No live poker......

[clynd99]

Missed the last regional due to West Brom"s cup exploits, and have just figured out I will also be missing the final regional due to the All Tomorrows Parties festival in Minehead next month!

This is ultimately distressing because without APAT regionals (and the one national I managed to play in), I think live poker is ultimately crap, and I shouldn"t play it.
I"m a night worker, and enjoy spending wkends with my lady, so my chances to get out are limited to the times I get off work where I can play the earlier starting afternoon games. Normally, this is at Walsall grosvenor, in £5 rebuys, and £20 or £30 double chance freezeouts.
But they are rubbish. Absolute rubbish. I cant help but feel that the whole structure and basis of these tournaments is to completely eliminate real poker of any kind, to take the play out in place of a hot injection of filthy, sticky gamble.
But to think about it, this makes sense from the casinos point of view. They don"t want poker players coming through the doors, do they? They want gamblers who would take their winnings from the poker tables and place them directly onto lucky7 on a roulette table.
The starting stacks are tiny, and after an hour the blinds rocket at eye watering speed. To make matters worse alot of the players you come up against don"t really know much about the game, which is fine I suppose, but I think that it can restrict your play against them somewhat.
I recently went to DTD to check it out for a £50 f/o, and although it was much better organised than most tourneys I"ve played in, I still found the starting stack and then the running antes a bit restricting.

So here are the questions:

1) Am I just a pants live player? I do quite well online and figure I have decent understanding of the game.

2) Because I don"t find live poker profitable, should I just not do it?

3) One thing that has crossed my mind is to leave the £5/£20/£50 tourneys well alone and concentrate the times I choose to play live onto a little more travel for larger buy-in tourneys. Sort of £100-£300 freezouts, where the play will be considered more, the tournaments structured better and the starting stacks larger. Could there be something in this?

Despite it all, I tell myself I need to keep playing live, and so will probably be at the Walsall £30 dble chance f/o tomorrow afternoon, even though it"s unlikely I will enjoy it.

[hi_am_chris]

I find that in most casinos live players are generally worse than players even at low limits online. My live game is truly horrible but because my understanding of the game is better than most players in local live tournys i still do well

[AMRN]

If I"m honest, I"m just crap at reading people around a table, and reckon I can be read like a book myself - I am probably so full of tells........ BUT, I do OK live simply by playing a logical game based on maths...... exactly the same as online.

I do OK live and financially am well ahead, but my live stats pale into insignificance next to my online stats. 

For me, playing live is a fun outing, but online is where I make my money.

[tumblet]

clynd.. not sure what is on nowdays, but I played in the Broadway on a Saturday night, it had a £30 Double Chance freezeout (6000 chips) and I though it had a good structure.

Apart from that, im probably the same as AMRN.. I enjoy the live game more, its more about the fun of meeting people and trying to outwit them with a little bit of poker inbetween..
Structures are different everywhere 9/10 and its just a case of having to adapt to them, or get used to them. Im sure the next time you play DTD, you will feel a little more at ease knowing that it will be a quicker structure..

Whatever you do, dont give up on live poker..!! When that first win comes along, no better feeling than it.

[StuartHopkin]

Dont give up!
Live poker is soooo much easier than online.
If you think the standard of your opponents is low then just play tight and they wont notice and still pay you off.
If its a quick structure then you just have to adapt.

Ive been playing for 3 years now and ABC poker works fine 95% of the time because everyone else at the table has little or no patience, all think they are the best player there and most have no idea about position or bet sizes.

Final point would be that although the starting stack at DTD may seem small, its actually huge when you include the 75/150 and double 100/200 levels! Its the equivelant of playing with about 15,000 at a normal casino!

