It's been awhile since I wrote a blog. I have been playing on-line poker now for awhile and have noticed it tends to mess up your game at casinos. One of the things that happens is you get calls when you raise the pot 3 or 4 times the BB. In most instances unless the BB has a decent hand in live play they will fold. It almost never happens in on-line poker. Just the other day I raised the pot 4 times the BB with pocket 10s. The BB calls and the flop comes 4,5,7 rainbow. Yes the guy called my raise with 3, 6 OS. He went all-in and I had him covered by alot so I called. I don't talk at tables except to say NH and gl e1 or just to say hi so I didn't ask why someone would call with that hand. Unless you come up against players like Gus Hansen or Daniel Negreanu you don't usually have to worry about someone calling with that crappy hand.
Then comes the other thing I have noticed about on-line poker. I am usually a very tight player. It seems like the software knows this and deals you hands like 3, 8 suited. I fold that crap and the board comes 3,8,8. It does this with enough frequency to loosen me up and then I start playing hands I shouldn't. Or what's worse is it gives you pocket Aces. And you get someone going all-in in front of you, and you get beat by pocket 3s or 9s.
When I play live I can play tight aggressive and it seems I win alot. I have won on-line, but not as consistently as in B&M. It's not just freerolls, it's in cash buy-ins as well. I think because of the anonymity of it all, on-line poker players could care less how they play. Gutshot draws, non nut flush draws, 2 or 3 outers, is all the same. And the one thing I have seen way too much is the raising preflop with crap and being way ahead only to have the crap raiser hit a gutshot or 4 card flush to win the hand.
I have been playing poker for about 25 years. I don't care what anyone says about seeing more hands on-line. That is true. But in my lifetime I have only seen the board flop 3 of the same card once. I see it every day on-line. There is something wrong with that. I mean, If I play 500 hands a day in tourneys on-line I will see that about 3 or 4 times(OR MORE). If I play 500 hands a day live, I haven't. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. One of the things I would love to see is the actual statistics of the sites RNG. I would love to see if it matches up to live statistics.
Anyway, you really have to be careful not to take your on-line experiences to the casino. Keep your game on-line away from the way you play there. It will mess you up if you take the same mentality of the game to the different venue. GL on the felt everyone.
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5 comments
very true I have found the same and the tighter I get on line the less face cards or even middle pairs i see
1,000% agreement here. I've been on live felt since '69 when 5 draw and 7 stud were THE casino games. I too am a tight player and usually last longer, and do OK on live felt.
I have said in several blogs b4 that I feel flat-screen felt deals differently than live felt. Replies have told me that it's the 'volume' of hands. Have only been doing online poker about a year, but live for almost 40 years. What I see happen online consistently challenges the impossible.
Just in this small group you see repeated entries about bad beats numerous times each day. If this happened at live casinos with the same regularity, bad beat jackpots would be paid out daily, not 2 or 3 times a year at most. I think casinos would close poker rooms overnight if this percentage hit - live.
Have also become painfully aware that chip leaders 'appear' to be favored in heads-up hands. No actual stats, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you get beat 9 out of 10 heads-up to a chip leader who calls your appropriate allin bet with absolutely nothing, and draws the 4 card flushes and str8's. The law of averages has nothing to do with the results except to warn me that there is something strange about online poker, and even 'bad luck' gives you better odds than that.
In most cases, it does not matter how you play your hand. I've tried them all, and have lots of opportunity since I play 8-12 hrs (or more if I'm in any 5 hr tourns) a day, every day. Just looking at pocket rocket play, a strong majority of the time my A's will get cracked by a chip leader call, especially if it's heads-up. On those occasions where I'm top stack, my A's will dominate, or even trip out.
I've been playing a lot of Omaha lately as well. I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've been dealt rockets that go absolutely nowhere. I'm getting used to the idea that when I have Q's full A's, the chip leader will show A's full Q's.
I've been told that a random computer deck is 'set' b4 the hand is dealt. If that were true, WHY would it make any difference to an online poker site that people with 'inside' access to stats and info cannot play. It tells me that there is something there that would give them the advantage. That would not be true if a deck were truly 'pre-set' by a RNG that was truly random without any underlying covert programming.
Slot machine chips are designed to give specific and exact results. Why would anyone think that computer chip RNG's would be any different?
Being a tight player, I get to sit and watch a lot of play and hands go by, eyeballing the results. Some days I just sit and stare in wonder at the repeated success of chip leader sukouts, hand after hand, against all comers. (I can afford to sit and watch - I'm retired.
Our 1 casino w/live poker in a small Nevada town only runs limited days and hours, so I'm stuck w/online play. I appreciate the opportunities to make a few sheckles in FR's and pool enough for a few cash games, but cash deposits online are a no-no for me. Cannot find any reason to believe that cash results would be any different than what I see online day after day.
Soap box - <off>
I'm so glad that guys like larry and nick, who have vast live eperience, concur on some observations I've made since playing a lot more on-line.
My brief analysis is unfortunately still from the point of view of an inexperienced player, but I'm also not ignorant and take lots of notes either during play or after a session to see what I need to fix the next time i play.
The 'chip leader' concept in a tournament is one I've noticed, but I've put it more that it's a 'big stack' advantage, where usually the stack that is more than 2X yours will get a weighted favourable result at the end of the hand at a rate of about 2-1. That means you are already 2-1 behind before the last card has been dealt, regardless of your starting hands and the flop (assuming holdem or omaha hi here). There are some other factors that can change this weighting within the tournament that you can use to your advantage. The system will reward more agressive play with back to back winning hands, almost like a 'rush' - the only problem with this is that the rush is usually only 3 hands in length for me, and has to started with a successful big brave bluff. It seems weird and incomprehensible, but when I've felt the right time to pull out a fairly agressive bluff, I'll get the next 2 hands go my way about 80% of the time if I play them.
I don't suggest anyone try this in a tournament where they've paid to play, but try it in a freeroll a few times and see if you get the same rush as I seem to get.
Cheers,
GWD