Online vs Live

It always strikes me funny, the differences between online and live poker. I've stopped playing online LHE and instead play a bit of NL because it is easier to protect your hand and generally people don't tend to pay off big bets while chasing gutshots or worse. In online the play is much better in LHE, despite the poor playing chasers, simply because the lowest limits are filled with the fish and the higher you progress, the better the average player. I've played a few live sessions lately and the 3/6 LHE game I've been playing in is akin to a $0.10/$0.20 online game. Seriously. You raise, you might get 7 or 8 callers, dependent on how many limped before you raised.

Thursday I played a Stars $1/90 KO and $2/90 as well as a $1/90 on FTP and a $2 On Demand hybrid. I only cashed the On Demand for 2nd tier. I was well ahead when I pushed only to lose to a 3 out bad kicker when my AQ lost to A4.

Friday night I played another online session with exactly the same spread of SnGs and bubbled the $1/90 KO and the $2 On Demand hybrid. In each, it was Go Big or Go Home, although losing the flip with my AK vs TT, was a bit painful when he runner runnered a straight to pour salt in the wounds.

However, I'll run like this if I can run like I did when I played 3/6 live. Let me set this up:

My wife has been trying to get our new kitty in to get her spayed. Problem is, they haven't wanted to do it because teh kitten has had a case of ringworm and they wanted that cleared up. Well, here in California, you cannot adopt a kitten from the Animal Shelter unless you also get it spayed or pay for the spayign process up front. I think this is somewhat barbaric myself, because I think competent adults who take care of their animals might want to breed a cat that they are very fond of in the hopes of getting offspring that emulate their cats. The other side of that is that there are way too many irresponsible people who would have 40 cats running the streets because they didn't care for their responsibility. And don't get me wrong. If you get a kitten fixed before she has had a chance to go into heat, they tend to be playful their entire life. Long story short. We had to get the kitten in Friday. And the Animal Shelter is about a mile away from the Casino, so.....

I had 4 or so hours to kill. I went to the casino, bought in for a rack and settled into my seat at the 3/6 HE table. There were a few real characters there. A guy on my left elbow was really talkative, obnoxiously punny and just the kind of butthead that normally would have me seeking a table change, His brother was at another table and much better behaved. He had a friend to his left. There was a retired butcher shop owner thatthey both knew as he'd been a fixture in the community for years. The table was rounded out by a myriad of horrid players, chasers and fish. OK, maybe all of that was oxymoronic. Anyway, I felt the obnoxious guy was softplayng his friend a bit as well as the butcher shop owner. I didn't say anything but merely kept it in my head. I ran up 10BBs early and thought I was on my way to an average, decent session. I then got a few hands beaten by some of the bad players. AA lost to 84o who called a capped preflop, a capped flop before hitting his trips on the turn. A flopped two pair got river gutshot. It was getting ugly. I was down to $20 and did a $40 rebuy to get me started. I know, I should have rebought for another $100, but I was still contemplating a table change. That's when I decided to loosen up my game a bit. I can play as loose as these donks, but still control my losses.

I went on a buzzsaw heater. And despite people saying I was lucky [sometimes] an how well I was playing [most the time], they continued to pay me off. The punny, obnoxious guy actually told a few others that "when he bets the river, you know he has it." But this didn't stop anyone from hero calling to "Keep him honest." All I kept muttering is stuff like, "Boy I got lucky there", or "Wow, I didn't put you on that..."

Well the two online SnG sessions were a loss of $11.03 for a -79.35% ROI.

And the live 3/6 LHE session? 3.5 hours netted me $365. Now that was monster.