Poker Strategy: Live Poker
Learn how to transition from online play to your local casino.
Live poker games tend to be much softer than their online counterparts, but it’s still crucial to adjust your game so that you don’t leave any money on the table. While you could probably play like you usually do online and still make a profit, it’s far better to acclimate yourself to common live poker situations so that you can maximize your returns. There are many more multi-way pots in brick-and-mortar poker, so you’ll want to become familiar with how to take advantage of these bloated pots. Then there’s the whole aspect of spotting tells while giving away nothing yourself, which is largely missing from poker played over the internet. Adding live poker to your repertoire can really boost your bottom line. The articles below focus on traditional poker, as played around a physical table, so they’ll help you get a leg up on your opponents in casinos and home games.alike.
Transitioning from Online to Live Play
If you’ve only played poker online, you will need to make some changes to your game before you play live in a brick-and-mortar casino. For instance, you’ll need to manually track your opponents’ stacks and the pots, abide by the casino’s house rules, tip your dealers and adapt to slower play.
Chardrian’s Guide to Live Small Stakes Limit Poker (Part 2)
the importance of understanding the rake, recognizing that limit poker is inherently mathematical, consistently tracking the pot size, and making decisions based on pot odds and equity percentages
Chardrian’s Guide to Small Stakes Live Poker (Part 4)
the importance of understanding hand strength and provides guidelines for starting hand preflop play, cautioning players against strictly adhering to charts and underscoring the significance of raising with big hands like AA-TT and AK to maximize expected value
Betting Poker Tells
the significance of betting patterns in poker, emphasizing how they serve as crucial tells for reading opponents, with professionals often relying on the nuances of how much and how players bet, rather than just physical reads, to gauge the strength of their hands
Chardrian’s Guide to Live Small Stakes Limit Poker (Part 6)
Small broadway hands are sometimes playable in Limit Hold'em. Suitedness greatly increases their playability, and there are many cases where you should fold them if unsuited. Small pocket pairs should be played almost exclusively for set value, which means you want a multiway pot.
Chardrian’s Guide to Live Small Stakes Limit Poker (Part 1)
first part of a guide to playing live small stakes limit poker, sharing the author's personal journey from law school to becoming a full-time poker player
Picking Up Poker Tells With Your Eyes Closed
observing an opponent's breathing patterns, body language, and vocal cues can provide valuable insights into their hand and intentions during a poker game
Chardrian’s Guide to Small Stakes Live Limit Poker (Part 8)
When playing Limit Hold'em, it's important not to play too many hands. You'll want to carefully consider your raising and limping ranges depending on the tendencies of the other players. There's no use bluffing preflop -- you should enter the pot with solid value.
chardrian’s Guide to Live Small Stakes Limit Hold’em (Part 13)
In brick-and-mortar Limit Hold'em ring games, you'll often have an equity edge preflop even with an unmade hand. In these spots, you have to be prepared to make the +EV decision and raise. You're leaving too much money on the table if you just call in these situations.
When It’s Safe to Bet Poker Tells
How to take advantage of live poker tells
chardrian’s Guide to Live Small Stakes Limit Hold’em (part 12)
Betting for value is critical in any small-stakes, live Limit Hold'em cash game. We'll look at an example hand, changing a few variables around, to see under what circumstances we have a clear bet for value. It's important to keep making correct bets and raises without being results-oriented.
Analyzing some WSOP Main Event Hands
World Series of Poker action sees some talented players square off against each other. By examining the televised hands, we can often gain insights into excellent plays and boneheaded mistakes that the pros make. It's very important to extract as much value as you can with your monsters.
Brodie’s Brick and Mortar Guide for Online Players
insights for online poker players transitioning to brick and mortar venues, discussing the nuances of selecting games, understanding different player types, and adapting to the unique dynamics of live play
The UTG Live Straddle
Straddling under the gun is sometimes done in live, loose poker games. When a player straddles, the blinds lose value, but every other position gains value. Because the pot will play about twice as large as normal, you should change your starting hand requirements to take account of the straddle.
While Waiting Poker Tells
insights into reading opponents' body language and actions when it's your turn to act in a poker game, covering topics like identifying potential openers, raisers, and bluffers, as well as understanding subtle cues that can indicate a player's intentions
Chardrian’s Guide to Live Small Stakes Limit Poker (Part 5)
Big broadway hands are valuable in Limit Hold'em because of the chance of dominating an opponent who is playing worse hands. Suitedness adds to their value. Medium pocket pairs are also usually worth playing despite being often difficult to play properly.
