NL25 online vs. 1/2 casino

[-brew-]

I think that i am about ready to get my feet wet in the casino but just wanted to get some feedback as to how NL25 compares to 1/2 in a casino. I have found the small stake of a casino to be about the equivalent, if not softer, than .25/.50 limit online.

[Perk76]

Check out the B&M Cardroom section, and search NL 1/2.

IMO, concepts are the same, but playing live the hardest thing to do is that first double up at NL1/2 depending on the max buyin. At the room I play at, the time rake is 6.00/half hour, and normal preflop raising is 10.00 to 12.00. Most intial players that buyin are usually going to the felt with top pair that first time, and once you have a stack, you can play a few hands in late position with some limpers/standard raises in front of you depending on who is doing the raising.

It really depends on what max buyin is. Where I play its 100.00, so its a crapshoot at first. Have also played 300, so you have more room to manuever.

[subzero]

I've read that live 1/2 NL is equivalent to 25NL online. Personally, I think 25NL is a little tougher. You can't play lower than 1/2 in a casino, so that's where all the beginners will be. Online, 25NL isn't even the lowest level. If you can beat 25NL, you should be able to beat 1/2 NL live. The hardest part is getting used to the higher bet amounts.

[bmk67]

I occasionally play in a live 1/2NL uncapped game, maybe a dozen times or so in the last year. It's far looser than 95% of the online 25NL tables I have ever played at.

[carnivalhobo]

[ QUOTE ]
I occasionally play in a live 1/2NL uncapped game, maybe a dozen times or so in the last year. It's far looser than 95% of the online 25NL tables I have ever played at.

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the deeper the stacks the more correct loose play is, i cant really comment but in 2.5 months ill be able to /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[bmk67]

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the deeper the stacks the more correct loose play is

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You're referring to Sklansky's ante+blinds relative to the size of future bets theory, I presume.

That's part of it, sure. But a 100BB stack is not deep, certainly not deep enough to justify raising 93o PF OOP when you know you're going to be called. ;-)

[nyc999]

[ QUOTE ]
I've read that live 1/2 NL is equivalent to 25NL online. Personally, I think 25NL is a little tougher. You can't play lower than 1/2 in a casino, so that's where all the beginners will be. Online, 25NL isn't even the lowest level. If you can beat 25NL, you should be able to beat 1/2 NL live. The hardest part is getting used to the higher bet amounts.

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QFT

If anything, live 1/2 play is worse than 25NL online. I've recently started playing B&M 1/2 and I'm just getting used to bet sizes. A 5-10 BB raise is normal and can easily get 4-6 callers. Now imagine raising to 15 with AK and getting 3 callers. Your c-bets are going to be in the $30 - $60 range.

The good thing about this is it's not hard to get your money in the middle when you flop a great hand - and opponents will call with <u>anything</u>.

[dregal]

As someone who has played a good amount live (both on local cardrooms and casino's) I agree with just about everything thats been said here.

Your typical player at $1/$2 is laughably bad...call down with TP, chase draws with no odds etc...

IMO, the hardest thing to get used is simply the bets sizes and the overall pot sizes. Throw 4xbb raises pre flop out the window...$8 will get called by like 4-5 players easy.

Anohter thing that I don't think has been mentioned is that live players typically think in "absolute" terms rather than "relative" terms. So betting $15 into a $10 pot will often get called with anythiing, but betting $100 into a $200 pot will cause a typical player some hesitation.

Overall you should be fine...play tight until you get comfortable, and value bet the crap out of people when you pick up a hand /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Vammakala]

Heh, I've been to finnish casino with 2/2 being the lowest level and the players are by far worse than NL25 online, which is kinda funny.

[IceMuncher]

I love playing live in casinos. You can sometimes get insanely good reads on donks (like: he's looking away, damn, time to fold tptk), and they all play loose, at least at the tables I was at. I've only played maybe half a dozen times live for a few hours, but I've never finished down, and about half the time I've finished with double my starting stack or better.

[Leviathan101]

there aren't any 1/2 games I can play at (being 19). The smallest game I can play is 1/3 and the max buy in is 100... It's a lot more like a shortstack game because of it and you need to really tighten up because often you will not being getting good implied odds. (well, tighten up for me anyways. I play too much trash online)

The biggest difference for me is the fact that once you figure out a few of a player's tendecies you can predict their moves a great deal. Just yesterday a guy limped UTG. He called my raise from the button. I'm holding AQs, and hte flop comes AJ3r. he bets then 3 bets the flop AI. I fold and he says to me, dont worry I got you and shows A9. Needless to say he didn't have any money left at the end of the night.

[-brew-]

thanks for the feedback guys, i suspected that i was looking at this kind of scenario but i wasn't sure. I sat down to watch a game for a while the last time i was in AC and really suspected that I had an edge against most of the players there. Of course there was one monster there, everyone else had about 200 in front of them...he had about 5000. clearly this guy knew what he was doing and the others were just paying his salary.

[pokerchap]

don't you guys agree that a lot of it has to do with people getting board at 1 table and playing terrible hands?

we are all even guilty of that SOMETIMES