which is better, live games or online?

[sokrates]

just w0ndering..

[PepeSmith]

Online di ka ma Tuadles....

[Vin]

Online! Because of convenience and multi-tabling.

[11Finger]

In what sense ? win rate ? fun ? I think in terms of making money online is tougher but that is "negated" by the fact you can multi table, table select and get rakeback. Whereas live is easier and more social.

[welcoat]

Online di ka ma Tuadles....

That is unfortunate and isolated SITUATION due to wrong choice of location and/or crowd and maybe even words. Definitely it should be live for the social amusement of gaming, or gambling as sometimes you lose too.  What's going to happen to society if every one thinks playing online alone in a room is the way to  make money?  Inevitably, only the best will survive and continue to do it, and ultimately only the really best will want to come out and play LIVE either on table or online for public performance to get the glory and the money without any aids nor cheats.  This is where the new breed of ElkY, durrrr and many others shall come from.

[Mark D.Hazzard]

For the game, live is best for me. Although my logical and rational brain favors the online game, as evidenced by my small increasing profits in my online BR, I very much enjoy the social aspect of poker live. Who wouldn't want to be known as the next FPT champ? Sure, multi-tabling profits are nice to look at on the screen, but I'd say I like the shake of the hand with a busted opponent and the cheers of the railbird friends slightly more.

Besides, why is poker so popular now here? TV tournaments! I wouldn't have gotten into it were it not for WPT. And where else can you dream of getting a BMW in a tournament? Unless someone opens a locally-based poker gaming website.

[panulay]

para saken, live din.. although i like playing online also since you dont have to wear pants! or take a bath.. hehe! but i rather play live. why u ask?! one word -- caro. u get me?!

[sokrates]

caro?newbie here.

[toybits]

mike caro wrote a book about tells, there's also "read em and reap" by an ex-agent and endorsed by Phil Hellmuth

[boy_laban]

Live games would be better but if u r working in an office like call center etc u can play online by those times.... An advantage on online poker would be the enhancement of ur reading abilities cause u will be able to know whats the range of ur hand and the there are the usual set ups.... Dalas kc s online parati ngtatapat hand or pag mganda hand mo may mgnda din so u can easily read if he hits a set etc etc... Then eventually minsan nuts on the flop ka then a paired board would come on the turn or another higher nuts would come on the next card so this would be an advantage at live then u will know when u are beat... Advantage on live would be u can see the tells by their moves facial expressions movements on the hand by the shuffling of the chips and so on.. Well up to u kung san ka mas comfortable good luck

[joeybhoy]

LIVE GAMES!!!!!

[RedAirkson]

live more fun, online more profitable.

define "fun"?  if tonight's big ace tourney was online, welcoat and i (and papajeks) would not have had such glorious eye candy to feast on during the game.  i am willing to bet a testicle (not mine) that not one male in the room could maintain 100% focus...

need i mention the csr's?  every time i turned my head i would see the new one walki by and mutter "that can NOT be real...or legal"...

[penmanila]

haha, yes indeed, had fun playing with you last night at big ace, ron!

live more fun, online more profitable.

define "fun"?  if tonight's big ace tourney was online, welcoat and i (and papajeks) would not have had such glorious eye candy to feast on during the game.  i am willing to bet a testicle (not mine) that not one male in the room could maintain 100% focus...

need i mention the csr's?  every time i turned my head i would see the new one walki by and mutter "that can NOT be real...or legal"...

[welcoat]

speaking for myself, when you can not play, you can imagine.

[Mark D.Hazzard]

Coach Red gives a really good example of something that counts for live games. Looks like I need to visit Big Ace soon. Hehehhe!

[RedAirkson]

haha, yes indeed, had fun playing with you last night at big ace, ron!

and your steamroll from your last 150 to about 4k was a wonder to watch ;-)

[kevin01]

 Hi, i just read this from 2+2 forums and i would like to hear some thoughts from the live and online players out here. and can live players really have a clear idea of thir winrate?

"View: Live Poker Players are Delusional.
Say you're a 1BB/100 winner at 200nl online, and you play 1300 hands/hr. With 40%+ rakeback (SNE), you make $100-250,000 per year.

You average 2-3 million hands per year, and you have a basic idea of your winrate, but still only at 99% certainty.

now, say you're a live player. Let's just assume you can beat 500NL live for 4BB/100 (lmfao) because of your super reading abilities. You play 30 hands per hour. You play 2000 hours per year.

30*2000=60,000 hands. First of all, you can not assume a winrate from that pathetic, infintessimal sample. Second, you have to be delusional to think you can consistently beat 500nl for 4BB/100. Third, you get no rakeback and virtually no comps of any kind. And you're 1-tabling. 1-tabling.

Say I beat 50nl online for 1BB/100. I get dealt 1300 hands/hr. I would need to play almost 50 times the stakes to make the equivalent hourly rate if I played live poker. I would also need 50 times the bankroll, and I'd need the same winrate. That just ain't happening.

