First Live Experience--Any Pointers?

[runout_mick]

Try to not sit beside the dealer. If you do have to sit next to the dealer, cap your cards religiously. If the dealer mucks your uncapped cards, you're SOL.

Work on keeping mental tabs on pot size every hand/ every street, not just the ones you're involved in. It's good practice, and you need to know if players habitually underbet or overbet their hands.

Try to follow a routine every hand. My routine is:

Get dealt 1 card, cap it. Get dealt next card, tuck under. Look and recap cards (even if I'm folding, to not give info).

Bet or raise verbally, including amount for clarity.

As dealer is dealing flop I peek at cards for the last time to cement them in my mind (even if black aces, I want routine identical every hand).

Check, bet, or raise verbally, again with amounts, for clarity.


If you practice a routine from the get-go it becomes second nature, and prevents a lot of tells you may inadvertently give off.

Pay attention to what your hands are doing during the hand. If you're a chip fidgeter, and all of a sudden stop fidgeting when you get a big hand, I'm gonna notice.

Be aware of your posture. Try to remain seated similarly every hand.


Hope this helps.

[AKQJ10]

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2) Why not look for tells. It's where all the money is in NL, so you might as well get started.

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No.

All the money in live $1-2 is in starting with fairly decent hands (including any pocket pairs), making top pair top kicker or better, and getting paid off by worse hands. Period.

Seriously, I think it's conceivable that one could make daring bluffs and outplay one's opponents in live $1-2 based on reads, too, and of course it's advisable to make "automatic" bluffs such as short-handed CBs to make your hands harder to read. But bluffing's really not necessary. Plenty of people will play for stacks with aces-bad kicker.

[samsonite2100]

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Try to not sit beside the dealer. If you do have to sit next to the dealer, cap your cards religiously. If the dealer mucks your uncapped cards, you're SOL.

Work on keeping mental tabs on pot size every hand/ every street, not just the ones you're involved in. It's good practice, and you need to know if players habitually underbet or overbet their hands.

Try to follow a routine every hand. My routine is:

Get dealt 1 card, cap it. Get dealt next card, tuck under. Look and recap cards (even if I'm folding, to not give info).

Bet or raise verbally, including amount for clarity.

As dealer is dealing flop I peek at cards for the last time to cement them in my mind (even if black aces, I want routine identical every hand).

Check, bet, or raise verbally, again with amounts, for clarity.


If you practice a routine from the get-go it becomes second nature, and prevents a lot of tells you may inadvertently give off.

Pay attention to what your hands are doing during the hand. If you're a chip fidgeter, and all of a sudden stop fidgeting when you get a big hand, I'm gonna notice.

Be aware of your posture. Try to remain seated similarly every hand.


Hope this helps.

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That was very helpful--thanks!

[SplawnDarts]

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I don't care if someone chops or not. I just can't stand the guy who looks at his cards and then decides whether or not he wants to chop. I usually say something to the effect of "If you haven't looked at your cards, we can still chop." If the guy says he doesn't want to or that he already looked, I look at mine and play.

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That's perfectly fine. Chopping after looking as a bizarre bluff dynamic that I have no interest in participating in. Although I suppose the true shark would solve it for equilibrium and play that little subgame very well. People who look at their hand early should always chop or never chop.

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I look at my hand early and I always chop. I have never had any objections to this. I have only had a few people who don't want to chop where I play, and they all were of the "sometimes chop, sometimes not" variety.

I play in a no-flop, no-drop location with a $3+1 rake, and I mainly play $4/$8, so chopping seems like it makes sense unless you are 1 SB per hand better than the average player at the table. I'm not that good.

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Do they take the entire rake the minute there's a flop, or 10% at a time. If the former, then chop. If the later, no reason to. 10% edges are everywhere in poker.

[SplawnDarts]

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2) Why not look for tells. It's where all the money is in NL, so you might as well get started.

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

All the money in live $1-2 is in starting with fairly decent hands (including any pocket pairs), making top pair top kicker or better, and getting paid off by worse hands. Period.

