This question is for Tim as I believe he is the only follow Torontoian on this board.

Do you play any live poker, if so which casinos do you prefer and why.

I have tried live poker at Casino Rama but since they only have $1/$2 and $2/$5 NL I doubt you would waste time at such small stakes.

My experience has been live poker is a totally different world than online poker (mostly in a good way). For instants, I found there is no such thing as a standard 3x BB raise in the $1/$2 NL game. If anyone did open with a raise $6-7, I found 7-9 players would call (this is at a table with 11 players total).

I thought how ridiculous this was and the next time I had a playable hand, said aloud I am making the new standard opening raise $15 and as predicted managed to get only 1-2 callers. Then he player to my left copied what I started and we were able to control the table. I as able to see if he was planing on raising because he always had the raising chips in his hands, so I could easily fold if my hand was marginal. Also, I also found it quite valuable to become "friends" with the player on my left and so I did.

I even saw some players become impatient and call the $15 with marginal hands (I assume they were marginal for the ones that fold on the flop). I really enjoyed my experience their even though after 8 hours I had only seen aprox. 200 hands and the time just flew by. The only thing I didn't enjoy was the 1.5 hours drive their and back.

Do you think bankroll management is different for live play vs. online and if so why?

Hey,

Actually Tim doesn't play much live (for obvious reasons). However I can give you a prospective on the live game.
If you are looking for a game in Canada and you live around the Toronto area you might want to Try an underground game.
There are lots in Toronto. However the rake in these games can be pretty tedious. If you are looking for a casino for NL holdem
i suggest you go to Niagara. It is best to play on the weekends. This is when all the Toronto players come down mostly.

I play the $5/$10 nl games usually when i go there.. and the action tends to get a little crazy. It is the same for the 5/5 game.
Recently they decided to cut the 5/5 out of the mix at Fallsview. Only having 2/5 nl. This is great because the weak opponents
who usually play 2/5 are forced to play with the 5/5 players. $1/2 nl is located at the other casino (casino Niagara).

I would say in the new 2/5 game (although i have not played this since they changed the limit) the typical raise tends to be $25-$50 preflop.
I would seriously think about using this rule of thumb. if you have a raising hand i would bet 5 times the blind plus each additional limper.
If there is a raise in front of you. lets say $25 dollars with 2 callers then use this formula: 5X5 + 25 X 3. So your new bet would be 100 dollars.
There are a number of factors that may lead you to make this raise even more. For example: Table dynamics, your table image and stack sizes.
If someone only has 125 dollars in front of them and they called the initial raise of $25 then you want to ship them in. If everyone has 1.5k in front of them
you might want to increase your preflop raise amount from 5x to 6 or even 7x. Keep in mind i am only suggesting this preflop raising strategy specifically for play
at fallsview as the action is very heightened compared to most live casinos.

For live poker bankroll managment you might want to check out PodCast #5: Live Poker (Bankroll Magagement and Tilt).

Any player that plays multi table .50 / 1 or higher should be playing $2/5 live.

For some simple $1/2 strategy please visit the following post i repled to a while back: http://www.outstandingpoker.com/poker-s ... p-t68.html

Cheers,

Errol

Hey Errol,

Thanks for your reply to my previous email. I would appreciate your input on my most recent live experience.

I just got back from a 13 hour long session at Casino Rama. I played at a 1/2 NL 12 person table with a $200 max buy in.

Although I brought enough for 3 max buy ins (i.e $600), I choose to start with only $100 until I got a "feel" for the table.

Over the course of the session, I lost 1 all in, I was the "big" winner at one point with a little over $700 and at the end of the session I was up $ 450.

I noticed 85% of my table played pretty tight preflop but there were two players who were playing almost every hand and calling almost every bet on the flop and turn. One of the two players ended up cracking AA and stacking one tight guy with 42o by making two pair on the turn. Even the dealer made a comment about his looseness.

It appeared most of the money was exchanged by the two "maniac" players and the rest of the table (including my self).

I think I made a really good lay down against a tight player when I held one card making the low straight and folded on the turn when that player re raised my cbet. I was pretty sure he had the nut straight but now that I think about it, I guess he could of done that with a big pair.

At one point I had AKo and one really tight guy (he was at my table for 4 hours and hardly played a hand) raised preflop to $10, it folded around to me and I reraised him to $30, at which point he goes all in for $160. I folded as this was a cash game and not a tournament and I figure I was at best a coin flip. Do you think this was playing too tight? I am positive many players at my table would not fold AK but you must have been in this situation many times to offer some insight.

Also I was thinking after if it was ethical or "legal" if I was to cash out when I was at my high point ($700), take a break and get back on the list and buy back in for $100-$200? This way I wouldn't have all my chips (and winnings) at risk, plus I might get a new table but if I was to land my old table that might be award.

