I never win in live games

Originally posted by michaelqian
Hi all,

What are your strategy for live games? Do you play exactly as you do online?

I'm a very decent online player at small stakes, i.e. under NL10. I am continuously profitable over the long term. I understand all the basic concepts like pot odds, implied odds, position, bet / raise sizes, starting hand etc, blind steal etc......

Yet when I play live, I never win.

Been to 3 live games with friends and I always crash out somewhere in the middle, total 6 - 8 people.

Even though I can say with 100% confidence those people don't have 5% of the skills I have, they play absolutely rubbish, a few of them even need a cheat sheet that tells them which hand is better than which.

Any advice on this?

Thanks a lot

See it now?

i know that feeling... playing sitngo's with tards and loosing... just dont bluff, bet big when you have it and thats it xD... if you cant outplay a donk they you are a donk

You cannot judge anything short term on 3 live games. You need to play 50+ games and then analyse how you have done over that time.

Obviously you are a more experienced player who will make better decisions and better plays time and time again, and long term you will be far more profitable. But the way poker goes you could get knocked out early 10 times in a row, through no fault of your own. That's the game and it happens, as long as you have the correct mentality and mindset and you know you make the right play and can justify, you cannot be results orientated and you can not let bad beats bother you. It is pointless.

So rationalise your decisions, calculate your odds, try and put some kind of analysis and read on your opponents no matter how fishy they are and most importantly be happy with your game, if you make a bad play just learn from it.

Mother fing tell me about it! I've played against people who are playing their first ever real money game in their life and came in last before, although it was usually due to an unlucky river or something like this. You basically have to realise that skill is not as much of the game as you always beleived, cmon how many times have you seen stupid fish with a huge stack on a real table, luck happens.

2 things I have worked out that really helped me though:

These guys are unbelievably gullible! When I have a really nice hand, i just take time calling their bets and pretend Im really thinking about if I should call it or not, and EVERY single time they take the bait and I end up with their whole stack.

The other thing is they are so bad you shouldnt make marginal decisions even if they are +ev. Because you will always have more, BETTER chances.. like the one above I just mentioned. Wait for those monster hands and then take huge pots with ease. And play it like a cheesy hollywood actor and they will fall for it every single time

read my (needs to be updated) blog

also live game is 3 times slower than online so it takes ages for variance to even.
just be patient and play solid.