Seriously, I think it's conceivable that one could make daring bluffs and outplay one's opponents in live $1-2 based on reads, too, and of course it's advisable to make "automatic" bluffs such as short-handed CBs to make your hands harder to read. But bluffing's really not necessary. Plenty of people will play for stacks with aces-bad kicker.

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Last time I was in vegas, I played an awful lot of 1/2 (sort of against my will). I avereged 37BB/hour over 23 hours, and probably 4/5ths of that was stright off reads. You can tell me there's no money in reads, but you'll excuse me if I believe my wallet instead of you.

Also, beware I was talking about reads, not specifically bluffs. Much of that came from value calls and (re)raises with hands well below TPTK.

[runout_mick]

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That was very helpful--thanks!

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No problem.

One more thing:

When you scoop your first big pot, your hands will be shaking like crazy while you stack your chips. Don't sweat it, it happens to everyone. I've played countless B+M hours over the years, and I still sometimes get a bit shaky stacking my first big pot, especially if it's shortly after I sit down.

Good luck!

[bender2006]

I've only played live a couple of times. The very first pot I won was actually a chop as both of us had AQ. Here's what helped me.

1. Never look at your cards until it's your turn to act. You can't give off tells if you don't know your cards.

2. Betting patterns tell so much more than facial ticks or breathing or whatever else. You can derive a hand much more accuratly doing this than seeing how he takes a sip of his drink.

3. Don't be a hero and try to bluff every pot. I think in 3 days of play I ran only one bluff. Wait for your good hands and you'll get enough action.

4. Don't be afraid. Unless you're at the high rollers table you'll be playing other tourists and maybe some locals. Doyle Brunson isn't gonna run over your 2/4 limit game.

5. Keep in mind these are gamblers who probably don't have a lot of experiance in poker. Some will treat it the same way as slots or blackjack. They are looking to get lucky in hands so good cards = substancial edge.

6. Lay off the booze. When you're about to leave drink away, but keep your mind sharp and pick off the drunks.

7. Any questions ask your dealer. He/She will be more than happy to assist you. That's what they are paid to do.

8. Have fun. It's not life or death sums of money so relax, kick back and play pressure free. If things don't go your way go see a show, have a brew, kick back at the pool, and try again when you are relaxed. But Vegas is so much fun, don't let getting KK cracked by A-4 get to you.

Hope I've helped. Best of luck on your trip.

[Leader]

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Play low limits.
No matter what stakes you want to eventually play, or are rolled for, start playing at the lowest stakes possible. This prevents you from blowing your roll making learner's mistakes.

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lol I did the opposite of this. It was pretty painful. Not to mention that the higher you play the less forgiving other players are for your slow play, exposing cards, and general noobishness.

There's a lot going on live that online players can't get until they play. Just knowing who's in the pot and how much there is in the pot is a challenge at first.

[Rottersod]

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As dealer is dealing flop I peek at cards for the last time to cement them in my mind (even if black aces, I want routine identical every hand).

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I think you may be missing potentially important information by not observing how the other players in the hand react to the flop. I rarely look at the flop but rather look at my opponent(s). The amount of unintentional information there is a big plus for my game.

[Rottersod]

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5. Keep in mind these are gamblers who probably don't have a lot of experiance in poker. Some will treat it the same way as slots or blackjack. They are looking to get lucky in hands so good cards = substancial edge.

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This in an observation that you will need to be aware of if you play there for a while. After you get settled in and feel comfortable with the ABC style poker you may want to try and pick off some of those tourists who you know are only playing large hands. Middle suited connectors playerd for a minimal pre flop bet are a wonderful way of stacking if you do get lucky and hit a flop against these types of players. Just be aware that most likely it will mean you will both be all in as they may not have the ability to lay down TPTK, high pocket pair.

Also, on the earlier point of getting reads and tells, I think that if you are a decent player then getting a read on a player is natural; sizes of his pre flop bets, what position does he normally play from and which does he avoid. OTOH, trying to pick up tells (how he holds his cards, sip of water, leans forward, etc) on your first live play is a waste of effort and concentration. If you spot one then fine but I wouldn't go out of my way to look for them.