When you play 2-3 mill hands in a year, you have a pretty good idea of your winrate. When you play 60-80k per YEAR, you have none.

Live poker players have no idea what their true winrate is and are just enjoying positive variance. The same goes for live tournament players.

edit:

oh, and a live 5/10NL player making 3BB/100 is still making less than a 1BB/100 50nl 24-tabler who puts in the same hours."

[11Finger]

Kevin yup to a certain extent this is true, take me for example I keep very good track of my live sessions but I don't have an exact figure on my win rate because sometimes you're playing and the table suddenly gets converted to higher stakes and then to much higher stakes after that, so unless you are anal about keeping track you basically only have the amount of time you played and the absolute amount you won for that session, you don't have a breakdown of what you won/loss at what stakes and for how long.

Having said that bottomline is if I'm a winning live player what the heck do I care what my win rate is anyway ? Also a lot of the statistics gotten from programs like PokerTracker or Hold Em Manager don't translate as well or are not as useful live. For example blind stealing is a big part of online play especially short handed that's why pre-flop aggression and fold-to-a-3bet stats are useful but in live play blinds are pretty much inconsequential.

Lastly live play usually involves very deep stacks, sometimes average stacks of 500bb's are not uncommon so the winrate is much much higher than online (what the winrate is exactly I can't tell you since it's live poker!  but I'd say around 20+bb/100 )

[riggedinmyfavor]

11finger nailed it; theoretically, live should have a much, much higher "cieling winrate" than online, even if there's no real way to create a healthy enough sample to really come up with a reliable figure that doesn't have a ridiculous standard deviation.

I'm pleasantly surprised at how this thread didn't turn into just another argument between live and online. 

[welcoat]

"View: Live Poker Players are Delusional.
When you play 2-3 mill hands in a year, you have a pretty good idea of your winrate. When you play 60-80k per YEAR, you have none.
Live poker players have no idea what their true winrate is and are just enjoying positive variance. The same goes for live tournament players.
oh, and a live 5/10NL player making 3BB/100 is still making less than a 1BB/100 50nl 24-tabler who puts in the same hours."

You are perfectly right coming from someone who thinks his only +EV in life is found only in poker!
In the real world, there exists people who makes 50k a month, 100k a month, 200k a month, 500k a month even more than 1 million a month without playing a single hand of NLHE, live or online, dollars or pesos, legally or illegally.  In our circle, at least one guy makes a few million pesos monthly - and he does not care even spreading out 10,000 pesos nightly to give +EV to other live players nor $500 monthly to provide online players the edge they so much crave.  In this world, it is just impractical to play 100 hours a month live nor 1 million hands a year online, get real! NOW I REALLY THINK ONLINE PLAYERS ARE MORE DELUSIONAL! POKER IS ONLY A GAME...or by admission a vice among many I have indulged...but the main event is still THE GAME OF LIFE.

[Mark D.Hazzard]

@kevin01

Just a word of advice, if you're going to cut-paste an article from the internet, do well to provide the link and the author of the post. 

This is just another example of the spectrum of poker players out there. I remember reading in one of my books (can't remember which one) where the pro wrote about walking into a casino and found Bill Gates playing $10-$20 (I think).

There are live players who make a good amount of money from cash games and tournaments, and there are those who don't really care all that much about HOW MUCH they win. Or for some, how much they lose, for that matter. I guess like strategies for online and live play, the EV of live and online play don't completely translate into each other well.

[welcoat]

The great Doyle Brunson never minced anything negative about these high income players like Guy Laliberté and give them much respect...without which the pros will not have game!  Bill Gates made so money from NASDAQ with MSFT naturally has no care...I was so envious watching the PacMan playing poker at the ACF years ago..literally playing his cash chips away! These things you can experience only LIVE.

[Mark D.Hazzard]

Ayun! Sir Del makes a great point for live games. Where else can you say you took Pacquiao's change from him? Hehehe!

[welcoat]

Ayun! Sir Del makes a great point for live games. Where else can you say you took Pacquiao's change from him? Hehehe!

Unfortunately I was not on the table but just railing, the PacMan was playing every hand and had to ask one of his hawi to bring over his shoulder bags which contains bundles of thousand peso bills. Every player was enjoying the social activity and the banter in a no-lose situation.
At the Metro 500 special today, a familiar guy sat beside me and indentified himself at the same time reminding me we graduated from same high school many moons ago.  I know him as one of the biggest players in the office copier business.  He claims to be a regular in the 50-100 center table and familiar with the regular players I mentioned by name.  Guess what? He is running for QC mayor too!
I don't really enjoy the anonymity of online games.

[penmanila]

ha ha, it actually went up to exactly 5K, when you and i cashed out. one of those days--too bad they don't happen more often!

haha, yes indeed, had fun playing with you last night at big ace, ron!

and your steamroll from your last 150 to about 4k was a wonder to watch ;-)