[deanp27]

because you can only live poker at certain times etc and online you can play loads of MTTs in one night, even if you have a significant edge getting that big win can take time.

stick at it and the feeling of getting deep in a tournament when it does happen will be that much sweeter

[smileriraq]

outside of a few live game with friends ive only ever played 2 live tournaments

I won one (admittedly it was free to enter ) but I wanted to practice my live play and while the standard wasnt high there was enough people there who knew what they were doing

the 2econd one i paid £20 with 78 players in and i came 4th
like others have mentioned stay tight watch peoples styles and you should go fairly deep

[AMRN]

not sure what is on nowdays, but I played in the Broadway on a Saturday night, it had a £30 Double Chance freezeout

Scouse - let me know next time you"re playing that one.... will look out for you. I usually go maybe once a month

[Swinebag]

not sure what is on nowdays, but I played in the Broadway on a Saturday night, it had a £30 Double Chance freezeout

Scouse - let me know next time you"re playing that one.... will look out for you. I usually go maybe once a month

I"m at the broadway on saturday playing in a pub poker final. I"ll be playing in the DC when I bust out of that.

[tumblet]

not sure what is on nowdays, but I played in the Broadway on a Saturday night, it had a £30 Double Chance freezeout

Scouse - let me know next time you"re playing that one.... will look out for you. I usually go maybe once a month

Will do, I played it as I happen to be down in or around Brum on a Sat night.. Im sure I will be again one.

[clynd99]

I ended up going heads-up in the £30 dble chancer at Walsall yesterday before chopping it for £300 a piece. It was my first live cash in a small field of 25 or so, top 3 made the money.

Winning the money is the main thing, and results are important, but I still didn"t feel like I was really playing poker until the half hour we had heads-up. Hi_am_chris said he thinks that live casino players are generally worse than low level internet players and I completely agree for the most part, which is why I don"t think I"m enjoying myself too much. In a strange way, I"d rather be testing myself against good players.

I will continue to play live when I get chance, it"s good to get out and I think in future I will perhaps be more selective with games I play, and maybe travel for games with a larger buy-in. But give me fast paced, mathematically astute, clever internet poker over casino crapshoots every time........

[hi_am_chris]

I think the reason ur possibly not enjoying live poker too much is due to the poor structures at most casinos. Because of the structures (Bradford gala- 2000 chips, 2 rebuys and an add on, blinds start at 50 - 100 for half an hour then 100 -200 for half an hour before blind levels drop to 15 minutes) you cant really play much poker. If u make a move on someone who is probably going to call you with top pair no kicker and worse you have to risk a huge percentage of your chips, in the game i play any raise you make your risking a 5th of your chips. I find that i have to play super tight, wait for a big hand and hope it holds and maybe then start playing poker. Online you usually start with enough chips so that you can make a move on someone and if it fails you have enough chips to still play poker. The positives about playing live are you probably have a big edge over most of the field especially if u can build a big stack early, the banter and also a chance to work on reducing tells you give out and feeling comfortable playing live before u play bigger buy in live games.

[HaworthBantam]

Hi_am_chris said he thinks that live casino players are generally worse than low level internet players and I completely agree for the most part, which is why I don"t think I"m enjoying myself too much. In a strange way, I"d rather be testing myself against good players.

Chris is correct, the problem is that good players are not likely to play in the poor structured games that most casinos churn out.

Chris quoted the structure at Gala in Bradford, which I have experience of. I"ve also experienced the even poorer structure at Napoleans in Bradford - Been to both of these casinos to play their tournaments just once each, and I"ll never go back, it may as well be Bingo.

With the introduction of APAT, and it"s well structured events, it"s now becoming clear just how badly poker players are catered for. Ok, so if you"ve got the bank roll then the EPT, WPT, WSOP are within your grasp, but what do the rest of us have to meet our live needs ? In short, pretty much nothing, at least nothing you could call "real" poker.

The only shining light on the horizon is DTD, but without more venues like this is the situation likely to improve ? Will "our" voice ever be heard, or even listened to, by the existing casino chains....?

Anyway, apologies for going off topic slightly, soapbox now put away.  

[biffa85]

I play once a week at my local Circus casino on a Tuesday night they have have £20 tourny starting at 9pm 8000chips starting, 20 min clock.

A gem in a the rough, the standard of play is extremely loose early and raises can be called in 3-5 spots, but even so, great fun and good crowd.