Local live game tonight...

[Talking Poker]

I'm headed out to play in a local live NL cash game for the first time in a long, long time... Like, easily a year and a half and maybe more like 2 years. It's a $2/$5 NL game, and they rake a lot.

I fully intend to crush these guys, but you never know. You can only get so many hands in per hour when one tabling live poker.

Results later.

[eejit101]

gl. last time u went it cancelled. Hope you didnt tell anyone you were coming this time

[Talking Poker]

It sucked, as I expected. It was a GREAT game, meaning lots of money to be won, but of course my recent ridiculous bad luck was in full force. I ended up dropping $1000 total and then calling it a night. If I had taken more money with me, I would have had to stay.

There were 2 decent players (one I would consider good, and one was ok), and that was it. There was one semi-maniac (I don't remember EVER IN MY LIFE seeing someone check raise a guy all in on the flop, get called and instantly MUCK his cards without even seeing the turn and river!!!), there were a couple of super loose passive guys, and the rest were just you usual loose tards. This was a game I would crush in the logn run.

Naturally, I hardly had any playable hands, and when I did get involved in a big hand, I was sucked out on. For example, I got all in with A3 on an A63 flop vs AJ (the exact hand I put him on) and he turned a Jack. The kicker for me was the last hand of the night. I raised with AK. The flop came AQT (2 diamonds), I bet, and I got raised enough to pot commit me if I called. I talked to the guy for a minute and finally put him on QJ. I pushed, he called and turned up QJ. The turn was a K and the river was a brick. Gotta love it.

Live poker is so slow. And smokey.

[Talking Poker]

Oh... and the germs - my God, the germs! It will be a miracle if I don't get sick after playing with those sniffling, sneezing, coughing bastards all night.

[lightfungus]

At least they will invite you back now

[Zybomb]

live games are the best

[Talking Poker]

Sure, if you feel like killing time or drinking with a bunch of obnoxious morons or whatever...

If you want to make some money, on the other hand, online play is FAR superior in (almost) every way. Yes, you lose the ability to look your opponent in the eye and to talk to him, but that is BY FAR made up for by all the other advantages of playing online...

[2Tone]

I love live poker. One two punch of the felony law here and the demise of Party means I’m playing almost exclusively live games, and enjoying them more than I ever did playing online.

It’s not as profitable. As that recent great thread on limit poker pointed out, limit is a game of making fractions of bets, and tipping the dealer definitely eats into profit. And an occasional $25 splash pot hardly makes up for those reloads I miss so much.

But at the end of the day, I like the social aspect of it, the feel of chips in my fingers, the rituals of tapping the felt to check. I’m in front of a computer all day in an office – that’s work. Being in a casino, sipping on a free drink, bullshitting with the guy next to me – that’s play.

It also helps that WA card room are smoke-free.

[Aequitas58]

Agree, but I just hate low-limit live tournament structures, especially the freezeouts.

[Dodoubled]

I, too, much prefer live games. And TP, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you've made significantly more money live than online ... but that's a results-oriented conclusion ...

More to the point, though. I suppose if you consider poker to be your primary source of income, and your mortgage and grocery money depends on how much you win at the table, then yeah, online's the way to go -- just for sheer volume. But unless I'm playing for something significant (i.e. a major payout or seat to a major tournament), I'm going to trade the four-tabling for a chance to feel cards and chips in my hand any day of the week.

[Talking Poker]

I tend to play better live, and especially in tourneys. But for cash games, it's the sheer volume thing that gets me. If I can EASILY play 5+ tables online of 6 max NL, that's 500 hands per hour. Live, you're lucky to get 40 hands per hours in, and last night, I bet it was more like 30. Factor in the drive time, waiting for the game to get going, etc, and I was gone from my house for almost 6 hours and saw maybe 150 hands. I could have gotten in more hands than that here in a half an hour! Had I played 5 hours online, I could have gotten in 2500 hands! Even if you round that way, way, way down to 1500 (maybe I was only 3 tabling or didn't feel like playing that long), that's still 10 times as many hands as I got in last night. So even if my win rate is TWICE as high live as it is online (it's not), it's still 5 times more profitable for me to play online that live.

And don't even get me started on the rake.

[Zybomb]

whats your rake system there? Like I said all the rooms around here rake $5 every half hour, and dont rke individual pots with the exception of $1 for every pot over $10 which goes to a bad beat jackpot (If Aces full of Kings or better loses)

[Talking Poker]

It's a joke. Feep in mind that some of the players last night were saying how much OTHER GAMES rake compared to these guys. And these guys take 10% on average, usually up to $10 per pot. In the old days, I used to watch them pretty much steal and take $15+, but they seem to be a little better about it now. The best part is, they deal their own game, and everyone is tipping them on TOP of the rake!!! *sigh*

The keep it in one column of the tray, so you can look over and see it at any time. I kept an eye on it last night, and it actually wasn't THAT bad, but it's still ridiculous. I remember calculating in the old days that they could take in $1500-2000 in one night, if the game went really long (like until noon the next day), which happened frequently. $200 per hour was no problem... I'd say they were closer to $100 per hour (maybe $125) last night... I forgot to take a look right before I left.