I am sure my attitude is temporally affected by my positive experience this weekend but I LOVE playing live poker (compared to online) and am shocked about how my perception of time (13 hours) could go by so quickly. I would have liked to play longer but my body was shutting down and I had a 1.5 hour drive back home.

If it's not too personal, what was the longest session you ever played and what stake to you normally play for?

Any comments would be appreciated and thanks in advance for your input,

Mark

Mark,

Sorry for the late reply - been super busy putting the new site together but rest assured I didn't forget about you.

Sounds like you have a very solid strategy in place for exploiting the players at these games and that is great. Really poker is about finding out how to exploit your opponents and then executing your plan, which it seems you are doing perfectly. I like how you take it easy at the beginning while building your reads and then start to press a little more once you get better reads on your opponents. I also like how you adjusted your opening raise size to adjust to the table dynamic. If they're willing to call 7.5 BB's preflop with 64o then yeah, jack up your opening sizes because it seems like they're more than willing to donate to your cause. Play solid hands that flop well (good pocket pairs and two-broadway cards) and take them to value town. Leverage your positional advantage as much as possible and pressure the limpers.

I don't play much live poker because I find it too slow paced compared to playing 6-8 tables online, but it's just a matter of taste to be honest. I have still played quite a bit of live poker in Vegas so I have a fairly good understanding of the dynamics. Live players are typically much weaker compared to online at similar stakes. I'd say $1/2 live would play like $0.05/0.10 online. No joke - some players are just awful and cannot fold. So at the lower stakes you can make a lot of money live because often times your opponents are just so terrible.

In response to your questions:

Do you think bankroll management is different for live play vs. online and if so why?

No, I think it applies equally the same. You will probably experience less variance at equal stakes in live because your opponents are so much worse, so your winrate will be much higher and make up for the downside of variance.

At one point I had AKo and one really tight guy (he was at my table for 4 hours and hardly played a hand) raised preflop to $10, it folded around to me and I reraised him to $30, at which point he goes all in for $160. I folded as this was a cash game and not a tournament and I figure I was at best a coin flip. Do you think this was playing too tight? I am positive many players at my table would not fold AK but you must have been in this situation many times to offer some insight.

Might not be a terrible fold, it really depends on his range. I think it's still a call, because from a pot odds point of view you'd be risking $130 to win $190 (your $30 in the middle and his $160). So you need to have an equity of at least 130/(130+190) or 40.6%.

Assuming his pushing range is strictly JJ+, AKo, AKs - we plug this into Pokerstove:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 39.785% 23.66% 16.13% 131241660 89482674.00 { AKo }
Hand 1: 60.215% 44.09% 16.13% 244579488 89482674.00 { JJ+, AKs, AKo }

And we see that we have 39.785% equity. Therefore it's almost exactly neutral EV, so you can flip a coin and call or fold, doesn't really matter. But if you think he wouldn't push there with JJ then it's an easy fold. And if you think he might have TT or AQ or any sort of bluff there, then it's an easy call. So a read is very important and that will swing the balance.

But you really need to have a plan before you re-raise him preflop. If you figure he'll either push or fold at the point (and he wouldn't call because he's tight and out of position and your read is he wouldn't do that) and you would fold to a push preflop, then you shouldn't be reraising (3betting) him preflop. I would smooth call there because I'm wasting so much value by folding a premium hand like AK preflop. At the same time, I would start 3-betting him with more marginal hands that you would otherwise fold to him (ie. KQs) because you will often times just win the pot preflop, and if he pushes overtop (which he will very rarely do if your read is that he only does that with JJ+ and AK), then you can fold comfortably. Typically it's good to polarize your 3-betting range in position, and 3-bet your premium hands, and the best hands that you would otherwise fold preflop (and not call) - something like KQs or 86s.

Also I was thinking after if it was ethical or "legal" if I was to cash out when I was at my high point ($700), take a break and get back on the list and buy back in for $100-$200? This way I wouldn't have all my chips (and winnings) at risk, plus I might get a new table but if I was to land my old table that might be award.

Not really sure on the ethics of this, although I can't imagine anyone would really care if you took a break and then came back with a regular stack.

If it's not too personal, what was the longest session you ever played and what stake to you normally play for?

Hmmm, when I first got really into poker and went down to Vegas for a few weeks, my buddy and I would play for 12-14 hours a day. I've never pulled a crazy 24 hour+ session though, although lots of pros do.

Anyway again sorry for the delay - hope this helped! Let us know how your live poker experiences continue!

Cheers,
Tim/atta22

Online poker is 100% legal for Canadian online poker players.There are no laws targeting online poker players in Canada, but there are a few hazy laws targeting online gambling operators.I find it really wierd that a tourney would have multiple sponsors with competing sites.