More Poker Tells and Reviews
When playing live poker, you can get important tells on your opponents by carefully paying attention to their movements and actions. Whenever players seem to deliberately go out of their way to give you information, the actual information is usually the opposite of what they're trying to tell you.
chardrian’s Guide to Live Smallstakes Limit Hold’em (Part 11)
When drawing at hands in Limit Hold'em, you need to consider not just your pot odds, but your implied odds as well. This means that you'll have to estimate how likely it is that your opponents give you action after you make your hand. Don't use this as an excuse to draw against terrible odds.
The Problem with Physical Tells
While many novice poker players place significant emphasis on physical tells and bluffing, the article highlights the challenges and inaccuracies of relying solely on these cues, emphasizing that tells can be misleading, often overlap with standard play, and can detract from more critical aspects of the game like spotting betting patterns and board reading
chardrian’s Guide to Live Small Stakes Limit Poker (Part 10)
When playing live Limit Texas Hold'em, you'll need to know how many outs you have when drawing. Sometimes, this is easy, but if your outs are not to the nuts, you'll need to learn how to estimate and discount them. Don't forget to include your backdoor draws.
Fnord’s Brick and Mortar/Live Poker Guide for Online Players
There are a few important principles to remember when transitioning to live poker play from the online tables. In live poker, you should try to maintain a fun, friendly image. You don't want the rest of the table to realize that you're playing serious poker. Beware of relying overmuch on tells.
Chardrian’s Guide to Small Stakes Live Limit Poker (Part 9)
In live, low-stakes Limit Hold'em games, you'll want to pay careful attention to the size of the pot. Postflop, you'll need to know what pot odds you're facing whenever you're considering making a call. Be sure to know how much equity you need to call a given bet size.
Babysitting Blunders: How Not to Treat New Players
During my time at the tables, I've had a chance to observe an extensive amount of human behavior. Thanks to the growing popularity of the game, I'm seeing more and more diverse personalities sported by players operating on a variety of skill levels. But with the ever-expanding pool of competitors, I find many of my brothers and sisters who've been around for a while are forgetting some of the cardinal rules of the game. I'm talking, specifically, about the treatment of new players at the tables. It happens both at live events and when surfing through the online card rooms. There are veterans (and even more who think themselves to be veterans) who, by carrying themselves in a certain fashion, do themselves a disservice and consequently reduce their own level of play.
Chardrian’s Guide to Live Small Stakes Limit Holdem (Part 7)
When sitting in the blinds in Limit Hold'em poker games, you'll be getting a substantial discount to play your hand. This doesn't mean that you should play any two cards. You still need to consider how your hand's equity fares against your opponents' ranges.
Exploiting Your Image
the importance of self-awareness in poker, emphasizing how players' perceptions of you can be manipulated to your advantage, whether you've been playing aggressively or conservatively
Chardrian’s Guide to Live Small Stakes Limit Poker (Part 3)
delves into the common characteristics of small stakes games, emphasizing that most players in these games are loose and passive, often attributing outcomes to luck rather than skill and suffering from the "monster under the bed syndrome.
Online vs. Live Poker
key differences between playing poker online and in live settings, highlighting that online games are generally tougher due to lower entry stakes, while live games offer a more diverse range of player types and behaviors, requiring different strategies and adjustments for each environment
Live Poker Cash Game Strategies
insights into effective strategies for live poker cash games, emphasizing the importance of understanding opponents, adjusting to table dynamics, and making informed decisions based on various factors
Brick and Mortar/Live Poker Strategy
prepares online poker players for the transition to live, brick-and-mortar games, emphasizing the differences in player behavior, pace, and strategy, while also offering tips on how to adapt and succeed in this different environment
Cues of the Shoes
the significance of observing an opponent's feet and leg movements as reliable poker tells, given that most people are conditioned to control facial expressions but often neglect their lower limbs
Personal Attacks and the Check Raise
There's a weird school of thought that check-raising in live poker is unfriendly or ungentlemanly behavior. But it is merely just another tool in your strategic arsenal. It's usually not used to make a personal assault against an opponent. Use it to bet for value or bluff as usual.
Chip Stack/Stacking Poker Tells
the way players stack their poker chips can offer valuable insights into their playing style, such as whether they are conservative or aggressive
Card Looking Poker Tells
the importance of observing opponents' reactions when they look at their cards in poker games, suggesting that players can gain valuable insights into their opponents' hands by noting their behaviors, such as the speed of their reactions, shuffling habits, and responses to the flop
Poker Ploys – Poker Tells & Poker Ploys
various strategies and maneuvers that poker players use to gain an advantage, such as faking calls and observing opponents' reactions, to either bluff effectively or call out a bluff