Are poker players in casinos worse than online players?

The Game Room
101

Great question, and a full answer would be very very long, so I’ll just jot down some thoughts here.

First thing to realize is that if a hand is on a WSOP highlight show it’s probably -because- it’s rare/unusual. Nobody watches ESPN for baseball highlights of the groundouts to shortstop.

Secondly, higher stakes poker is a completely different game, especially since the good players end up playing against each other so much, they have to vary their play / balance their ranges.

For example - suppose you only 3-bet with AA or KK. Then when ever you 3-bet, everyone folds and you never get paid off with your big hands.

Since everyone folds when you 3-bet, you figure you’ll pick up lots of pots and dead money so you start 3-betting every hand, even with 72o. Now you’re bloating the pot up with inferior hands, people realize you obviously can’t have AA or KK every hand, so anyone with a decent hand starts calling andy of course they have you crushed.

The higher up you go, the less you play your own cards and the more you play the board and your opponent’s range against that board. My hand can be completely irrelevant if I’m able to figure out what my opponent has and play off that range.

Suppose I think my opponent 3-bet with pocket Aces or AK, and I have 72 and the board comes out 9 10 J with two hearts, and I check-raise him on the flop then bomb the turn when the Q of hearts hits - how happy do you think he is to stack off with his one pair? Of course, If I was wrong and he actually had AK of hearts I’m really stepping in it, but such is poker…

Is playing 72o great in isolation? No - but if the flop comes 10 7 4 turns a 2 and the other player has A 10, he’s going to pay Doyle off because he probably isn’t putting him on 72, right?

Or you may play crap hands every once in a while just for ‘tilt’ factor - if I stack a guy with 93o when I happened to hit a 993 flop and he had A9, maybe he goes on massive monkeyspewtilt.

Or you may play a crap hand on purpose and show it just for metagame purposes - if I’m perceived as a tight rock that never puts money in unless I have the stone cold nuts, I might play a bit loose for an orbit or two just to get people thinking I’m a maniac. Then when I do hit big they’ll pay me off.

Thing is, you don’t hit the flop enough to profitably play 72o and other crap hands, and at the lower stakes players aren’t good enough at hand-reading to outplay their opponents. So basically at the lower stakes most people are playing the absolute strength of their hand, not the relative strength vs their opponents’ range.

The single biggest leak people have at the lower stakes is playing too many hands, especially out of position.

The second biggest leak is not understanding their own table image.

Is my game profitable at the lower stakes I play at? Absolutely - but with the small average stack sizes and the rake, it’s not like you’d be able to make a living at it. Plus, you only get 25-30 hands an hour playing live…

102

Slightly incorrect, to an extent. I assume that villains play in a ‘standard’ manner *until they show me they’re capable of doing otherwise. *At the live low-stakes games I play at, it’s sufficient for 99% of the player pool.

Someone shows up in a 3-bet pot with pocket 7s? I file that away. Someone sees me 3-bet bluff with pocket 3s? I file away the information that they may now think I’m capable of 3-betting really light.

More importantly, play at the lower stakes tends to be ‘standard’ because it’s largely a function of stack sizes: Everyone pretty much has between 80-120BB, which limits what you’re able to do. It limits how ‘correct’ it is to play certain hands. Basically with one check-raise or re-raise at any point in the hand, stacks are basically in the middle by the turn.

But in higher-stakes games or games where stacks are 200-500BB or more, you have so much more room to play. Even with a check-raise and active betting you could get to the river with stack-to-pot ratios of 2-3 or more.

For example: $1/1 game, effective stacks are 100BB. I raise to 8 pre-flop and get 3-bet to 20 and call, two to the flop. Pot is say 40. We only have 80BB behind now, for a stack/pot ratio of only 2. If I bet just 25 (less than 2/3rds pot ) on the flop and get called, now the pot is $90 and we only have 55 left! I barely have over a half-pot sized bet for the turn, which means I will have almost zero fold equtiy if I shove (pot would be 145, 55 to call so he’s getting over 2.6:1; he only needs 27% equity to ‘correctly’ call).

Now suppose we both had say 300 stacks. Pot $40, effective stacks 280, for an SPR of 7. If the effective stacks were 500, the SPR is 12. Three different situations, three very very different styles of poker, and it’s a big reason why 72o - while still probably not -profitable- in the true sense of the word, is much more ‘playable’ at the higher stakes, when you have more room to maneuver. Deep stack poker is a very different animal vs low-stakes poker…

103

Just to be clear - I play low-stakes poker. I think I’m better than the majority of players at my level, mainly because I’m profitable, but I’ve only taken a few stabs at higher games (2/5 is the highest I play) and even at those levels the game is quite a bit different. I make no claim to being god’s gift to poker ™. I just have a pretty good grasp of what works at the tables I play at, variance notwithstanding (favorite hand from last night: I have A10 suited. Flop is 10 10 4 rainbow, I bet, he calls. Turn is 8, bet, reraise, warning bells are going off but I call. River is an 8 for a final board of 10 10 4 8 8. I bet, he shoves and I sigh call figuring it’s a chop and he has…pocket 8s.)