I struggle with is calculating my stack in BB’s and how much I will iso raise when there are multiple limpers. Also I really do enjoy playing live which is why I want to get back into it.